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I came for an ecovillage conference and stayed on for Experience Week at the end of a reconnaissance trip to four communities in the US, Germany and Portugal. I was looking for a community to join and intended making a choice after being at Findhorn. As it happened, I didn’t need to wait that long.

A few days into Experience Week, on a crisp, brilliantly starlit night as I walked from The Park to Cluny, I received a deep knowing that this was where I would now live.

Two days later, when visiting the Findhorn River, I had one of the two mystical experiences of my life. I became one with all life, the planet and the whole universe. It was an experience of unity and oneness, which I took as confirmation that Findhorn was where I was meant to live. (The other similar experience occurred 30 years earlier at the foot of Mount Sinai in the middle of the desert.)

But in some ways, I arrived here as an alien. I came in search of a socially satisfying, ecologically benign community life, not to deepen a spiritual journey or to communicate with nature spirits. I’d always held a strongly scientific worldview, taking nothing at face value and seeking evidence for any concept that stretched my credulity (such as the angels and nature spirits so central to Findhorn’s culture).

So my personal growth and transformation here is all the more striking for that. Living in Findhorn for 15 years has softened my worldview – a lot! It took its time, but eventually the spiritual fundamentals of this community worked their magic.

Living here has enabled closer alignment between my eco-socialist principles and my lifestyle, which is crucial to my contentment and wellbeing. I live a much more ecologically benign life with a much lower carbon footprint than I possibly could in the mainstream.

I’ve been privileged to serve through meaningful work in sustainable building and infrastructure development as well as in the Conference Office convening several successful events. I’ve been highly motivated, perhaps even driven, for the whole of my time here, which is just as well because the work has often been challenging.

My first project was to design and build a small ‘ecomobile’ – an ecological mobile home. I did this single-handed, over eight months through winter. The work was tough but I was inspired to be serving in such a way. The building has gone on since to inspire hundreds of visitors. I then designed and supervised the installation of a centralised woodchip boiler and district heating system that has significantly reduced our carbon footprint.

The spirituality-infused culture here has been key to my growth and transformation on a very personal level as well. All my life I’ve been severely inhibited when it comes to dancing and singing. I just never did either. But here I quickly learned to sing and dance freely and joyfully. Even during Experience Week, I sensed a very safe and non- judgemental atmosphere, which really encouraged me to trust and to let go.

Softening into Spirituality & Kindness by Graham Meltzer

The meditative nature of both Taizé singing and Sacred Dance has become hugely important to me. They are routes into spirituality that have softened my once resistant self. The same applies to my connection with nature; walking on the beach every day has become a much- loved meditation.

So I suppose it’s the sceptics of this world – the agnostics, atheists and those suspicious of spirituality – who might have most to gain by visiting. Also, the shy, introverted and socially awkward. I say this from my own experience as a sociophobe. Our programmes are famous for creating an atmosphere of connectedness and family. Participants become a mini-community. And in community it’s possible to be one’s authentic self and still form connections and build relationships.

My most valuable Findhorn experience is not what happened on any one or a few isolated occasions, but the progressive effect of continuous immersion in a culture of love and raised consciousness. One cannot help but grow and flourish. I am an entirely different person now to the one who first came 15 years ago. I was 55 years old then, so it demonstrates that deep personal transformation is possible even late in life.

Increasingly the world needs the two main components of Findhorn’s culture: open-heartedness and raised consciousness. I believe love is the key. One doesn’t need to be demonstrating in the streets or leading through example like Greta Thunberg. Sacred activism can be as simple as choosing to be as kind as one can. I’m reminded that the Dalai Lama once said that there is only one religion, one spirituality, and its name is kindness.

Graham Meltzer
RETIRED ARCHITECT + SOCIAL SCIENTIST + PHOTOGRAPHER + EVENT ORGANISER
from New Zealand
FIRST FINDHORN VISIT » 2005

Graham Meltzer

Graham spent much of his life living in intentional communities, including kibbutz, hippie communes, cohousing and now Findhorn. In a past life he was an builder, photographer, academic and architect.