IN PERFECT TIMING

The History of Cluny

The history of Cluny includes, of course, Peter, Eileen and Dorothy managing it from 1957-62, but the Foundation’s history with it began on 17th November 1975, precisely 13 years after our founders left it to discover their next steps and followed their inner guidance. That inner listening led them to start the fabled garden, which attracted increasing numbers of visitors. As the spiritual community grew up around it, it needed more space for its next stage of development. Enter Cluny — as Eileen’s guidance prophesied, they would return to Cluny one day.

In perfect timing, as Peter’s autobiography is titled. And was it ever. Cluny had been losing money since the Caddys and Dorothy had left. The very day the hotel’s board of directors decided to sell, Peter had our solicitor call them to inquire if they were interested in selling. They were not only interested, but ready to sell at a bargain basement price that the Foundation, by then with a good credit record, could afford. We borrowed the £60,000 asking price from the bank. Again in perfect timing, the ‘power of one’ initiated a flood of visitors. In this case it was one book, The Magic of Findhorn, which came out that year. Cluny paid for itself within seven years. The rest is history.

After the coach party days of the first summer of 1976, Cluny became the Foundation’s main educational arm, and settled down to a more inner roar with a huge number of guests (there could be three Experience Weeks at once in summer: two at Cluny and one at The Park), and with a lot of soul growth taking place. There was also much personality-level action, but Cluny was a gentle mother, holding the space to nourish us on all levels.

I moved to The Park after a year or so, reconnecting with Cluny when I joined the Guest Department, in 1979 and 80, spending most of my summer weeks there. It was still being held well, I was happy to discover. Then I went back to the States for a year. I came back at the invitation of its focalisers, a slightly older couple, Kay and Floyd Tift, who wanted my maturity to complement the by then rather young membership at Cluny. I was greeted with a request to focalise the clean-up from the recent fire. Someone had set three deliberate fires in Cluny: the major one in the dining room, one in the main corridor, and one in the sanctuary. All were extinguished before causing any major structural damage, but there was considerable smoke damage. We had six weeks to clean up before our fall conference. Could we do it? Yes we could!

We left the clean-up of the sanctuary to that winter, but we got the main hallway, the main stairwell and the dining room ready. We took down the scaffolding and rolled up the tarpaulins and tidied up at 5pm on the Friday before the hordes descended the following morning, for just another week at Cluny….

To keep Cluny special, its members come together every three weeks or so in Family meetings, to discuss business and personal matters. This has created a powerful legacy of pulling together over the years. Members and department focalisers come and go, but a caring for the place remains, embodied in the Cluny Family meetings. It is something that Parkies with their more individualistic lifestyle, don’t have. And having been a member of both tribes, I know whereof I speak.

I was away from the Foundation for nearly eight years in the 90s. When I came back to Cluny, it still felt like coming home. And a feeling like that is hard to beat.

To wrap up this brief history of Cluny, I’ll mention some things that have happened during our time as its custodians. We installed all the showers, built the sauna and plunge pool, went through endless discussions regarding renovation, carefully upgraded the guest and members’ rooms, went through endless discussions. As for now, Cluny is a healthy, vibrant family with an excellent range of skills and ages. We recently suffered the loss of our shop, through financial difficulties at its homebase, the Phoenix. Cluny Reception now provides the one essential for our committed, service-oriented lives in Cluny: chocolate.

Stan Stanfield

Featured image  ©-Adriana-Sjan-Bijman