Part 1
I first read Paul Hawken’s (1976) “The Magic of Findhorn” in the late 1970s and was duly inspired. A few years later, in about 1980, I was running a stand at the Mind-Body-Spirit Festival in London and the next door stand was the Findhorn Foundation stand. When I had an hour free, I managed to get to a talk by Peter Caddy – also inspiring. Again, a couple of years later, I decided to come to a Family Experience Week with my eldest daughter, who was 6. It was being run at Cluny Hill College. I was again very impressed by the week and made a connection with the woman running the Children’s Programme, who had ‘fallen in love’ with my daughter. Inspired by all this, and by a talk by Eileen Caddy (during which I had an altered state of consciousness) when in the train going back to London, I wrote her a letter saying “Thank You”. I also found myself writing the words “I have just had a vision of having a child with you”. Rather surprisingly, I left the words in the letter, which arrived on her birthday, and coincided with a vision that she had had whilst babysitting my daughter in Cluny Lounge during the talk by Eileen Caddy, just above. Matters developed and to cut a story short, she came down to London and lived with me. At that time (1979-1983), I was in a professional training course in Body Psychotherapy and I then started working in psychiatric hostels and working privately as a psychotherapist. Our daughter was born a couple of years later, and in 1986, we decided to return to Findhorn with our daughter (then about 3).

Part 2
We decided to live in our own accommodation in Findhorn village, on the edge of the Foundation. At that time, there were only about 40 people living ‘outside’ the Foundation, but still being involved with it. I started working part-time for the Foundation and part-time professionally as a psychotherapist, working at Minton House. I organised a children’s playgroup in the Park for our daughter and several other children of a similar age, employing someone to run the sessions, and this ran for several years. Soon afterwards, my partner and I separated. And – sitting in the Station House Sauna one night, thinking out another failed relationship – the thought came to me: “That was the experience of being chosen by a child: You and You at Findhorn”. Once she had successfully arrived, the glue of the relationship melted and we were ‘free’ to go our own ways. A nice justification, perhaps. But I stick to it and told this story at her wedding a few years ago.

Part 3
So, what was I doing now supposed to be doing at Findhorn? In 1987, I decided to do the 3-month Orientation programme, during which I had a number of ‘inner’ experiences that further opened me up (so to speak) to what I can only call ‘Spirit’. I arranged so that my half-time work for the Foundation covered my food and accommodation at The Park, which left me free to continue working professionally as a psychotherapist. I started working in the Park Garden and then shifted to re-furbishing the Sanctuary, then helping to build Craig & Christa’s barrel, and doing some work on the foundations of the 1st windmill, Moya. My psychotherapy work shifted to working more transpersonally and also dealing with people in crisis and what came to be known as ‘Spiritual Emergencies’ (a phrase borrowed from Stan Grof and Holotropic Breathwork). I started writing a manual for people in the Foundation, which later became published as “First Contacts with People in Crisis and Spiritual Emergencies” (AuthorHouse, 2011).

We started building houses in Bag End: Ian’s first, then Meridian and Treya, as well as Rose of the Heart and Eileen’s house (near the Community Centre). I helped lay out the foundations for all of these in 1990-1991. By then we had a team of builders, about 25 strong, a small truck, and a lot of sponsored tools and equipment. It was really hard physical work and “builder’s portions” became a frequent call at the CC kitchen hatch. I went on a Construction Site Safety course in Inverness for a week and then took on that role, as well, in the new Building Department which John Talbott ‘focalised’ with Patrick Nash doing the all the office admin, accounts and ordering.

During this period, I was also on various committees of psychotherapy associations and organising psychotherapy conferences ‘down south’, mainly to enable me to keep in contact with my 3 elder children from my 1st marriage. I went down to London for about 4 days every month. This stream of work, parallel to my life at Findhorn, was almost surreal, establishing the profession of psychotherapy in Britain with top-notch psychologists, psychiatrists etc. and then – a day or so later – holding hands and doing Chi Gung exercises every morning with all the Park builders.

I was invited to America for the first time to present at a conference about SPiritual Emergencies with Armold Mindell and Stan Grof in Monterey, California and had a nice month’s holiday travelling up and down the West Coast from Seattle to Big Sur, visiting Esalen as well as a couple of other communities like Findhorn.

Part 4
In 1992, the European Union brought in a whole package of Health and Safety Regulations for People at Work. It became clear that these also applied to the work at the Foundation and having had an accident to my hand (losing half a finger), became nominated to be the Foundation’s Health & Safety Officer. Another bit of surreality, getting a bunch of New Age hippies to take on the concept that following Health & Safety Guidelines was another form of spiritual practice – looking after themselves, others and the planet.

This role dominated most of the rest of my life at Findhorn, though I also – as everybody did – did many other things: I drove buses; was a Night Porter; did Boundary Walks; operated the film projector in the lighting booth in the Universal Hall; focalised the Park Christmas dinners; helped the beginnings of the Findhorn Alternative Medicine Health Practitioners group; and helped write the NFA’s “Common Ground”. I also sailed my Mirror sailing dinghy on Findhorn Bay (as well as using other boats); enjoyed the Station House sauna and Roger Doudna’s various hot tubs; and “chopped wood and carried water” – being all part of a spiritual life. I stayed at Findhorn for 17 years, seeing this period as a process of “re-parenting” myself in a somewhat less dysfunctional family than my family of origin.

I think that’s enough for the moment.

Courtenay Young