This article was previously published in the Findhorn Foundation brochure in 2006.

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When I first joined the Findhorn Community in the early 70s, there were no formal programmes for guests and very few for members. But it was an intense educational environment. There was much talk of Findhorn being a mystery school, a place to align more fully with the sacred and with our own soul, and to bring that into expression in the actions and interactions of our lives.

There were no formally identified teachers; we were encouraged to see life itself as the classroom, and all the circumstances, events and people in our lives as our teachers, partners and allies, purposely positioned there by some wisdom greater than our everyday personal identities to call forth a fuller expression of ourselves. This required, of course, a willingness to approach life from a particular perspective, allowing all aspects of life to be our teachers – whether these came in pleasant, supportive and uplifting packages, or in packages that were more challenging or uncomfortable. It taught us mindfulness, appreciation of ourselves, each other and our environment, and encouraged co-creativity and a sense of being involved in a great and meaningful adventure.

Out of this creative maelstrom, the Game of Transformation developed some 30 years ago (1976), and this year (2006) we celebrate that beginning with a special Planetary Game in November. The Game is an attempt to put that mystery school approach into a form that people can engage with without coming to live in the community.

I have been involved with the Game and its creators, Joy Drake and Kathy Tyler, since those early days, and in many ways the Game approach has become for me a path and a practice. Soon after it came on the scene, I had a dream of walking with Jesus along a large Game path outside the Community Centre here, tremendously excited because I had discovered the key to life. “All you have to do is to find out what square you are on and follow the instructions for it!” I said. “Don’t avoid or resist or change it; don’t wish for another square. Just be fully present to where you are and what is being asked of you, and all else will be added unto you!”

Today in the community there is a wide range of formal programmes for both guests and ‘members’, many of which you will find in this brochure. They provide experience of different classes in the larger mystery school of life. But it is still that larger mystery school in which we are enrolled. If we pay attention, we will find the invisible and interconnected pathways laid out at the heart of the Findhorn experience, at the heart of life, tailor-made for each one of us. Invisible pathways, guiding our feet, calling us present.