The 60th Birthday Celebrations 12-19th November 2022 were a glorious culmination of our Year of Celebrations:

With fantastic Community events, a stunning photographic exhibition, lots of fun with the 60th Birthday Quiz and last but not least the official launch of our COIF website.

So many of us expressed the sense that much of our Community fabric got re-woven throughout the week, re-stor(y)ed; that we indeed Honoured the Past, Met in the Present and Together Stepped into the Future – a future that may well see  much more connections between global and local Community members. The foundations for that have been laid. David Spangler reminded us that we, today, are founding the ‘Being of Findhorn’ for the next 60 years.

The 60th Birthday Celebrations have unleashed so much creativity. One of many evocative invitations to join the celebrations set a beautiful tone for the events with images of people and landscapes (click here to watch it).

Mark Richards’ kaleidoscope of his stunning photographs from the celebrations captures the sense of Comm-Unity created throughout.

We are putting together a playlist on our YouTube channel for videos that have been made about the 60th Birthday Celebrations. So if you have a video that you would like us to put up there, please send us the link.

Fantastic Community Events 

The 41 events were attended by so many locally and a great selection of them also globally through live streaming and watching the recordings.

And of course, all the meetings and greetings over meals and impromptu gatherings in between added to the weaving of so many threads, and the nourishing of connections – new and old.

It is impossible to summarise the events and we are so pleased to offer you to continue to enjoy the events that have been live-streamed by watching them again and again. This link will give you access to the recordings. When signing up, we invite you to donate towards the building of the New Sanctuary, but there is no obligation to do so.

Mark Richards is also offering his wonderful collection of photographs for us all to enjoy. It is a great gift to have a professional photographer offer his services so generously.

Over the next few weeks we will create stories for each event so that it can become part of our collective autobiography on the website.

The Community Game

This aspect of the week is not easily conveyed in words as it was a very personal and intimate experience for those of over 100 of us able to attend it in the Universal Hall. We played with the purpose:

Individually and collectively we intend to
honour, bless and lay the past to rest
awaken to the spirit that is calling each and all of us
and step into the future that is seeking to take shape in and through us.

It was a remarkably graceful journey: we were born immediately and moved through all the levels (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual), with 2 Miracles, lots of Awareness, Service and Angels. Straight away we were reminded to Expect a Miracle, and received a pain-free setback to remind us what is in the way of us being One Incredible Family: “I just can’t handle it. It’s all too much for me.” And so it went on – all the way through to the last move of choosing an angel to integrate. And for the second time we got the Angel of Play (the first time was at the end of the preparation meeting on the 3rd November). And of course this was also the message of the Red Ball Play at the very beginning of our Year of Celebrations: when the future generation reminded us “What use is a red ball if you don’t play with it!!!”

For a more detailed reflection of the Game Mary Inglis has offered us this article. 

In the debriefing session on the 30th November we were reminded that the Community Game is powerful medicine, ‘a time-release capsule’, which will work on, in and through us for a considerable time to come. We were encouraged to choose one (small and specific is good!) aspect of the Community Game that we can implement in our daily life, and to contract with an ‘accountability partner’ to check in regularly how we are doing with that implementation.

We would love to hear from others who may have played the Game with the same intention in their own locality. Please share your highlights and insights with us!

This was the first major weeklong event organised by the NFA, our Community Association. We Did It! – Annie Crawford and Dürten Lau focalised this undertaking and brought it all together in the end. In the past such events were organised by the well-oiled machinery of the Findhorn Foundation, of course supported by many community volunteers. For the 60th Birthday the balance had shifted, and the much changed Findhorn Foundation was in a very essential supportive role to the Community’s endeavour to organise the event. 

Laura Pasetti describes how she brought all her experience in theatre production to bear to pull together the rich mosaic of offerings, responding to last minute additions, weaving together local and global audiences, and above all bringing the spirit of play in one big arc, as she had also produced the Red Ball Play which opened our Year of Celebrations on 11th March 2022.

Mark Anderson, chair of Findhorn Foundation’s Board of Trustees summarised it succinctly in his appreciation.

Many other appreciations were expressed in the Rainbow Bridge, including a beautiful poem by Sara Trevelyan. It begins with

I have a dream
That we stand here as One
All parts of this Whole,
United in the heart
Each of us knowing our uniqueness
Each of us knowing our own special part.

The enchanting mascot Phelix, the Phoenix, popped up in many places. Manuel Frenda enchanted us with so many different sketches and impersonations of Phelix could be spotted here and there.

A stunning photographic exhibition

The powerful and evocative photographic exhibition of “Our Community Today – Celebrating 60 years” with photographs by Hugo Klip, Kate Bewick and Mark Richards captivated everyone in the Upper Foyer of the Universal Hall. 

Our 60th Birthday Quiz

Thanks to John Willoner and India Brown, a fun and taxing Community Quiz engaged many groups and individuals with details of our past history, naming and honouring an eclectic selection of contributions. Check out the correct answers of the 60 questions here. Sylvia Robertson supported it through in-person events here at Findhorn and creating a leaderboard. We rewarded those who got the most correct answers (Francine Rietberg followed closely by Eveline Rodenburg) and those who were quickest in submitting their answers (Roger Doudna with Duerten Lau as second).

The official launch of our COIF website

Our COIF website was officially launched, introduced and celebrated. The excitement of the potential of this platform for Community Engagement and the telling of our collective autobiography was buzzing. Over 190 members have already registered and many are starting to tell their stories – adding to the solid basis laid by the 50th Birthday Book from 2012 , and by Faces of Findhorn from 1980. And there is so much more to come! The co-creation of the engagement platform for members of One Incredible Family which we call the Family Room, is still in its very early stages of development.

The collective autobiography is already quite substantial. Liza Hollingshead, our Curator, writes:

By the end of November we have published 301 stories of which 157 are from the 50th Birthday book and 144 are stories sent in from registered members through Tell Us Your Story! 

33 Findhorn Journeys of how folks were drawn here in different decades – there is something mystically similar in them all, of course! Highlights are from Dominic Stuart  and Michael Davidson both of whom describe their near death experiences that led to transformation. We have intense descriptions of mountain hikes from Hugo Klip, and we have humorous anecdotes that range from Cluny sewer blockage to Cooking for a banquet at Cluny!  

So many more to explore, and each a gem in its own right.

Every day brings something new and interesting! Where it will end is anyone’s guess, but I think this will be a lifetime! Please send us your stories – short ones are good, and you can send in as many as you want to. Tell your story in bite-sized pieces – it is a lot of fun. And don’t forget to include a photo to make your page more interesting.