This article was first published in One Earth Magazine Volume 7 Issue 4 Summer 1987.

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Twenty five years ago the Findhorn Community had its unlikely and inspired beginning in a caravan park on the coastal sand dunes of north-east Scotland. Peter and Eileen Caddy and Dorothy Maclean, recently unemployed and acting on the guidance Eileen received from what she called ‘the God within’, towed their caravan onto a site next to a rubbish dump and began-also on guidance-to grow vegetables to supplement their weekly unemployment benefit.

Thus, unwittingly, they began a process that by 1978 had resulted in the creation of a spiritual community consisting of over 300 members, responsible for seven large properties (including a 180-bed hotel in the nearby town of Forres and a whole island off the west coast of Scotland), running educational programmes for almost 4,000 paying guests a year and with an annual turnover of almost a million dollars.

Eight years ago people were beginning to predict the likely and uninspired end of this same community. By 1979, what was now the Findhorn Foundation had a massive debt it could hardly service, let alone reduce; the sanctuaries or meditation rooms, formerly considered the ‘heart’ of the Community, were virtually abandoned; Peter and Eileen Caddy had separated and Peter had left for America (Dorothy had left some years previously); various projects and initiatives enthusiastically and briefly begun by now absent originators languished untended; there was no coherent leadership; and membership was dwindling rapidly. The Community’s survival did indeed seem at stake.

Yet today the Community is not only surviving but thriving. Members who a few years ago were beginning to think of packing their bags are now looking to the long-term future of the place. Four years ago the Community celebrated its 21st birthday with the purchase of its birthplace, the 22 acres of the Findhorn Bay Caravan Park, and since then a primary school has been established, development plans for the construction of an ‘ecological village’ are underway and the first steps have been taken to reduce and eliminate the debt. The last four years have seen the start of a ‘Findhorn Fellowship’, a group of transformation-oriented activists and friends of the Community living and working in the world; while the young people of the Foundation have almost single-handedly launched a dynamic Youth Project which is not only working within the Community, but is creating links with various community development groups throughout Britain and connecting with a group of native American young people in Canada. In that time also the Foundation has hosted the 3rd World Wilderness Congress, organised two gatherings on Peace, three Arts Festivals and conferences on The New Economic Agenda, Spiritual Work of Our Times, Educating for the Year 2000; One Earth:A Call to Action, and The Spirit of Healing. It has also hosted an invitational European Humanity Gathering of representatives from virtually every country in both eastern and western Europe, and provided facilities for Terra Nova, a gathering of grassroots community activists from throughout Britain, organised and run by the Youth Project and the Easterhouse Festival Society in Glasgow.

All these activities add up to a strong statement of commitment to ‘being here’, a statement made stronger, perhaps, by the very real period of crisis the Community has weathered. The commitment to ‘being here’ is not just local but also global, a willingness to engage with the issues of our time both now and for the future. And, on a fundamental level, the commitment is a spiritual one: indeed, without the renewed connection to the original vision and the emphasis on strengthening and deepening the Community’s spiritual roots, it is doubtful whether many of the above activities would have got off the ground at all.

That original vision is perhaps best summed up by David Spangler, an inspired and visionary philosopher who spent three years at the Foundation in the early 70s: “The universe is essentially a wholeness, infilled by the one life and harmony of God. His will is the spirit of that wholeness in action. That life and will live in each of us; if we attune to them and unveil them in our actions, then harmony and wholeness are created within us and about us. That is the principle. The Findhorn Community is founded on the demonstration of the reality and practicality of that principle.”

This is not a vision unique to the Findhorn Community; but its particular expression in the initial years was perhaps somewhat unusual. Much of the focus was on learning to cooperate with the nature forces, both with the ‘outer’ realms of plants and soil and compost, and – more uniquely – with the ‘inner’ realms of angels and nature spirits from which, the early group was told, all outer manifestations ultimately sprang. The results are well known. The splendour of those early gardens on what was little more than sandy soil was what initially attracted an increasing interest and response from around the world, and in fact still seem to be what the Community is most famous for: people still come looking for the large cabbages and fairies at the bottom of the garden.

During the 70s, thousands of people flocked to the Foundation, some drawn by the more phenomenal aspects of the place, others by the underlying principles and vision. It had always seen itself, in the broadest sense, as an educational centre: a place of spiritual practice where life itself was the classroom and people could learn on an ongoing basis to tune in to the reality of spirit and give it expression in their lives. Now, educational programmes began to be developed as well, based on recognising the spiritual dimension in humanity and in the world in general. The doors were wide open to virtually anyone who wished to come: more and more guests and members were accepted, and more and more buildings were purchased to house them. In the heady excitement of the transformative vision of building a new heaven and a new earth – and building it now – more and more projects were started. No one seemed to question the assumption that the bigger the Foundation became the greater would be its ability to serve the planet. First growing plants; then growing people: now – just growing.

