This article was previously published in One Earth magazine Vol 3 Issue 4 1983.

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In my three years at Findhorn, the metaphor of the community as a growing person has often been used to describe the various, sometimes peculiar, situations in which we have found ourselves. From childhood’s magic and wonder in the early days, through the tumultuous and highly emotional teenage phase of the last eight years, we have emerged relatively intact and are now faced with adulthood. It seems no coincidence that in this twenty-first year of our existence we buy the Caravan Park and assume responsibility for our home. I think God likes this metaphor, judging by the timing of things.

With the prospect of owning the land we live on after all these years, a whole new challenge is facing us: how do we as a community begin to envision our long-term commitment to this piece of the Earth that is so special to us? No longer bound by the regulations of Caravan Park dwellings, limiting us to temporary buildings, we can now begin to think of permanent housing for our families and members. We can express ourselves through architecture and landscape and begin actually to build in physical form the planetary village we have so often talked about. But what will these new homes be like? How will we design for the constant flux of members and guests? There are a lot of practical questions like where to put sewers and how wide to make roads, as well as more philosophical points like whether we should use oil for heating and whether we want to live communally or not. Answering these questions could become the architect’s ultimate nightmare: a client with 160 heads! Furthermore, do we try to forge a new process of planning through meditation or do we use the tried and tested methods of community planning designed for other systems of little relevance to us?

The answer lies somewhere in the middle. We have embarked on a path that involves pioneering and new approaches. The change from caravan park to planetary village is vast and complex, requiring all the wisdom we have gained and all the practical planning methods available to us. We need the best of both worlds!

In the past year we have begun this process. In April 1982 Sim van der Ryn began the adventure of conscious planning here at Findhorn with his ‘charette’ process. Together with James Hubbell, we spent a few days sharing visions of an in­itial land use plan for the Pineridge area of the Caravan Park. We looked at dwellings and commissioned Sim and James to produce a design for a ‘cluster’ dwelling unit, which was displayed later at the October conference. We repeated the exercise in November with two different designers. Ralph Lebens and David White from London, and this time made the entire Caravan Park our focus. Both experiences were valuable, giving clarity and insight about our vision of the future village, but we could clearly see that the community must take the in­itiative in creating its own future. What is to become the physical fabric of Findhorn must be born here, with us.

This year our major focus is on raising the funds to purchase the Caravan Park, so the planning and envisioning will get a rest for a while. It seems we have moved through the in­itial glamour and excitement of the planetary-ecological-solar-bio-what-have-you-village and have before us the practical challenge of running the community in short-staffed conditions and of raising £380,000 in a world recession year! That should keep us busy in 1983!

Another fascinating challenge that has arisen is the question of land ethic and stewardship. When we were considering buying the Pineridge area of the Park last year, the Turtle Island Land Stewardship Society in Canada, interested in making a donation towards the purchase, asked us to state our land ethic and policy. Although this ethic is deeply embedded in the community subconscious and is intrin­sic to what we do – being an overall commitment to coopera­tion with nature – we have never actually stated it specifically before, and the request from the Turtle Island Society has given us a wonderful opportunity to make our relationship to land more conscious.

First came our Statement of Land Ethic last year (see quote), and then in December the Trustees made a Declaration of Trust that all lands and property under the Foundation’s custodianship “shall be so managed that they not only provide facilities for the furthering of the immediate objectives of the Trust but that they shall also be replenished and preserved for the use and enjoyment of the future generations of the Earth.”

Statement of Land Ethic

The Findhorn Foundation is founded on the basic belief and faith in the underlying spirit and in­telligence within all life. For over twenty years we have lived on land in the Findhorn Bay Caravan Park, seeking to embody this belief and to work consciously and openly with nature in the spirit of cooperation and co-creation. We are moving towards the vision of a new society, one that relates to people, the environ­ment and the planet out of a sense of love, understand­ing and wholeness rather than fear and survival. Much of what we have accomplished in the past, our ex­perience and learnings, have been on a consciousness and awareness level. We now wish to apply this awareness more fully to the physical level of how we live; to express the essence of what Findhorn is through architecture, landscape and integrated ecosystems that harmonise the needs of people with the needs of the natural systems in which we live. Working with intuition and consciousness as well as with proper planning and follow-through, we wish to create physical forms that will reflect the sacredness of all life.

To this end we are seeking to become the legal owners of the Findhorn Bay Caravan Park. Until now all our dwellings here have by law had to be of a tem­porary nature, but a change of ownership into our hands would allow us legally to qualify for different land-use statutes. We now feel ready to make a long­ term commitment to the land and to right stewardship. Our work in energy conservation, horticulture and ecology over the past two years will contribute to our taking this next step.

The Land Use Plan which the Foundation has developed – at this point for Pineridge – sees the area mainly as a residential centre within the community, integrating families, children, singles, couples, the elderly and visiting guests. There will also be areas for food production, recreation, facilities for family and child education, cottage industries and crafts. The main features will be the central open informal gardens, clus­tered and individual earth integrated dwellings blend­ing with the landscape, trees and the natural flora and fauna of the Findhorn peninsula. We are committed to aesthetically and ecologically sound energy-efficient homes heated with low tech energy systems, limited vehicular traffic, water conservation, and the recycling of all organic wastes on site. We are further committed to the conservation of our adjacent wild areas, including primarily the sand dunes of the Moray coast and the tidal marshes of the Findhorn Bay. We see the area growing and being developed in an organic man­ner over a period of years, with nature as the focal point and key quality.

It is the aim of the Foundation to create a model village, one that combines the essential principles of community, connection to nature, appropriate technology and spiritual awareness to form an in­tegrated life-giving environment; an environment that provides all the basic nutrients and growing conditions for all life and all beings.

 

The Trustees put forward several guidelines for Findhorn’s land stewardship policy and set up a Board of Land Commissioners to maintain it. Under the guidelines, land owned by the Foundation is intended to be kept in Trust, to be cared for but not owned in the traditional sense, and will not be sold or mortgaged for speculation. Any development must be ecologically sound and made with sensitivity to the natural en­vironment and certain ‘wild’ areas will be set aside and not developed in any way. The emphasis in gardening, farming and reforestation will be on stabilising and increasing the fer­tility of the land, using natural methods, and with sustained long-term usage in mind. In all this, the guiding principle – as it has been since the early days of the community – is to foster cooperation between the human and nature kingdoms.

Looking ahead to the ‘planetary village’, it is clear that more sophistication will be asked of us as we process decisions not only within the community and with our own core group and executive committee, but also with local planning officials and other experts. Already we have addi­tional offers of help from design professionals in the UK, Europe, America and Australia. We will probably be applying for grants. As we emerge from our protected cocoon into adulthood and the larger world, it will be a test and challenge to maintain our centre and our alignment to God’s plan and purpose. But perhaps this is what planetary’ is all about – in­creasingly practising and sharing the vision and values we have come to cherish.

Meanwhile we continue to mend leaky roofs, fix the backed­ up sewers, change burnt-out light bulbs and plan next winter to avoid the current situation of burning wet green wood in the wood stoves because we didn’t get our wood supply in earlier! It’s all part of the wonderful balance of being here now on planet Earth and growing up as a community.