Home of the Week: Tigg's Pond Retreat in Zirconia
The Rev. Posy Jackson took the same approach to developing the land and buildings at her retreat center in Zirconia that she takes to helping visitors find their spirituality.
It's all about removing the clutter to let the natural within flourish, Posy said. Land and spirit, the physical and metaphysical terrains we all inhabit, both blossom when their attributes are freed of impositions. The result at Tigg's Pond Retreat Center is a place of peace whose cleansed surroundings support guests in their quests to leave unwanted beliefs behind.
"Like most things, it began backwards," Posy said of how she came by these 54 acres in Henderson County. She had come from Texas, where, as an Episcopal priest in Galveston, she'd been running a retreat center.
She arrived in Western North Carolina a few years ago looking for a place to live but couldn't find a house with enough land. So she gave up on the house and began looking just for land, which she found in an old family property.
"I drove out with my dog, Tigger, and there was this beautiful pond and funky, old, mildewy house overlooking the pond. And all this acreage," she said. "I came back every afternoon for two and a half months. It was so beautiful. It finally hit me that this was the place that I was supposed to get."
A developer had put in a bid, but the brothers who owned the land preferred hers because of how she appreciated the property.
"And all my neighbors were the same way," she said. "They lived here all their lives. The first question was, 'What are you going to do with it?' And the answer was, 'Nothing.' It was beautiful the way it was."
A trained spiritual director, she moved into the house, and a lovely couple, Sandy and Ed Lastein of Ed Lastein Landscape Architecture, worked the grounds.
"Their philosophy is to sit with the land and meditate and see what it has to say," Posy said. "They just kind of liberate those spots from the man-made junk that had collected around them. There was an old still in the back glen and a ratty barn."
They cleared out dead trees and got the three streams that feed the pond flowing freely again, so much so that the pond is completely refreshed every two weeks.
"It was all about cleaning up and letting the land breathe," Posy said.
Which is very much the same approach to spirituality that the retreat center offers its guests. The grounds and pond, as well as the quiet that surround them, help people reconnect with their natural spirit-centeredness, Posy believes.
The retreat gives them a reprieve from the man-made noise that overstimulates their lives. It aspires to strengthen or reawaken their ability to connect with God through silence, solitude, mediation and other quiet ways.
Though the center is Christian-based, all seekers from all faiths are welcome, Posy said.
The grounds are full of rockwork with signs and symbols from theologies as practiced by Native Americans, Christian, Buddhists and Hindus.
"The fun thing to do is just look as you're walking around," Posy said. "There are hidden vistas as you go along the trail to draw you through the terrain and give you little surprises. And lots of places to sit and look where you can see water and trees and flowers, but also feel a bit separated from other people to enjoy the silence."
The space where the little barn was became a chapel that accommodates large groups. Trees cut down to make room were used in the construction. Now the structure is two stories, with a fireplace running the height of it and a hermitage that currently houses the Rev. Lyndon Harris, who co-directs the center with Posy.
As priest at St. Paul's Chapel near the World Trade Center, Harris administered to rescue workers for months after the twin towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001.
"Posy likes to say, we don't try to fix people, we invite them into a deeper space to see their gifts and opportunities," he said of the retreat center.
Posy agreed. "It just takes meditation and conscious effort of going within to find out who we already are and what our pathway has been and make gentle corrections."
Sometimes, in spiritual practice and in land development, that means casting off. During renovations, workers stripped the walls from the 80-year-old cabin and saw that the studs were raw timber.
"It just broke my heart" to tear it down, she said. But she put up her house on the same footprint, using lumber from trees that had been standing nearby. All the old oak flooring was used to make the kitchen cabinets, which look like the new flooring. Natural wood siding and green insulation make the house feel like a part of its surroundings.
"It was all (about going) back to the surfaces and textures of nature," Posy said. "It's all wood and stone and natural colors."
DO YOU DECORATE?
The Citizen-Times is beginning to line up Home of the Week features for the fall and holidays. If you decorate your home or property for autumn, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, winter solstice or other fall and winter holidays, send a description of your decorations and a contact telephone number to Bruce Steele at bsteele@citizen-times.com.
LEARN MORE
Learn more at www.tiggspondretreatcenter.com or contact Rev. Posy Jackson at 697-0680 or tiggspond@gmail.com. The center is at 111 Fiddlehead Lane in Zirconia.
NOMINATE A HOME
To nominate your house or that of a friend for this feature, contact Bruce Steele at bsteele@citizen-times.com. Include your telephone number and a telephone number for the homeowner, if not you.