The creation and on going evolution of the Park Ecovillage Findhorn, initially called the Planetary Village, is the natural extension of the work in The Findhorn Garden which started in the Spring of 1963. The implementation of the founding principles, living in congruence and bringing them into form, is a central part of our Community’s vision and purpose. This information process is an ongoing experiment and brings together the many aspects of sustainable living.

This Topic is one in a series of ‘Reader’s Digests’ bringing together the history of what is now the Park Ecovillage Findhorn. In the first one, The Park Ecovillage Findhorn – Early Conferences (1976-1995), we looked at the influences which contributed to the concept of the Planetary Village. This, the second in the series, looks at the different experiments and implementations of this concept in the years 1982-1995. The third topic in the series is Ecovillage Findhorn: In the World (1995-2024). The fourth topic in this series Ecovillage Findhorn: Tours to the Park tracks the evolution of the settlement through the different Tours to the Park over the last three decades.

By 1986 an initial model was put together in a diagram by John Talbott and Andrew Yates (1986)

In this Topic we look at some of these aspects and offer links to stories and documents that give readers the opportunity to explore further:

Ecologically sustainable: land ethic, food production, recycling, eco-building, renewable energy and ecological waste water treatment.
Culturally sustainable: changes in membership, a school and youth project.
Economically sustainable: businesses in the Park Ecovillage

That early model was later extended to the Eight Leaf Ecovillage model.

This model is used in different ways in the Community, for instance in the information architecture of this website (see Community Facets). It has also been amended and changed – both in more simplified and more complex ways, and resonates with the concept used in the Global Ecovillage Network.

The creative development of Park Ecovillage Findhorn is still ongoing after 60 years. We have created a Timeline that traces key events.

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The shift from Findhorn Foundation to Planetary Village was one of the more significant and, at times, painful transitions that the Community made in its 60 year history. In retrospect the changes were inevitable and necessary, but required monumental adjustments to members’ lifestyles and identities.

Land Ethic and early developments

A vision for the emerging ‘planetary village’ was published in 1982 in a ‘Statement of Land Ethic’ that concludes with the following statement:

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 Statement of Land Ethic was formulated to take into account future plans for the development of the caravan park at Findhorn, following its purchase in 1983. It is referenced in other posts that give further context:

• Stepping towards the Planetary Village (1983)
• The Kingdom Within – Nature and Ecology: Current Community Activity (1994)
• From Turtle Island to THA (2023)

The move towards developing an ecological village at Findhorn was the focus of the 1982 One Earth issue entitled ‘Building a Planetary Village’. (Vol 2 Issue 5)

In this issue Eileen Caddy emphasised the need to have vision and hold fast to the vision no matter what appeared to be happening on the surface. In her article ‘Keeping it all together’ she encouraged the emerging community to see the best in everything and everyone, to do things with love and to be fully dedicated to what they were doing.

The 1985 One Earth (Vol 5 issue 3) focused on developments in the village. Jay Jerman, who was the Foundation Focaliser at the time, describes on page 5 the concept of Planetary Village as an international community serving the planet, locally, nationally, and internationally; involving food production, recycling and appropriate energy systems, a school and Youth Project and Community members moving out of caravans to permanent eco-housing. 

Food Production: Cullerne Gardens

Cullerne was purchased by the Findhorn Foundation in 1978 to extend vegetable production and provide training towards acquiring an organic farm. It was put up for sale during the financial crisis early in 1980. Donations enabled it to be taken off the market and the Findhorn Garden School came into being.

New varieties of plants and new techniques were tried and tested with extensive use of polytunnels heated most of the year by the sun. The Findhorn Foundation Garden School was renamed Project Cullerne in October 1982 after the introduction of ‘The Tree Programme’ by Vance Martin, Assistant Director of Project Cullerne, that planted thousands of trees in the area and was set to become Cullerne’s biggest project.

