"In my childhood we lived on the Surrey/Sussex border in a house in an acre of garden, with a back gate leading to a field and a wood. My father was an aircraft fitter, my mother a housewife. I had no brothers and sisters of my age, and I spent a lot of time in nature; I was a bit of a loner.
"When I started school at the age of five, I just wanted to be out in nature; it felt as if my freedom was being taken away. Perhaps it would have been better if I'd gone to school at seven, like they do in the Steiner schools. But as it was I left school at 15 without any qualifications. By then we'd moved house twice, but I went to live with my grandmother near where I'd grown up and got a job as a cinema projectionist. After that there were various jobs, till finally I passed my Public Service Vehicle driving test and became a bus driver.
"In the meantime I'd taken up gardening as a hobby — my grandma said I had green fingers and I'd spend hours helping in her garden, learning from her.
"I got married in 1969 and had two children, a boy and a girl. We settled down and I worked an allotment, as well as an ornamental garden around the house. In the early seventies my young sister emigrated to Australia. She said it was wonderful and persuaded us to give it a go. As soon as I stepped off the plane I knew it was a mistake. It was a tough time and put a strain on our marriage. We were homesick, so we returned to Britain, but the lure of the money drew us back to Australia again. My wife missed the house we'd bought.
"But our lives began to drift apart; in the end we separated and divorced. During that time I read The Secret Life of Plants and was very excited by the last chapter about the Findhorn Community. Later on I found Eileen's Foundations of Findhorn in the local library and couldn't put it down. I loved its simplicity and power — it was as if I'd been searching for it all my life. I knew I had to come to the community. The time in Australia taught me not to put material things first, but to appreciate the simple things of life, things which are free — our inheritance from God. I give deep thanks for this lesson.
"I did my Experience week in 1984.1 worked in three gardens in that week. No one mentioned the devas or nature spirits, which disappointed me, but I felt very good and experienced new things that I'd never done before. Working in the gardens was a joy! I needed to go away to absorb it all, but by June I already wanted to come back. In September I started working in Cullerne gardens. Everybody seemed to be sorting out their differences in the attunements; it was mostly about personal growth and empowerment. There was an aspect missing for me — the connection with the nature energies. I thought, 'I'd like to bring that back.'
"I did Orientation and went to work in Drumduan garden. At that time it was a beautiful old garden, gone wild. The first time I saw it I knew it was my place. Three of us started working there. Every Monday morning we'd do a meditation to welcome the new guests. We connected with each other and with the nature spirits, and then showed the guests round the garden so they'd know everything that was going on.
"When we planted things, we attuned to the beings of the plants to bless them. We were really cooperating with nature energies. If we forgot, the plants didn't do so well. Even in the first year we had very good results; there was a great vitality about everything that I'd never experienced before. We dedicated an area as a wild place for the nature spirits. No one ever went in there. It was on one side of a path we'd built through the woodland. At the end of the season, a line of bright red Amanita muscaria mushrooms grew along that side of the path. We knew the nature spirits were symbolically acknowledging us — traditionally gnomes sit on toadstools and red also says, 'Stop! Do not enter!'
"In 1986, when the other members left the garden, I took over the focalisation. In the beginning I missed their support but soon drew another member to work with me and the connection with the nature spirits continued. A year later I attuned to looking after Traigh Bhan, our retreat house on Iona, for the summer, when the guests visit. It was challenging to start with, living with a new group of guests every week. As I got used to it and released the feelings of responsibility, I woke up to the magic of the island. I walked all over it and discovered the energy centres, which have been described as chakra points. While I was sitting on the one called the 'sacral chakra', tears came welling up in me, seemingly from nowhere. I felt I had experienced one of the mysteries of the earth's energy.
"On Iona I had time to think over all that had happened to me, and decided to leave the community. I went to an aunt's in Dorset and got regular jobs, first as a meat packer, then as a maintenance man at a private school for boys. It was a secure job, with good pension prospects, but that kind of life wasn't satisfying for me. I heard that Eileen Caddy was visiting Glastonbury. I went to hear her talk, in a cold, dirty old hall with hardly anyone there. Eileen was wonderful, shining like a beacon. I suddenly saw the Findhorn Community with a light radiating from it. I knew I had to return and a month later I was back.
"After a little hesitation I attuned to the Park garden. I felt there was a lack of connection with the nature spirits there, and that my role was to bring that energy back. We've slowly formed a new group and worked through a lot of personality problems, but we are making the connection with the nature spirits again. You can see it as you walk around the garden and look at the vibrancy of the plants — the original quality of the sixties is returning."
