Our Story

Established in 2010, Sacred Mountain Sanctuary provides Sacred spaces where a bond of intimacy with our Living Cosmos can be recognized, renewed and reverenced.  The work of SMS is inherently reciprocal, and integrates the realms of community, sacred commerce, land stewardship and learning as an inseparable whole.

Our story began when a remarkable parcel of land in the Appalachian Mountains was discovered in 2009. The land was surrounded by the wild vitality of Pisgah National Forest…abundant, pristine, and bejeweled with pure, flowing springs, rolling pastures, old apple and peach orchards, rich cove forests, and a palpable, numinous vitality that announced itself to all who visited. The land felt as if it had been waiting for the Sanctuary of Sacred Mountain to be born.

Through a slow, reverent, and sometimes challenging process of deep listening and Presence to the land through the cycles of the seasons, a recognition emerged around where to situate the work of the Sanctuary’s varied realms- community-making, learning & education, land stewardship & agriculture, spiritual-scientific observation & research, and other activities intended to nurture and preserve a living future for all living beings.  It was also evident that a culture of contemplative reverence and reciprocity would extend to and connect all realms of our work. Thus began the difficult but rewarding process of co-creating a vessel for Human-Earth communion and Cosmogenesis that was unfailingly regenerative, and also nimble and adaptable enough to withstand the challenging processes and emergent circumstances of a world in transformation.

This called for a special kind of relationship-building, and a reorientation of the perceived divisions between what we readily recognize as Sacred and that which we regard as mundane. At Sacred Mountain Sanctuary, land stewardship, learning & wisdom-keeping, contemplative & spiritual practice, community & homemaking and associated fiduciary realms are tended to with an equal measures of reverence and practicality. The relationships between neighbors, teachers, families; the tending of plants, water, rocks, soil; the care for animals, birds, insects, as well as the unseen-but-tangible realms of spirit are given the same quality of Presence.

Cultivating an abiding, durational Presence is an ongoing learning journey. What continues to emerge from this living, learning process is a space of Sanctuary where the enlivening work of education, ensouling work of community, regenerative work of agriculture, the evolutionary work of commerce, and all associated challenges are held by a numinous, living web of vitality that is perpetually nourished and renewed by our kinship with one another, the natural world, and our divine cosmos.

In a culture where our capacities for inter-being have been diminished by the perceived separation between human beings and the natural world, we recognize a great need for a renewed quality of Presence, reverence for Place, and willing engagement with Practices that are devoted to a vibrant future for humankind, and all living beings.

May our work of creating Sanctuary be blessed.

A Brief Timeline of SMS History

2009: Septimbor Lim, Jonathan Lim, and a small group of Montessori, Waldorf, and nature educators discover a beautiful parcel of mountain land, with pristine springs, orchards, forests, and fields.

2010: Sacred Mountain Sanctuary, non-profit is founded; SMS residential community template established and planned- the first conservation eco- subdivision of its kind in Buncombe County NC; Proceeds from the sales of 14 homesites (total) are used to fund operations and infrastructure creation for children’s educational programs.

2011: Sacred Mountain Sanctuary receives its IRS tax exemption status; SMS begins its children’s programs - Star-seed Forest Kindergarten and The Learning Village, both of which combine to become SOLA (Sanctuary of Living Arts) for homeschooling parents with children ages 1-12; SMS begins hosting & sponsoring several nature camps for youth mentored by others; SMS receives a generous donation of $80,000 to purchase small temporary structures in order to provide indoor classrooms for activities; SMS hosts & sponsors a Bioregional Symposium of Nature educators and mentors.

2012: Sacred Mountain Sanctuary partners with The Center for Education, Imagination, and the Natural World (CEINW) and begins hosting its immersion sessions at SMS for the Inner Life of the Child in Nature Program for Educators; SMS engages CEINW for teacher training and organizational development - a relationship became integral to identifying and cultivating SMS’ culture, pedagogy, and way of being and working; SMS initiates its conservation work and efforts to preserve its surrounding lands; SMS begins the practices of biodynamic farming and sylviculture by establishing a sanctuary/preserve for Goldenseal - an important, endangered, native medicinal plant with powerful anti-biotic/anti-microbial properties.

2013: Sacred Mountain Sanctuary assists in the preservation of 120 acres of land adjacent to its campus, known as Long Mountain Bald; SMS begins hosting the annual practicum for the Blue Ridge School of Herbal Medicine; SMS begins sponsoring/hosting several nature connection camps for girls, mentored by others.

2015: Sacred Mountain Sanctuary’s SOLA program adds a new program for middle and high school aged adolescents 13-18 years, which eventually becomes the ‘LORE’ program (Living, Ontological, Relational Education); SMS acquires a donation to secure and complete the purchase of its 90 acre campus; SMS hosts/sponsors the ‘Singing Alive’ gathering with Laurence Cole; SMS hosts Richard Cleveland’s Earthschool/various programs.

2016: Sacred Mountain Sanctuary begins hosting the Liminal Equus, a contemplative, natural equine program; SMS initiates its Animal Sanctuary program and begins the SOLA animal arts program, through the addition of the horses of Liminal Equus, and serving as a new home for several homeless sheep, 2 dogs, 10 rabbits, 7 chickens, and countless honeybees.

2017: Sacred Mountain Sanctuary launches its Living Library initiative, invites donations of books and library collections; SMS begins hosting the Mankind Project’s Journeymen Annual Youth Gathering; SOLA publishes its first ‘Seasons of Learning’ journal of Living Arts education.

2018: Sacred Mountain Sanctuary launches its Global Presencing program, inviting adolescents within the SOLA program to be immersed in places of exquisite natural beauty where they encounter and engage in learning with extraordinary individuals leading nature-centered lives, around the world. Venues are established in Ireland and Occitanie (Southern France)

2020-2022: Sacred Mountain Sanctuary provides healthy, outdoor and experiential learning for children during the pandemic; SMS ambassadors are invited to mentor and provide consulting for new initiatives around the country, whose faculty and staff were seeking ways to work with children and adolescents to maintain their spiritual, mental and physical wellbeing; SMS provided bagged organic lunches for the exploding house-less population in Buncombe County, NC throughout the pandemic; SMS began providing lunches for SOLA students, using ingredients grown by SOLA students as a part of its biodynamic, horticultural research initiative, ‘3 Hares Farm’.

2022: Sacred Mountain Sanctuary conserves in perpetuity 115 acres of its campus and residential community, in partnership with Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy; SMS works with Marnie Muller, MLA to design a 65 foot diameter, outdoor biodynamic, zodiac calendar labyrinth, planted with pollinator flowers and perennials, which serves inter-generational learning and provides sustenance for honeybees.

2023: Sacred Mountain Sanctuary is invited to an honorary dinner to receive an award from Buncombe County for “extraordinary work in the preservation of soil, water and landscapes in Buncombe County, NC”.

2024: During and after the Hurricane Helene Disaster, Sacred Mountain Sanctuary provided housing, access to clean water and clean water delivery, shower/bathing and kitchen facilities, animal housing and feeding, community meals, and bagged/boxed meals for houseless or recently de-housed families and individuals in the extended region; SMS sponsored and hosted the mentors and facilitators for Kairos Institute’s International Emergency Pedagogy for children.