It became obvious that Cullerne was more than a training school for organic gardening and so was renamed Project Cullerne. For more details please see Gordon Cutler’s article in the One Earth Magazine 1982/3.

At the end of 1990 a group of six people came together to discuss developing an organic farm and formed themselves into a steering group to develop their ideas. All were committed to organic methods. Two were landowners who were willing to make land available and one had specialised experience of bio-dynamic methods. The group decided to take up both offers of land. In 1994, a Community Supported Agriculture scheme called Earthshare was set up, in conjunction with Cullerne Gardens. The intention was for the Community to become more sustainable with organic and local food production. It provided much of the vegetable and salad requirements for Cluny and The Park, as well as supplying 150 households with a weekly veggie box, as described by Andrew Aikman, in his One Earth magazine article.

Earthshare is also portrayed in the video Turning Point from 2008 (from 14:50).

Early Recycling at the Park

In 1982 John Talbott described plans for a recycling area for the Park with the intention to collect and recycle paper, cardboard, wood ash, burnables, metals, glass and reusable containers. At Pineridge an area was being prepared to collect organic wastes for anaerobic composting or recycling via the chickens at Cullerne. Paper recycling had been started a few years before by Alan Watson, who spent one day a week collecting, folding and compressing by hand all the waste paper of the Com­munity, and driving once a month to Aberdeen to the nearest recycler. Alan’s article on The Consciousness of Garbage is as relevant today as when it was published in 1985.

A School and a Youth Project

As a statement of permanence and commitment to the evolving Planetary Village, a primary school for children 7-8 years old opened its doors at the Family House in Pineridge at the Park, in September 1985. An article in the 1985 One Earth (Vol 5 Issue 3 page 19) by Maria Adkinson and Joan Jerman describes it being set up as a Waldorf school educating the whole child; spiritually, intellectually, emotionally and physically. It included children from the local area, operated independently from the Findhorn Foundation, and involved regular parent participation in all aspects of its functioning. From Spring 1987 a move to occupy larger premises at Drumduan was started, initially classes one, two and three and in Autumn 1987 the kindergarten. This is a story in its own right and will have to be told – hopefully before too long; for now you can follow this link to find out more about the Moray Steiner School.

During the same period the Findhorn Foundation Youth Project was established as a local point for the energy and enthusiasm of the young people in the Community. They were to set their own goals and learn to work effectively as a group, linking with other youth groups in the UK and abroad. Some of the early initiators – Shirley Barr, Allan Howard, and Kim Ellen-Hurst – wrote describing it in the above One Earth on page 20. In 1986 the project was visited by 16 young Native Americans, who held a Pow Wow and performed traditional singing and dancing.

Businesses at the Park

The movement towards the Planetary Village was a time fraught with anxiety and friction within the Community in two areas in particular; the setting up of independent businesses in the ‘wider’ Community and the change in the membership constellation that was an inevitable consequence of the widening definition of what the ‘Community’ was.

In 1983 the newly-purchased holiday and residential caravan park was taken on by New Findhorn Directions (NFD). NFD, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Findhorn Foundation (FF), that had been set up in 1979 to manage business transactions that were not permitted under the Findhorn Foundation’s charitable status. The story of NFD has yet to be told in much greater detail, hopefully before too long.

The Phoenix Shop then moved from being a Findhorn Foundation department to becoming a division of NFD. Findhorn Press, the Trading Centre and Trees for Life calendars also came under NFD, as well as Weatherwise, the solar panel business, before the latter set up independently as AES Solar.

An announcement by the Findhorn Foundation in 1986 that assets they owned that were not essential to their main task of education may be sold to members fuelled anxiety.

The Design Studio became an independent business called Bay Area Graphics. It continued to do design work for the Findhorn Press and other branches of the Foundation, work that was in lieu of rent for studio building and equipment.

Questions were raised as to how businesses would support the Foundation financially. The Foundation’s food shed expressed a wish to become a cooperative and sell to the public. Passions ran high at this time.

