about

In 2014 a partnership began when Lara, drawn to El’s healing work, came to her as a client. They embarked on a journey through modalities including sound, yoga, and shamanism.

During the pandemic, El helped Lara clear and heal her home that had undergone a haunting. Along with established personal clearing and protective practices, they used sound, scent, crystals, reiki and deep intuitive work to release stuck energy from the space, objects, and land. The symptoms and experiences ceased; the energy of the home was restored and strengthened.

Lara and El later collaborated again to energetically prepare the home and land for sale. They offered additional clearings and ceremonies that honored her family’s history and relationship with the space, readying it for the next inhabitant. When Lara purchased a new home it felt natural to invite El to guide the feng shui and ceremonies while Lara led the Space Attunement™ and physical renovation. With listening central to both of their practices, meditation and shamanic journeying informed their process. Their work seamlessly integrated and informed Lara’s mindful and elevated interior design.

Over the last five years, El and Lara have organically developed a holistic method for both healing spaces, and creating spaces that can support healing and well-being. They are grateful and enthusiastic to share their combined experience with others through HEARE™ STUDIO.

EL LARSON
LARA HOWENSTINE
CONTACT

Elizabeth (El) is a holistic practitioner with 20 years of experience supporting clients on their healing path. She studied and practiced modalities including yoga, Ayurveda, reiki and sound healing before seeking to apply principles of well-being to the built environment. While her work with space centers around Feng Shui, Wu Xing (elemental phases and relationships), and biophilic design, El’s practice is informed by the whole of her background.

Growing up on a quiet lake in rural Minnesota, the year round mantra of “go outside” was answered by playing wilderness children with her siblings, accompanied by the trees, stones and water. She became interested in Buddhism and Heremeticism in middle school, and started practicing yoga and meditation in 1999. In 2003 she traveled to India to practice asana, pranayama, and meditation with masters. During her travels, El had an alchemizing sonic experience in ancient Buddhist dwelling spaces outside Mumbai, leading her to integrate sound into her work. After decades of exploring, El has rediscovered the wisdom of her first teachers — the trees, stones and water. A practicing Druid, she blends traditions of her ancestors with knowledge and modalities gathered over the years.

A lover of design at all scales, El eventually became curious about the energetic and emotional effects of acoustics and the general impacts of built spaces on well-being. To better understand the design process, she sought a job in architecture and was welcomed by RoTo Architects. Under the guidance and encouragement of Michael Rotondi, Tenzin Wangdu Thokme, and Nels Long,  El spent several years exploring how her experience could be incorporated into design. During that time, she became accredited in the WELL and Fitwel building standards and certified in BTB Feng Shui. In collaboration with Wangdu, her first project was creating a meditation space in an unused corner of the office, composed of material remnants from their ‘Still Points’ exhibit.

In her work El begins by listening — on all levels — to what is said, and what is unsaid. Taking time to hear, without agenda, what is conveyed by clients, built spaces, and nature can reveal depths of information and layers of physical, energetic, and behavioral patterns. An animistic perspective supports this by placing her within an environment instead of on it, and she aims to help clients sense and foster their own symbiotic relationship with space.

El is grateful to blend her visions, experiences, and training into a suite of remedies that help support internal and external environments, on every scale.

CREDENTIALS

RELEVANT WORK + TRAINING

Lara is an interior designer with over a decade of experience, blending rigorous architectural and interior design training with a spiritually grounded approach to design. She holds a Master’s degree in Interior Architecture from Cal Poly Pomona and a post-bachelor’s certificate in Interior Design from UCLA Extension. During her graduate studies, Lara interned at HBA/Hirsch Bedner Associates, contributing to large-scale hospitality projects worldwide.

In 2020, Lara lost her mother suddenly to pancreatic cancer. Moving through grief and toward healing, she studied under intuitive mentor Marya Badiei, and through the practices of shamanic dowsing and Reiki, her intuition deepened and her life and design practice were forever changed — leading her to a new dimension of her work: energetic clearing and healing for individuals and living spaces.

Lara’s integration of spirituality and design became particularly evident when she redesigned her own home — a 1940s pre–mid-century Moderne residence originally designed by Case Study architect Sumner Spaulding, with a partial remodel by Richard Neutra. Architecturally significant and full of potential, the home nonetheless carried a heavy, unsettled energy upon purchase, embedded in the land itself. Lara’s first step, as it is with every space she works with, was simply to be present and listen — to sit with the home and the land, and allow what they held and what they needed to reveal itself. Through transcendental meditation and shamanic dowsing, she responded through intentional spatial design, restoring balance and harmony to both the home and the land. That process became the seed of her metaphysical design practice, Space Attunement™ and presence and listening remain at the heart of everything she does.

Working alongside her colleague and business partner, Elizabeth Larson — a practitioner in feng shui and sound healing — they spent four years lovingly restoring the home. The guiding question throughout this process was:

How do we heal this home so that it feels good, looks beautiful, and is well-designed?

Lara believes that spaces can be functional and visually stunning yet still fail to support their inhabitants. Her work is rooted in the understanding that environments hold energy and memory, and that thoughtful design can be a powerful tool for healing. During the pandemic, this philosophy was further fueled by a desire to create sanctuaries — spaces of wellness, grounding, and renewal — for herself, her family, and ultimately, for others.

CREDENTIALS

  • Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Anthropology from Occidental College
  • Post-bachelor’s certificate in Interior Design from UCLA Extension
  • MA Interior Architecture from Cal Poly Pomona
  • Shamanic Dowsing Training – 2021 – present
  • Reiki I & II Training

RELEVANT WORK + TRAINING

  • HBA/Hirsch Bedner Associates
  • Private Residential Interior Design  – 2014 to present
  • Shamanic Journey Training : Katy Ingersoll
  • Transcendental Meditation Practitioner
  • Department of Real Estate (DRE) pre-licensing education

 

We are based in Pasadena, CA and work globally. To discuss your needs or to schedule, please email or text/ call 310.592.1191

Thank you – we look forward to discussing your project!

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