This article was first published in One Earth Magazine, Volume 17, Spring 1995.

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People often ask me why I live here. I think the answer lies somehow in being at the throbbing hub of the incessant and interconnected events which form part of the amazing life of this ‘mini-metropolis’. I’ve been asked again to write about ‘what’s happening’ here and have been given a list of 15 or so things which I could speak about.

The ‘list’ begins with ‘World Work’. Readers of this column will recall previous mention of Max Schupbach and Jytte Vikkelsøe’s community sessions on conflict resolution. Max and Jytte and their own mentors and colleagues, Arnie and Amy Mindell, returned this October for a bigger rendition of same. Adroit purveyors and practitioners of Process-Oriented Psychology, these good people spend most of their working lives flying around the world working with situations of real conflict, including ‘hot spots’ like Northern Ireland, Russia, Eastern Europe, etc. Once they arrive, they say remarkably few words of introduction and launch right into whatever the group wants to deal with.

In this case, we had two three-day sessions back to back with Max and Jytte, Arnie and Amy respectively, responding to a situation that was less infused with conflict than ‘world-pain’. Delicate topics like racism, sexism, class-ism, homophobia, fascism and spiritual arrogance were evoked, enacted and ‘treated’ in such a way that it frequently felt like the evening news was ‘at hand’.

Miraculously, however, by the end of the week, the group had substantially healed itself, by either ‘giving voice’ to the pain engendered by these various issues and/or listening to it. The 170 participants included seven Findhorn Fellows and about 25 people from the Community, of which about half were from our own budding matriarchy of Transformation Game guides. As I observed at the time, if only we could all apply this apparently simple technique to our own communities around the world (including this one) they would definitely be better places.

During the Fellowship Gathering on the weekend following the conference, ten Fellows joined Mary Inglis and myself to ‘give voice’ to whatever was moving us and thereby reconnect with one another, the Community and the larger world. Those present included Tom Welch, Kay and Floyd Tift, Joy Drake, Kathy Tyler, Bill Metcalf, Angus Marland, Michael Lindfield, Ingrid Olausson and the newest member of our Fellowship, Andrew Arthur, about whom more anon. The high point of our time together was an ‘open forum’ in which both Fellows and Community people had time to interact around issues of mutual concern, the central topic being the ‘inside/outside’ issue which featured prominently during last May’s sessions with Max and Jytte. Fascinating to watch here how a totally open dialogue facilitated a genuine sense of connection, rapport and healing between the Fellowship and the Community.

The Fellows who were present expressed a desire to see the Fellowship become a more active influence in the Community, through helping a new form of community to evolve and nurturing new enterprises. Much of our time together focused on one such enterprise, an initiative by Andrew Arthur, who has been a Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for the Study of World Religion and is on the faculty of Lesley College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has visited the Community over the years and has recently been inspired to create a Foundation college of international education, an independently managed bona fide academic programme, affiliated to the Foundation, which would attract students from around the world, with academic credit awarded, initially, through US universities.

The proposal captured our individual and collective imaginations and found its way through the initial decision-making process in record time. It was strongly endorsed by those Fellows assembled here for the Gathering, who saw it as a direction in which the Foundation should move and as an ideal
project for Fellowship backing. It was also ratified by the Trustees in mid-November, subject to Foundation endorsement. Two weeks later, despite a number of doubts and concerns, the Community rose to the occasion and added its broad consent in a fashion reminiscent of great moments from the past (the purchases of Cluny Hill and the Caravan Park) when risk-taking was arguably more our collective style.

Hence, we are working towards the launch of this programme in the 1995-1996 academic year. It should provide an excellent opportunity for the Community to distil our 30 plus years of experience into a format that will be recognised and endorsed by that aspect of mainstream culture and tradition of which universities are the acknowledged custodians. It will also provide a wonderful opportunity to welcome young people into our midst once more, thereby rejuvenating us all! For more details of the programme, write to Andrew Arthur here at the Foundation.

While we’re on the accreditation front, it’s important to mention that our guests are increasingly finding that they can receive university credit for Foundation programmes. This January, Sharon Took-Zozaya and Marijke Wilhelmus completed a new three-month ‘Essence of the Arts’ programme with 21 participants, several of whom are receiving such accreditation. The same will be true of ‘Touch the Earth’, a three-month programme in organic gardening beginning in March which will be based in the Cullerne garden. In like manner, Michael Forster and Lawry Gold are preparing a fully accredited three-month programme on ‘Community Studies’ in association with Pacific Lutheran University in the American Northwest. These three programmes could well provide a ‘warm-up’ to the Institute programme.

The Trustees also ratified the long-awaited and equally heralded Findhorn Bay Housing Company. This entity, to be headed by John Talbott and ably assisted by Alex Walker and Patrick Nash, will effectively become the Foundation’s land management company to which i1 will ‘feu’ or lease its land. The Housing Company, in turn, will then be able to lease portions of land to Community members and/or groups in such a way that they can secure mortgages which, in turn, will ease the way to many more building projects. The net effect or this development will be to get the charitable Foundation out of the development business and clear the way for heightened individual initiative, while honouring the eco-ethos of the land trust. Hence, the burgeoning ecovillage dream has cleared one more major hurdle.

Also on the eco-village front, Pine Ridge has at last been ‘plumbed for the future’. The building department spent much of the autumn last year installing a new four inch water main to bring the area up t0 scratch. While they were at it, they laid propane gas pipes, and the wherewithal to put all existing and projected electric, telephone and computer lines underground. So we fortunate Pine Ridge residents are acquiring not simply ‘up to date’ services but are being cleared for take-off into global cyber-space from the comfort of our own homes!

The only real ‘down-side’ of the increasingly audible Pine Ridge hum is that we’re also getting noticeably more congested. By lorries and cars, that is. So much so that we had a Community meeting where the hot topic was a proposal to ban automotive traffic from the area.

Although cooler and arguably more practical heads prevailed, it resulted in new initiatives. from car-sharing to plans to acquire a recycled electric bus to transport people and goods from ‘downtown·
to Pine Ridge.

Elsewhere on the premises, Trustee Michael Shaw and Fellow Angus Marland are actively planning with John Talbott, Alex Walker and others to ‘manifest’ a solar aquatic sewage treatment plant, of Fellow John Todd’s magnificent invention, for the opening of next October’s Eco-village Conference. This too has got us all buzzing in preparation and anticipation. As has an ambitious fund-raising scheme spear-headed by Loren Stewart and Patrick Nash designed to so improve the Community Centre kitchen that it can, by next sumn1er, become a more fully fledged restaurant and cater to the full range or our continuous flow of guests.

If all this doesn’t leave you a tad breathless, it certainly does me. And it almost certainly does justice to less than half or what’s really going on … Until next time …