Within a year of my initial arrival at Findhorn in November 1974, I was assigned to work on the completion of the Universal Hall roof.  My task was to take the community truck, called Tipsy, out to Mundole Court on the Findhorn River daily to collect river stones that were tipped daily at the rear of the building.  I did so with a band of guests who did yeoman labour collecting them, wheel barrowing them onto the roof, and placing them into a pattern that accentuated its pentagonal shape.  You can detect photographic proof of my engagement with this process in the FACES OF FINDHORN book we published in 1976, provided you have a magnifying glass…

I suppose the most memorable highlight of that period in my life was the day that Burt Lancaster joined the crew.  It seems that his girl friend at the time was fascinated by all things New Age and Mel Kaushanky, our then resident comedian, sweet talked them both into visiting the community after encountering them at a nearby hotel.  This was shortly after Burt had played his role in LOCAL HERO.  Anyway, Burt joined my team for the morning, and I must say it felt a little like we were working on the Pyramids or some such comparably grand project that day.  I just wish it had been filmed, but that was in the days of pre-video…

Another outstanding memory of my time working on the U Hall were our Saturday morning attunements.  After cleaning up the place, Lyle usually began our group attunements at 10.00am with the intention of wrapping for lunch around noon.  But the sharings and reflections upon our previous week’s work were so deep and gratifying that we frequently ran well past noon.  There was a sense that this was our Cathedral of the New Age and we felt hugely grateful to be part of its construction.  We were likewise grateful for Lyle’s focalisation.  He not only knew his building bits really well, but it seemed to fulfil his one time ambition to become virtually our pastor as well, and many of us regarded him thus.

The final piece of my engagement with the U Hall was around the stained glass window that adorns its main entrance.

I met James Hubbell, artist and builder extraordinaire, during a visit to California in1981 and invited him to a conference I had been asked to focalise called “Building a Planetary Village” in October 1982.  That was the conference that set the scene for buying the caravan park the following year.  While James was here, he did several watercolour sketches for the big window surrounding the main entrance to the building.  Treya Killam, one time community member who later married Ken Wilber, and I subsequently agreed to co-fund its creation during a Findhorn retreat week in upstate New York.  Then in the summer of 1983, Otto Rigan (artist brother of Alice Rigan) and his partner Mayme came to actually cut and install the window that emerged from one of James’ designs.  My job was to cut the many angled bits of burned and brushed timber that actually frame the window itself.  Once again, the whole process was simply a joy and a gift of service to and for something greater than any of us realised at the time.  And I’m hugely grateful that both the window and its ‘Angel Wings’ doors abide as an expression of something that’s simply one of the many beautiful bits that comprise our Universal Hall.

In 2021, after the fire destroyed the Community Centre, Caroline Shaw informed me that she had been asked by the Foundation to get a sense of the value of those ‘objects of sentimental value’ in the Sanctuary or CC because they are insured as such.  This became the occasion of my writing to James Hubbell to tell him that the ‘Firebird’ panel had been destroyed in the fires.  I did so with a heavy heart, both because it was the ‘object of sentimental value’ closest to my own heart and because I had been instrumental in it coming here.

In 1988, I organised an October conference called “The Individual & the Collective: Politics As If the Whole Earth Mattered”.  It was inspired by the ‘citizen diplomacy’ initiatives emanating largely from Esalen and the western USA.  So, I organised a group from Findhorn to go to Russia in the spring to ‘prepare the ground’.    Those were the Gorby glory days of ‘glasnost’ and ‘perestroika’.  And James had been similarly touched by a big exhibition in San Diego where he met a charming guy called Gennadi Gerasimov, one of Gorbachev’s emissaries to the West.  Long story short, James sent the Firebird panel here for the October conference as a gift so we could identify the right person to take it on to Russia.

Unfortunately, the anticipated representatives from the Russian government failed to show, and we didn’t feel very confident that those Russians who did come were the right people or could do it justice in Moscow.   Net effect, the Firebird remained with us at Findhorn, no doubt in part because we fell in love with it ourselves and gave it ‘pride of place’ in the Upper CC.  I explained all this to James several years ago and he was satisfied that it was in the right place after all.

