Gathering the material for this part has given me great pleasure. Each life demonstrates in microcosm an aspect of the struggle for understanding that is required of humanity at this time. Many of us in our search have broken codes of conventional morality and occasionally even the law. We have learned to forgive ourselves and change, however painfully, reaching towards the discovery that we are the image, in form, of God. That discovery, that new direction in life, becomes the guiding light, the star that draws us towards our truth, giving us purpose and determination as well as an increasing joy. Only our resistances along the way are painful. Some of us have developed such clever defence systems....
These stories demonstrate the trust with which people in this community reveal their personal histories, a trust which is developed in the sharing and support system here, where people are not condemned or judged for who they are but lovingly assisted to become something more. The accounts are grouped thematically in relation to the present situation of the people involved, so that each one can be read either as an individual life history or to illustrate an aspect of community life.
Pride of place in these accounts must go to Eileen Caddy. For me she is an anchor of our community. She feels that a greater power has prevented her from leaving here, although at times, as the interview shows, she would have liked to. Because she has already published an autobiography, and her background is outlined in the chapter on the history of the community, I asked her if she would concentrate on the current state of her life.
"I have an affirmation: 'Joy comes with service, and service comes with dedication.' Nowadays I'm constantly prompted to reread what has already come through me. My job is to pass it on. By teaching these truths, I am told, I can help millions of people to embody them. I have to recognise that I am a world teacher. I need to stop being afraid to face this, because it is the truth — I'm a world teacher of God's word. I wasn't given these wonderful messages for nothing. The task now is to live them, be them, demonstrate and embody them, until they are me and I am them. I work on this constantly.
"People want to learn what I have to share; yet I still belittle myself. I have a very precious message to pass on to humanity and I need to do it fearlessly, with joy. I am indeed mightily blessed — I give thanks for everything. I ask to be shown how to share what I have been given with the millions, to be open to any change, to the God within.
"You know, I find it dreadfully difficult. I have this awful thought that I'm a hypocrite; yet it wouldn't have been allowed to come through if I was. I do want to live the Truth, to be the Truth — I am the Truth. But doubts come over me now and again. Why should I have been chosen? I accept that God needs channels. I accept that Peter needed me so he could be used to create the Findhorn Community. But sometimes it feels as if it's not me at all. I have to prick myself to make sure that it's me, as if there is a war going on inside me. It's been like this all along, right from the word go. One side wants to retire, to live a quiet, peaceful life. The other says, 'You're here to serve; get on with it!'
"I had a dream. In it I was dead and in my coffin. They were putting the coffin into its grave. I was trying to attract someone's attention and a girl picked up my message and said, 'She doesn't want to be buried, she wants to go to hospital!' So they took my body there, and I saw surgeons dissecting me, taking my organs for experimentation. Watching them I started to laugh my head off. I said, 'Service until the very last — now I'm free!' Thinking of this dream helps me a lot when the idea of retiring comes up.
"Even in the sixties when I meditated so much the conflict was there. Meditation was wonderful, hours of just being, just waiting in God. I was in an incredible state of bliss. But when I went back to Peter in a raised state of consciousness, it was hard to have a normal married life. Peter complained; I found it very difficult to go to bed with him.
"One of my children wrote to me, 'Dear Mum, your work in future will be more and more concerned with communicating the word of God to millions like a gentle shepherdess. You are going to guide the flock through a new gate and attain a oneness and attunement seldom experienced by incarnated souls.'
"What I want is to put God first. I know God is in me; there is no separation. But I can only be who I am and when the messages come about reaching the millions, I get scared. Wouldn't you?"
I reminded Eileen of Christ's words in Gethsemane: "My father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt."
"It's not a burden," continued Eileen, "it's a responsibility. That's what hurt me when Peter and I split up. We were responsible for so many lives. We were chosen to do this work, there were cosmic ties. Now, for me to do work on my own awakens a sense of responsibility I have had ever since my childhood. When we travelled I looked after the others, tickets, money. Responsibility became engrained in me. Dad expected it of me.
"I deal with my dilemma by working with the Christ energies. That's how it will be resolved. I use affirmations: 'I am a beautiful, Christ-filled being.' 'I claim my Christ-light now.' 'I claim Love now, unconditional, universal Love now'— always now, because there's no time like the present. I am enfolded by, infilled with this wondrous Love. Let this love flow all around me, out to the whole community, out and out to the whole world. It's part of me now and I can say that in front of people. I'm not afraid to share any more , because the affirmations come from within.
"Let me turn to the community. It's like my biggest and most unwieldy child. I had the same trouble with my son Jonathan, having to stand back and let him find his own way. I was told to stand back and not interfere in the community's adolescent stage. That's what I did. They didn't want to hear about guidance and I was told, 'Leave them, they have to learn from their own mistakes.' Until about two years ago it was an incredibly difficult time. I felt responsible for everything. I knew what needed to be done, and I'd be told, 'NO!' When a child goes towards a dangerous thing, it feels awful to hold back, but I had to. It's easy to break a relationship, but it takes years to build it up again and I didn't want that to happen with the community.
"Recently, I chose to join the new Core Group. I had resistance to it. I didn't want to work with a group — in all the years I've never done that before — and I didn't want to work with young people. I felt resistance from some members of the group towards me and what I stand for. But I came through by prayer, meditation and just being.
"It was a good choice. I'm enjoying working with them now. As I am open and vulnerable, they become so, too. They're far more spiritual than I thought they were, thank God. They have tremendous wisdom.
"My advice to everyone, the community and the world, is: turn within. Find the Divinity within, and more and more have your being from that Divine centre. That's what's happening with the Core Group. They're taking more time to go within and meditate. You need to go into stillness, to take more time to be still. Prayer and meditation are the two keys to the doors within. Everything is within us, but these doors need to be opened. The little book (Opening Doors Within) has it all there. Particularly for new communities my advice is to concentrate on creating the spiritual foundations. Without them, it will break up. For three years at the start of the Findhorn Foundation Peter and I lived a little like hermits. But we were creating the spiritual foundations — good foundations.
"As for my future, I just feel I'm here to serve. I have to keep myself open to serve in any way. I see a lot of travel, contact with people, giving. I feel terribly humble in being used in this way and I still ask myself, 'Why me?"' Crying, Eileen continued, "I constantly say, 'Thank You, if You can use me in any way.' I say it first thing in the morning. It is 'any way', because I don't want it to be conditional. It has to be unconditional. It's strange, isn't it, really? Some people would give their lives for something like this, and yet I haven't chosen it. I don't feel it's a natural thing for me. But if that's what God wants, then use me, use me! One day my two sides will come together and there won't be any separation. It will resolve itself."
