The 1,200-acre nature preserve and education center offers a number of hands-on programs year-round. Every Monday in August, a group will gather to learn and practice mindfulness in the serene setting at Swaner. Led by long-time mindfulness teacher and practitioner Rebecca Brenner, the workshop will be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Aug. 5 – 26. The cost is $100 for the series.
“We're going to be looking closely at how nature can be a support for our wellness practices, specifically, mindfulness,” Brenner said. “We have the beautiful facility of Swaner the preserve. And we will be in the space and also out in nature, really connecting to how nature is already present, already awake, already interconnected. And we can very quickly and easily tap into that in our own practices.”
Brenner says the course is about learning to notice when we get caught up in being distracted and in our thinking minds and discover ways to come out of that to be awake and present. She says the series will serve both new students and those already practicing mindfulness.
Coming up on Saturday, Aug. 10 is the annual Wine Among the Willows, which took a short hiatus but is back this year. Director of Visitor Experience and Exhibits Hunter Klingensmith says they’re partnering with a wine distributor to showcase a selection of wines, and bringing in wine experts to discuss the production of each wine.
“And they're bringing in a few wineries who are practiced and sustainable, biodynamic and innovative wines and our goal is to look at wine production that puts the health of people and the planet at the forefront of what they're doing. So, we'll rotate through those five stations. The event goes from four to seven. And it’s just a great time to see the preserve. That is sort of my favorite time on the Preserve, we tend to see a lot of wildlife.
A new exhibit, “Beauty and the Beaks,” will open August 23 and run through Dec. 1. Subtitled “A Photographic Love Letter to the Swaner Preserve,” the exhibit will feature the photographs taken by two neighbors of the preserve, Steve Kongard and Jodi Buren.
“Since COVID, they've been living here full time and photographing the changing seasons of the Preserve, but also our mascot bird the Sandhill Crane,” she said. “It will be a photography exhibit but we're also supplementing it with a lot of hands-on interaction. So, we'll have kid’s areas, opportunities for you to interact, and some fun ways for you to even share your love story of nature with other people.”
See the links to tickets and program registrations above.
