Classes (Available for Lunch and Learn Groups)
Instructor: Dr. Catherine Browne (Bio Linked Here)
Private Group Experiences at Swan Creek Farm
Every class and workshop at Swan Creek Farm is offered as a private, pre-booked experience for your group. Gather your friends, family, coworkers, wellness circle, church group, or club, and we’ll host you here on our working mushroom farm in the Yadkin Valley for a session that belongs entirely to you. Because each experience is reserved just for your group, there are no strangers and no rush, only time to ask questions, try things with your own hands, and learn at a pace that suits everyone. Classes are led by Dr. Catherine Browne, who brings decades of clinical practice in Traditional Chinese Medicine and organic herb farming to every session.
To book, simply choose the class or workshop that interests your group and contact us to reserve a date. We’ll take care of the rest.
Tai Chi & Qi Gong Exercises for Wellness
For thousands of years, people in China have greeted the morning with slow, flowing movements that look as peaceful as they feel. Tai Chi and Qi Gong are gentle forms of moving meditation that coordinate breath, posture, and focused attention to keep Qi flowing smoothly through the body. In this class, you’ll learn a short sequence of simple exercises that can support balance, flexibility, circulation, and a calmer, steadier mind. Each movement is explained in the language of Chinese medicine, so you’ll understand not just how to do it, but why. No experience or special fitness level is needed, and every exercise can be adapted for standing or seated practice.
Leave with an easy daily routine you can practice at home in just a few minutes, anytime you need to unwind, loosen up, or recharge.
Five Element Meditation: Learn Self-Care
In Chinese medicine, everything in nature, including you, moves through the Five Elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. Each element is linked to an organ system, a season, and an emotion, from the frustration that can tighten the Liver to the grief that weighs on the Lungs and the fear that drains the Kidneys. In this guided class, you’ll explore how the elements show up in your own body and moods, then practice simple meditations, breathwork, and healing sounds traditionally used to bring each one back into balance. It’s a gentle, insightful way to understand yourself and to care for your emotional wellbeing as thoughtfully as your physical health.
Discover a personal meditation practice you can turn to through every season of the year, and of your life.
Medical Application of Essential Oils
Aromatherapy is so much more than a pleasant scent. In this in-depth class, Dr. Browne shares insights from decades of clinical practice, where essential oils have been used hand in hand with Traditional Chinese Medicine. You’ll explore how specific oils relate to the organ systems, the Five Elements, and the energetic qualities of warming, cooling, moving, and calming. Learn how oils can be applied to acupuncture points, blended thoughtfully, and used safely and effectively. Whether you’re a longtime essential oil enthusiast or a practitioner looking to deepen your work, you’ll leave seeing your essential oil applications in a whole new light.
A rare opportunity to learn directly from a clinician with a lifetime of hands-on experience. Aroma Acu-sticks demonstrated in class will be available to purchase.
Introduction to Mushroom Cultivation
There’s something magical about watching mushrooms emerge, seemingly overnight, from a block on your kitchen counter. In this hands-on introduction, you’ll step into the fascinating world of fungi right here on our working mushroom farm. Learn the mushroom life cycle, the basics of substrate, spawn, humidity, and fruiting conditions, and the simple care that turns a block into a harvest. We’ll also talk about the culinary and functional mushrooms we grow and why they’ve been treasured for centuries. Curious beginners are especially welcome.
You’ll be able to purchase your own mushroom grow block, along with instructions to harvest fresh mushrooms at home.
Banking Jing: Building Qi and Essence for Aging Well
In Chinese medicine, Jing is your deepest reserve, the essence that shapes your vitality, resilience, and how gracefully you age. Your 50s and 60s are a powerful window to protect and replenish it. In this class, you’ll learn the time-tested secrets for building Qi and Essence: nourishing foods and herbs, functional mushrooms, restorative daily habits, and the lifestyle choices that drain your reserves versus those that fill them back up. Think of it as a savings plan for your body, so you can enter your senior years with energy, strength, and a clear mind.
Leave with practical, everyday strategies to invest in your health now and for decades to come. Herbs and functional mushrooms mentioned will be available for purchase.
Natural Remedies for Aging Skin
For centuries, Chinese empresses guarded their beauty secrets closely. In this class, we’ll open the imperial apothecary and share the herbs traditionally treasured for radiant, youthful skin. You’ll learn how facial cupping can support circulation, tone, and a natural glow, and how essential oils and herbal topicals can nourish skin from the outside in. We’ll also explore the inner side of beauty, because in Chinese medicine, healthy skin reflects what’s happening within. Come away with a gentle, natural routine you’ll actually look forward to.
