Skillsets & Strengths
Coming up on July 1 will mark three years since we moved into the woods, sans structures or services, and planted the slow-growing seed of Empty Mountain.
Recently, Mike was mentioning how our previous small house in Missoula (clocking in at 550 square-feet), paired with all of our time spent at Deer Park Monastery over the years, and also living in our Chevy G20 van for the better part of a year whilst looking for land and then whilst building the cabin we now reside in, set us up well for making the big life-change move we did. Which got me thinking: it would be fun to craft a post highlighting some of things we had going for us when we sold our house of 18-years in Missoula and decided to take a giant leap into the unknown, and embark upon an entirely new way of living.
With how steep the learning curve has been since we first pulled up and onto the land in our van on July 1, 2022, without a lick of shelter other than our van, sometimes sweltering heat, no electricity, no water, and no cell service, I’ve been more focused on how stressful it’s been and how much we didn’t know and needed to figure out on the fly and in the fray. But now that we’re more set up, a little more seasoned at what it takes to live how we’re living, and we have our systems more dialed in it feels like a good time to share about what strengths & skillsets we had coming in to this adventure that served us well.
Because it’s common for folks when sharing about the lifestyle they’re living, especially if that lifestyle happens to be very alternative with the flavor of going back-to-the-earth, to be a bit or a lot preachy about it, as though they’ve discovered the one right and only way to live that should and will work for everyone, please allow me to start by dismantling the rubbish nonsense that there could ever possibly be only one way to live a good life. I am a firm believer that there are as many ways to live a good life as there are people on the planet at any given time. The simple, rustic, and remote way we are living out here in the woods would not be appealing, let alone enjoyable, for a vast majority of people, nor does it need to be. In other words, so as to hopefully help lessen misunderstanding, I am not trying to pitch a lifetsyle here with this post. While I do sincerely hope that our vision for part-time and full-time residential living at EM comes to fruition and we will find others interested in joining us out here at some point, I’m also aware that it will require very specific people for whom this very different way of living will work for. Right now, all I know for sure is this lifestyle is working well for us (at least for now and the time being). Okay. End of disclaimer.
On the strengths & skillsets front, perhaps first & foremost what we had going for us in taking the big leap we did is that we had a high enough level of interest in living differently which propelled us into action. I once heard a speaker on the ManKind Podcast say (and my sincere apology for not recalling his name): People don’t change because they see the light, they change because they feel the heat. While I reckon this isn’t 100% true for all of us, it seems like it might be the way of things for most of us most of the time. And I would say that it at least partially applied to us in our situation. Eventually, the heat of living how we were living turned up enough to spur us into another course of action. We weren’t happy living the daily grind of Mike working himself to exhaustion just to pay the bills. But it wasn’t just that. We’d also long had the desire and intention to live in the woods surrounded by nature and start a mindfulness practice center where folks could visit and stay. And we had a very strong interest in wanting to live much more simply. Thus, and most importantly, we were ready for the leap.
Even though we didn’t know what we were doing exactly, or when or if we’d find land we could afford to buy or how we’d be living, we were whole-heartedly invested in the endeavor. We were willing to weather the inevitable discomfort involved with learning anything new; we were open to new possibilities and finding creative solutions; and we are both often up for a good challenge, especially when it aligns with helping us to move & grow in the direction we want to move & grow in.
We were already very accustomed to living in the small, which was really helpful. So it wasn’t like we were moving from a typical sized huge house into a radically smaller cabin. We were quite familiar with having limited room in our dwelling space from living in our two bedroom one bath 550 square-foot house in Missoula for 18-years. So our well-honed skillsets for managing a small space with 2-3 people (as for almost all of those 18-years my stepson Jaden, with whom we had shared custody, occupied the 2nd small bedroom) came in super handy.
Our house in Missoula didn’t have a washer & dryer, so trips to the laundromat are second nature to me. So there was nothing new there. And as mundane as it is to report on, but still a very real thing I think that’s worth mentioning, Mike and I have never been big shower people. Translation: we have never been the sort of people who shower every day. Based on our showering habits, it really wasn’t that big of a deal to move into the woods and not have a real working shower until last spring. Don’t get me wrong though, having a real shower here now is so so great. Now I don’t have to take a shower at a friend’s house when I go to Missoula every week on Mondays and I can shower whenever I want!
Both of our dispositions and personality types position us well for living more remotely in the woods as well. If we were extroverted people, for example, I reckon it might be a whole different story. Or if we were super high energy people who liked to go out and do stuff around town on a regular basis, I imagine woods living might be a freakin nightmare. But we aren’t those people. So remote living suits us well.
And for the past 11-years, we’ve been visiting and spending time at Deer Park Monastery in southern California every year, sometimes for up to a few months at a time. DP has been good training and practice ground for us in regards to this new way of life we’re living. It has offered us support, encouragement, and inspiration to embark on a different way of doing life. A life that doesn’t just involve to-do lists and work-for-pay and being fueled by forever needing to be in motion. A life that also involves ease and joy and time to prioritize what genuinely matters most. A life that centers around spiritual practice and community building and having enough spaciousness to breathe and smile. A life that we can live with heartfulness and care.
So there you have it. Some of the things that factored in for us in terms of setting us up well to make the leap we did involved all of what was shared above, and prolly some other stuff I left out. It’s been nice to reflect on this topic. Nice to write it out and read in print some of the ways our strengths & skillsets & lived experience were able to launch us into this adventurous undertaking, which now, gratefully, almost 3 years in, feels far less like an adventure and more like just plain ole fashion living.
Moon over Empty Mountain