"I was born in South West Australia on an isolated small property without running water or electricity. My father worked in the government agriculture department and was away a lot. My mother looked after us — my two sisters and me. She was a very sensitive, intuitive person.
"I had a rather isolated childhood, in close contact with nature. I used to leave my toys out for the fairies to play with! I remember strange experiences which I now realise were spiritual — a powerful nightmare in which I was falling into a whirling mass of humanity, becoming denser and denser, more and more constricted, losing spirit to life. It was as if I were drowning. Doris Lessing describes something similar in Briefing for a Descent into Hell. Then one night my sisters and I all woke up at the same time to see three luminous eyes hovering at the end of our beds, looking at us. I put my head under the covers, hoping they'd go away, but for a long time they didn't. We were terrified. I know my sisters and I chose to incarnate together. One is a powerful clairvoyant — her spiritual awakening happened at the Foundation. The other is a gentle woman, sensitive and much loved.
"School began in a very traumatic way. I was dyslexic, but nobody knew that — I only learned it when I was 35. I spent my time in slow-learner grades, and was treated as if I were mentally handicapped. When I was eight, we moved to Perth. It was a tremendous shock, and set me back even further in school.
"My family were high Church of England, and for a time I felt support from the church. I discovered the power of prayer, and thought I might like to be a priest. But that got swept under the rug of 'sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll'! I think I must be a natural addict; my father and grandfather were alcoholics. Much of my life has been spent overcoming addiction — especially to alcohol.
"As an adolescent I spent a lot of time on the beach, surfing. Then at 17 two things happened that changed me. I went to art school, and for the first time started to enjoy intellectual and creative life (Craig is a fine potter — CR). I also read Lord of the Rings, which moved me deeply. I travelled with it for a year all round Australia. But I didn't give up sex and alcohol. When I came back to Perth, everything seemed the same as it had always been, so I bought a ticket and headed for Europe, still with Tolkien's book. The experience of Europe traumatised me some more. Having been taught that Australians were God's own people, I hit five thousand years of European culture and felt very small and inadequate. I reacted by drinking more heavily.
"After four years of wandering I ended up in London in the mid-sixties on a path of self destruction, as an advanced alcoholic with lymphatic cancer. Two weeks before I was to go for a cancer operation, someone gave me a tab of acid (LSD). It opened me up in a remarkable way and led me into a three-year experience with psychedelic drugs. I came out of hospital, gave up the cobalt radiation treatment they had recommended and dropped alcohol. It felt as if I was being given a last chance. I changed my diet and my attitudes to life. Without knowing what I was doing I started to sit meditating in the lotus position.
"At that time some psychiatrists were experimenting with psychedelic drugs. A group of us took acid in control situations with schizophrenics. It was a way of going into my own insanity. After three years I was ready to create situations in my life without relying on stimulants. I read a book by Idries Shah, Tales of the Dervishes, and began to look around. I helped to set up something called the Arts laboratory and had an exhibition of painting there but I got stoned and gave all the work away. Then I went to the Samye Ling Tibetan Centre in the south of Scotland for a week and only left it three years later, although I spent the middle year guru hunting in India, without success.
"At Samye Ling I learned of past incarnation, yoga and meditation. I thought I could escape the cycle of life and death through intense meditation. But I learned also of the Bodhisattva cycle, commitment to rebirth for the redemption of suffering humanity.
"In late 1968 I visited the Findhorn Community. Somehow I suddenly knew that everything I had discovered would be implemented here. I found out about the Western mystery tradition while having cups of tea with elderly people who reminded me of my family but talked about things like flying saucers, St Germain and the devas. That was an eye-opener! When I went to a talk by Peter Caddy I started hallucinating without drugs, seeing him change to a Moses figure, then to a being of light. However, Samye Ling was in difficulty and called me back for a year, so it was only in 1970 that I arrived at the Findhorn Community again, with £10 in my pocket.
"In the early days, the Foundation was like an ashram, with Peter in charge and Eileen as the guru. At first I accepted it but later David Spangle emphasised turning within to find our own wisdom, and Myrtle Climes helped us to get in touch with our emotions, which hadn't really been done till then. I became Peter's right-hand man, helping to stabilise things. I was the first of the new focalising group.
'There were lots of traumas. A woman I was in a relationship with left to have an abortion and someone told me it was so I could be free to give my energy to the community. That disgusted me, so I left and spent a year at the Lorian Association in the States. But in 1974 I came back for another cycle.
"Peter travelled a lot, and I focalised when he was away, learning to listen in groups and trying to develop group responsibility. When Peter came back he took control again without really honouring what had been achieved while he was away. They were lessons in humility, a key to my true spiritual growth. Once I went with Peter, Eileen and Roc around Britain to meet many of the major people behind the esoteric movement and to activate power points. It was an amazing journey. I observed and learned as Peter and Roc did their thing, while Eileen held the energy. It was inspiring to watch dynamic intuition at work. Many times I felt like a mouse in a lion's den. They seemed to embody much greater power than I had experienced in my own life; a most remarkable group.
"Once, when Peter was away and I was localising, we had the chance to buy a house called Cluny Bank. I was trying to build a sense of collective awareness, not just do Peter's will. The old Core Group looked at the house. We loved it, but the meditation was negative, so we didn't buy it. A similar situation happened with Drumduan. When Peter returned, he criticised us and said we were afraid. But Cluny Bank was bought privately by members and was available to us while we needed it, and someone bought Drumduan a year later and donated it to us. The attunement process worked, but I didn't like being criticised. There was pressure in the late seventies to get 'yes' to buying any property that came up for sale.
"1978 was a crisis year for me. First my mother was killed in a car accident. Then the woman I was living with drowned — once more somebody's channelling said it was so I would be free for the community. The crystal incident took place (see Chapter 5 — CR). I felt the community had been so lured by glamour and illusion that it seemed to be going backwards into magic. There was also a problem with dope. We had a clear rule that marijuana was not to be used. But some people were smoking it and it was actually growing behind the pottery where I worked. Eileen and Peter didn't know about it. It was all part of the illusions of the seventies. I felt I had to leave, and stayed away for four and a half years.
"I needed to reconcile myself with my friend's drowning. I went to sea, sailed across the Atlantic and lived in the Caribbean to be in touch with the water. Then I worked as a building instructor in communities in the States. Finally, my inner self told me to come back to the Findhorn Community.
