This story is a revised and updated version of an article which was first published in 2015 in the blog on the Findhorn Foundation website.

A last-minute unplanned visit in 2010 to the Findhorn Foundation to make a delivery has proved life changing for me, a then 65-year-old haulage contractor from Derbyshire in England.

You can’t believe what my contact with the Findhorn Foundation has done for me. It has been mind boggling what has happened since that seemingly chance visit. There has been synchronicity after synchronicity, each piece of my life slotting in like a jigsaw puzzle. And I’ve met so many kind and amazing people.

It all started when one of my drivers let me down and I chose to personally make the long nine-hour 463-mile drive from my hometown of Belper to Findhorn, my truck laden with a huge extractor chimney for the community’s Earth-friendly biomass boiler.

Martyn and Gail photo Martyn Garthwaite

Martyn and Gail

From the moment I drove into The Park I was greeted with warmth and kindness from complete strangers. I met people from all over the world and they were wonderful. And none more so than community elder Gail Shaw, who welcomed me and invited me to share a meal with her and her husband Michael.

At the time my wife Hilary was critically ill, struggling to draw each breath as she battled a life-threatening lung disease that confined her to a respirator supplying oxygen 24/7. Gail gave me so much advice and was a tower of strength. She told me that I was the most important person in this situation, and I became Hilary’s full-time carer. She had been given two years to live and if I hadn’t done what I did, she’d have been in a box already. We nearly lost her twice!

Throughout the long process of caring for my wife, I started and ended each day with a reading from Opening Doors Within by co-founder Eileen Caddy. As well as sustaining and encouraging me, I was often astonished by the relevance and wisdom of the daily guidance. It was as if Eileen Caddy was speaking directly to me.

My wife had lost a tremendous amount of weight and hovered in the ‘window’ between urgently needing major medical intervention and being too weak to withstand an operation. While at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne, we were told she needed to add 30 pounds in body mass before she could be safely operated upon.

I made it my mission to help her gain weight and build strength, and I watched with relief as her weight climbed from just 92 pounds to 134 over a two year period.

Hilary, Lisa and Andrew photo Martyn Garthwaite

Hilary, Lisa and Andrew

Our daughter Lisa, a senior oncology nurse, and son Andrew, a mechanic, have also been an immense help along the road to recovery.

And Hilary has had a small taste of Findhorn. In 2013 I drove her to the Findhorn Bay Holiday Park even though she was still connected to an oxygen supply that had to be constantly monitored.

In September 2014 the family received the phone call we’d been desperately waiting for, our hopes soaring with the news that a pair of suitable lungs had been found to make a double lung transplant possible. The delicate operation was performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, the surgeon Jorge Mascaro, who is the veteran of 20 Iron Man Challenges, modestly insisting: “I’m just the plumber.” Well plumber or miracle worker, he and his team have given this grateful patient a new lease on life.

On 1 May 2015 Hilary celebrated her 60th birthday. Friends were gobsmacked at how well she was, she was walking a mile a day and looked well and happy.

In 2015 I returned for a workshop at the Findhorn Foundation. It started on 13th June, and on the same day at 1300hrs I also attended Howard and Susan’s Wedding at Newbold House. I spent the week at Cluny Hill participating in a programme called Your Exquisite Body of Light, which was held by local healer Tjitze de Jong. In one exercise I was asked to draw whatever inspired me and I drew my own two large hands with my heart in between them. The next morning Eileen’s guidance began with the words: “You hold great power in your hands…”.

My beautiful wife Hilary passed away on Sunday 10 July 2022, the worst day of my life. She was the love of my life. We had been married for 43 years, since 6 October 1979. I miss her every second of every day.

And I see that first visit to the Findhorn Foundation as part of an awakening and transformation that has been a pivotal part of our healing journey together. I get a tingle when I think of Findhorn and how it has encouraged, inspired and guided me – this challenge with my beautiful wife Hilary has been a test of my strength, determination and character … if I hadn’t had the strength and guidance from our Dear Lord, and Eileen Caddy’s daily prayers, Hilary and I wouldn’t have had those last precious years together!