My story with Eileen started when I first joined the community in 1974. I was given a job working in the community kitchen and before we started, from 8.30 to 9am I was asked to go and clean the Caddy’s bungalow, just after Sanctuary. I happily took the job, and felt honoured to be asked. I never once questioned why Eileen should have a cleaner – having just come from South Africa where every important person had a cleaner, I thought it was perfectly right that she should have one too. It was only more than a year later that I discovered that Eileen was recovering from a serious operation, which was the reason she could not do it herself!

Those half hours before the work day started were very busy in the Caddy bungalow, and I was party to all sorts of fascinating conversations ranging from the business of running the community to the presence of nature spirits and ‘dark forces’ in Pine Ridge! And everything was completely transparent; Peter firmly believed that each person was in the right place at the right time, so nothing was too confidential for the mere mortal who was brushing the coal dust from the hearth!

One memory I have that astonished me – I found several whiskey bottles behind the sofa! I mentioned this to Peter, who casually said, “Oh that was from Charles, the chef who used to work for us at Cluny Hill – he was here last night and left them behind. He was always fond of his drink, then and now.” No judgement, no excuses. Just the fact.

Eileen was a Virgo, and extremely particular. Every speck of dust had to be removed, especially round the coal fire, and she demonstrated the Findhorn principle of perfection – in service, nothing less than perfect was good enough for God.

So this time gave me a wonderful opportunity to get to know Eileen, especially as she was a very quiet person, not too visible in the community and she was very often in the Sanctuary, meditating, so unavailable for conversation. I got to know her sons, Jonathan and David, as well, as they were still living at home. Christopher, the eldest, had already left home for university.

Peter found out very soon after I arrived that I had been an English teacher, and therefore assumed I must be able to write and soon gave me the job of writing and editing the Open Letter, a newsletter for people connected with Findhorn.

When the subject of writing the history of the founders, Peter, Eileen and Dorothy, came up, I was involved in discussing how it could be done. Roy MacVicar wrote a short summary of the Foundations of Findhorn, as an Introduction to one of Eileen’s books of Guidance and I thought it could be expanded and filled out. I was given the go ahead and started to write. Then Lyle and I moved to Colorado, where I continued until one day, I received a letter from Eileen saying that she had received guidance that she should write her autobiography herself. So of course, I stopped what I was doing, which was more of a third person story of how it all began.

About a year later, in 1977, when we returned to the community, Eileen told me she needed some help putting her thoughts together. Of course, I leapt at the chance, and we started right away.

The first thing to do was to read all of Eileen’s guidance – she had dozens of small receipt books filled with pages and pages of the guidance that she had received in meditation since she started to hear God’s voice in 1958. Her handwriting was tiny, but she dated every piece carefully, so it was all in chronological order. I started to notice that there would be several messages on the same theme, it could be on learning to love an annoying person, or lofty messages about service to God. There were a series of lessons based on whatever was going on in her life at the time, repeated in different words every day for sometimes 10 days or longer. Then there would be an affirmation that she had learned that particular lesson, referring to something that had happened that day. For example, “You see how Jimmy reacted to you today – he was smiling and warm instead of his usual gruff manner. This was because you followed My lesson to love him no matter what, and radiate that out until he finally felt loved.”

A pattern emerged, that seemed like a spiritual teaching. Eileen was receiving training from her inner voice, the one she identified as God’s voice. They always started with My beloved child and the messages were gentle, loving and clear. No criticism, ever, but definitely instructions on how to behave, how to think, how to change her thinking to be in line with God, loving and positive.

So I selected one message from a group of similar ones on the same theme, and marked them in the many little books, and invited visitors to the community who were taking part in the Experience Week to spend their work times typing out Eileen’s guidance. They were thrilled to do it! And gradually we had a collection of guidance messages, in chronological order, that traced Eileen’s personal and spiritual development. It was fascinating.

Then I had sessions with Eileen where she told her story, linked with the messages that jogged her memory. I put them all on tape, and the messages often corrected the way she remembered things that had happened or the sequence. Often we had to go over an event several times, to get the sequence right, and to understand what the issue was behind what God was teaching her. I absorbed it all like a sponge, and sometimes had to challenge her when she had negative opinions or judgements about key people. Then she would re-think it and re-phrase it and learn from it in the present time. It was immensely rewarding to see how she tackled every single issue with such dedication to follow God’s Word.

Our conversations went something like this: “God was telling you to be more patient, that people in the community can’t be expected to change overnight. Who was that? What was happening there?” “Oh I remember, there was a girl, a young woman, who refused to change her clothes for dinner, and wouldn’t listen to me. I always put on an evening dress for dinner in the Community Centre and expected everyone to do the same. I got really annoyed, and said so, and there was a bad feeling between us as a result.” “So what did you do?” I would ask. “Well, finally I had to sit down with her, and gently share why I thought it was respectful to the cooks and to the community to change out of grubby work clothes, and put on something beautiful to meet everyone in the evening. She didn’t like being told what to do, and was quite stubborn, so I had to find a way to communicate, with love, and get over my own stubbornness which was that I wanted her to do it MY way! We ended up having a wonderful talk, and she showed me a dress she had made herself – and she wore it to dinner! So that was what that guidance was all about.”

