King Murphy's Retreat & The Light Temple

The story

Out off Brick Church Pike in Goodlettsville, past where the suburban strip malls give up and the woods take over, sits a hidden pocket of pagan ritual space you’d easily miss if you weren’t looking for it. This is King Murphy’s Retreat and The Light Temple, a forested sanctuary carved out by John Murphy. It isn't trying to sell you a sanitized wellness aesthetic; it’s a working outdoor sanctuary built around dirt trails, native oak foliage, and earthworks.

The focal points of the grounds are the Medicine Wheel Garden and a self-guided Chakra Trail that snakes deeper into the canopy. On ordinary days, the space operates as a low-key refuge anchored by King Murphy's Stones, an on-site crystal shop stocked with raw gems and polished specimens. But when the pagan calendar turns for Wheel-of-the-Year observances—Beltane, Yuletide, or community gatherings like Pride—the quiet forest transforms.

During those seasonal festivals, more than fifteen local practitioners scatter among the trees, setting up tables and mats for sound baths, reiki energy work, shamanic rattling, and tarot readings. There’s no corporate main stage here; you simply wander from one clearing to another beneath the leaves. When night falls, the crowd condenses around the central fire pit, where every major festival closes out the exact same way: a persistent, rhythmic drum circle and fire ceremony beneath the Tennessee night sky.