How did I first come upon the Findhorn Foundation? Well, it began when the youngest of my four daughters was three years old and had started at a morning playgroup. This gave me a few hours to myself for the first time in a long time.

On that very first day, after dropping her off at the play group, I came home, sat down, and immediately got this inner voice saying, “Pick up your pen and write”. So I did. I wrote and wrote. When I looked at the clock again, I had ten minutes before having to leave to collect her.

At that moment, an envelope was delivered by the postman. I opened it, and inside was the book God Spoke to Me. It was almost identical to what I had just been writing! I can’t remember how I came to have that book delivered but I guess that I might have sent for something. The coincidence certainly caught my attention and it affirmed all that I had written…

This was in the early 1970s when the evolutionary pulse that carries us onward and upward seemed to be pushing us forward in a larger wave than hitherto. I became very involved with others who were thinking in visionary ways, which included an increasing deeper spiritual awareness, the birth of ecology and a holistic world view. Interestingly, George [Trevelyan] started the Wrekin Trust in 1971, unbeknownst to me at the time. And of course in time, I became very involved with his work.

Knowing of the existence of ‘Findhorn’, which was demonstrating how this new awareness was being lived, together with some friends we purchased a small organic farm in Dorset and set up The Bridge Trust. We called it that, as we felt we needed to create a bridge, something down to earth that would ground the vision of the ‘new consciousness’ coming out of ‘Findhorn’ into a practical reality whilst also reaching out to higher levels.

Then a man named Tom Welsh, who was farming in Devon, came to see us. Eventually, he invited me up to Findhorn to attended the first conference to be held in the Universal Hall after it was finished. It was entitled World Crisis and the Wholeness of life, and was focalised by Tom Welch and Roger Doudna.

I got very interested and returned for a conference on Intuition, where I got to know Peter Russell. He wasn’t as well-known then as he is now.

I also came up for a few workshops, though I didn’t do Experience Week until much later. In the 1990s I got involved in a group pursuing “Soul in Education” and in 2000, with help from Mari Hollander, we put on the Soul in Education conference. This sparked a series of conferences in Hawaii, South Africa, USA, Hungary, Australia on the same theme.

It was around that time that I met with Judith Berry and her friend Joycelin Dawes. I had been on the academic staff of the Open University since its first student intake in 1971 and, after working on the undergraduate programme, I had joined the department for Community Education and thought that a collaboration with the Findhorn Foundation could be a good possibility. So we invited five people from the OU and five from ‘Findhorn’ to a weekend at the Coach House retreat centre near Inverness and whilst the collaboration never quite happened as envisaged, a group came together to design a personal development programme for which the Findhorn Foundation generously provided some funding.

“The Quest: Exploring a Sense of Soul” took several years in the writing. However, with Ike Isaksen, we completed it and the first edition was published in an A4 paperback version in the early 2000s. Several versions later it was published as a paperback by O-Books. Meantime one Foundation member, Malcolm Hollick, dreamed of the educational material that had been produced being taken seriously in an academic way and so the Findhorn College began with a semester of students from the USA.

Then in 2012, I was part of a small team working on the Easter conference entitled Into Christ Consciousness which I co-focalised with Gillian Paschkes-Bell. This was promoted by CANA (a grouping that had started in 1991, growing out of the original Bridge Trust for “Christians Awakening to New Awareness”) and attracted a large gathering to which Matthew Fox, author of “Original Blessing” asked to take part.

I joined the group of Findhorn Foundation trustees in 1999. I had been closely connected with William Bloom and his wife Sabrina for several years when William rung to say “We’re looking for another trustee; I think you’d be good.” I was already a trustee for several other organisations and knew what was needed. I very much enjoyed serving as a trustee until 2012 when it felt important to resign and make way for others.

After that, I joined the Findhorn Fellows organised by Roger Dounda. I remember my first Fellows’ weekend meeting. Before I went, I was in meditation at home and was told, out of the blue: “Please, would you organise a conference on Co-creating the New Story?” I sat in the gathering, and as people were sharing what they were doing, my inner voice said, “Wait, let it come from someone else.” At about four o’clock on the second day, Elisabet Sahtouris, the evolutionary biologist said, “I think what we need is a conference on co-creating the new story.” “Elisabet you are right“, I said and suggested that all those interested should have supper together. That evening 12 of us met for supper and the plans were set in motion. Richard Olivier offered to be the artistic director and Yvonne Cuneo acted as a brilliant organiser. It took a year and a half to organise. We eventually changed the name to The New Story Summit because we realised that the “New Story” was popping up all over the world. There turned out to be over 300 people and I think it was one of the largest conferences held in the Park Ecovillage. It took place from 27 Sept – 3 Oct 2014, and I think it helped to initiate a new paradigm of oneness and the deep interconnectedness of all life. That was the last time I was at Findhorn, until my recent visit in 2026.

Conferences at Findhorn were milestones, they influenced the Community’s unfolding. There’s a quote from Teilhard de Chardin to the effect that once an idea enters even one human mind, it will inevitably create an effect. From a global perspective, both the endeavours at ‘Findhorn’ and these conferences pioneered steps in the evolution of humanity.

Janice Dolley