Eileen told me her story from the beginning. She was born in 1917 and spent her early years in Alexandria, in Egypt, about her marriage to Andrew Combe and her five children whom she absolutely adored. And she told me how she met Peter in their house in the Middle East in Habbanya as he and Andrew were both in the same RAF regiment. And I just listened to her, asked questions to clarify and to get the order of events correct. This was a simple, gentle woman from a traditional background who had no experience of anything esoteric or spiritual outside of the traditional church she had been brought up in. But she was a good listener, and Peter came to visit very often and told her stories of his adventures in Tibet and extraordinary people he had met. She often had no clue what he was talking about but wasn’t bothered by that.

Peter often told us that his only psychic or inner experience was on a mountain top in Jerusalem, where he was ‘told’ that Eileen was his ‘other half’ and they were meant to be together. When he shared this with Eileen, she just carried on mending socks and really couldn’t imagine what he was on about and what it could mean. But Peter pursued her, and the story is well known how they finally came together. Peter was following his guidance and Eileen simply fell deeply in love with him.

By 1979 as a family we had moved into Universal Bungalow where the crèche was held in the front porch for four little children. This was perfect for me, as I could leave my 6 month old baby to sleep there and he would be taken care of by the lovely person who ran the crèche until 12.30, lunchtime. I would race down to Eileen’s bungalow and she would resume her life story. Then I had to write it all down, following the guidance messages, and listening to the tapes, over and over again. All on a manual typewriter – and I had never learned to type, so it was a two finger exercise! Then I would take the chapter to Eileen for her to read and correct.

I often joked that Eileen heard God’s voice, and I heard Eileen’s! It was as if I was listening to her telling me the story and I just wrote it the way she spoke.

There were some situations in Eileen’s life that she needed to come to terms with, and re-frame according to the values she was being taught by her inner voice. One was her opinion and experience of Sheena. For many years Peter and Dorothy had been followers of Sheena Govan, and they were devoted to her. She was their spiritual teacher, and also Peter’s second wife. She had a small group around her, and her teaching was unconditional love, to turn within and listen for the voice of God, and then follow it, no matter what you were told to do. When Peter told her about his mountain top experience with Eileen, she totally supported their union. That she was married to Peter was of no consequence. Doing God’s work was the only important thing to do.

When Eileen and Peter fell in love, on a fateful journey back to England, Eileen left her five children in the care of Dorothy and Sheena for a weekend, while she and Peter went to meet Eileen’s brother. Andrew had received Eileen’s message about what had happened, and flew back to England immediately, found Dorothy and Sheena in his house and turned them out. Eileen was devastated and had nowhere to go except to Sheena’s flat in London. She did not like the idea of staying in Peter’s wife’s flat, she was ashamed that she was an adulteress, and she was in a terrible state. They all drove south to Glastonbury, a famous spiritual centre with historical associations with King Arthur and Merlin and went to a small sanctuary to give Eileen some solace. During her time there Eileen heard the now famous words: “Be still and know that I am God”. Sheena was thrilled and they all were convinced that Eileen had, indeed, heard the voice of God. Only Eileen thought she was going insane.

So Eileen was forced to live with Sheena and to submit to her teaching. Eileen hated it. All the others were there of their own choice, but she was being moulded by her lover’s wife! When Eileen told me the story, she was still full of bitterness. The picture she painted of Sheena was of a witch, an evil person who dominated her and had no love in her. This was very different from how both Dorothy and Peter described Sheena. They experienced Sheena as the most loving person in the world, and her teaching was all about transforming the world through love – very far from Eileen’s description of her. I listened to her version, all the time aware of the guidance messages we had been reading and absorbing, and it just didn’t feel right to tell it the way Eileen told me. So we would have long soul searching conversations, looking at how Eileen’s terrible depression had cast a dark shadow over her experience of Sheena, and how she could, in retrospect, see it differently. From my vantage point, as a member of the spiritual community Eileen had herself created, and accepting her teaching about learning to love unconditionally, I could imagine that Sheena was committed to preparing Eileen for her future as Peter’s partner in an important work in the world. Sheena saw their future, but Eileen did not. Sheena was an exacting, demanding teacher, and would not tolerate any negativity at all, not in deed or thought. It was tough for Eileen to re-frame her memory of Sheena, but she did finally acknowledge that it was her own insecurity and shame that clouded her view. Her ultimate forgiveness for Sheena was magnificent, but it took her twenty five years before she was free of the resentment she had carried. She was able to tell the story in her autobiography as it was, without bitterness.

