Findhorn Foundation

So here I am sitting in The Elephant House, the coffee shop where J.K. Rowling began writing about Harry Potter. I can see the Edinburgh Castle and the Greyfriars Church graveyard from the window. It makes Hogwarts all the more believable. It is day six of waiting out the volcano - if all goes well we fly back to the states tomorrow. However hard it was at first to accept the fact that we weren’t going to be able to keep our schedule, I am grateful now for the extra days to reflect on the last six weeks, and in particular the most recent week at the Findhorn Foundation.

When I began planning this sabbatical focused on intentional living one of the first websites I found was the Findhorn Foundation. Its homepage said, “spiritual community, education centre, and ecovillage”. That got my attention. Then I discovered that they had a special week focused on eco-villages and I sent in our deposits. I had no idea what to expect but I knew I wanted to go.

I now can’t imagine this sabbatical without it. It is by far the largest and most complex of all the communities we have visited. It has evolved over time and continues to evolve. It is an eco-village and an interactive educational model for sustainability. It is a spiritual community. It is a creative and innovative community. It is an unfolding experiment. There is just no easy way to explain Findhorn. Even after a week of living and working in the community I am not exactly sure how it functions. But it is clear at least from my experience, that it is doing something right.

At the beginning of the week one our leaders, or focalizers as they were called at Findhorn, shared with us the following two statements about sustainable/intentional communities:

1. In communities that last - there is almost always a glue that holds the community together.

2. Sustainability must be fun. If it is isn’t fun it isn’t sustainable.

Findhorn definitely had a glue. Again easier to experience than to describe but it was about the way they connected to one another and to creation. They called it co-creation with nature. What does that mean? For me its something to do with the fact that the vision of being an eco-village does not come out of a moral or ethical obligation to care for the earth but out of a deep sense of connectedness, of oneness with nature and with all creation. This connectedness is not just an idea, it is something lived out in a very simple, very consistent manner. They take time to do what they call an attunement. Before any task, any activity, they hold hands in a circle and become aware of themselves, of one another. They listen for the spirit within. They listen to the elements around them. They pay attention to the energy of the group. They attune to themselves, to one another and to creation. It is a very powerful, simple practice that holds this incredibly diverse, incredibly complex community together. there is much more to say about this - but probably for another post.

I also cant remember a time when I have laughed as much as I did. This experience was fun. Lots of fun. And not superficial fun, but deep, satisfying, real belly-aching fun. And it wasn’t just our group of 25 that was having fun. People were on a whole, happy. Yes you could say it is easier to be happy when you are living in a commune of sorts on the northeast coast of Scotland. But then maybe there is something to learn here, about how people relate to one another, to themselves, to the larger world. There was an ease and a grace among this community that is rare. And I believe it has something to do with the glue that keeps them together.

Is Findhorn perfect? By no means. Does it have all the answers? Of course not. But as far as intentional, communal, sustainable living goes, it has wisdom to share. I am walking away from this eco-village Experience Week with a deep sense of gratitude, not only for the incredible people I met from around the world, (In our group of 25 participants we had people from Australia, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland, United States, England, Wales, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Slovakia, Spain, Canada, and the Netherlands) but also for the way it engaged my mind, body and spirit. I haven’t felt this whole in a long time. This thread of connection continues…

More to come…

Iona - A Place of Pilgrimage

The island of Iona has long been a place of pilgrimage. Its magical landscape, religious heritage, and idyllic culture all lend it to being what Marcus Borg calls a thin place, where the line between heaven and earth, the sacred and profane is blurred. Having just visited, I get why thousands make the long journey to this tiny island. It is a powerful place. Though I am thinking I may prefer the description offered by Henry, a fellow traveler I met on Iona during Easter weekend, who said, “I wouldn't say it is thin - I would say it is fat - overflowing - abundant with life and spirit.” Such was my experience on Iona - rich, full, and immense.

Central to the allure of the island is the Abbey, which has a history all of its own. In 563 AD St. Columba established a monastic settlement that spread Christianity to much of Scotland. In the middle ages it became the site of a Benedictine Abbey. In 1938 an ecumenical group of Christians under the direction of George MacLeod, began restoration on the Abbey and today it serves as a guest house and a house of worship for the Iona Community and guests.

The Iona Community is unique to the other communities we have visited so far in that they are specifically Christian community. They are also unique in that they do not necessarily live on Iona. They are a dispersed group of people, about 200 in number, who share a common rule which includes:

Daily prayer and reading of scripture

Mutual sharing and accountability for use of time and money

Regular meeting together

Action and reflection for justice, peace, and the integrity of creation

Every year they welcome hundreds of visitors to the three centers that they oversee and maintain: the Abbey, the MacLeod Centre and Camas Centre, which is on the Island of Mull. Each center is run by both paid and volunteer staff who come from all over the world to live and work in one of these centers. Paid staff come for 1 to 3 years and volunteers come from 4 to 12 weeks at a time. In addition to the staff and volunteers, guests can come to each of these three centers and participate in the life of the community as well. Guests participate in housecleaning, cooking, worship planning and leadership, and grounds maintenance. During our 5 nights on Iona we stayed at the MacLeod Centre.

Worship in the Abbey usually takes place every morning at 9 am and every evening at 9 pm. Being that we were there over Holy Week and Easter, we had additional worship for Maundy Thursday, Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, a Saturday Night Vigil, and a Easter Celebration on Sunday Morning.

It is hard describe what it is to worship in the abbey - voices echoing across the cold stone walls, candles illuminating dark corners, ancient memories lingering between signs of the present - it was beautiful and austere and melodic all at the same time. I came expecting it to be the heart of my experience on Iona - surprisingly the land outside the abbey held just as much if not more power and inspiration. I don’t know that I have ever hiked on land with such history, emotion, and energy. The island speaks a language without words. Its rocky outcroppings, shorelines, sheep herds, boggy marshes, fields of heather and historical sites all give way to an experience of connectedness that satisfies the hearts longing...

There is more to say about Iona - much more - so perhaps this can serve as a beginning…