This is a story about the gates to our Original Garden, the garden from which our Community grew. It is the sacred space in which our co-founders Peter and Eileen Caddy and Dorothy Maclean lived in their small caravan, where they meditated, listened to the small voice within and received messages from the overlighting beings of the plants (who told Dorothy how to best grow fruit, vegetables and flowers on windswept sand dunes). It is where they co-created with nature as they put their love into action by digging light into the soil with each bit of earth they moved using Peter’s famous spade.

Yuko told me that there are four gates to the Original Garden, each gate standing for one of the four elements. Also the gates have words written on them, reminding those who enter the garden, of this Community’s core principles which our co-founders embodied all through their lives.

Lesley Downie who was involved in building this beautiful natural fence around the Original Garden over a decade ago, says that her focus for this creative project was not so much on excluding other species as on holding the Garden as a sacred space.

The four gates are:
Come closer – Earth
Listen – Water
Be still and know – Fire
Love in Action – Air

I am also aware that we have a fourth founder who wasn’t mentioned much, because she wished to stay anonymous. Her name was Lena Lamont. Together with her three children she lived in a caravan in the Original Garden, in the now lawned area which used to be called ‘The Hollow’.

I remember when I first came to the community many years ago I heard wondrous stories about this secret fourth founder, who would quietly take care of different buildings, putting love and light in all areas she touched, cleaning the spaces on all levels. In my imagination she was much like an angelic being walking through people’s homes, sprinkling positive energy all over, creating magic by raising the vibrations of any place she went.

Realising that the Original Garden has four gates makes me think that one gate belongs to Lena, making the foundations of our Community even stronger by giving it this fourth pillar, this fourth entrance way, this fourth gate, thus making the foundations more stable, forming a whole just like the four elements.

You can find stories about Lena Lamont on our website.

For the time being the winged gate for the air element, saying ‘Love in Action’ has been removed and takes a rest in Park Garden while we build our new sanctuary in a community effort. Jonathan Caddy says that he hopes the new sanctuary will be ready next year and the gate will hopefully be returned to the Original Garden.

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This post is adapted from a post on the Findhorn Foundation Facebook page in February 2023. Text and photographs by Britta Schmitz.

Britta Schmitz