Findhorn Scotland

Love in action

by Graham Meltzer

Findhorn ecovillage is one of the most comprehensively developed anywhere, which is why we’ve been called ‘the mother of all ecovillages’. We have evolved a holistic, integrated community model incorporating many ecological, social, cultural, economic and spiritual elements, such as: numerous shared buildings including a Community Centre that serves meals twice a day; a performing arts centre and visual arts centre; eco-housing of many different types (for example, attached, detached, mobile, straw, recycled); extensive gardens and a large food growing area; our own wind farm that produces roughly the amount of electricity we use; an on-site biological sewage treatment system; our own sustainably harvested woodland; a centralized woodchip boiler that distributes heat to more than a dozen community buildings; a carpool, shop and much more. We also have land and buildings elsewhere that render our range of resources even more comprehensive: Cluny Hill, five miles away (a 100-room late Victorian building that was once a hotel and spa) and a retreat house on the mystical west coast Isle of Iona. On the island of Erraid, next to Iona, we have a satellite community of a dozen or so members as well as workshop and guest facilities. A fleet of shuttle buses transports members and guests between these locations.

The Findhorn Foundation and Community, as we prefer to be known, began unintentionally in November 1962 when the three founders, Eileen Caddy, Peter Caddy and Dorothy Maclean first settled in Findhorn with the Caddys’ three children, Christopher, Jonathan and David. It could perhaps be said that a mini-community began ten years earlier when the three came together to deepen their shared spiritual journey, which was later to become the foundation stone of the community. In Peter’s words, “During the previous ten years every action of our lives had been directed by guidance from the voice of God within.” God spoke to them via messages that Eileen channelled in meditation, and so it was, after life harshly dumped them in the Findhorn Bay Caravan Park, that Eileen’s guidance continued to shape every aspect and determine every detail of their lives. Because they were flat broke, surviving only on Peter’s unemployment benefit of eight pounds per week, they started a garden in which to grow food. Soon after, Dorothy also began to receive messages, which she attributed to the plant kingdom. Through ‘inner listening’, she first contacted what she referred to as the deva or spirit of the garden pea, then went on to communicate with devas of many more plant species as well as elementals and unseen beings of different kinds. Most of these messages were practical—where, when and what to plant, how to make compost, and much more. Peter would enact the guidance, applying ‘work is love in action’ to develop the garden, all the while seeking to ‘co-create with the intelligence of nature’. Soon enough they began to enjoy remarkable success, growing an abundance of oversized, healthy organic produce in extremely unlikely conditions—barren soil in a very hostile environment. With the aid of modest publicity that Peter disseminated, visitors started arriving to see and experience what was going on. Some of them stayed on and, as they say, the rest is history. Even though the founders never intended or even imagined founding a community, one formed around them...and it grew, and it grew. From then until the present day, Findhorn community members have continued to experience extraordinary connection and interaction with unseen elements of the natural world and what is called ‘the subtle realms’. These days, we are both a spiritual community premised on the three basic tenets established by our founders (i.e., inner listening, work as love in action, and co-creation with nature) and an ecovillage. We began as just the former, and adopted the latter identity in the 1980s. I think it’s fair to say that we have a kind of dual personality—we see ourselves and are viewed by others as either or both a spiritual community and an ecovillage. For the most part, these two aspects of our culture co-exist in harmony. It’s been said that they are two sides of the one coin. As our identity has matured through the 1990s and into the new millennium we’ve applied more and more effort to living sustainably, replacing the ageing caravans with energy efficient and healthy buildings, producing more of our own renewable energy and substantially reducing our carbon footprint.

From top: Strawbale house, the only one in The Park; highly crafted eco-houses built from local stone; Traigh Bhan, retreat house on the Isle of Iona.

Location: Northeast Scotland

Established: 1962

Area: 180 ha (445 ac), 80 ha (198 ac) nature reserve (coastal dune system), 16 ha (40 ac) forest, 4 ha (10 ac) agriculture, 20 ha (50 ac) housing and village.

Population: About 250 permanent residents with up to 300 additional visitors for workshops, conferences and events.

Housing: 60 detached houses, 30 row houses, 10 apartments, 30 residential caravans and 10 ecomobiles. Included are two cohousing projects of 25 and 6 households.

Common facilities: Community Centre, Visitor Centre, performance and visual arts centres, ecological housing, wind farm, biological sewage system, biomass boilers, gardens, food production, sustainably managed woodland, carshare, B&Bs, craft studios, offices and business premises, workshop and teaching rooms, meditation sanctuaries, whole food and craft shop.