'When I returned there wasn't a room for me. I lived in a garage for a while, then reconstructed an old caravan in the vegetable garden and lived in that. I knew that I would focalise the community again, but my first job was to revitalise the Park, re-creating communication between people and developing new forms of group integration. It was a time of rebuilding for myself as well. Old patterns of leadership weren't appropriate for the eighties. I let go of my reaction to the glamorous guidance of the previous period, and learned to accept guidance as a natural, ordinary function of life, as normal as going to the toilet, a tool to assist us and to work with.
"When the chance to focalise came, I was unsure. I asked the community to trust that I wouldn't re-create old systems. I wanted to stimulate inner meditative work as the substance of the community, but in a group context. The age of the guru is waning. The teacher today is one who turns you back within yourself. We're only on the edge of what we're becoming, at the beginning of a new cycle. The realm of attunement and guidance has always been present in spirituality. Now it's entering wider society as materialist forces recede. For me, the key is the ecological crisis; people are starting to realise that if they continue to consume, they'll consume themselves. We have to learn to value ourselves whatever our living standard, whether we have a Mercedes or a push-bike. Will we in the community be able to maintain our level of consumption below that of our society and demonstrate a rich and vibrant social and spiritual life at the same time? If we retain real fulfilment in spirit, the weight of materialism won't surreptitiously draw people back towards the material level.
"I want us to feel once more the importance of the Findhorn Community on a planetary scale. As we dedicate our lives by service to it, we are working with archetypal patterns within humanity. Changes in our community structures parallel what is happening in the Soviet Union. Personally, I have the challenge of finding my own individual creative centre where I am empowered and vital, and of giving myself willingly to something greater in collective situations. In fact, by surrendering to spirit and the larger collective purpose, you don't lose anything; you're empowered by it, enhanced. I want to continue the inspiration of François and Jay, the previous focalisers, for the growth of the Findhorn Community. This means maintaining the spiritual education of the Foundation as part of the vitality and life of a diverse community situation, privatising aspects of the Foundation and helping people to let go. The experiences of the seventies have affected my attitude to property nowadays. The Foundation doesn't have to own and develop everything. We should be open to sympathetic people working alongside us, trusting them to do the right things. I think properties can be embraced by the 'Angel of Findhorn' without being owned by the Foundation. That has its educational role, and will become a smaller political, social and spiritual body. There are too many people dependent on the Foundation. We need to create lifestyles outside it. Vitality in nature is strongest where there is as much diversity as possible. That applies to us too. Also we must acknowledge the devas, the elementals, the angels — the unseen beings that have given the Foundation the resilience to move through major changes that could have destroyed it. That link is sometimes remembered, sometimes forgotten.
"One of our real challenges is to define what is the Foundation and what is the open community. On the inner level, it feels as if the 'Angel of Findhorn' has got much bigger than the Foundation. It imparts its vitality to more and more people around us, helping both those in the Foundation and in the Community to find a sense of self-worth and value. We have to continue to keep the level of co-creativity with spirit in the substance of both Foundation and Community."
Finally, I asked Craig to say more about how he had overcome his pattern of addiction.
"It was through Buddhism. I understood something of the world of 'Maya', the illusion of sense gratification. Even when I lost the power to overcome my sensory desires I came back again and again to realise that the true reward is in the spiritual context — there is no substance in illusions. Somewhere along the line I came through the veil and saw them for what they were. One has to be disciplined, a soft discipline. My meditation practice is the key. Even when I lost myself in drugs or emotions, there was still a part of me which watched. I keep coming back to that centre — the observer. Then there is a multitude of help, if I invite my personal guides and guardians, the angelic kingdoms, the elementals. Counselling can help, too. We have to do both deep spiritual and deep therapy work because of the level of intellectual and educational manipulation and indoctrination we receive from early childhood. For me a blend of Western therapy and Eastern mystery traditions is a wonderful symbiosis."
"My mother always encouraged us to go to church, and to the Sunday School at the vicarage. I belonged to the Junior Imperial League Bible Group. As I grew older, I was in the Bach choir at St Albans Abbey. I used to go to the Abbey for silent retreat weekends with the nuns. I've always gone to church, but here at the Foundation I began to go daily to sanctuary instead. I feel if I need any help I can go within and it will be there.
"I was married for twenty years and brought up two sons. It was a terribly difficult marriage. Finally it ended in divorce. After three years we met again by chance and he asked me to remarry him. I agreed, but it was a complete failure, and only lasted three weeks. Then I worked in all kinds of jobs: the Civil Service, in a gown shop, for Boots the chemist. I trained to become a beautician and manicurist. After a while I moved to Letchworth to be nearer my brother, and met my best friend there; she and I shared a house. We both had the same interests and were treading the same spiritual path, which was wonderful. We had a small group which met three times a week, meditating, giving healings, reading and discussing.
"One day, I went to visit my brother. Some friends of his who were there were going off for a holiday, and when I asked where, they said, 'To the Findhorn Community — why don't you come with us?' So I did. That was how I arrived, for ten days, in 1972. I thought it was wonderful. One wet evening I went to the sanctuary alone, and stayed on to hear a tape that Peter was playing. In the middle I suddenly realised that this community was to be my home. I had actually come to stay. There must be work for me somewhere! Next day, I told Peter about my experience and he said, 'Well, that's right, then — the only thing is, you'll have to buy your own accommodation.'
"An aunt of mine had just passed away and left me enough cash in her will to cover my expenses. In the sanctuary, I had a clear image of the caravan I was going to live in, and I did find it waiting for me among the old caravans for sale at the bottom of the Park — a beautiful, new, pale blue and white one. Peter showed me a site for my caravan and the boys started digging the foundations, but Eileen got a message from upstairs saying they were digging in the wrong place, so they had to stop. They showed me another site, but my car wouldn't fit in. When Peter came back from his tour, he gave me the site I'm in now, opposite the community centre. I asked David Spangle to come and bless it. He went round everywhere and then invoked healing energy in the middle of the living room floor. For weeks afterwards people knocked on the door to ask if they could sit on my 'power point'!
"My first work was in Peter's office, looking after the switchboard and doing odd jobs with Dorothy Maclean. After three months I went to the weaving department and made clothes for the shop. I worked in the kitchen and the garden, too.
