Growing Into Fullness at Transfiguration Preserve
By Dr. Mattie Decker, Nature and Forest Therapy Guide & Mindfulness Coach.
Dear friends,
This month of June is indeed the “full” time of the year, a time of all of life burgeoning, singing, budding and bursting. It is the Summer Solstice and as James Russell Lowell describes later in this poem, June is the “high tide of the year.”
Indeed here at Transfiguration Preserve this is felt in many ways: we have 7 events planned AND this is also the month we will launch a new way of registering for our events. Now, when you click on “Register” you’ll be redirected to the “Transfiguration Spirituality Center” site to complete registration and pay your donation. Of course you may always pay with cash whatever amount you wish when you are present on site, but we hope this new path will help simplify the process.
As many of you know, the Sisters of the Transfiguration in Cincinnati, Ohio (whose history is well documented here on the Conserving Carolina site) have a conservation easement here, protecting this pristine land and waters for all time. It is my privilege and delight to help steward this and to maintain our commitment to a light footprint in the future. All of our events are small in number or participants to provide for what the Sisters vision has always been: for this place to be a sanctuary for people to come and rest and renew.
When the Sisters invited me to come here, I became certified as a Nature and Forest Therapy Guide to offer “Forest Bathing” walks. Now, we have gradually increased the ways of experiencing this with art, music, fly fishing as contemplative practice, yoga, creativity in nature, and now, writing in nature.
In November, the Sisters officially named “Transfiguration North Carolina” one of their five ministries, and I was asked to direct this “new” Transfiguration NC. This change has been slowly evolving, and with their support allows us to continue on into the future in community and networking with all the other ministries.
The purpose is clear: to sustain their ministries into the future. I invite you to see the website and to contact me with any questions or come and visit if you have ideas and ways to help us strengthen our collaboration with Conserving Carolina into the future.
Here is the “vision” created by the Sisters with Conserving Carolina, which continues to this day to guide and direct us:
The Vision
The vision for the Transfiguration Preserve is a stewarded, healthy and biodiverse ecosystem, with access for educators, students, researchers, and spiritual seekers at varying levels and abilities. The natural environment is the experience sought—where reflectivity, learning, spiritual connection, and exploration of the natural world can occur—in a landscape that has little or subtle evidence of human impact.
I am passionate about education, and helping encourage preservation and care of these beautiful lands where we all are so blessed to live. I am excited to support the Sisters, who came here in 1897 and who are now few in number, but still creative and vibrant in their continued outreach: https://ctsisters.org.
“And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days.”
– from The Vision of Sir Launfal, by James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)