My name is Emily Phillips. For years it has been my intent to write to you, but here we are now, in perfect timing as I explain my intentions and story behind this new and exciting endeavor. Sacred Mountain Collections has been a dream in my heart for several years since 2016. It has taken years of cultivation, contemplation, and intentionality to uncover the full beauty of what it is meant to be, and to this day I am still learning.

As long as I can remember I have always been a creative. As a child there was hardly a time when there wasn’t something in my hands that I was making. Potholders, scarfs, paintings, and illustrated journal entries were a constant. When I grew older, creativity was still a passion, but it would come in spurts as life got a little busier. Months would go by and I would suddenly remember my passion and come back to it, and I would always be in amazement that so much time had gotten away from me.

Art was not all. Music was the true language of my expression. As a child, I dreamt of being a film composer, and my entire family had the obnoxious and joyous privilege of hearing those compositions fly out of my room and fill the entire house. The piano was my first love, and still my most trusted friend; however, my musical tool belt has expanded as cello and voice have become more recent cultivations. A similar pattern formed where time would drift away, and I asked myself “When was the last time I wrote a piece or learned a new song?” Immediately when I picked up the instrument it was a family reunion, and I I never wanted to be parted again.

I married young, at eighteen, to a wonderful, kind, and compassionate man, named Hunter. He is my best friend, and a constant joy in my life. A few years into marriage, we started adventuring through travel. When I was 20 we went on our first international trip. After that, it put a lifelong itch that can only be satisfied when your feet touch the ground of your intended destination. We were hooked, and I was in love. Culture, landscapes, language, expressions, it all touched a craving I never knew existed. First it was England, then Scotland. Romania came shortly after, and became such a gift that we couldn’t help but return a second time. Hawaii, Germany, California, Wyoming, it all happened so fast, and every where we went my heart grew. But the trip where it all changed, was on a mountaintop that had been familiar to me since childhood, where Sacred Mountain Collections came alive.

*“Romanced by Romania” by Emily Phillips*

*“Holy Island” in England by Emily Phillips*

I connect with the Lord a lot when I’m in nature, and specifically on hills. Sacred Mountain first came to me on a mountaintop in Wyoming, where my grandmother use to pray and contemplate. I stood on that mountain in 2016 with a dream before the bulk of my travels had even begun. I was a longing to never again hit a season of putting the pen down or the instrument away, but to always be engaged and awake. I was longing for something more but had no idea what. I was dissatisfied with the quality of my life, my relationships, the dry spells of creativity, and the fact that many others in my generation were experiencing the same. Everything felt stagnant and stale. But when I travelled, when I created, when I took the time to know people, really know people, I came alive.

“What if I could give people a space to cultivate their relationships? What if the world was awake, and could really feel alive all the time? What if?”. “What if” became a phrase that led me to years of digging and archiving, realizing that there are some things in life that no matter what generation you live in or are a part of, are sacred. What if there was a place, a value system, a way of living, that protected these interactions…These things that perhaps humanity has devalued, but does not realize? Thus, Sacred Mountain Collections was born in my heart. I began to seek out my own journey of how I could live in a modern age of technology, but still be fully present and actually happy with my life. I had hoped to start Sacred Mountain right away, but God had other plans.

*“Patrick of Inishmore” by Emily Phillips*

First, I had to go on my own journey. “What do I believe? What does living life to the fullest look like for me? How can I take people where I have never truly been myself?”. And so, I went on a journey, several journeys. This is when my husband and I began to travel, as nation hopping became my sheer delight. The library became my living room, creativity became more constant, and cultivation of relationships became a priority. A few years into this, I found myself on the Aran Islands of Ireland, riding on a horse and buggy with a man named Patrick. He spoke mainly Gaelic. He was fully engaged in connection with myself, my husband, and my fellow tour members. He lived on the island most of his life, with stone walls that divided the borders. One school, one pub, all surrounded by chilling winds that even the warmest sweater could not combat. We had reached the island by boat, where all of their resources came from, but none of this isolation mattered to Patrick, for look where he lived! Not only was where he lived beautiful and vibrant, but the quality of Patrick’s life was beautiful and vibrant. “What if” took on a whole new role. “What if I could I could live this joyful and content all the time?”. It was there that I had the revelation that put Sacred Mountain into words that I hope will launch you on your own journey of discovery. That no matter where you live, what generation you are from, you can choose to live however you want. You are not bound by the world that surrounds you, you get to dictate the quality and the quantity of your life, and if you choose to go on the journey, you can live as awake and present as you want. God bless you as you venture into a deeper, and more meaningful life on this earth. My prayer is that the nuggets of gold I’ve found in my time of cultivation, will become pivotal keystones that change you and the generations to come.

Here is to the journey,

-Emily Phillips

A Letter From The Architect: Emily Phillips