Discover time-honored beauty rituals you can bring into your own self-care practice.
Chinese Medicine for Maintaining Cognition
A sharp memory and clear focus are among the most precious things we hope to keep as we age. Chinese medicine has long offered ways to nourish the mind, connecting cognition to the Heart, Kidneys, and the essence we carry through life. In this class, you’ll learn the traditional view of how the brain is nourished, along with herbs, functional mushrooms like Lion’s Mane, acupressure points, and daily habits that support mental clarity. It’s an empowering, hopeful look at caring for your mind with the same attention you give your body.
Leave with simple, practical tools to support focus, memory, and mental vitality.
Self-Care for Pain Management and Mobility
Aches, stiffness, and old injuries don’t have to set the pace of your days. In this practical, hands-on class, you’ll learn self-care tools from Chinese medicine to ease discomfort and keep you moving freely. We’ll cover acupressure points you can use anytime, herbal remedies traditionally used for joints and muscles, and topical treasures like liniments, plasters, and Dit Da Jow, the time-honored “hit medicine” of the martial arts. You’ll learn what to use, when, and how, so you can feel more in charge of your own comfort.
Leave with a personal self-care toolkit for everyday aches, stiffness, and mobility.
Chinese Medicine for Perimenopausal & Post Menopause Symptom Relief
Hot flashes, night sweats, dryness, irregular cycles, restless sleep, mood swings: perimenopause can feel like your body has changed the rules without warning. Chinese medicine has offered women gentle, natural support through this transition for centuries. In this class, you’ll learn how Chinese medicine understands perimenopause and explore herbs, foods, acupressure points, and essential oils traditionally used to cool, calm, and restore balance. Come for answers, stay for the reassurance that you’re not alone, and leave feeling more at home in your body.
Gain practical, natural tools to move through this season of life with greater comfort and ease.
Exploring the 5 Elements of Chinese Medicine: Personality, Balance & Health
Have you ever noticed that some people are natural leaders while others are the caretakers? Some light up every room, and others are the calm voice in a storm. Chinese medicine has explained these differences for thousands of years through the Five Elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. Each element connects a personality type to an organ system, an emotion, and a season. Each one also has its own pattern of physical imbalance when life pulls us off center.
In this class, you’ll possibly gain insights into your own element type. You’ll learn what each one looks like in balance and out of balance, and how emotional patterns can show up as physical symptoms.
Wood: The Visionary. Confident, motivated, and strategic, Wood types love a challenge and a deadline. Out of balance, ambition can turn into frustration, anger, or feeling “stuck.” Wood is linked to the Liver and to spring. Imbalance may show up as headaches and migraines, eye strain, PMS, tight or achy joints, muscle spasms, or high blood pressure.
Fire: The Communicator. Warm, joyful, and charismatic, Fire types are often the heart of the gathering. Out of balance, joy can scatter into anxiety, emotional swings, or trouble loving and trusting. Fire is linked to the Heart and Pericardium and to summer. Imbalance may show up as palpitations, insomnia, vivid dreams, poor memory, or mouth sores.
Earth: The Nurturer. Empathetic and generous, Earth types are the listeners and caregivers who keep families and communities connected. Out of balance, caring can become worry, over-giving or self-sacrifice. Earth is linked to the Stomach and Spleen and to late summer. Imbalance may show up as digestive upset, sugar cravings, blood sugar swings, weight gain or “foggy brain.”
Metal: The Alchemist. Principled, logical, and precise, Metal types value integrity, structure and excellence. Out of balance, high standards can turn rigid, and loss can settle into lingering grief or trouble letting go. Metal is linked to the Lungs, Large Intestine and skin, and to autumn. Imbalance may show up as asthma, sinus or respiratory issues, constipation or IBS, skin conditions or lowered immunity.
Water: The Philosopher. Wise, introspective and resilient, Water types bring calm depth and quiet strength. Out of balance, calm can become fear, anxiety, isolation, or exhaustion. Water is linked to the Kidneys and Bladder and to winter. Imbalance may show up as fatigue and adrenal burnout, lower back or knee pain, hormonal and thyroid imbalances, ringing in the ears, or premature graying.
