Last Update Till Spring
Be humble, for you are made of earth.
Be noble, for you are made of stars.
- Serbian Proverb
Leaning into such wisdom teachings like the one above, help to support, guide, and encourage me to keep on keepin on, especially during unsettling or stressful times. My gratitude for the many teachers, traditions, lands, and cultures through many generations, that have passed down spiritual insights to the benefit of our individual and collective consciousness.
As of last week, Mike and I cleared the final hurdle in regards to the sale of our house here in Missoula. We put it on the market in early September; had 2.5 days of open houses (where around 20 sets of people came on through); fielded a total of 6 offers; and E-signed papers to turn it over to new owners by the end of the 4th day after it was listed. Oh, and did I mention that we were originally slated to put it on the market in mid-August but three-days prior I decided to go ahead and break my ankle in 3-places which required surgery to repair, delaying our plans to sell by a few weeks? Yeah, so, that was a little thing that happened. (As a brief ankle update: I’m still on crutches but I’m on the slow mend and making good progress on the road to recovery.) Despite the ankle break situation, we decided to go ahead with our venture of still selling the house, as we’ve been preparing to do so since the spring and selling will also position us better financially to be ready to hopefully purchase land next year.
We have the great fortune of being able to spend the winter once again at Deer Park Monastery (DP) in southern California, where we’ve been retreating annually since 2014. We close on our house sale on Monday October 18th and plan to head out on the road to DP right after we sign the papers. Our plan is to arrive there via a new old Chevy conversion van we recently purchased on Friday the 22nd. We will then return home in the spring - sometime in April I think - to resume our search for land in hopefully close-ish proximity to Missoula.
Feelings report:
Our search for land this past spring/summer was: hella stressful.
Moving onto plan B and putting a pin in the land search was: both disappointing and a relief.
Getting ready to sell the house we’ve been in for 18-years was: a long process of grieving.
Approaching the listing of our house for sale in mid-August was: hectic and exhilarating.
Breaking my ankle three-days before we listed was: extremely painful and energetically deflating.
Rebounding and gearing up for take 2 of listing our house was: challenging and reinvigorating.
Selling the house was: wonderful and mildly unsettling.
Clearing the final hurdle of the sale last week was: super great!
And now, as we take this big leap of faith into the wilds of the unknown, which will deliver us back home to Montana as nomadic wanderers without a fixed dwelling place in the spring, I am feeling: ready and scared.
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So there it is, friends. And here we are, amid our final week in the house we’ve loved and cherished for 18-years, gearing up to hand it off to new caretakers, who we hope will be as happy as we were to live here.
It’s unlikely that I will write another blog post until we return home in the spring, but you never know. Maybe something will transpire between now & then that will be worth mentioning on the Empty Mountain front.
Thanks for reading and following along with us in our adventerous aspiration to start a practice center. We hope to secure land soon, so that we can invite you all to join us on it, for the hopeful benefits of all beings.
Some pics to close. Top row: pics of our house put online when it was listed for sale; Bottom row: me in my new walking boot; my new ankle hardware; our frequent flyer backyard visitor we call Stewart (whom we will miss dearly, no pun intended).