"In 1975, Peter took some of the older people up to Cluny Hill just after we bought it. It was in a state; there were cobwebs everywhere. Peter asked me to upholster the Cluny sanctuary chairs, and after I had finished I did the same work for the Hall for the next three years, upholstering three to four hundred chairs. After that I started to focalise the finishing department in Publications, where I stayed till 1984."
I reminded Elfreda that she'd been doing that when I came for my Experience week in 1983, and she'd seemed to me to be quite a martinet.
"That was my Civil Service training. A few years ago it got too much for me; I had to organise the preparation of 32,000 brochures and no one was hurrying to get them ready. The strain was too much. Barbara (another older member who has since died — CR) took me into her home for a rest cure, which I needed. Since then I've been community centre hostess.
"I'm semi-retired now but I find plenty to do even so. I love it here. Everything that has come up has been God's will; there have been testing times for all of us, including me. One of the exciting surprises was on my eightieth birthday. I didn't realise anything was going on, because the other members kept it all out of sight. They took me into the community centre lounge — there was no one there at all, but then suddenly the whole community appeared and sang 'Happy Birthday'. I was taken into the dining room and there was a whole table covered in presents, a bouquet of flowers so large I couldn't carry it and a huge cake. They gave me a card with goodness knows what on — I've kept it so I can look at it when I'm too old to do anything else.
"After the 1988 conference agreed to set up spiritual groups for members, I started to go to one every Wednesday evening. We're mostly older people. We concentrate on oneness, unity and love, so we are able to work as one towards helping the community. We've got to know each other very well. I couldn't live without a spiritual life now — every other kind of life seems so boring. I meet so many people who can't understand how we can be so united and so loving. They feel it as soon as they come in the entrance. It's because we live as one family — I've told lots of people that. I wake up every morning and think, 'Another lovely day with my family. Good show! Thank You, Beloved!"' (Elfreda Coy has since passed away.)
"I was born and raised in a working-class area of Manchester by working-class parents. I was the first person from our neighbourhood to pass the 11+ and go to grammar school. After my national service, I specialised in physical education at Loughborough teachers' training college. I got married right after that — it lasted four years, as did my first teaching job in Kent. Then I moved to London to teach, and remarried. In the early sixties we emigrated to Canada and after a while I joined the physical education staff of the University of Manitoba. Later I worked on recreation management for the provincial government.
"Then, in 1974, came a traumatic time for me. My marriage broke up after 16 years and my wife and four children moved to British Columbia. I wanted to move to be with them, and resigned from my job on the expectation of another in the new area, but the politician who had promised it to me was voted out of office. I was unemployed for the first time at the age of 40. It was a real turning point, and I made a number of decisions. Up till then most of my fulfilment had come from my career, which contributed to the failure of my marriages. When Liz and I met, I was determined not to make the same mistake again. We spent 171 years nurturing our relationship. My career had much less priority.
"Soon after I met Liz we made friends with a Dutch couple and invited them to our apartment. Albert, the husband, said, 'What are you working on?' I looked blank, so he got up and went out to the local '7-11' store, picked up a self-help paperback and said, 'I think you're at this level — read it!' After that I began to attend workshops. We joined a Gurdjieff group; it started us searching and questioning, but we found it too severe. Over the next years I searched round a lot, going to workshops and taking courses. I had various jobs, but after a while I began to get itchy feet. I wanted to live on a boat and travel, but it seemed too complicated to learn everything about that, so I settled for a van instead. Liz didn't like the idea but she did want to travel in Europe to explore our cultural roots. My sister suggested we compromise and travel around Europe in a van.
"At that point the Findhorn Community came up. All at once someone gave me The Magic of Findhorn, My Dinner with André (a film in which the community is mentioned — CR) was showing locally, and Peter Caddy was interviewed on local TV. We contacted the Findhorn Foundation Resource Person in Vancouver and she came by to talk to us. Then we sold up everything and left for Europe, with the idea of visiting the Foundation, but also to head for the sunny south. We bought a camper van in London, thought, 'We'll go to the Foundation first', and arrived for our Experience week in May 1984. By about Tuesday, we were both saying, 'We need to spend more time here.' It seemed as if people here were trying to put into practice all I'd learned about in my workshops. Liz loved it — here was practical spirituality. For both of us it felt as if we were coming home.
"But we hadn't given up our quest for the sun. We visited our old Dutch friends in Holland, all the time feeling that we really needed to be back at the Foundation. Trying to follow our plan, we moved south. We got as far as Brittany when the van's clutch burned out. Nobody seemed to be able to repair it. We spent eight days camping on a dealer's lot in Rennes and finally decided to turn back north to the Foundation. The clutch was instantly repaired and gave no more trouble. We did an LCG month and had interviews. I wanted to see my children before becoming a member and we had no money for fees, so we went back to Canada. It took us two years to get the money together; it was only in 1986 that we did the Orientation programme.
'There was a theme for me in coming. I had recognised that the only way I could get anywhere spiritually was through surrender. At that time I thought I had to surrender to a system, a person or a belief. I asked, 'Is this a place I have to surrender to?' After I had been here for some time, I realised that I had to learn to surrender to the inner God; to surrender myself to my Self.
"Another important aspect was our relationship, our energy as a couple. I felt strongly it was a gift we'd brought with us. The gift has been given back in the strengthening of our relationship, although it hasn't been easy. My reaction to my earlier trauma had turned me towards a close world in which we centred on each other. Coming here marked the end of that decade. We were asked to turn and face forward side by side. We started localising Homecare together and enjoyed it. But when the chance to focalise Cluny came last year, it was right for me and not for Elizabeth. That was all right intellectually, but I struggled with it on a 'scared child level'. I was being asked to take up a position that made the same kind of demands as my career jobs had, demands that had helped to break up my earlier marriages. The spiral had turned once more and said, 'Are you ready now?' I was scared that things might not work.
"The major challenge in localising Cluny has been the emergence of my 'scared child' — I've had to recognise it. The position of focaliser invites isolation; it's a department of one. I have to struggle daily with other people's projections — those who want someone to tell them what to do, and those whose authority buttons are always being pushed. Treading such a delicate balance has often brought up a feeling of impotency. Often I didn't say what had to be said; I suppressed it, and then it emerged in an exaggerated form. For the first two years in the community I'd looked around with some arrogance, watching others work through problems. 'I'm glad I'm mature enough not to have to go through that,' I thought. Now I'm forced to do the inner work I didn't do then. I'm taken and shaken till I do examine how I have to change. My new breakthrough is to seek support — I'm having sessions with Michael Dawson and Lee Oldershaw.