In this class, you’ll:
- See how emotions and physical health mirror each other through the Five Elements
- Recognize early warning signs of imbalance for yourself and the people you love
- Learn simple ways to bring each element back into balance, including seasonal habits, food choices, acupressure points, and herbal support
This class is fun and eye-opening for curious beginners, and it gives longtime students of Chinese medicine fresh insight. Many people leave understanding their partners, children and coworkers in a whole new way.
Workshops
Growing a Reishi Mycelium Bowl
What if your next favorite bowl wasn’t made, but grown? In this hands-on workshop, you’ll discover how reishi mushroom mycelium, the living root network of the fungus, can knit itself into a vessel as strong as brick, with no glues or synthetic binders. Here on our working mushroom farm, we’ll walk you through the whole process: learning about substrate, shaping it in a mold, and creating the right conditions for the mycelium to grow, bind, and become the structure itself. Along the way, you’ll learn why reishi has been revered in Chinese medicine for centuries to “Calm the Shen,” and how mycelium connects entire ecosystems beneath our feet. No experience needed, just curiosity and a willingness to get your hands a little earthy.
You’ll take home your one-of-a-kind reishi bowl that you have finished off: fully biodegradable and compostable, yet able to last for decades when kept dry.
Making Flower Essences
Some of the most gentle remedies start with nothing more than sunlight, spring water, and a blossom at its peak. In this hands-on workshop, you’ll learn the time-honored art of making flower essences: how to choose and gather blooms, the sun and moon methods, and how to preserve and store what you make. We’ll talk about the traditions behind essences, what each flower is said to carry, and how people have used them for emotional balance and everyday calm. Slow down, breathe in the garden, and leave with a new way of working with the plants around you.
You’ll take home three mother essences, ready to dilute into your own dosage bottles for months of use.
Herbal Medicine Making: Tinctures, Salves & Wild Remedies
Long before medicine came in a bottle from the pharmacy, it came from the fields, forests, and kitchen tables of people who knew their plants. In this hands-on workshop, you’ll learn to make two foundational herbal preparations: tinctures, which draw out and preserve a plant’s properties in alcohol, and salves, made by infusing herbs into oil and setting them with beeswax. Then we’ll head outdoors to wildharvest fresh herbs from the farm, learning to identify useful plants, gather them respectfully, and leave plenty behind to thrive. Back inside, we’ll turn our harvest into a simple compress or poultice, the time-honored way to bring a plant’s benefits directly to the skin. You’ll leave seeing the “weeds” around you in a whole new way.
You’ll take home a tincture and a salve you made yourself, along with the know-how to make compresses and poultices from plants in your own backyard
Making a Dried Flower Wreath
Gather everlasting blooms, fragrant herbs, and seasonal grasses, then make something beautiful that lasts long after the season ends. In this relaxed, creative workshop, we’ll walk you through choosing a color palette, layering textures, and securing each bundle so your wreath stays full and lovely for many months. No experience or “artistic eye” required. Just bring your curiosity, and we’ll provide the flowers, tools, and plenty of guidance. It’s a peaceful morning of making, with good company and the scent of dried lavender and herbs all around you.
You’ll take home your own handcrafted dried flower wreath, ready to hang on your door, mantel, or give as a one-of-a-kind gift.
Seasoning Blending 101
Store-bought spice jars can’t compete with a blend you mixed by hand from fragrant herbs. In this flavorful workshop, you’ll learn the building blocks of a great seasoning: balancing savory, bright, warm, and earthy notes, and how to adjust for heat, salt, and your own taste. We’ll smell, taste, and mix our way through five distinct blends, with tips on how to use each one in everyday cooking, from roasted vegetables and soups to grilled meats and popcorn. You’ll leave with the confidence to create your own signature blends at home.
You’ll take home five custom seasoning blends, beautifully packaged for your pantry or ready to give as homemade holiday gifts.
Using Acupressure and Aroma-Acu-Therapy for Self-Care
What if a few minutes and a small stick of essential oils could become your daily ritual for calm, comfort, and balance? This workshop introduces the foundations of acupressure, drawn from Traditional Chinese Medicine, and pairs them with aromatherapy through Swan Creek Farm’s own Aroma Acu-Sticks®. You’ll learn how to locate key acupoints on your own body, how to apply gentle pressure and essential oils together, and how to build simple routines for stress, tension, rest, and emotional wellbeing. It’s practical, empowering, and something you can use for the rest of your life, at home, at work, or on the go.
You’ll take home five Aroma Acu-Sticks® along with the know-how to use them for everyday self-care.
This information has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.