History: A Personal Look at Sage Mountain Center
By Christopher Borton

In 1989, Linda and I (at 23 and 25 respectively) moved to Montana with a dream of establishing an education and retreat center. Free from our accumulated clutter and the confines of conventional religious dogmas, we began to explore basic philosophical approaches and lifestyles that more closely mimicked nature and our own inner prompting. With our '83 Nissan 4X4 with 150,000 miles, (we just sold it with 350,000 miles) and boxes full of books by the Nearing's, Emerson, Muir, Fukuoka, The Desert Fathers, Krishnamurti, and so on, we left the world of conventionality to set out for the land of uncertainty, mystery. Shouldering a guilt-ridden awareness of our pioneering ancestors who often approached the West with the "divide and conquer" mentality we quietly vowed to try to live in a new way.

After one year of searching Montana for the "right" piece of land and finally signing a paper that said we now "owned" it, a sense of relief over came us. However, this relief was quickly overshadowed by a feeling of tremendous responsibility. We were now newcomers to a forest that we really knew nothing about. We were immigrants who didn't yet speak the language of this place. And would we be able to learn?

In some ways the "best" way to tread lightly on the land is to not tread. Stay in a city where other people live, get rid of the car and let the wilderness be wilderness. This makes a lot of sense. We, however, justified early on that had we not purchased this land, which was on the open market, it most certainly would have been acquired by others concerned only with the “best view”, who would then put up a conventional house which took much more from the land in terms of energy production and consumption than it could ever return) ( See Forest Restoration Project and Sustainable Living ). With humility we decided to view the land as a teacher, an ancient sage who had all the answers for those who were willing to listen.

Realizing that every blade of grass that was stepped on altered the face of this terrain, we first established a 10 year plan. Part of this plan was to use the natural elements that made up the land -- wood, stone, topsoil, granite, sun, wind, and, so on --and build the shelter with our own hands as much as possible. Compromises were many but they were backed by much study and reflection. We would pay for the buildings as we went along. Linda provided the consistent income working as a nurse and I tapped into my fourth-generation-construction-genes (which I had yet to do) to build fulltime. I also gave yoga classes.

To start with we needed water and a quick shelter. After deciding against a teepee or yurt for forty good reasons, as in, minus forty below zero, we decided to buy a little used 16' self-contained trailer. It was a 1963 Aristocrat that we towed up and painted forest green (still used today). Since we refused to have a polluting and noisy gas generator, we next hooked up solar electric panels to the trailer for electricity. We were the 90's equivalent of the Beverly Hillbillies in reverse! Since the nearest stream was 1000 ft away (it served initially as a wonderful bathing site) a well was drilled. Next, a practice cabin we named Tilting Tree Cottage was built using Cordwood Construction along with passive solar principles. Two years later the Guest House was built after learning from the mistakes made on Tilting Tree Cottage. With water for drinking, protection from the elements (in the sweaty, horse fly ridden heat of the summer ones construction mantra is "Forty below zero, forty below zero." as a way to remember winter reality) we were on our way to becoming citizens of this new world. Moreover, with books in hand, we listened, watched and learned about the songs and patterns of various birds, the tracks and droppings of unseen mammals, the weather patterns, and the flaming beauty of the mountain wild flowers.

In the spring of 1993 while some friends were over and we were digging the foundation for the Guest House (visiting friends is synonymous with free labor), we unearthed a three inch spearhead. I was immediately thrust into a state of rapture-- thousands of years of soil, of wars, revolutions, evolutions in thought and ideas, covered this tool as it lay moving deeper and deeper below the surface. And then, all of a sudden, it's in my hand! I'm touching the creation of another, of a land thousands of years old, of this land, now! We were later told that this jasper spearhead along with an obsidian arrowhead, that we were to later uncover 3 feet below the surface, was probably lost by a passing hunter. Like the hunter I was reminded that we were merely more footprints on the earth, leaving perhaps unknowingly our own traces to be found by someone in the future.

In 1996 we completed a third structure, the workshop/studio, all the while honing our skills with alternative construction and refining our winter survival skills (like, why didn't we build the garage first and avoid iced-over windows and frozen engines). In the meantime we were finding more and more people who wanted to see what we were doing. This was before Sage Mountain Center was officially operating. As the interest increased we began to open our facility up at regular intervals until finally, after continuous requests, we began offering workshops. This was the start of Sage Mountain Center's Sustainable Living branch.

Refining workshops and programs went on as we continued building the Main House. The Main House, which we now live in, is also the heart of SMC. It provides the space for visitors, workshops, meals, recreation, and general relaxation. Our energy is now shifting towards the Inner Growth and Physical Health branches of SMC. In their infancy now, these two branches will be equally shared with the third. In some ways, developing these two other branches will seem like a piece of cake compared to the sweat, blood, tears, elements, travel, and calluses that we experienced during our the first 14 years. Moreover, with SMC's three-fold approach materializing we are well on the road of our original journey to encouraging balance, inspiration, compassion, and inner freedom for those interested in this vision.