The nature of the relationship between independent members and the Findhorn Foundation came to the fore as the number of independent members grew to about 30 in 1987. Rhiannon Hanfman addresses this in her article Journal of Cooperative Living in the One Earth magazine.

New businesses associated with but not part of the Foundation included: Weatherwise Homes, Proteus Productions, a media company, and Alternative Data (who had recently received a gift of 12 computers from Apple).  Alex Walker’s article, written in 1985,  From Community to Village: An Economic Perspective discusses the Foundation’s financial history as the community has grown and evolved over that time.

In the early 1990s it was agreed that most of the NFD divisions should become ‘independent’. This was the ‘greenhouse to cold frame to garden’ idea in action. The caravan park stayed and remains to this day within New Findhorn Directions (NFD).

In 1995 prominent local people unconnected with the Foundation were interviewed to gather their views on the emerging Planetary Village. The growth of independent businesses at the Foundation was raised as an issue which evidently also disturbed the local village community. The perceptions of the Community in the local area are explored in interviews by Robin Robinson in One Earth magazine Volume 19 Autumn 1995 pages 14-19 Love Thy Neighbour.

Membership Changes within the Findhorn Foundation Community

The effect on Community membership was that people were being drawn to village projects and businesses without necessarily having been through the process of integration and the two year membership programme needed to become staff of the Findhorn Foundation. The membrane around the Community was being stretched and how the newcomers would integrate and what changes would happen as a result was a step into the unknown. Andrew Murray describes this in his article Free Enterprise in the Ashram (One Earth Vol.7, Issue 1 December/January 1986/7 page 11).

John Boultbee in his article Moving as Members (One Earth Vol.5, Issue 3 March/April 1985 pages 6-8) expressed the hope that former members and friends of the Findhorn Foundation living locally would support the work of the Findhorn Foundation and would add to its growth as well as strengthen local links.

However, the transition between the Findhorn Foundation and the wider Planetary Village was complex. The Findhorn Foundation was a group of individuals with common goals and lifestyles, working together in a single legal and economic charitable trust framework. Staff members shared the same terms and conditions and moved between departments. Far more diversity and difference was inevitable in the transition to Planetary Village.

These differences were difficult to manage. For example, differences in personal wealth became more apparent, and along with this potential for ‘us and them’ attitudes. Many structures that had served the Community until this time had to change. The 25 years edition of One Earth magazine reviews many aspects of the Community, in her reflections Mary Inglis describes the changes in the membership culture. The challenge to the collective identity and purpose shook relationships to the core. The move from the familiar to the new was seen as a test of, and exercise in, love and faith. (see One Earth, Vol.7, Issue 4, Summer 1987 (25 years edition) page 20+21: Shall I compare thee with a love affair? by Roger Doudna).

The identity of the Findhorn Community was changing. Membership by some was seen as a ‘community of consciousness’ and as such going beyond the Foundation and its members to include people in the area and around the world who held the same vision and purpose. (One Earth, Vol.7, Issue 4, Summer 1987 (25 years edition) page 3: Commentary by Jill Wolcott.) The Findhorn Foundation Fellowship, with Roger Doudna as the principal coordinator, consisted of a group of distinguished individuals in the wider world who were asked to help realise the wider planetary vision. Roots were growing in the local area, and a need to interact with larger cultural institutions was recognised. (One Earth, Vol.7, Issue 4, Summer 1987 (25 years edition) pages 26+27: Community as Agent for Change by Francois Duquesne)

In July 1987 a novel meeting was called to include those living in the area but not employed by the Findhorn Foundation, as well as those who were. What was sought was a new sort of connection, a society where Findhorn Foundation members formed only a part. An informal association called the ‘Open Forum’ was formed and a newsletter was started, thanks to Bay Area Graphics, the new independent business. This formed a new chapter in the history of the Findhorn Community. See We Know Something is Happening, But We Don’t Know What it is by Alex Walker.