As a solid foundation, ‘just growing’ wasn’t great. Metaphorically speaking, it was like building on sand, only this time the angels and nature spirits weren’t about to help. The Community found itself increasingly overcommitted, with almost all its energy going towards just holding things together, and even that it wasn’t doing too well. By the time Peter Caddy left in 1979, Francois Duquesne, who took over as focaliser or leader of the Foundation, had a three-fold crisis on his hands.

“Physically,” he says, “it manifested as a financial crisis in relation to the recent acquisition of a large property and a huge bank overdraft. Behind that – or perhaps what precipitated it – was a political crisis, because there was no coherent leadership. Behind that again, the true crisis was one of faith – a spiritual crisis. Probably the majority consciousness of the Community was not in touch with its purpose or vision. There were several reasons for this. We were 300 people at the time, very spread out, and the communication links had broken down. Clarity could not reach out to all parts of the body. It was also a time when we were confronting glamour, and that made it difficult for the higher clarity to come through. We were in fact embracing our shadow side. So I stepped into a three-fold crisis – a spiritual crisis that translated itself into a leadership problem and outwardly manifested financially.”

The next three years were hard but valuable ones. As the membership halved itself and stringent financial cut-backs were made, many of the Community’s guiding concepts and images were reevaluated and rescued from the fuzziness into which they seemed to have fallen. ‘Manifestation’, for instance, began to be seen again in more of a qualitative than a quantitative light, not so much a matter of acquiring, of having more and more things ‘added unto you’ (for whatever good reasons or purposes), but rather as a process of giving, of ‘adding unto’ the world. ‘Guidance’ was no longer an unquestioned directive from an absolute God, whether within or without, which had to be carried out at all costs, but rather the organic unfoldment of the next evolutionary pattern, an unfoldment which needed to involve the best of people’s creativity, love and wisdom, and the form of which was not necessarily fixed. And ‘planetary transformation’, it was clear, was not going to be an overnight phenomenon: it would be the work of several generations.

Gradually the Community began to come together again. Small meditation cells formed and met in people’s homes each week; as more people connected with a sense of purpose and faith in the future, an inner momentum gathered and a collective responsibility began to emerge. Greater accountability was apparent, less glamour, more maturity. The financial
nose-dive halted and the debt stabilised; the Community found itself with more efficient management and administrative systems and realised that these, too, were part of a spiritual lifestyle.

In 1982 the Foundation held a conference on the theme of Building a Planetary Village, and within a month had made an offer to purchase the Caravan Park, just recently up for sale. It was a momentous step in faith. The Foundation did not have the money, and the purchase price – £380,000 – was almost exactly the size of its debt. But this time, the step was clearly not a ‘just growing’ one: it was the outgrowth of the work of the previous three years and a reflection of a commitment to translating spiritual principles into an enduring lifestyle. It was also – because the holiday section of the Caravan Park was a viable commercial concern – a longer-term means of assisting the Community to eliminate its debt.

With the generous support of many friends and well-wishers around the world, the purchase was finalised a year later, and the next phase of the Foundation’s work got under way. It is a phase characterised by the term ‘planetary village’, an image which has been germinating for some years and which, while it is by no means fully understood as yet, serves as a metaphor for the Community’s continued evolution.

In its broadest sense it suggests the possibility of creating a culture in which everything is sacred, in which physical, cultural, social, economic and political systems and relationships all reflect the diversity and unity of spirit. On another level – because all these are emergent, and dependent on particular times and places – it suggests that the Community could be a kind of social laboratory, a ‘research development’ centre where new patterns of cultural and social evolution could be explored and assessed.

Of course, it also refers to a place where people live their lives. ‘Village’ speaks of roots and connectedness, of organic human settlement. ‘Planetary’, on the other hand, perhaps describes the larger consciousness embodied in the settlement, and the context in which it is held – as well as serving to warn against insularity, and to call for the carrying of the work and vision of the place into other areas of society.

But the metaphor is, after all, only a metaphor. In the end, the Findhorn Community is a place where people live their lives. The village is building itself, shaped as much by the needs and dreams of the individuals in it and by the influences acting on them as by a collective vision.

