The Findhorn feeling
Scottish eco-village offers visitors the experience of connecting with themselves and the land
I used to make my living reporting the news. Lately, I’ve been doing my best to ignore the news completely. Maybe you can relate.
Among other things, of course, the world has recently teetered on the brink of nuclear war, the president of the United States is routinely caught lying to the media, and the earth’s temperature is so hot, the polar ice caps are melting. As dear departed Dad would say, “The world has gone to hell in a hand basket.” Heck, life in general can be enough to make us lose our grip.
Many of us have stressful jobs. Technology beeps at us from morning till night; traffic makes us crazy; we eat too much and we sleep too little. It’s enough to make us scream: “Enough!”
That’s exactly what I found myself doing not long ago. I had just finished postgrad studies in a field known as workplace wellness and health promotion. Ironically, long days of commuting to class on the GO Train and long nights of working on assignments had left me decidedly unhealthy. I felt burned out. I was looking for a way to disconnect from the world in order to reconnect with myself. Again, maybe you can relate. Instinctively, I jumped online to do some research, which led to more research, which led to booking a plane ticket.
Destination: Northeast Scotland and the Findhorn Foundation — a world-renowned eco-village, holistic education centre and spiritual community.
Sound a little hippie-dippie? I hear you. All I know is that it resonated with me on every level. I felt drawn to it. The feeling was powerful, and the more that I felt it, the more I knew I had to go.
I first heard about the foundation years ago from a friend of mine. We had both studied to be yoga and meditation teachers, and were fans of mindfulness and simple living. My friend had a hunch I might feel at home at Findhorn, surrounded by nature instead of the trappings of city life. It sounded intriguing. It also sounded like it had the potential to be a little “out there.”
I had to wonder — would we all be holding hands and belting out a chorus of “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing”? And even if we were, would that really be such a bad thing? I made a mental note to check it out. Fast forward a few years, and finally, the timing felt right. “Findhorn might be just what the doctor ordered,” I thought to myself.
A magical place
Google it and you’ll discover it’s another world. Less than an hour from Inverness, the foundation is perched on the coast of the majestic North Sea. It’s a community that is often described by visitors as magical — where people live and work together with nature to “co-create” everything from abundant gardens to a biological water treatment system to wind turbines that generate clean energy.
The eco-village even produces its own currency, the “Eko.” Call it a social experiment in how to do things differently. Life there is slow, simple and sustainable — not a traffic jam in sight.
What you will find are things like morning meditation and choral singalongs, walks on the beach, strolls through the forest, healthy vegetarian and vegan meals, and workshops of all descriptions. Study anything from permaculture design and eco-village life to the healing powers of mindfulness to courses on personal transformation. And if truly “getting away from it all” is what you need, there are also retreats to the remote islands of Iona and Erraid on Scotland’s west coast.
Decision made, I packed my backpack. It seemed like the best kind of adventure was about to unfold. I’d be meeting people from all over the world, eating healthy organic foods and gaining fresh insights into how to live a balanced life.
Fascinating history
But that wasn’t all I’d be learning about. The Findhorn Foundation also has a fascinating history, dating back 56 years. In 1962, British husband and wife Peter and Eileen Caddy, along with their Canadian friend Dorothy Maclean, had just been fired from their jobs managing a hotel in the Scottish town of Forres. With nowhere else to go, they took the three Caddy children to the coastal village of Findhorn — a few kilometres away — and set up camp in a trailer on the sand dunes. They were living on unemployment insurance. They had no idea how to grow the food they needed to survive. But so the story goes, all that changed when Dorothy Maclean began tapping into a spiritual energy that guided the group’s efforts in the garden. She said she was communicating with and “co-creating” with “nature spirits” and “plant devas.” Born in Guelph, Ont., Maclean lives at Findhorn to this day.
Bizarre? Maybe.
Facts, however, are facts. This merry band of pioneers turned the sand that surrounded them into rich soil that grew 40-pound cabbages along with a stunning array of other vegetables and flowers. Horticulture experts were baffled. As word of the feat spread, newcomers flocked to join what was slowly becoming a model for sustainability and spirituality. The magic of Findhorn was born.
‘Experience Week’
I got my first taste of this magic through an introductory course known as “Experience Week” — a seven-day sampler that draws hundreds of people from around the world each year. The tuition is set on a sliding scale according to your financial resources; you simply choose what you feel you can afford to pay. Current tuition fees start at 490 GBP ($850 CAD), followed by 610 GBP ($1,060 CAD) and 780 GBP ($1,350 CAD). The idea is to “attune” to what is right for you. As an added bonus, scholarships are available based on financial need. It’s all part of the Foundation’s mission to spread what it calls the “transformation of human consciousness in everyday life.”
Registration complete, I was ready to go. As my plane landed at Inverness Airport, I felt a surge of anticipation. I couldn’t grab my backpack from the luggage carousel fast enough. Even now, I recall the smile I had on my face as I bounded across the parking lot and hopped into a taxi. I felt as if the stars were about to align.
