Wilmington Magazine Jan-Feb 2023

FROM EARL NIGHTINGALE’S “WHAT
happens inside always appears outside” to Elle
Woods’ famous words, “Endorphins make you happy.
Happy people just don’t kill their husbands,” it is welldocumented
by great thinkers alike that mind wellness
and physical wellness work in tandem. That is certainly
the case at terra sol sanctuary.
The small, wooden building on the corner of Castle Street and S
Fifth Avenue appears, from the outside, like a church. The big red
doors, white paint and stained glass all conjure the image of an old,
southern house of worship. And for its first 100 or so years (this is
Wilmington after all), that’s exactly what it was. In 1877, when 507
Castle St. first opened, it was called Primitive Baptist Church. In
1992, it became St. Jude’s Metropolitan Community Church, which
ministered to the LGBTQ+ community (and still does at its new
home on 26th Street). The building spent a handful of years as an
antique shop before becoming its current iteration of a yoga studio
in August of 2016.
As co-founder and owner of terra sol sanctuary, Alexis Abbate
shares that her and her fellow tera sol founders changed nothing
about the building besides adding cubbies and new fans. Because of
this, there really is a natural reverence upon entering tera sol that
you’d be hard pressed to find in other yoga studios. The building’s
original intent was to be a community gathering place, and its
structural elements help to re-establish that to this day.
“It’s a place of connection with each other and with ourselves,”
Abbate says. “I think when we have these types of places that we can
go and unwind, reconnect or whatever it is that somebody is looking
for — that really helps the whole macrocosm of a community. The
more healing we can do on an individual level, the more healing this
city is going to reap the benefits of.”
With 30 different class offerings every week, terra sol provides
its students with plenty of opportunities to heal on an individual
level, which then reverberates throughout the city. At the end of a
class shortly after Thanksgiving, three women can be overheard
recounting volunteering to serve the homeless over the holiday,
while another student comes to his Wednesday class straight from a
full day at the Good Shepherd.
The studio offers an array of different types of classes, some with
more well-known distinctions like “Flow” and “Beginners” and some
with less common descriptors like “Yogalicious.” “That’s Georgia’s
class,” Abbate says, laughing. “She wanted to call it ‘yogalicious’ so
she can do whatever the hell she wants!”
Georgia Routsis Savas, who is an instructor at terra sol, refers
to herself as “on the old side of town” at age 64. She’s been teaching
yoga for about eight years now and says one of her strengths is that
she doesn’t look like “your normal yogi.”
“A lot of people imagine — you know, they see Yoga Journal
54 | WilmingtonNCmagazine.com