About Us

Summertown, Tennessee, United States

nature preserve - lodging -healing & visual arts - regenerative ag

About Us

Intention and Mission

Our team created Swan Center TN as an environment where you can truly enjoy Nature in all her glory and reconnect with your Divine nature. That's the reason we created this place. When we tell people that, they usually nod their heads and smile. We therefore assume it meets a universal spiritual need. We intend for every aspect of this space to support expanded awareness where healing and growth may occur. This is the sole-soul purpose. If you want a simple, restful break, come home to your Self, for recovery, recharging, renewal, in your own way…there’s lots of good "Rs" you can do here.

Conceived to be a comfy gathering space, a retreat from stress, an example of simple, sustainable construction and of permaculture principles, it remains a work in progress. (Ie, expect some weeds and possibly unfinished projects. The plant growth is a bit much to keep up with in this subtropical rain forest.) We follow certain principles, such as collaborative team work, encouraging creative expression, finding inspiration and benefits from forest and plant therapy, soil building, repurposing whenever possible to conserve resources, stacking functions, co-creating with Nature to build more beautiful surroundings, and supporting Amish and other local trades people and suppliers. We are cultivating an Art Walk for further inspiration. Mother Nature is cultivating numerous edible and medicinal foods here, so foraging in the fields and gardens is an adventure in discovery!

We hope you will stay awhile, and that when you leave here you feel more grounded and centered in your awareness of yourself, more alive and vibrant.

We consider the grounds and buildings as sacred spaces. If you choose to be in silence, we can honor that, and allow for privacy. In this space it is OK for you to experience what feelings arise due to your interaction with the high energy here. We ask that you treat yourself, others, the buildings and the land with respect.

The Association for the Integration of the Whole Person (AIWP)

While Swan Center is a woman-owned business. Swan Center of AIWP is a congregation, a legal not-for-profit religious organization which allows for a free expression of Kathleen's Rosemary's passion for peace, beauty, and harmony. Tomas Heikkala is the treasurer, and is partnered with her. She is an ordained Minister of Healing of AIWP, which recognizes her gifts and desire to share them. Kathleen is also a licensed massage therapist and an experienced communication skills coach. Over many adventurous decades she studied and acquired knowledge, encountered and embraced the ways of wise men and women, worked out in "the real world," and raised children. Mystical experience, intuition, nature connection, the arts, and a deep love for God influence her life choices. Currently, she offers bodywork and energy sessions, hospitality, and coaching in various methods for intuitive awareness, self-care and self healing for individuals and groups. We are supporters of the fine arts, and help fund public art to "Heal the Wounds" imposed upon the indigenous cultures by the colonialists.

YOU CAN HELP US SPREAD THE GOOD!

Tax-deductible donations to Swan Center of AIWP benefit local arts projects, improvements to the facilities and gardens, community wellness projects and local charities. Donations of certain supplies and volunteer effort are welcome. We feel that acts of stewardship for the environment and service to others contribute to vast pool of the Greater Good from which we all derive benefit. We strive for not only sustainability but practice regenerative methods in order to be helpful to the local and planetary community.

We've been busy! Now in the United Plant Savers Botanical Sanctuary Network...

We've owned the land for 15 years, started building a retreat center with 3 rental cabins, a greenhouse, courtyard, and our home, and planting shrubs, trees, herb and vegetable gardens 8 years ago. I bought 2 contiguous parcels straddling 2 counties in rural middle Tennessee. This land was undeveloped, historically part of it was corn fields. The remaining acres are forested and also some is grassy forest (savannah). It's part of a valley where the Swan Creek once flowed year round, but now comes up in springs into a large pond on my neighbor's land.

I had a pond dug out of the bottomland for rainwater retention, and moved the fertile soil up the slope into 4 large raised beds for building soil and growing blueberries, veggies, wild edibles and medicinals. I LOVE building soil, adding compost, wood chips, biochar, and grass clippings to continue developing the beds. I propagate from what comes up on its own and from what I planted, including echinacea, willows, crape myrtles, comfrey, heliobore, lambs quarters, motherwort, elderberry, native persimmons, etc. I get seeds, plants and cuttings from others, and give many plants away to friends and visitors. The road was here before I was, and is called Maple Lane because there is a plethora of maples. In the open land I have planted various tree varieties and selectively allowed it to reforest itself with the black cherry, dogwood, sweet gum, maple, poplar, hickory, and oak which are in the denser forest. I've planted some herbs in the forest, and along the edges some chinese chestnuts, mulberry, pawpaw, and pines.

Plants just show up, like the little cedar and cottonwood that showed up in my gravel laundry line area which I moved them to other places. A magnificent elderberry tree/shrub showed up just up hill from my septic field line from which I am starting a dozen small elderberries to spread around the property. I sprouted black walnuts a guest gave me and planted them in areas which would suit them if they survive. Blackberry bushes, sassafras, poke are plentiful. People gave me fish and plants for my pond, which is beautiful with lotuses all summer long, also populated by frogs. Since making the rainwater retention pond the whole valley has filled with at least 5 kinds of singing and croaking frogs! Deer roam, but mostly just munch on the wild lettuce plants which I allow to grow all around in the gardens, leaving the garden to me and the moles and voles! We eat a lot of weeds in season, chickweed, dandelions, wintercress and others in the winter, dock, sow thistle, violets, and other warmer weather greens. I could go on forever....

YOU MAY Transform Your Life

If you want a new outlook on life...change your paradigm.

Try this juicy new experiment to change your Reality

Plan a weekend getaway. Set your intention to find your peaceful place inside, your baseline frequency. Find a place, reserve it. When it's time, pack your bags and food supplies only with what will nurture you. Arrive at your destination keeping your intention clear. Breathe clean air, walk about, stretch, feeling the peace. Integrate it. Know it. It's yours, and you can take it home with you to revisit in your memory. Each time, you will feel the same peace. You did it!