For instance, members who increasingly see themselves as ‘settling’ here find themselves with different needs to those of  the more transient and largely singles community of ten or fifteen years ago. Ageing caravans will give way to more substantial housing not only for ecological or visionary reasons, but also because people need homes. It is the needs of the growing families that have created playgrounds, a ‘family house ‘, a playgroup, a school. And, as members grow older, more attention is being given to the care, support and needs of the elderly.

In addition, the urge for a larger income than the board, lodging and pocket money supplied by the Foundation, or for the freedom to pursue an activity or business the Foundation as a Charitable Trust is not in a position to take on, has led a number of longer-term members to move into ‘independent membership’ status so they can follow their own initiatives while still maintaining a close relationship with the Foundation. Other people have moved into the area in order to be close to the Foundation while not actually joining as members, and they, as well as a number of other local residents, often help out in work departments on a voluntary basis as well as participating in some of the programmes.

As a result of these trends there is now a flourishing diversity of concerns and individuals associated with but not part of the Foundation itself, and through whom also links with the local area are developed and strengthened. Among these independent ventures are Alternative Data, a computer software company, Weatherwise Solar, a company manufacturing solar panels and involved in the design of ecologically sound housing, Proteus Productions, an umbrella group for the creative arts and media, and Silver Cauldron Films, a film company producing a major feature film about the Findhorn Community. Other ventures include Minton House healing centre, a Herbal Apothecary, Bay Area Graphics, an independent design business, and Richard Brockbank’s woodworking venture.

In the light of these new developments, the Foundation is needing to define its own role more clearly. Some of the new businesses are former Foundation departments which have gone independent. There are suggestions that some of the other departments should follow suit, allowing the Foundation to streamline its activities and to focus on its educational programmes and residential courses. Should this happen, it is possible that before too long the Foundation – currently still much the largest organisation around – will account for less than half the total economic activity of the village.

Settling and diversification raise broader issues too, such as what are the economic and political structures that can best serve an emergent village? These have individual as well as collective ramifications. For instance, as long as the Community was essentially one unit, differences in personal wealth were seldom an issue. Everyone who joined the Community gave their time wholeheartedly, contributed membership fees for the first two years, and thereafter received their board, lodging and whatever the standard weekly cash allowance. But now, with some – though by no means all – independent members earning considerably more than members within the Foundation, differences in personal wealth and lifestyle are becoming more obvious. While one long-term Foundation member, for example, saves money for a new bicycle, a freshly independent member buys a car. On the other hand, a member independent for two years still struggles to pay the rent and get food on the table, while around him his friends in the Foundation itself give hardly a thought to their basic survival needs. There may be an overall umbrella of ‘village’ of which people see themselves as part, but within it there are different categories and relationships emerging which carry the potential of ‘us and them’ attitudes developing. Certainly the opportunity is there for grappling with some ‘wider world’ issues that just weren’t apparent within the safety and relative insularity of an egalitarian community.

There is also the question of what economic stance the Foundation should take in relation to its staff membership (people who have been in the Community for over two years, and who have made commitments to particular areas of work). Should the Foundation raise its remuneration to bring staff more in line with independents? And what implications will that have? Is this a ‘yuppie-consciousness’ takeover? Indeed, has the relatively simple lifestyle here to date been one of voluntary or involuntary simplicity?

Equally, there are questions about political and organisational structures. Systems which were fine for a community that was a singularity do not serve the more complex organism now developing. The Core Group or Management Group of the Foundation is not the appropriate body to coordinate village ventures or to make decisions on behalf of the independent members and projects. The issues which concern the staff group are often not those which concern the independents, and vice versa, although there are also issues of common concern. While different groupings are developing more autonomy and responsibility for their own areas of focus, there is also a growing impetus to form a ‘village council’ to provide a forum for collective affairs.

What is abundantly clear is that many of the social, political and economic structures which have served the Community to this point are changing. Indeed, they need to change in order to hold and link together this organism that is more than Foundation, not quite yet village – a multifaceted, ever changing community. But many of the specifics of the changes are not yet clear. Prophecy is a risky business. It seems likely, however, that the structures that do develop will be partly a result of creative envisioning, and partly an organic outgrowth of particular responses to particular situations, of people doing what seems needed at the time. And trial and error.

David Spangler once described the Findhorn Community as a place of ‘inspiring muddling’. Personally, I like that image. It has hope and humility in it – guardians, to my mind, against two of the major pitfalls that can entrap the unwary pilgrim on the path: a sense of despair and ineffectiveness, and a spiritual arrogance. If the Findhorn Community can keep those two qualities in its heart – hope and humility – then, whatever forms it takes or structures it creates, it should do all right.

An earlier and shorter version of this article was printed in Resurgence magazine.