By 1990 there were different membership categories. The structure had expanded to include Associate members with a range of different relationships with the Findhorn Foundation, along with Findhorn Foundation members, who had gone through an induction programme and were employed by the Foundation, alongside like-minded people across the world. All were members of the Planetary Village. But, as Eva Ward described in the Commentary of the first issue of the new One Earth magazine in 1990, there were ongoing tensions with Associates feeling left out and Findhorn Foundation members feeling worried about loss of identity. In her article ‘Thoughts On The Way Home’, in the same magazine, Eileen Caddy made the point that Associates and Findhorn Foundation members needed each other and there should be no perceived separation and there should be unity in diversity with each moving to the same goal of finding their way to the source.

In Roger Doudna’s Journal of Community Living (1994) we learn that the term ‘member’ was dropped as a term of reference at the advice of the Foundation’s solicitors. People in the Community were now referred to as guests, employees, students or volunteers. This had the immediate effect of liberating a preoccupation that had developed concerning membership status.

Ecologically Sound Buildings

The Park Planning Group was formed in the early 1980s to decide on land use. The group increased its familiarity with the land, researched what kind of buildings were needed and what materials should be used.

Ecological principles in buildings were a matter of ongoing discussion and experimentation. In 1982 the Family House in Pineridge was built with the front designed as a passive solar ‘greenhouse’, wood burning Russian stove (which was later removed as it required more tending than the users were able to manage) plus electric storage heaters. The work on the Universal Hall moved towards completion with the help of a grant from the Scottish Tourist Board in 1983.

In 1983 John Talbott describes the progress in Stepping Towards the Planetary Village. In 1984 he represented the Village and Environmental Group on the Findhorn Foundation’s Core Group.

There was much discussion about possibilities for development locally within the Community and with national and international experts and architects. A space for discussion and generating ideas was made through annual conferences. These included the ‘Building a Planetary Village Conference’ in 1982; hosting the ‘3rd World Wilderness Congress’ in 1983; and ‘One Earth: a Call to Action’ in 1986. The ideas had a significant impact on the development of the Planetary Village, read more about it in our Topic – The Park Ecovillage – Early Conferences.

The planning and thinking for the development of the Planetary village was led by John Talbott. A maintenance workshop was set up at Pineridge and a building programme was planned to begin in the summer of 1987. See One Earth Vol.7, Issue 1 December/January 1986/7 pages 12+13: ‘Men at Work’ by Guy Thorvaldsen. The first builders were mainly men. In 1991 Jennifer McGuire described her experience of being one of only two female builders in the building department in 1989.

The Nature Sanctuary built by Ian Turnbull in 1986 was an experiment in earth-bermed building for enhanced insulation. Roger Doudna’s whisky barrel house, completed in 1987, was an early example of a well insulated tiny dwelling. Other whisky barrel houses began to be built to the same design.

Patrick Nash was in a leadership role in the early development of the Ecovillage from 1989-1995. In his book ‘Creating Social Enterprise: my story and what I learned‘, published in 2023, he describes the first building school and essential lessons learned as a leader. Many more stories of this period of development are covered in the book.

There was a plan to replace the ageing residential caravans in the Park with ecologically sound dwellings and a call for skilled and unskilled labour to join the Building Programme. The building programme provided guests to help build the two-storied 12-sided ‘round’ extension to the Community Centre, completed in 1989. The building of the Planetary Village gathered momentum in the 1990s.

In 1990 the group was ready to start a comprehensive building programme and founded a company that provided training in self-build eco-houses. They were hired to come and build the first eco-house at Bag End and they trained 20 of the group on a 3-week course. The group decided to run its own building schools and there were 2 or 3 a year in the 1990s. In an interview in 2023 John Talbott reflects on how he guided the process of building the first houses and dozens of people, skilled and unskilled, helped.

