This is Rainbow-Renee Wyola Manier — crystal healer, Soul Alchemist, and co-owner of Ola Wyola in Seattle’s Columbia City neighborhood. Ola Wyola is a wellness center and metaphysical shop run by Rainbow and her mom, Elaine Bonow. Rainbow describes her business as a jewel box of healing goodness and offers a curated collection of crystals, Tarot decks, candles, and her signature Soul Chains — vintage chains with crystal healing amulets infused with Rainbow’s sacred rituals, including moon cycle cosmic energy, sound healing, Reiki, and more to promote spiritual healing. Starting next month, Rainbow will start offering her healing services virtually after being on hiatus since the start of the pandemic.
Get to know more about Rainbow (including how Jimi Hendrix influenced her name) in this week’s Business Spotlight Q&A.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What’s something your customers may not know about you or your business?
My name is actually Rainbow-Renee. People think I’ve chosen this as a handle for my social media, but I was named Rainbow-Renee. Renee means “reborn” in French, and I was born closely after Jimi Hendrix passed away. Jimi Hendrix actually came to my hippie parents’ house when they lived in this crazy little house in the Central Area, and my mom served him Tang. My dad was in a band and he was an organ player and a singer, so he named me [Rainbow] as an ode to Jimi with his “Rainbow Bridge” album.
What’s your favorite part about the community your business is in and why?
[Columbia City] really is my home and my community base. We opened the shop right on the major artery of Seattle connecting all colors of the rainbow. A couple years ago, there was this big thing going around Columbia City where we were the most diverse zip code in the country. I don’t know if that’s folklore, but we certainly can represent that just by standing on the corner of Rainier and Edmonds in the heart of Columbia City and seeing all the different communities and cultures. Also, our Black community’s been pushed out. We’ve been gentrified everywhere. We’ve lost a stronghold on our South End and Central Area. So, for two Black women to come in and bring in a healing business, a wellness center, a metaphysical shop, into the South End, it is kind of groundbreaking. And we’re here to offer that holistic slice of life to everybody.
As a business owner, what’s the strangest or craziest idea you’ve ever tried?
Opening up and continuing to grow during this COVID time is crazy. We just added our crystal bar, which is a metaphysical hot spot for all of your crystal concoctions. During this time, I’ve taken my profits and turned them into offering more goods, more tarot, more candles, more smudges — all of that stuff. So, instead of being fearful and kind of hiding in our shell during this, we have come out blazing with frequencies [she laughs]. So, that’s kind of crazy to add all of that.
You can support Ola Wyola and Rainbow by following her on Instagram and shopping with them online or via personal appointment.
