“Peace is your passport from hell to heaven.”
Michael Worth
My dear friend Catherine who had organised our workshop in Spain, came to visit the community on her way home to the States from India, having stayed with a family in what was then Bombay, learning to play the Sitar; she was undernourished and had jaundice but as always she brought great joy and some laughter into my life and gifted me with a set of books of “A Course in Miracles”. These heavy tomes, Christian in essence and written in an almost biblical text contain a ‘lesson’ for each day of the year, as well as a ‘Course’ book that delves deeply into the reasoning within each lesson. Designed to undo the erroneous thinking and delusions of the egoic mind and replace it with an illumined way of perceiving the ‘true’ reality, free of egocentricity. The ‘Course’ seeks to teach how to withhold judgement, practice forgiveness toward self and others and, live in a peace filled present. These simple formulas were just what I needed, my head full of conflicting voices and a defensiveness so subjective I had hardly been aware of the growing cacophony of white noise. These baffling frustrating yet often illuminating teachings helped me to eventually perceive the judgements and biases of my ego/personality; the I, me and mine sense of selfhood.
According to esoteric mysticism the Earth plane is the only place where we can build that ‘self’ with its limitations and challenges to growth and according to Eastern wisdom you have to be a somebody before you can become a nobody. In other words, the weighty burden of self-involvement with all its attendant issues becomes so overwhelming, creating the pressure to finally look inward seek a new way of ‘Being’, an awakening – what happens next, it seems, is a sort of mystical union between the personal and transpersonal; old narrow ways of perception change to a more expansive awareness, new values emerge as well as healing and purification, the heart opens, life is embraced.
Charles Dickens summed up this process in “A Christmas Carol”. Perhaps the ego becomes more transparent, by degrees as ‘soul force’ begins to predominate, exerting a sort of magnetism for self-realisation, for wholeness.
These books helped me to become mindful of my obstacles to peace, allowing me eventually to open a door to acceptance, I felt then a sense of new direction as energy was released from the stockades of my former defensiveness; a miracle indeed; this body of knowledge became my mentor over the next three years as I and my darling Amber were swept up in a maelstrom, though there were angels looking out for us along the way, but that’s another story.
Community Spiral Dance photo Findhorn Foundation
Perhaps the greatest gift we can give to ourselves is forgiveness; the ‘Course’ refers to forgiveness as atonement – implying how we become ‘at one’ with ourselves – no longer divided/fragmented. It refers to our ‘grievances’ as “obstacles to peace” and when we do the work of letting them go, we create a sacred space within our heart and mind where heaven (not hell) can at last reside. It’s a daily commitment to my wellbeing, the releasing of anger and grievances, a prayerful activity acknowledging my fallibility. Being human, forgiveness will always be an issue, all the days of my life. When we truly want to let go of our painful past and who doesn’t know pain? we take the first steps to regain physical, emotional and mental health. Apparently, there are no order of difficulty in miracles, once we open to them, we are met more than halfway…
Years later I received two profound apologies from those in Personnel. One came from a young woman who’d just had a child, she wrote and asked my forgiveness for the way we had been treated saying that with hindsight it was unacceptable but being young and unseasoned she had no knowledge of the other dimensions involved when one is alone with a child and no resources – financially speaking. The second apology from an American confiding that he had turned to alcohol on his return to the States eventually having to face up to aspects of himself that had been given free rein in a position of power in the community but sadly lacking in compassion or discrimination; he asked me to forgive him for acting so harshly.
Now I needed to learn about society and the country I lived in, the way people lived and ‘got by’. I needed to connect deeply with nature too and in order to do this I needed to live in a wee ‘Butt and Ben’ on a high pasture in an isolated but glorious part of Scotland, without electricity, mains water or access road; I didn’t know this at the time or comprehend that all I had learned in ‘community’ at the most fundamental level needed to be ‘lived’ in the world at large and under duress to have relevance – grow in strength – gain muscles.
Au Revoir Performing Arts of the Findhorn Community
The community was like a protected bubble, a hot house where inter-relational skills could be learned as well as the cultivation of self-knowledge, trust in the human family and kinship with all life, including our innate divinity; many of these skills insights and inspirations would become mainstream in our culture, hopefully percolating into the collective consciousness over time; as Eileen used to say “we can be the leavening, the yeast that helps the bread of human consciousness to rise”.
Having tasted utopia and survived I found the greatest gift was the revelations I witnessed when faced with the dynamics of all kinds of diverse people coming together in a spirit of openness and co-operation. I saw how joy is found in service and working with others without egotism whether it was creating a show, a meal for three hundred, a landscape, a playgroup or any other project and I marvelled at this great untapped resource – the human, divine family – accessible always when love and goodwill prevail; as trust grows in a group – even when everyone appears like the famous line-up of characters in the bar scene of the ‘Star Wars’ movie – barriers go down, people begin to share their true selves, flood gates open and out pours empathy, compassion, love, as we perceive our oneness as something palpable and share our gifts and talents.
Despite the difficult ‘leave taking’ I learned to have faith in the human family, its inherent divinity, knowing the only way forward for all of us is to extend forgiveness kindness and goodwill to one another in all ways.
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About the photos: Many individuals were involved in the performing arts during the 1970s at Findhorn. Much of the work was well documented by seriously talented photographers. As I only have access to my own album of the 70s, many of the images above are of a more personal nature, and sadly I don’t know whom to credit for the photos.
A big Thank You to my grandson Ziggy for enhancing the appearance of many of my somewhat battered and ancient photos from the’70s.
I live very simply in this land I love. On returning to the area with my daughter Jade, I found joy in volunteering in the life of the Community; until Covid, then everything changed.
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