"Whenever I get into insecure states, the bottom line is that I'm not finished here. I'll spend time twisting and turning and thinking I should go away. But it's just not on — internal feedback is instant. I announced that I was leaving, but my whole body and insides screamed 'No!' — the pain was instantaneous. I thought my ego was screaming because of my attachment, but it wasn't the case. So I'm going to continue to focalise. Try as I will, I can't deny the inspiration of this place. I feel excited a lot of my time. Maybe it's a management meeting or something else that inspires me. My heart is really here in Cluny.
"I have a vision of Cluny as independent, but I've learned to be careful how I use the word and in what context, because it evokes very emotional reactions. At present, the Findhorn Community is a speck in the heart of the Foundation. In a while the Foundation will be a speck in the heart of our spiritual community. I want to take Cluny to independence within that context, not in a context of separation. I speculate that we'll move to a stage where membership at Cluny will require particular skills. The tenor of our work here is educational, but we are also the training ground for the membership of the rest of the community at the moment. Gradually our autonomy will increase. We need to persuade the Foundation we can have a separate accounting system. A lot depends on the trust that Cluny is in safe hands. We work with a two-handed gift: new members with a lot of exuberance and the fire of youth, but not balanced by the spiritual strength of people who have been longer in the community It perturbs me that young members are localising major demonstration areas for our guests. For some, being thrown in at the deep end may be good, but it's a haphazard way of running an educational facility. By attracting longer-term staff members from the Park we could upgrade the skill level of staff at Cluny.
"There's another challenge. Newness and change is swirling everywhere. We're going to make some mistakes. I don't want us to get punched into the past — circle the wagons again. It was necessary at first, but no longer. We need to be open. For instance, we formed a support group recently — it was supposed to be an instrument of empowerment for me, but what's actually happening is an experiment in group focalisation. The bottom line is that I may go down in the annals as the focaliser who got rid of the individual focaliser. We need to try new things. The energy wants to come through — so what is the best vehicle for it? I find it very exciting.
Alex Walker got married to Pauline Akhurst in October 1989. It was the community 'wedding of the year'. After six years in a relationship, they felt ready to make a more formal commitment. I asked for Alex's story largely because of his long experience of community management. Alex is 33 and Scottish.
"My parents moved from Glasgow to England when I was three. They were what you could call first-generation middle class. We moved from Lancashire to Birmingham and then to Yorkshire, where I stayed till I was 21. Eventually I went to Leeds University, to study geography. I liked that subject because it's wide-ranging, connected to geology meteorology, maths; to the way the planet is. In my final year, I began to want to go back to Scotland again,
to discover my roots, and I was accepted on a postgraduate town-planning course in Glasgow. It was a lively time politically, because of the Scotland Act, and I quickly became involved in the Scottish National Party. It was fascinating. I enjoyed discovering the streets of Glasgow and its way of life. I felt I understood it much better than Yorkshire.
"On the other hand, at that time there was still a lot of depression in Glasgow, a lot of poverty and ugliness, and after a while I became disillusioned with politics. It didn't seem to do much either for the struggling, unhappy people I met, or for myself. I picked up The Magic of Findhorn on Edinburgh Waverley station one day, and shortly after visited the community. The lifestyle rang clear bells inside me; it seemed to be an ideal community. People from different backgrounds were getting on, trying to work in harmony, and in harmony with the earth. It contrasted strongly with my political activism, which was mostly about arguing against things. This was more constructive!
"However, I couldn't understand the community's attachment to what I took to be a mushy and inconsequential spirituality, so I went back to Glasgow, continuing to visit the Foundation from time to time. As I spent more time here, I began to have profound inner experiences which opened my door to spirituality. I found myself having sudden, deep, unexpected heart connections with Glasgow, sometimes with Scotland, sometimes with everyone. It convinced me that I had to experience spirituality further, and needed to try to provide an example of a better life rather than to persuade and exhort others. Most of my friends thought I was going crackers. My childhood in England must have disturbed me!
"I took the plunge and joined the community in 1981. Since then there have been two major strands to my involvement in community life. The first is my relationship with the world of business and finance. I soon discovered that all was not well in the Foundation. There was a traumatic financial crisis. Of course, I was asked to join the Accounts Department and we had a torrid first year or two, with an embattled atmosphere. There was too much debt and a static income. On the one hand our creditors were 'baying at the door'; on the other disgruntled community members couldn't have more money for their departments. Our job was to clear up
the problems left by overspending in the seventies and to learn financial realism. I found taking responsibility exciting and challenging. I was on the Management Group after a year, and looked after finances for five years.
"The second major happening was that I met Pauline. She'd been brought up in the community, but had gone away and then returned in 1982 with her three-year-old son, Barnaby. We've been together since early 1983.
"I have also participated in and led various workshops about astrology and the tarot. For me the community was like a spiritual supermarket, with all kinds of different 'products' on the shelves to sample. Meditation, for example. Years before I had been instructed in TM (Transcendental Meditation). I have meditated regularly ever since, but it took me a long time to feel I understood it. At first I used the mantra I was given in TM for calming and centring. But at the Findhorn Foundation I started realising the variety of different applications of meditation, including using group meditation as a decision-making tool or working on specific problems by receiving information from higher planes. Only in the last two years can I say I'm beginning to understand the different applications and possibilities of meditation.
"Past life regression work has also fascinated me. In one regression I became a boy in 11th-century England. My father had died at an early age fighting the Normans, but as I grew up I became a quartermaster in the Norman army. Late in that life I realised that this dual loyalty explained why I had always felt inwardly troubled. The regression helped me to understand my ambivalent attitude to England, and also to my adopted son, who has seen very little of his natal father. The experience in regression of how difficult such disruption can be gave me a lot of insight into our relationship.
"From 1987 on I got more involved with the private sector of the community. I set up a small film production company, Silver Cauldron, and later became managing director of New Findhorn Directions, where I have worked ever since. I wanted to help the wider development of the community and, with others, set up an Open Forum group for those not in the Foundation. Now I'm working with a fledgling business network here. I'm also still on the Foundation's Management Group, as well as being a Trustee.
"At present the community is in a very healthy state, economically, socially and spiritually. It's a diverse, growing, attractive option for an increasing number of people. A major task is to marry business and spirituality, both within enterprises and in relation to outside organisations. Should there be a collective spiritual practice? Will the Foundation's central organising role change? One option is for it to become more specialised in adult spiritual education with a more professional attitude to life and work, and to improve the material lifestyle of its employees.
