This article was first published in Network News Issue 20, Autumn 1999.
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CELEBRATING ANGELS, SPIRITS AND NATURE
Unprecedented. Overwhelming. Two words used by our Conference office team last week to describe the number of bookings thus far for our Easter 2000 conference on angels, spirits, and nature. More than seven months away, we have around 160 confirmed bookings. Moreover, the momentum of worldwide interest is increasing, and I and my colleagues in the Conference office and Accommodations office are receiving many phone calls, faxes, and emails—or should that be a-mails! Gosh, exciting and gratifying are three more words I’ll offer. I get emails such as, “I have waited 30 years to come to Findhorn and the essence of this conference draws me to your garden.” It is wonderful that so many want to come to a conference of this nature, and for me, it is gratifying that so many of you Stewards are coming. Resource People too. Not to mention a jolly good Findhorn Fellow or two.
Yesterday I was wandering through the gardens wistfully musing on how fast things have happened around this gathering of angels, spirits, and nature. The impulse at the first was inspired. I was walking down Pineridge with Jutta, my wife, around eighteen months ago. I started to tell her we should have a conference on angels and turned around to Helen Martin, who was behind us, and announced this to her as if it were fact. Both said yes, of course. I came into my office and Barbara Faro, who at the time was focalising another conference, stood in front of me and said we should have a conference on angels! By the end of that afternoon, I’d drafted a brief proposal, sent it to the Conference office, and carried on with my life. The yes came through within days. Gosh. (You must understand that for someone who is essentially a back-row person who has never talked in public or even stood on the floor of the Hall auditorium, this was a big gosh. Actually a gulp.) Then life got very interesting…
For someone who has long felt close to and interested in the angelic realms, and the angel of Findhorn especially, this angelic and human prompting was very welcome. For many moons, I had been inspired, fired by William Bloom’s brief article, Devas and Angels, in Alex Walker’s book, The Kingdom Within, in which he suggests the need for a more intentional grounded awareness here. “What is not so good is that Community members have tended not to study this angelic realm carefully. Maybe this has been a sensible caution against flakiness. Maybe Community members generally do not really believe in the angelic realm but go along with it in the same way that it is fine to go along with fairy tales and Jungian archetypes. But the reality is—and it is taught in all mystical, tribal, and esoteric traditions—that there is a parallel world of beings who cooperate with and are involved in every part and aspect of life.
… Some individuals in the Community understand and know all this in a very instinctive and intuitive way. It might be useful, however, in the coming years if this instinct and intuition were allowed to ground in a more intentional way. What might this look like? I am not sure. Perhaps a group that monitors angelic activity in the sanctuaries, gardens, education department, kitchens, power points, and so on. Simply giving these realities grounded awareness is enough to create a cooperative and stimulating relationship.”
Diana Cooper
As I say, for someone interested in and aware of the angelic realms, reading William’s words caused my imagination to take flight. Imagine the setting up of such a group(s) to monitor angelic activity in our departments, homes, Park, and Cluny, and at the various power points. Gosh. Of course, there are many here who work with angels, spirits, and nature spirits; yet even at Findhorn, it is still scary to talk about. Very much because it is a very personal, intimate experience, too. You have only to walk through the original vegetable garden to see that the spirit of co-creation is alive and vibrantly well today.
So, we have a conference and for me the conference begins now in the sense that one of the aims is to restimulate practical cooperation with and awareness of these realms as we move into the new millennium. Are there new forms of cooperation and celebration which we can develop today? Our (Findhorn’s) sandy roots are, of course, in devic awareness and co-creation. It is our heritage, and as we say in our conference flier, we are an international centre for demonstrating a new awareness of these realms. The expression, “the angel,” is commonplace here.
Barbara Swetina
I was very pleased when William Bloom agreed to co-focalise, co-create our conference. (Relieved too!) At the time I’d met him only through his books, writings, and talks, and his wisdom, down-to-earth approach to working with these realms, and raffish good humour, as well as his love for Findhorn and people, qualified him! He has helped bring together a wonderful team of international presenters and workshop leaders, all of whom work with angels and spirits on a daily basis. Prepare for some master classes! Almost everyone comments on the “wonderful line-up.” I’m delighted to say that our resident musical angel of love, Barbara Swetina, has joined our focalising team.
Perhaps I should emphasise the spirit and shamanic dimension of the conference. I am relishing R. J. Stewart’s talk on Western magical themes, and Sandra Ingerman’s, who has helped pioneer a Western understanding of shamanic healing and soul retrieval work. I must tell you that last week I co-focalised a Shamanic Consciousness workshop with Alexander Heybroek. Someone who lives here asked who the co-focaliser was. When told it was me, she exclaimed, “But, but he’s into angels!” Ne’er the twain shall meet.
Caitlin Matthews
As we prepare to turn the spotlight on the invisible world of these realms, we ask your continued goodwill and prayers. May our conference serve as a fountain of blessing for all. I have a feeling the angel of Findhorn is quietly delighted. (I have asked William to write more in the next issue of Network News.)
With angel love, of course,
Michael Hawkins
If my humanity I’d loose,
Which seduction would I choose?
The angels’ voice eternal in the stars,
Or faery folk, immortal mid the flowers?
The angels sing of boundless light and joy
And spirit’s flight to high rebirth,
The faery folk are in the land
And love the sacred earth.
The Faery Folk by R. J. Stewart
extracted from Angels, Fairies & Nature Spirits by William Bloom. Published by Piatkus.
Dorothy Maclean
“Welcome again! I have reached the corners of the earth and would continue to do so in the way most helpful to the planet. That, of course, is with love and with all the qualities of love, as an example of how humans can dedicate themselves and the whole and live in connection with their God-selves; in clarity, in commitment, in love, being helped by the intelligence of life, of nature, and of themselves, in service. This may sound impossible, but it is the goal of each human soul, and human souls are mighty! Accept the power of your love…”
The Angel of Findhorn communication to Dorothy Maclean.
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Photos: Findhorn Foundation
Illustration: Pamela Matthews
Michael lived in the Findhorn Community from 1992 to 2006, He met and married, Jutta Geissler, in the Park Sanctuary and Casper duly arrived in 2002.
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