Eileen’s life-long goal, and challenge, was loving unconditionally. It was easy for her to love her children unconditionally, but when it came to her husband, and individuals, there was a sharp judgemental voice in her ear that was difficult for her to manage. She had to go through the dissolution of her marriage to Peter, for whom she had sacrificed so much, her first family, and being required to ‘Let go and let God’ caused her terrible anguish. But she persevered. And she shared her learning with all around her. Her community, the people who came to her workshops, everyone who came to her struggling with their own negative feelings of anger and resentment would hear first-hand what she personally had to do to change in herself to become more loving.

I had a personal experience of Eileen’s commitment to following her guidance, in spite of what it might cost her. She and I were going to South Africa to run a series of workshops there, and I took my son Michael along, who would stay with my brother’s family while we went travelling around the country. He was only 6 years old. Preparing to leave was hectic, and Lyle was going to drive us to Inverness airport for a very early flight. That morning I heard a knock on the door, and it was Eileen! We had overslept! We dashed to the airport and arrived just in time, but too late to book our luggage all the way through to Cape Town. So we had to transfer the luggage in London. Eileen said not a word but I felt terrible. I knew she likes everything done just so. We got to Cape Town and I spent a couple of days getting Michael settled – but didn’t spend enough time with Eileen planning our workshops. I had some good ideas on how to run them so that there was plenty of interaction, and sharing, and wanted to introduce Group Discovery games as warm ups. Eileen was used to a more conservative style, mostly talking and reading guidance, and meditating. I could see that she wasn’t taking too kindly to all my bright ideas.

We were staying with Katherine Inglis. One morning I came downstairs sleepily, and found Eileen there, who of course had been up since 5am meditating. She solemnly said, “Liza, come and sit down, I have something to tell you.” My heart sank. I knew I had been a bit chaotic, and our trip had got off to a bad start, and I felt sure there was a big rebuke coming. “This morning I received guidance about you and me” she continued. My heart sank even further. “God told me that if I am to give workshops on the Challenge of Change, I must be willing to change myself,” she said. “I have been resisting all your suggestions because they meant I would have to change. I am sorry, I am now open to accepting your suggestions.” I nearly fell off my chair. Not only had she received guidance sort of rebuking her for her intolerance, but then she TOLD me about it! But it went on. “Then God said to me, that if I want to give workshops on Unconditional Love, I need to start putting that into practice – and that means to love you unconditionally. I am sorry I have had judgements of your behaviour and have been intolerant. I know you have been trying your best to make everything work well, and to settle Michael as well. And I love you very much.” WELL! That was Eileen. She heard the lesson, her mistake, took it all in, and then acted upon it immediately. We bonded immediately, and the love between us was palpable.

Eileen in South AfricaEileen in South Africa – she loved the sunshine!

And this story served us well…. it became the content of every workshop we gave! The personal example Eileen gave to all those people of how to listen then act upon your guidance! And it was done so lovingly I didn’t mind being the living example of a challenge she had to overcome, and did!

Writing Eileen’s autobiography was full of insights for me, teaching me about how important it is to work on myself even when it is unpleasant and difficult. Loving unconditionally is such a lofty subject, but with Eileen it came down to loving the smallest irritation, the most insignificant conflict, as well as the enormous ones! She worked on forgiving Peter for years, even making friends with the women he was with after he left her, and working on her judgement of him, her fury with him, her disappointment and her disapproval.

His last visit to Findhorn in 1996 was extraordinary. There wasn’t a free caravan for him and his young son, Daniel to live in, so Muriel came to Eileen for her advice. Without batting an eyelid, Eileen said “They can come to stay here. There is the big room upstairs, and he can make himself comfortable.” Wow, we all thought there would be fireworks. But after a week or so, I popped in to say hello, and there were the two of them sitting side by side, watching ‘Neighbours’ on television, like two old companions. Eileen told me she enjoyed having Peter there, they talked about the community sometimes, and were good company for one another. Not a trace of bitterness in her. Ironically, Peter was killed in a car accident the following year. But their relationship had healed in time.

Eileen lived in the Findhorn Community, in her home Cornerstone, until she died in 2006 at the age of 89. After her 80th Birthday, when she was reunited with all her eight children, and their children, she was ready to die. She looked forward to it actually, as she felt more comfortable on the inner realms than on the physical one. She gave workshops, talks to large numbers of people, took part in the community management for a while – all completely outside her comfort zone. But she did it! She was most comfortable at home, baking scones for her visitors, always welcoming people from all over the world into her home, into her life, giving of herself without effort, so generously. And always a lady. Until the very end, she liked to have her hair done, and she wore tasteful clothes, just a touch of lipstick, modest yet elegant.

Eileen was like a mother to me, more than a mother, as she was also my teacher, mentor and friend. She taught by example, and was never too busy to stop and listen. I felt loved by her, and I certainly loved her, and was inspired by her. I am so grateful for the opportunity that was given to me to get to know this wonderful lady.

Eileen was certainly the wisest person I have known, with the simplest, most profound message for life. From her I learned humility, and compassion, specially for myself and all the mistakes I have made! She never gave up on learning about herself, learning how to be more loving, tolerant of others, and how to first see, then overcome her own inadequacies and to love herself.

Liza Hollingshead