"Another option is to develop the 'mystery school' environment, like a Western ashram, cultivating an observably simpler life than the average in the Western world, or even than in the rest of the community. I think there's a tension between these two ideas. Perhaps it will be resolved by doing both. There are advantages in being more professional, also in having a more dedicated lifestyle, yet an ashram suggests spiritual elitism. Perhaps it's a reflection of who we are — part material and part spiritual. The answers will emerge, not be decided. For myself, I'd like to see both happening. It is a challenge, though, as the building programme starts. What lifestyle should it reflect?"
"I was born in a small town on the west coast of Scotland. My mother was a housewife, my father an engineer. I had two brothers; my older brother died when I was an infant, but I had a closer bond with his spirit than with my younger brother here. All my life I've had a closer connection with the spirit world than with what maybe you'd call the real world. From a very early age, I've always felt God's hand in my life. When I was five, I had a big argument with Him in school, inwardly crying and saying, 'Why do I have to go to school, when I've all the knowledge and wisdom I need?' He said, 'Well, it's just not like that this time; you have to learn as you grow.' I closed down. I couldn't understand why people didn't understand me. I still struggle with words and with how to express myself verbally.
"For a long time, I felt I didn't have much control over my destiny, for when God intervened He was there in all his pomp and circumstance, directing me. It's more subtle now. I'm moving more towards God, moving more towards being a co-creator. It's a gift I've received at the Findhorn Community. As I move into the light, my thoughts and actions are more aligned with my purpose.
"When I was young, church was a very comforting place for me; I loved to go with my parents. I also used to go with the deaconess to arrange flowers. I would sit watching her and listen to the angels singing. The first book I was given in church was called The Littlest Angel. From that moment on I felt my essence was angelic. On my eighth birthday (Good Friday) I saw a film of the crucifixion and realised how awful humans could be to one another. I had my first real understanding of who the Master Jesus was. I promised Him at that moment that I'd dedicate my life to humanity. When I was ten, I remember hearing Jesus preach through my minister. I knew what was happening. Some years later I was told that my minister had had a vision of Jesus as he entered the pulpit that day, and had opened himself to be spoken through.
"My relationship with the church changed when I was 18. One day, when I was taking communion, I looked into the gallery and a shaft of light appeared. I felt the Christ energy and heard the words, 'It's time to come.' I left the church and started looking for alternatives. I spent 11 years as a teacher, and during the holidays I travelled a lot, often visiting Greece — I felt very much at home there. I went to the Soviet Union and Scandinavia as well. Holidays abroad were my big bid for freedom.
"I was given The Magic of Findhorn by a friend. I was totally shocked by the story and couldn't understand what God was doing with Eileen. The Findhorn Community wasn't something I related to. Later I went to a fortune teller in the south of England. She told me of a place I'd live, described people I'd meet, their names, the colour of their hair and eyes, and their jobs. The names were those of people in my Experience week. She even told me the sacred dances we would do, the department I would work in and the name of my work department focaliser, but she didn't get the name of the place. It wasn't until five years later that I did my Experience week. Three days into it, I remembered everything she had told me.
"I felt compelled to be here and came back as an LCG. But rationally I didn't feel it was the right place for me to be. I had a more comfortable alternative in my teaching — it was meaningful work that I enjoyed, and my life was balanced and creative. Then, one day back at work, I was suddenly out of my body, observing myself teaching. The words came through to me, 'Now do you see the creative power?' It was time to leave teaching. That part of my life was complete.
"But I wasn't ready to come to the Foundation! I booked an air ticket for Australia, thinking, 'As long as I spend all my money, I won't have enough to go to the Findhorn Community.' God was gracious. For six months I had a job, was given a house and a car to look after and reconnected with friends. Life was wonderful. I decided I'd go to New Zealand for six months. There everything went wrong. I loved New Zealand, but I couldn't get work and wasn't happy with where I was living. I was walking one day, contemplating what I should do about my situation, when my body was filled with light and a voice told me to 'go home'. Going home at that moment meant the Findhorn Community. I looked in a shop window and there was the book The Littlest Angel again. So I got the first flight out of New Zealand and wrote to Personnel. I spent two months near the community with friends, helping them in their garden, feeling very close to nature; then my parents gave me the money I needed to join. Two years on, I'm still here.
"I didn't have any perception of what I wanted to contribute. I was happy to be part of the attunement process and attuned to cooking in the Cluny kitchen. That was a hard shock. I enjoy cooking, but all of a sudden I was asked to focalise meals on a large scale. I felt there were enormous expectations, considering I had just landed. It was the beginning of an intense experience of human behaviour and attitudes, my own included. As I settled down, I enjoyed being part of the transformative energy that is the kitchen's work.
"At the end of the first year I agreed to focalise the kitchen. It was quite a different level of experience. I resisted for a long time, then I chose it from a place of love, wanting to support Cluny from within the kitchen and to create some sort of synergy in the department. For most of the time I felt that trying to get support for the kitchen was like clutching at straws. Although I could feel part of the vision coming together, Cluny as a whole seemed too big and too dynamic for me to deal with. I brought the kitchen to the point where its members had come together as a group; I'd done what I was there to do. The next step was for someone else. My life had been the kitchen for one and a half years. My whole process was a group process — the kitchen's. It was only when I stepped out of it that I began to reconnect with myself. I'm still stepping back and looking at what has been going on for me in the kitchen. I slowly begin to see where I was feeling blocked, where I was struggling, and why.
"I had clear inner guidance when to leave the kitchen. Within a week I began the children's programme for the summer holidays. The difference between working with children and adults, for me, is that with children you can walk through the veil. There's a total acceptance of just being together.
"My work with the children has given me one of my greatest insights, about working with intent. I visualised myself creating a space that would embrace the children, and that intent alone created a wonderful work experience. Everything was easy; I was supported on all levels, from all areas of the community, and the work I was doing really made my heart sing. I want to continue to work with the children in some capacity.
"At present I'm filling in on Cluny Reception while Lucia is on holiday. The decision as to whether to become a staff member is coming up. I'm ready for the level of commitment, but I'm not sure what I have to give and what there is in the community for me to step into. It isn't my project to save the planet, or the trees or the dolphins, though of course I care about these things. My way is to conned on the level of human consciousness. My relationships with the people here inspire me. I have close supportive friendships with several members from my Orientation group. They are wonderful teachers and friends. Primarily it is the people connections that will influence my decision to stay.