The taxi driver seemed like a shorter, bald version of comedian Craig Ferguson to me: Scottish to the core and happy to entertain. We drove through the rolling countryside and eventually turned off the highway and into the grounds of the Findhorn Foundation. Thanks to a huge billboard at the entrance, you couldn’t miss it.
Eco-village
First order of business? Getting acquainted with this place — one of the largest eco-villages in Europe. Hurriedly, I tossed my backpack onto the ground in front of the nearby community centre and took a stroll down the main street — a former airplane runway for the local RAF base during the Second World War. Looking up, I smiled. Ten feet ahead of me was a red traffic sign that said “STOP … worrying.” I knew I had come to the right place.
A few minutes later, I was sitting in the community centre around a varnished wooden table with seven other classmates: a business person from Australia, a jazz singer from Switzerland, an airline pilot from Germany, a geologist, also from Germany, a student from Austria, a store manager from Japan and an at-risk teen from the U.K. We were all a little nervous, I think, about the journey we were about to begin.
Our Experience Week course was led, or “focalised,” as they say at Find-
horn, by one of the original pioneers there, Craig Gibsone — a renowned permaculturist and potter from Australia. Gibsone is the perfect combination of 1960s activist and regular guy — in tune with both himself and the land. His co-focaliser that week was a longtime journalist from South Africa, Geoff Dalglish. Almost a decade earlier, Dalglish had exchanged his adrenalin rush of a career as an automotive writer and race car driver for the simpler rhythms of Findhorn.
One thing I was sure of: life was about to get very interesting. Room allotments were the first task of the day. There are several kinds of accommodation available for guests at Findhorn. Usually, Experience Week students share double or quad rooms at the Cluny Hill campus in the town of Forres. Cluny Hill is a grand old three-storey hotel dating back to the 1800s. In fact, it’s the same hotel from which Peter and Eileen Caddy and Dorothy Maclean were fired.
In a curious display of karma, the Findhorn Foundation had the chance to buy Cluny Hill for pennies on the dollar in 1975, and transformed it into the sprawling campus it is today. The building features a stately dining room, a lounge filled with couches and chairs for reading and conversation, a glorious herb garden, a flower garden and a bubbling water pond. The guest rooms are no-frills, but they don’t feel austere. Each floor features shared bathrooms, tubs and showers. And for those who like to explore, the town of Forres, and its grocery stores and cafés, is a 10minute walk away.
As luck would have it during our Experience Week, a hugely popular workshop was scheduled at Findhorn. As a result, all the rooms at Cluny Hill were booked. To our delight, my seven classmates and I were assigned to share a couple of energy-efficient cabins in the eco-village (officially known as “The Park”). My roomies? The pilot from Germany and the student from Austria. Andrea and Annette and I became a little community — all part of the grand design of the program.
Yes, there were conflicts now and then. One of us, for example, was an early riser — the rest were not. Noise in the kitchen at 5 a.m. didn’t lead to the best of roommate relations. But some of our biggest lessons came from learning to deal with conflict in a direct, respectful way. We were asked to settle any issues among ourselves, and we did. It wasn’t easy; in fact, it was downright uncomfortable from time to time. If there’s anything I learned at Findhorn, it’s that growth is usually, if not always, uncomfortable. Imagine a seed planted in the soil. It’s dark. It’s cold. It’s — uncomfortable. But eventually that seed blossoms into something beautiful. And so do we.
Another opportunity for growth? Breakfast. Findhorn
keeps its guest breakfast supplies at The Park in a little blue garden shed. We took turns picking up groceries for our group — everything from organic dry cereal and bread to eggs, apples, oranges, tea, coffee and rice milk. Each morning, we chose our own simple foods, prepared them in our kitchen and sat down at the table in the adjoining sunroom to eat. I was reminded of something I must have known on some level all along: simple living leads to deep appreciation for what is. Slowing down is a delight. With no distractions, we could focus on enjoying our food and each other. We had long, meandering conversations that were rich and fun and filled with insights. Growth.
Another plus? There are no alarm clocks at Findhorn. We relied on our body clocks instead. Attuning to the rhythms of nature became part of our daily routine. We rose with the sun, ate together, sipped lemon tea and listened to the music of the birds as they warbled in the trees above us. It was a sharp contrast to the pace of daily living I knew. I wondered if I could recreate this simple life for myself amid the hustle and bustle of home. I hoped so.
After breakfast, our assignment was to connect with nature and ourselves. We could attend a 30-minute group meditation, join a choral singalong known as “Taizé,” or simply relax and walk through the forest or along the beach on the North Sea. I love variety, so I did a bit of everything. It was a refreshing new routine and a godsend for me.
Findhorn reminded me in the most wonderful way that we are all connected — people, plants, animals, water, earth and air. We are all part of the same field of energy — the same universal consciousness. The more we connect with everything around us, the more we co-exist in harmony, the healthier we feel. This new routine was soothing and grounding; it just plain felt good. I wanted to take it home in my backpack.