Wind farm comprising four wind generators totalling 750 kW.

Today, some 700 members live in and around The Park, as the main ecovillage campus is called. The community is diverse in its demography, complex in its organization and rich in its social and cultural milieu. For various reasons, we have never had a single master plan for the development of housing, community buildings and infrastructure, although there have been numerous less formal development plans involving a plethora of architects, planners and member consultation processes. We inherited a caravan park full of unhealthy, unsustainable buildings—caravans being very poorly insulated and ventilated. Many of them still exist, well past their use-by date. Historically, the village has evolved in an ad hoc manner, according to ‘God’s will’ some would say, but also as a result of the everchanging flow of people and resources that have come through here over time. Design and development decisions have often been made in the same way that most of our other decisions are made i.e., by ‘attunement’, which is a facet of our spiritual practice here. This too, contributes to the non-linearity of our development process.

An attunement is a mini-meditation of sorts. We ‘tune in’ to our inner wisdom in meditation and are guided by what emerges. The concept was developed at Findhorn in the 1970s by David Spangler, sometimes referred to as the fourth founder of our community. Attunement, he says, requires a ‘repatterning of one’s inner state so as to align or connect with spirit’. It involves shifting consciousness to allow greater sensitivity and openness to subtle phenomena. In Findhorn we utilize attunement many times a day, sitting with colleagues in silence for a few minutes before beginning a work shift or meeting, for example. I’m very much reminded in these moments of the core purpose of our community established by Peter, Eileen and Dorothy some 50 years ago, which is to build a ‘transformational field’. ‘Going within’ is probably the most quintessential aspect of the culture here in the Findhorn Foundation and Community.

Nature Sanctuary, a meditation space built from found and salvaged materials.

“Why do we need time at the sanctuary?

... It is a place where we can come together collectively to consciously generate the energies of love, light, peace, joy, wisdom and divine power, which we do in silence. Then at the end these energies can be sent out, not only to those around us or to the community alone, but to the world. This is where we become ‘world servers’ and link up with the ‘network of light’.”

Eileen Caddy

Changing the world one heart at a time

We generally welcome anyone and everyone into the community, no matter what their background or belief system. This is both our greatest advantage (because it brings variety) and our biggest challenge (it can cause disharmony). But in my opinion, it’s what makes being in our community such a joy on a minute-to-minute, day-to-day basis. It delivers a much-cherished richness to our social and cultural life.

In economic terms, the community comprises numerous different organizations: charities, non-profits, for profits and social enterprises of all kinds—from freelance artists to solar panel manufacturers, building companies to the whole foods and craft shop. Findhorn has its own local currency (the EKO) that many of our community businesses accept in place of the pound sterling. The original and largest organization is the Findhorn Foundation, an educational charity that holds most of the workshops, conferences and events and owns most of the community land and buildings. The Foundation runs programmes continuously throughout the year, hosting some 4,000 residential guests annually, many of whom undergo profound life-changing experiences. We are, as we like to say, ‘changing the world one heart at a time’.

Cluny Hill, workshop centre and accommodation for members and guests.

Up until 2017 the Foundation was an income sharing or egalitarian subset of the community as a whole, i.e. its 100+ staff received exactly the same financial remuneration irrespective of their role or contribution. We are now exploring paying people with more responsibility and long-term commitment a slightly higher rate. Outside the Foundation, community members make their living in a variety of ways. Some are employed, many are teachers, therapists and craftspersons and others are retired. In this, and most else, we are very diverse.

The Foundation and the community have together developed over many years what we call the Common Ground. The Findhorn Foundation website states that the Common Ground is ‘a living document, a code of conduct, and used as a tool for transformation for ourselves, the community and the world’. It lists 14 agreements that represent values to which we all hold: spiritual practice, service, personal growth, personal integrity, respecting others, direct communication, reflection, responsibility, non-violence, perspective, co-operation, peacekeeping, agreements and commitment. One way or another, everyone joining the community will at some point sign up to these agreements.

The ‘magic of Findhorn’

There are three main aspects that I most appreciate about my life in Findhorn: the people, the place and the culture. By far the most important is the people, or more specifically, my relationships with them, fashioned as they are by the Common Ground. The place and the culture, to my mind, provide the context for those relationships. The integration of people, place and culture can result in a deeply embodied experience of what I can only describe as a ‘field of love’. I often feel as if I’m immersed in a culture where love is freely, constantly and generously expressed. Our core spiritual aspirations are open-heartedness and consciousness. If we humans interrelate thoughtfully and with an open heart, then magic happens—defences are dropped, aggression melts away and space opens for compassion, empathy and love to flow. This is the ‘magic of Findhorn’ as far as I’m concerned.