A fascinating sideline to this story is that when I contacted James in 2021, he told me that during the weekend of the fire he had actually been re-reading the Russian fable that inspired the Firebird in the first place. So, it’s almost as though this was the Firebird’s way of saying good bye to its creator.  Subtle worlds…

● Here is the Firebird fable in brief:
A modest and gentle orphan girl named Maryushka lives in a small village. People would come from all over to buy her embroidery, and many merchants asked her to come away and work for them. She told them all that she would sell to any who found her work beautiful, but she would never leave the village of her birth. One day the evil sorcerer Kaschei the Immortal heard of Maryushka’s beautiful needlework and transformed himself into a beautiful young man and visited her. Upon seeing her ability he became enraged that a mere mortal could produce finer work than he himself possessed. He tried to tempt her by offering to make her Queen if she would embroider for him alone, but she refused saying she never wanted to leave her village. Because of this last insult to his ego he turned Maryushka into a Firebird, and himself into a great black Falcon, picked her up in his talons, and stole her away from her village. To leave a memory of herself with her village forever she shed her feathers onto the land below. As the last feather fell Maryushka died in the falcon’s talons. The glowing rainbow feathers were magic and remain undimmed, but show their colours only to those who love beauty and seek to make beauty for others.

And finally, the really good news is that when James asked for photos of the panel, Yasko immediately (and happily) provided several. And it turns out that James still had the original drawings for the Firebird at his studio in southern California and reckoned it could be re-created if we choose to re-commission it.  And I sincerely hoped we would.

I put a piece on the Firebird in an edition of our weekly newsletter, the Rainbow Bridge, at the invitation of the Findhorn Foundation (FF). It spoke of my personal connection to, and distress around, losing this beautiful work of art to the fires. In reply, Swan Treasure sent me the actual folktale and its connection to promoting world peace. And Dorota immediately said “Hey, let’s do a fundraiser to replace it.”

I was still sitting with that suggestion in anticipation of announcing an appeal in the next Rainbow Bridge. In the interim, I had consulted with the board of the Park Ecovillage Trust (PET) around organising the fundraising through that charity, and connected with Simon around FF’s insurance cover. Fasil advised asking for £12,000 to cover all relevant costs. Simon indicated, after speaking to the insurance adjustor during his recent visit here, that there was virtually no hope of securing the insurance money to cover the $11,000 quote that I had received from James Hubbell to replace the panel itself. James also said he would later send another quote to cover the costs of getting it here.

So, I knew how much to ask for and I had secured sufficient support from PET to proceed with an announcement. But opening my emails on what was Buddha’s birthday, full moon, etc, I discovered a missive from John Clausen at Hygeia Foundation saying he had just received a cheque for $17,000 to support the Foundation’s rebuild in the wake of the fires, specifically mentioning the loss of Firebird.

After consulting with Caroline Shaw, who had agreed to assist with the appeal, I asked Simon Stedman if the Foundation would kindly reserve the donation for that purpose. He agreed to take my request to the Stewards the next day.

On the same day I received another email from James Hubbell, saying that he’d received a quote for the packing and shipping entailed in getting a new Firebird here … for $6,000.

You don’t need a head for figures to realise that $11,000 and $6,000 make $17,000, which is EXACTLY the amount of the donation. And the £12,000 estimate that Fasil recommended likewise equates to $17,000 at current exchange rates. The piece de resistance is that John Clausen can handle the money bits in dollars so that none gets lost in the translation of currencies!

The following evening I received word from Simon that the Stewards graciously supported allocating this generous donation towards the replacement of the Firebird. And today, Friday, I have written to James to recommission it on behalf of the Foundation and Community.

Pretty good manifestation story, don’t you think? Let there be many more!

Roger Doudna (28 May 2021)

Firebird Addendum – January 2024

By way of ‘updating’ the Firebird story, James Hubbell successfully recreated a replica of the original stained glass window that was lost in Community Centre fire of April 2021. He placed it in several shows of his work in California before sending it on to Findhorn in May 2023. It arrived in a big crate at Cluny Hill in June where it remained until we could find the right place to put it. A ‘dialogue’ ensued for several months, before deciding it could go into the Phoenix Café at the Universal Hall.

We almost had agreement that it would go into the Café proper and would arrive for the community’s 61st birthday. That idea got nixed at the last moment, so we had to re-think again. At last we got agreement that it could go into the Upper Foyer where it would nicely complement James’ other glass windows.

After the van company that was scheduled to transport it from Cluny let us down yet again, the wonderful lads at Greenleaf (the design&build company founded by Jason Caddy) rose to the occasion. So, on 11 th January 2024 they brought the window from Cluny and installed it in the Upper Foyer with no fuss or bother. Yeah, Greenleaf! That in turn produced a happy camper in yours truly, and the moment was captured by Sara Wilder.

Firebird Up 2024 - photo Sara Wilder

Firebird Up 2024 – photo Sara Wilder

I am grateful that the whole process was captured by our Community Photographer Mark Richards. Great stuff!