Future of the New Findhorn Association

Eileen’s guidance tells us that we will grow and change from ‘a family, group, and community’ into ‘a village, a town and a city of light.’ The constant joy and wonder of witnessing how the guidance has come true over the years gives credence to us being an intended community as well as an intentional one.

The creation of the New Findhorn Association (NFA) in 1999 began a shift from the first triad of ‘family, group and community’ into the second triad of ‘village, town and city of light.’ Twelve years later we are a thriving community of hearts and minds living in a multitude of sub-communities in and around The Park, in nearby villages, in Forres and further inland. We have more than 600 community members working within more than 30 community organisations, charities and small enterprises, including the Findhorn Foundation, and we have an increasingly strong profile in Moray and in the local business network.

We still like to call ourselves one community and we are, at heart, one soul family. We all carry the Findhorn light into our various spheres of life and work and we recognise that light in each other’s eyes. But the daily reality of our lives is moving forward in leaps and bounds from community mode into the more complex arena of village, town and city. We feel the strain of old community structures that served us well for so long, and yet no longer hold who and what we are. It is time to embrace a new community identity of multiple communities, private organisations and services that is perceived as one ‘enterprise’ as Sir George Trevelyan described the New Age.

The Foundation continues to play a central role in our new community identity by holding the structure for spiritual learning that draws people from all over the world to come and experience the ‘magic of Findhorn’ — the magic of an opening heart when everything fits together and the meaning of life is not just understood but experienced and lived on a day-to-day basis.

Increasingly, people who have gone through an initiatory experience of soul incarnation and expression come to settle in the local area, finding ways of living and working that reflect the magic of Findhorn’s heart-opening quality and allows for the natural outflow of giving that follows. We are an amazing example of heartfelt community living, and the generosity and volunteering that takes place within daily life here is second to none.

For many years the Foundation was the initiator of new ways of living together for a fledgling community growing up around it. In the coming decade, as we increasingly inhabit our new collective identity as village, town and city of light, I see a big change happening as that identity becomes the impulse for evolving our ways of living together.

The issues of self-governance and systems changes that occupy our minds today will somehow have found a resolution. I wish I had a crystal ball to gaze into to see exactly how it will all come to pass … but as Peter said, “We have no blueprint for how to build this city of light.” We are co-creators of new ways of living on the Earth and we have to find the ‘how to’ within ourselves, with each other and with the environment.

It is exciting to witness and be a part of the unfolding journey of this incredible place that we call the Findhorn Foundation Community. Some current statistics give a snapshot of where we are right now, and where we seem to be going.

Elisabeth Tønsberg