Eileen Caddy’s eco-house, ‘Cornerstone’, was completed in 1990, followed by others at Bag End and Pineridge. By 1994 twelve dwelling houses had been erected, including five single dwellings made from recycled whiskey vats, a Guest Lodge for 12 beds and a Youth Building. The buildings were heralded by the Press as ‘the greenest houses in Britain’. John Talbott summarised the Building of an Ecovillage and Alex Walker described the programme that ran for 5 years replacing caravans, but without selling the land to house owners. The houses that were begun in 1990 were designed to be as environmentally friendly and healthy to live in as possible, avoiding materials with high toxicity in manufacture, application or usage.

In 1995 several initiatives were instigated – some worked and others didn’t. Several were described by Roger Doudna in the Journal for Community Living. He described how the Findhorn Foundation endeavoured to set up a process by which it could lease its land to a registered company, who in turn would be able to lease land to Community members, enabling them to secure mortgages for the first time and easing the way for more building projects. (This did not happen in the way envisioned.)

Other projects were:

• infrastructure upgrades in Pineridge
• the solar aquatic sewage treatment plant
• refurbishment of the Community Centre kitchen

Also in 1995 land was purchased, which later became known as the ‘Field of Dreams’. It was designated for individual private housing. Land development and building projects in the Park from the early 1990s will be discussed in a later topic.

Findhorn Wind Park

One of the earliest projects of the Planetary village was the Wind Park, which was part of building the ecological infrastructure. John Talbott identified a small patch of land that could be rented from a local farmer and proceeded to apply for planning permission. Not surprisingly, the neighbouring RAF Kinloss objected to the erection of a tall turbine close to their runway, but eventually they were persuaded by John to withdraw their objection. A second-hand Vestas 75kW turbine was purchased with the help of loans, and Community members were enlisted to help dig a mile long trench. The turbine was named ‘Moya’ after the Sesotho word for ‘wind and spirit’. It It reliably provided for about 10-20% of the Community’s electricity needs at the time and repaid the initial investment of £75,000 in 5 years. It was followed by an additional 3 turbines in 2006.

The Living Machine Water Treatment Facility

Europe’s first Living Machine sewage treatment facility was opened at Findhorn in 1995 by Jonathan Porritt during the international conference held at Findhorn, ‘Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities – Models for the 21st Century’. It was designed by John Todd (conference speaker) to treat sewage and purify wastewater for the Community’s residents, and to provide a research and educational facility to promote the technology. A series of tanks containing diverse communities of living creatures was used to treat the water, resulting in water that was pure enough to be reused. Click here to watch Lisa Shaw give an informative tour of the Living machine.

The video Turning Point – A return to Community from 2009 by Lisa Mead and Alex Page highlights Earthshare (14.50), Findhorn Wind Park (19.58) and the Living Machine (21.51). 

Conclusion

By the end of 1995 the shift towards a Planetary Village had been made and the Community had come of age. It was no longer only a single member organisation and through the diversity of organisations involved it started to develop more links with the local economy and wider society. It had gone through a painful transition, its structures had changed to become more inclusive and diverse, and individuals were able to earn their own living and act independently from the Foundation. It also developed a resilience in relation to further changes that will be discussed in a future Topic.

By the mid-90s, many intentional communities had begun to use the designation ‘ecovillage’ and the name “Planetary Village” became replaced with other designations, principally Findhorn Ecovillage, from this time on. In 2023 following extensive consultations with the Findhorn and Kinloss Community Council and other representatives of the village of Findhorn, ‘the Park Ecovillage Findhorn’ was adopted as the official name for the settlement at the Park.

The aforementioned 1995 conference at Findhorn gave rise to the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) that gave an opportunity for the Park Ecovillage to develop education programmes on sustainability issues for a local and global audience. Information about GEN is included in the next Topic for discussion in the series, entitled Park Ecovillage Findhorn: In the World (1995-2024).