Tea with Evelyn

Craig’s caravan in the Original Garden

In 1971, while lighting the fire with a piece of old newspaper, an advertisement caught my eye: Cheap Trip to Glasgow. The year before, my acquaintance Grethe had shown me several colour slides from the Findhorn Community — I was quite astonished to learn about devas and huge cabbages. I called the travel agency and got the last two flight tickets for my wife and me.

 

Eileen and Peter on their outreach journeys

During our stay at Findhorn I was in a kind of state between happiness and bliss. Everything I saw there was magical: the pottery, the theatre, the herb garden. Peter and Eileen used to participate in all meetings. I remember being invited to tea in the caravan of a lady called Evelyn, who was over 90 years old. She said suddenly, “I think, Reino, I’ve got something for you.” Then she went to her bookshelf and picked up a small book with a worn cover. It was Volume I of Baird T Spalding’s, The Life and The Teachings of the Masters of the Far East. That book became one of my favourites during the coming years. Reading it helped me to understand my own transformation, as well as the one the world was going through.

Eileen and Peter came to Finland in 1978. Peter dealt with the practical plans in correspondence, and Eileen the more personal issues. In her letters Eileen was very present and understanding. She touched my heart particularly when I had a difficult crisis in my marriage in 1979. Eileen wrote that Peter had left her and gone to the States. In her deep grief, she completely engaged herself to give her loving support to somebody in a similar situation.

Reino Lehtinen