"When I look back on my life as a whole, I realise there's been a kind of blessedness there. There's always been a group of angels around me since I was a child. When I've gone through difficult or emotional times, they've been present. Being sensitive to this energy, I acknowledge and work consciously with the angelic presence."
As Helen is quiet and introspective, so Jean Prince is outgoing and dynamic. They were in the same Orientation group but whereas Helen's life has been mostly at Cluny, Jean lives in the Park. She will be 46 this year. As this book goes to press, she has just taken on Public Relations for the Foundation.
"I was born in the East End of London — Bethnal Green. My family was always short of money, and I never had a teddy or a bike. When I won a place in the local grammar school in Stepney, my mother had to scrub floors to earn extra money to keep me there. By the time I was 17, I'd made a decision that I never wanted to be poor again and I worked hard. At 25 I was running the promotional department of the Brighton Evening Argus. Five years later I started freelance feature-writing and public relations. I moved towards a materialistic world in which it was the outer trappings that mattered. I remember having some doubts, even when I was twenty: something was missing, but money was then the greater pull.
"I did well. With my second husband I had a home in Kensington, another in Spain and a holiday home in the South of France, and I drove a Porsche. Then he left me and took everything. I came back from Spain with no money, no work and nowhere to live. After a four-year legal battle I gained possession of our flat in Kensington. I started a consultancy business in London, doing PR for clients like the Ritz casino. But my heart wasn't in it in the same way. I began my search for that 'something' that was missing. I did a workshop with Robert Hargrove on 'Relationship' and another on leadership'. That changed me. I took more personal growth workshops and almost became a workshop junkie. I did yoga and a nine-month shiatsu training, and I went to White Lodge for spiritual development — I was out doing workshops almost every weekend.
"During that time I heard about the Findhorn Community. People said, 'You'll love it there,' so I got a brochure, but didn't come. Two and a half years ago I spent five months travelling round the world, a working trip with 32 writing assignments. When I came back, I went straight into a fast pace of PR work and three months later I was so exhausted I felt I needed a retreat. Cleaning out my bureau I found the old Findhorn Foundation brochure again. This time I came. I did the Experience week and the 'Creating the New' workshop. Instead of a retreat I had the two most intense weeks of my life, but I knew that what I wanted was here. I went back to London for a month to check out how it felt in the old environment. After ten days I wound up my projects and my business with my clients. I came up in April 1987. It caused a lot of family upset. My mother thought she'd never see me again; that I was going to some sect that would take me away for ever, but after a while she visited, saw what it was really like and loved it."
Jean showed me the gardening clothes she was wearing. "I've been through huge changes. I don't earn money any more, I am happy in old clothes and with a second-hand car. I don't even buy books. None of that is important any more. My London friends say there's a new lightness and gentleness in me. Years ago I came across as hard and tough, but now I'm getting to the essence of who I am. I just love being here.
"The first two years at the Foundation have been a mixture of intense challenge and opening up to an inner peace which I've never known. I've been working through my ego and my habit of workoholism. Peter Caddy called this place the 'ego burial ground'! In my first year I focalised Homecare at the Park and I wanted people to know how good I was, to like me. My challenge was to find a true motivation for action. I could feel love and joy when I was doing the 'beautifying' parts of homecare, like flower arranging. But it was different when I was cleaning the toilets. I read Eileen's guidance constantly, and was determined to achieve an equal love doing both toilets and flower arrangements. It took me nine months. After that time I actually wanted to do the toilets and cleaned them with true love.
"When I moved to Cullerne garden, the same problem came up in a different form. After I began to grow dried flowers I slid back into commercialism. I saw them as a way of making money for the department and tried to find new ways to maximise profit. It all changed when I prepared flowers to take to a big local country fair. When we seed the flowers, we give them love, bless them, ask the nature spirits to energise the seeds. The same happens when we transplant them and later when we plant them out. The colours become vibrant, and they are cut and dried with love and joy. I suddenly saw that the flowers absorbed those vibrations and provided a way to send love and joy out into the world. That was the whole reason for growing them, not to make money. Spreading love was the only important thing.
"As I work more with love, my old patterns are challenged and PR is flowing back into my life in a new way. At first I thought I could do PR for the community with the old view of 'It's a product — with creative ideas you can promote anything.' After a year I realised that I still had a lot to learn before I could promote this community. This year we did a display of organic vegetables and flowers at Brodie Castle fair. People were amazed at their vibrancy and we got talking about the community and our way of life. It's a new way of doing PR that promotes the Findhorn Foundation not as a product or workshop programme but by example and
inspiration.
"I think the spiritual impulse running through the community is strengthening. In our department a more powerful spiritual energy is coming in. We're opening ourselves through deeper sharings. It's not what we do, it's how we do it — that's what the guests come for. Sharing this 'how' is what I want to commit myself to in the next years. I see us moving into a new way of being, and some members are being forced to look at and heal old pain as we move through the transformation process. We're being asked to deal with our unfinished personality problems in order to be clear, open channels to pull in Light. I'm now in a spiritual group whose purpose is to pull in and ground the Light. We try to develop this consciousness in our daily life and work.
"Soon after I came to the Foundation I did a workshop called 'Tools for Self-discovery'. It introduced me to art. It's been amazing for me to work with art as therapy. For two years I've been working regularly one-to-one with Hannah Albrecht, using art to heal past relationships, work through blocks and process problems. It's the main form of therapy I've been attracted to. At first I couldn't put my anger into colour. Now I can express any emotion in a few minutes. Working with art has developed tremendous creative energy in me. I'm learning to weave. I make earrings and dried-flower arrangements. I have sewed party dresses for children and Pauline's wedding dress and I'm making baskets. Even in practical things I'm keen to try something new. When we had a blocked drain in the garden, instead of asking the Maintenance Department to deal with it we dug down, followed the pipe till we found the block and cleared it ourselves. The fun is in the trying; that gives a lot of satisfaction.
"I see the Findhorn Foundation as my home. I'd like to stay for a considerable time, and plan to build here next year. Many experienced and successful business people in their late thirties are joining. I think our careers aren't accidents — we are being asked to find different ways of doing business. A new way of doing Public Relations is forming in my head. There was a reason for my 15 years in PR; but first I had to let the old ways go."
"I was born in the Netherlands, and my parents were Dutch. I was the eldest child. We moved to the United States when I was five. Although we moved around a lot, I settled well — home life was secure. Even before I left Holland, I was drawn to the church. We were in the social, liberal wing of the Presbyterian church, so I learned about God as loving and kind; I loved Sunday school.