Living Machine, a biological sewage treatment plant, and Cullerne Gardens, food production in polytunnels.

Work is love in action

I believe that shared meals are the single most important ‘ritual’ in the daily life of almost all intentional communities. Certainly, at Findhorn, our community meals (available twice daily) are central to the culture and a critical component of the social glue. Of course there is something powerfully symbolic about sharing a meal, both with members of one’s ‘tribe’ and with guests. I am no anthropologist but I would guess that ‘breaking bread’ holds this value (and has forever done so) for almost every cultural group, anywhere in the world. Our kitchen staff dream up and produce fabulous meals in our Community Centre. The food is vegetarian and the ingredients are, as much as we can make them, fresh, organic, local and seasonal. There are always dairy-free, gluten-free and sugar-free alternatives. It fills me with pride in my community to be reminded at every meal just how much trouble we take to cater for diversity, to meet the needs of every individual, and in this way, demonstrate inclusivity and caring for each other. Our community meals are prepared with love—the kitchen crews demonstrate our key ethos, ‘work is love in action,’ every single shift. In Findhorn, we believe that human values such as love and connection, and spiritual values such as the unity of everything, are more important than things material, particularly the accumulation of material things. In contemporary society, there is a burgeoning phenomenon called the ‘sharing economy’ or ‘collaborative consumption’. One value of sharing is people connecting—it builds social capital; it brings people together; it makes people happier. A sustainable society is also one in which we choose positive behaviours that make us feel happier, more connected and more disposed to help others. At Findhorn we already do a lot of this kind of sharing. We collectively own land, numerous community buildings and facilities. Many community members, myself included, are able to live in smaller dwellings because we share communal facilities such as laundry, guest rooms, office and workshop space.

From top: Universal Hall, recycled whisky barrel house, 50th birthday gathering.

When I need a car for a short journey, I can choose from the vehicles in our community carpool. The carpool has about 100 community members (and a few non-community members) who currently share 14 vehicles including three that are fully electric.

Our cultural life is a key ingredient of the community glue here, along with our spirituality and ecological concerns and practices. These three lifestyle strains are separate and distinct, but also blend together beautifully to help build community and strengthen relationships. Cultural life in Findhorn can be as full and rich as one wishes it to be. Most creative activities occur on campus. We’re a community that loves to dance and we enjoy regular sessions, classes and workshops in many dance forms, for example 5 Rhythms, contact improvisation, sacred dance, traditional Scottish dancing, Biodanza, trance dance and disco. All of these forms are celebrations of life, love and the joy of being human. The purpose is to enjoy dancing together in a non-competitive way, to learn that it is possible for everyone to dance together, to feel self-confident in a group that is supportive rather than critical, and to feel in contact with the Earth, spirit and each other through the different qualities of each dance. It is also used as a tool to channel healing energy for the dancers and for the rest of the planet.

The ecomobile home

Ten years ago, I had the privilege of designing and building my home. It’s what we call an ‘ecomobile,’ i.e., a residential building built to the regulations governing caravans and mobile homes, but built in situ with a high ecological specification. The house is a vehicle for sustainable living. Designed for a single person or a couple, it offers high levels of comfort and amenity whilst enabling the occupants to minimize their environmental footprint. The building is about half the size (per person) of the average UK dwelling. Small dwellings require fewer materials to construct, less energy to heat, and can hold less ‘stuff’. Beyond material considerations, however, it offers a supportive setting for ‘voluntary simplicity’—a less consumerist, more conscious and environmentally benign lifestyle characterized by ease and beauty.

The building is located in an area of high ecological value and sensitivity where full-grown specimen trees form a nature corridor linking two areas of wildlife habitat. Because the building has a small footprint and ‘touches the ground lightly’ (resting as it does on just a few pad footings), it can be set amongst the trees with minimal impact. The house is designed as a space of retreat, a place of psychological and spiritual nurture. For most of us who work in the Findhorn Foundation, community life is very busy, often intense. Every day we interact closely with guests, many of whom we meet as strangers. This can be very demanding and of course also very rewarding, but for me, it requires a place to return to in the evening where I can recharge my batteries. My home provides the setting for a contemplative life; a place where body, mind and soul may find peace.