Empty Mountain

04/07/2026

If you've been following along with us you may know a big key word for us is: experimentation. Since moving into the woods and planting the seed of Empty Mountain we've been experimenting with all sorts of things! How to live off-grid and without running water; how to bring folks together in community; how to format our program offerings in the spirit of the practice, and on and on the list goes.

We hope you'll join us for our next experiment: our morning of mindfulness in Missoula on Sunday April 19th from 10 AM till noon. This is likely to be our last Missoula based program offering for the calendar year of 2026, as the rest of our gatherings will be on site at Empty Mountain here in the woods.

The experiment includes: Mike & I giving a joint talk; our talk being part practice related and also interwoven with our Empty Mountain origin story plus added slideshow; setting this up as a mini-fundraiser with a suggested donation amount; and also seeing if we get enough folks interested in attending. Come join us to see how it all goes! :)

Registration is kindly requested here:

Join us for a morning of mindfulness in Missoula on Sunday April 19 from 10-noon, hosted by Empty Mountain.

04/07/2026

New blog post:

It’s currently 33.3 degrees outside and 66.6 degrees inside our cabin at 9:11 AM as a I type this post on Monday morning. The sun is just now rising over our closest mountain and our PV panels will soon start collecting the magic of its light to charge our house batteries for the purposes of elect...

04/07/2026

Yesterday I took the ATV down our gravel road to do my annual spring cleaning of the litter that gets left behind over the winter. It continues to be a practice not to get too disheartened by people tossing out beer cans (it's mostly beer cans I find) from their rigs. I collected 2 potato sacks full of cans. Pick up the litter with love in your heart, I remind myself.

Also. While I was out there. Joy! I came across the first flower of spring here in our canyon. The buttercup is always the first to arrive here in our neck of the woods.

04/02/2026

New blog post:

There are three songs I enjoy so very much whenever they play on the station I listen most to on the music platform of Pandora, all of which are instrumental & string-based. The three songs (which you can click on to listen to on YouTube if you like) are: Tides by Garth Stevenson Clocks

03/28/2026

New video upload:

Recorded on March 27, 2026.

03/28/2026

Stick collecting and roofing the sauna building is a little bit of what's been happening here at EM.

03/23/2026

Join us for our next EM program offering:

Morning of Mindfulness & Mini-Fundraiser for Empty Mountain
Sunday April 19, 10am-Noon
@ the Open Way Mindfulness Center in Missoula

Program will include sitting meditation, walking meditation, a joint talk by OI members Nicole & Mike Dunn on How Do You Want to Live?, and an open sharing circle.

A brief origin story of Empty Mountain, along with a short slideshow, will also be a thing happening as part of Mike & Nicole’s joint talk. (With maybe a song or spoken word piece tossed in too for good measure.)

The Mini-Fundraiser Part. We are committed to organizing events free of charge, and the programming Empty Mountain offers is not without cost or value. For this event we are asking for a $20 suggested donation, though please know all are welcome to attend regardless of ability to pay. We will also have Nicole’s poetry books & original calligraphies and cards for sale.

Registration Requested. To register to attend, please visit:

Join us for a morning of mindfulness in Missoula on Sunday April 19 from 10-noon, hosted by Empty Mountain.

03/20/2026

New blog post:

Today is the vernal equinox. From the Farmer’s Almanac online: “ Vernal translates to “new” and “fresh,” and equinox derived from the Latin aequus (equal) and nox (night)...Even though we know that after December 21st, the days start getting steadily longer, we still see more darkness th...

03/20/2026

One week ago today we were the recipients of 7" of snow. But it seems Montana got the memo about it being the first day of spring today and decided to jump on board. We reached 66-degrees here today and had our first butterfly day of the year! There were enough of them to make us feel as though we live in an enchanted wood. Also. Fun fact. It seems they fancy license plates :)

03/19/2026

New video upload:

Recorded on March 19, 2026.

03/19/2026

It's 60-degrees here at EM today and there's a twinge of spring in the air. It's unlikely we will get another long, hard freeze so we decided to clean out and hook up our rain catchment barrels today. Over the winter we've simply been collecting rain water and snow melt off the roof in 5-gallon buckets we store inside our cabin so they don't freeze. But I think we're at the point now where we can start storing water outside again.

03/16/2026

We're living small but mighty put here in the winter woods. Yesterday we had the great pleasure of having friends come out to sauna on the loveliest of sunny days.