Back to nature
To no one’s surprise, nature was a recurring theme. Our first day at The Park included a tour of the grounds. There were dozens of varieties of flowers to explore in the gardens, along with holly trees, towering pines, and greenhouses or “polytunnels” filled with fresh produce. The vegetables were harvested and used by the kitchen staff and volunteers to prepare our holistic meals at lunch and dinner.
And what meals they were. Vibrant, colourful and brimming with energy. Vegetarian and vegan dishes galore, with gluten free options, too. Ask any Experience Week student and they will tell you that one of the daily highlights was their first glimpse of the buffet table at lunch and dinner.
The Findhorn chefs and souschefs prepared giant bowls of kale, lentils, carrots, green salads and dressings, rice, eggs, pasta dishes, nuts and seeds. We helped ourselves to nutritious bean and root vegetable soups, fresh breads, water and teas, and when we were lucky, the occasional brownie or freshly-baked scone for dessert.
Before filling our plates, we stood in a circle around the table with the rest of the community members and clasped hands as the chef blessed the food and the people who grew and prepared it. Heaven. Really.
After lunch, it was back to class. Sometimes, class involved rolling up our sleeves and getting down to work. But first, we were all invited to slow down, take a breath and notice the gifts that our day had to offer. Such a simple act, and yet so revolutionary in this “go-go-go” world of ours.
We sat in a circle beside one another, gazing at an eight-inch white candle on a table in the centre of the room. The candle was surrounded by a wreath of fresh flowers in gorgeous hues of pink, green and violet. It was simple, natural, beautiful … yet something we all might have taken for granted in our daily lives at home.
After the flame was lit, we closed our eyes, attuned to ourselves and the energy around us, and then did a very “Findhorn” thing: we invoked our angels — our spiritual partners — our guidance from the unseen realms. “Co-creation” Findhornstyle is all about working together in the physical world with our allies in the spiritual one.
Angel cards
Some days in our circle, we each drew from a special deck of “angel cards” famously created by two of the early residents of the Findhorn community. The cards are wildly popular and still sold today at the gift shop in The Park. Each one bears an illustration of a different angel and a single word of inspiration: freedom, grace, abundance, resilience, joy. The idea? To ponder your angel’s message and notice how it might show up in your life that day. I remember drawing the “Surrender” card. I closed my eyes and smiled as I thought about the things in my life I was trying to control. The gardens at Findhorn had taught me that nature doesn’t control, it doesn’t force; it just allows.
Flowers blossom when the time is right. Trees bear fruit when they’re ready. Still smiling, I took a deep breath and exhaled. Hard. It felt good to let go.
Angel cards drawn now, it was time for work. One of the guiding principles at Findhorn is the belief that “work is love in action.” So work and love, we did. Some of us sliced and diced vegetables in the kitchen, some weeded the gardens, while others gave the housekeeping and maintenance teams a hand. It was a lesson in co-operation, and it reminded me that life is a team sport — at Findhorn or wherever we may be.
And while there was plenty of work, there was plenty of play, too. One afternoon, we might be touring “The Living Machine” — the biological waste water treatment system at The Park. The next, we might be hopping into a van and heading for the River Findhorn and a hiker’s paradise called “Randolph’s Leap.” The day after that, we might be discovering Findhorn’s famed “whisky barrel houses” — built from the discarded wooden barrels of a local distillery. Then, there were the games — followed group discussions that often led to lightbulb moments.
One of my favourite Findhorn games is called “Cars.” Each person in the group chooses a partner. One of us is the car; the other is the driver. My partner was a small but mighty woman from Japan named Yuko. In my role as the car, I closed my eyes and trusted Yuko to push me from behind and “drive” me around the room. It was a bit scary at first, but gradually I relaxed — secure in the knowledge that I was safe, that we wouldn’t collide with anyone else, and that Yuko would take me exactly where I needed to go.
Lightbulb moment
My lightbulb moment, of course, came when I realized afterwards that “Cars” is a metaphor for life. Each one of us has an internal GPS. It’s called our intuition, and it guides us along our path. If only we would tune in to it, trust that all is well, and that life is taking us exactly where we need to go, it could all be so much easier.
As we zoomed across the floor, I learned to let go and allow my GPS to guide me. It was like building a muscle at the gym: the longer I did it, the stronger I became. Little by little, I discovered how much easier it was to feel my way through life instead of think my way through. Findhorn refers to this as “inner listening” — another pillar of the Foundation’s guiding principles. It is my most treasured souvenir of Experience Week.
On the final day of the program, my class hiked to the beach to celebrate. We were all in a reflective mood. Sitting on the sand, I dug my toes between the stones, gazed out at the powerful waves and the rugged sky, and silently connected with all of them … with universal consciousness … and with the spirit inside myself, too.
Findhorn taught me to do that. It taught me to feel my way.
My internal GPS had led me and my soul here for a reason. I’ll never be able to thank it enough.