Editor’s note: The following article by Marianna Lines was previously published in One Earth Magazine Volume 9, Issue 4 Spring 1990.

Barbara D’Arcy Thompson’s life was an adventure as was her death. It occurred on the 10th of January 1990, only 12 days before her 80th birth­day. Instead of celebrating the full moon a day later, the Findhorn Community cele­brated her death, a strange, beautiful departure as haunting as Barbara’s miraculous life.

Many guests at the Foundation visited Barbara to benefit from her healing arts. On that afternoon she was visited by an Australian man of 36 who was feeling a lit­tle depressed. Barbara decided that the best remedy was to take him to Randolph’s leap, a favourite nature power point on the Findhorn River. The weather had been stormy with high winds the day before, but it was a calm mid-afternoon with brilliant dashes of sunlight amidst the giant beach trees.

One Earth Vol9 Issue 4 Randolphs Leap

He was a keen photographer and Barbara took him down to the shore where he could step out on the rocks in the mid­dle of the river for the best shots. There is a steep bank on the east side, but they took a gentle declining path between where the Divie joins the Findhorn. Just as Geoff began to take pictures, he heard a great roar and also Barbara’s voice calling. He turned and saw a ten foot wall of water rushing toward him that swept him from the rocks and down into the murky spate of peat-coloured icy water. He wasn’t sure whether he saw Barbara still on the bank or her green anorak floating past as he scrambled for his life onto the opposite side of the river. Barbara was nowhere to be seen.Twenty four hours later her body was recovered five miles down river at the mouth of the Findhorn Bay. The verdict was death by drowning. No one will ever know for sure if Barbara risked her life to save the guest but it is felt that she must have done what was second nature to her-to help others at all times.

Barbara came from a creative and adven­turous family. Her great-grandfather, Joseph Gamgee was a father of the veteri­nary profession and invented the modern horseshoe. The Thompsons, who were from Cumberland originally, had Scandinavian forebears, and the family included several generations of sea cap­tains. It is said that the family tradition was ‘that all the menfolk went to sea but none came home to die.’

Her father, D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson the younger, was also a voyager and explorer. He was a distinguished naturalist and classical scholar and was Professor of Natural History at St Andrews University for 64 years.

Barbara was the youngest of three girls and like her father, specialised in Classics. Living creatures were as interesting to her as people. Her great love for nature and all animals was a trait that she is remembered for.

She attended St Leonard’s Girls School in St Andrews, then trained at the Jordanstone School of Art in Dundee. She was offered a scholarship in classics at Oxford but went to Paris for a year to study art. She worked at a Quaker school during the War then returned to St Leonard’s School as Housemistress, where she stayed for more than 30 years. She taught art and crafts and her favourite, wood-working.

In 1972 Barbara came to Finclhorn, eager to be part of the new and exciting young spiritual community just blossoming on the Moray Firth. She took part in a reflexology demonstration workshop that released childhood memories of repression and dis­cipline, and from that day on she worked with reflexology and massage with an unparalleled zeal. She assisted the well known healer Gaston St Pierre with his book on Metamorphic Technique, a prena­tal form of reflexology. She worked with the Bach flower remedies, the pendulum, and anything else that would enrich her experience and joy. She loved Sacred Dance.

Barbara travelled a great deal-South Africa, Brazil, Russia-it was hard to believe that such a deceptively frail look­ing and seemingly demure lady could be so adventurous. She tried everything. She took part in a fire-walking workshop at the Foundation in 1986, walked across the coals twice and had to go to the Health Centre in Forres with burnt feet after the second go-round. Last autumn she took part in a strenuous Holotropic Breathing workshop and only the week before she died she was in a Belly Dancing workshop.

She gave many workshops on health and wholeness and was a renowned healer the world over.

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