"By the time I was 12, when I had a friend whose mum worked in a bookshop, I started to read esoteric books about things like Atlantis and reincarnation. My father started reading too, which connected us. We chatted about cosmic theories. My mother wasn't so interested in such things — she was just a nice person.
"As a student, I was involved with radical politics for about four years at the end of the sixties, more through taking drugs like marijuana and LSD than by being active. I became disenchanted with the politics, though, and a year or two later gave up the drugs too. At university I dropped the church, although I still had a sense of service: I felt it was better to serve than just to think, and I had a flash to do a nursing course when I graduated. After my training I worked for three and a half years, taking long holidays. I had a skill I could use anywhere in the world and I travelled through the US, Canada and Central America. Then I made a trip to Europe, and I haven't left since.
"1 had heard a report on a feminist radio programme about two women, 'Divina' and 'Elixir' (pen names for Eileen Caddy and Dorothy Maclean — CR), who had a 'magic' garden in Scotland. When I contacted the station about it, they were very vague but gave me the title of a journal, and the Library of Congress found the reference for me. I wrote to 'Divina and Elixir' in Morayshire, saying I wanted to visit. Soon after that I moved house and forgot about it. Then one day I was reading The Secret Life of Plants and just as I was on the last chapter, which is about the community, a reply letter from the Foundation was forwarded to me. Just after that my sister gave me The Findhorn Garden. I felt a new sense of hope.
"I decided to come to Europe to do a midwifery course and visit the Findhorn Community, planning to be away for two years. When I got to the community, I thought my Experience week was revolting. There were 45 people in it and I didn't even like groups! But I met a nice couple from the Auroville community who convinced me that group life was important. In spite of the Experience week, I returned for the October conference in 1976 and stayed to do the Essence programme. I thought it would teach me centredness and group consciousness. I just stayed on after Essence, focalised Cluny Homecare for six weeks and then became a member. I wanted to go into the children's programme, but didn't. Like a temple slave, I felt healthy just working hard. I had enjoyed working with patients in hospitals, but I'd had problems with the administration. Here we were working 100% towards something good.
"A year after I joined I came to the Park to work in the crèche, the result of our mini baby boom in the late seventies. I met Loren and we found ourselves working on the same shifts and rotas for the next three months. We began a relationship and talked of having a baby. It was strange, as if our as-yet-unborn children said, 'You have to co-parent us!' We both chose and felt chosen to be parents and I became pregnant immediately. I discovered it on Erraid during a first visit with the community children.
"Next year we went to Erraid again with our daughter Ona, and felt it would be right for us to live there. I grew up in the suburbs and went to regular schools that taught nothing about nature. I'd always wanted to live on a farm. On Erraid I could live out that fantasy, learning about home-building, boats and caring for food animals; how to take care of myself on Planet Earth. We visited the States, I released my work in the Foundation and we went to Erraid. We moved into a house with no heating or running water. It was a heroic gesture! We took on one of the worst houses to do up, and struggled through a long winter.
"On Erraid I learned about living in a group where we were totally dependent on each other. For the children it was an ideal environment to grow up in, but my relationship with Loren was rocky. We split up for six months on Erraid, but living on the island provided a stability that the Foundation didn't and we came together again. I knew at Ona's birth that there was another child to come — even his name, Teva. But I wanted to wait at least three years to enjoy the first one. Teva was actually born on Ona's third birthday. I had some resistance to the pregnancy at first, because we were trying to improve and rebuild our relationship, yet it was as if I was fulfilling a contract. After Teva's birth, the relationship was just acceptable, but our work together was brilliant. It's still a good working relationship with a lot of rivalry, like one between siblings.
"After five years on Erraid, we moved back to the Foundation. We had helped to set up a healthy group life and created a good bridge between us and the owners of the island, assisted by my Dutch background. The Erraid group was strong and harmonious when we left.
"When we got back, I worked on the food-shed system for six months; then my plan was to begin a 'real' job in Personnel, with Loren supporting me by helping to look after the children. I had a strong sense that I was doing it to find out who I was. Three days after I began he fell in love with someone else. I was shattered. In the previous two years I'd surrendered to the relationship, and wanted to see it through. On the negative side, I'd lost my identity as Mari and become 'what the family needed'.
"I reacted furiously. I blamed C (the other woman), met her and told her to back off. She wanted to be friends but I just wanted to hiss, spit and claw. Somehow, to be able to carry on working, I had to blame her. Later I forgave her and was furious with Loren. But I eventually became balanced. I remember thinking, 'How is Lebanon going to be solved if I can't deal with my own stuff.' I did lots of counselling to own my anger and find myself again. The children were upset by the separation. Teva got uncontrollably angry, Ona needed lots of reassuring. The children and I moved into a new, smaller place. It became a metaphor for putting myself back together again. For the first time I lived without any other adult. Painting and fixing up the cottage was fixing myself up, too. But I wanted to leave the community, so Loren and I could get away from each other. There was a turning point when I found forgiveness. I gradually regained my sell-respect and no longer felt a victim. It took me about two years to recover.
"I realised I loved being in the Foundation and moved more into the planning side, as well as looking after energy. Then I met Richard; it felt good and we started living together. The family is in a dynamic cycle. We live across the road from Loren and his latest partner. Everyone gets on well.
"Ona is ten and a half now, and by her choice she's moved in with her father. There was a four-month preparation, but it was hard to face and I'm still upset sometimes. I have to struggle with an old model that says I'm failing if my daughter doesn't want to live with me. I don't subscribe to that model intellectually, but I feel it. Just now it's a real balance, not to feel rejected and not to reject her. She comes over often. Teva showed his upset by fighting with her. We fought, too — it seemed to be a means for us to express our regrets. It's an open-ended situation, so Ona could come back any time. I find it hard work — I need to be constantly vigilant with myself. Nevertheless it also feels right. She should be with her father for a time. Loren's partner loves the kids and is very good with them. Through Loren's relationships there is another child involved and we include her in our family. I want Teva to learn that it is possible to work through things.
"Apart from my family, my work here is concerned with building the Community. I'm in the next step of that process now. I'd like to give up the energy work and have more to do with the development of the vision. My experience here has given me a many-sided training through Erraid, Personnel, the school, energy involvement and as a parent. I'm also working with the Game, which helps me to curb my outer impatience and to make necessary changes inside.