I asked Ian how the Foundation had changed him.
"Before I came here, I was sceptical and questioned everything. Now it's as if a door in me has opened. Also I had a tendency to try and please people. Here I've been given a chance to break through that and do what's right for me. Workshops I've done have given me the support I needed. I was shy of talking in groups-that's gone. Now I lead meditations and do nature sharings with guests. My sensitivity to nature has grown tremendously here, especially on the etheric level. Although I've never seen them, I know when the nature spirits are present. But, you know, something changed in my life from the moment I read Eileen's guidance in Australia. Even then I tried to put her teachings into practice in my daily life as a bus driver. I used to have a lot of pretty hard customers. It worked — the impossible happened and my life became a joy.
"Sometimes I feel that it would be nice to be married and live an ordinary life. It can be lonely here, and there are certain authority figures — people who talk all the time, so that the shyer, smaller person isn't heard so much. I find that difficult. I've also had feelings of insecurity about lack of money. I'm trying to work with the quality of trust, to believe that all my needs will be met.
"I find it's best if I take one step and not look too far ahead. I try to live a day at a time and enjoy that day as if it were the last. I'd like to plan next year's garden, learning from this year's mistakes. I feel grateful for the Findhorn Foundation, and privileged to be a member. It has taught me a lot. And if ever I leave, my life will have been really enriched by being here."
Judith Bone is the focaliser of Cullerne gardens, our largest garden area. I am happy to see how they are flourishing, for in 1984, when I worked there, it felt as if they were at the beginning of a long period of healing — of the soil, of human relations and of relations with the Foundation. Judith is 41 and English, a thoughtful and self-questioning person.
"I grew up in the north-east of England. My parents were fairly regular churchgoers, but church was not a big part of their life. I went to Sunday School, was confirmed and was also a member of the Young Anglican People's Association. As I got older, I was influenced by humanism and by the age of 15 I stopped going to church. I drifted away from religious ideas, and when I went to a women's teacher training college in Cambridge, I even became an
atheist for a time, under the influence of the educational philosophy classes. But I was interested in what made the world tick.
"I taught for one year at a village school. I felt very immature to be a teacher — it was a challenge to be 'Miss' — so I decided to travel. I thought of doing Voluntary Service Overseas, but my family weren't keen. I went to Germany instead and fell in love with a German. I stayed there for the next six years, working as an au pair for a while and then teaching English as a foreign language. I had a good job and was comfortable, but it wasn't enough. I wanted to do something important and tight, something valuable. Part of me was constantly searching.
"I read a lot and began to realise that many of the things I took for granted came from my Christian upbringing. I was living a conditioned way of being. I went travelling in India and Japan and stayed nine months in the latter country, teaching English. It was a big opening to see different ways of living. People in Japan have a Zen way of looking at life; they take it as a discipline and really work on it. Back in Germany I started T'ai Chi in Munich with a Japanese teacher. He also taught me Zen meditation.
"I first visited the Findhorn Foundation in 1981. It felt like coming home. I was searching for a community of like-minded souls and saw it here. I was very inspired by the people I met. For me it was also a very beautiful place — I was tired of city life. I intended to come as a member, but I began a relationship with Joshua, an Italian, and spent a year in Rome with him. Although I came back to do the Essence programme, it wasn't till 1986 that I was ready to join.
"I've worked as a gardener all the time I've been here. It's important to me to be outdoors in the fresh air in touch with the earth. It has been a quietening, centring experience. Working with the many guests at Cullerne has brought me really into the present. In my background, diplomacy, charm and tact were values. In the honesty of the community, I've had to work a lot on being clear. The biggest challenge for me has been that I came here with Joshua and now I'm a single woman again. I have had to look seriously at my way of being in relationships, to learn to express what I feel. The separation was a long process. I moved out because I was no longer aware of what was Joshua and what was me. We couldn't support each other. But all through it was the underlying feeling that it was right to split. For the first time I'm learning who I am and what I want without relating to someone else. Long established patterns in me have been challenged, but when at times I have felt like closing down, I've always been pushed back into staying open and loving. In a difficult patch I did rebirthing, which helped me release things I'd held inside for many years. Now there's a new way for Joshua and me to relate to each other.
"In the middle of it all, my mother died. I was with her for the last three weeks. The vision of the world I have learned at the Foundation gave me a lot of strength to be with her. I received so much from seeing my mother releasing. It was so obvious that only her physical vehicle died. In a way my mother was more available to me after her death; geography and location no longer separated us. It has also helped me to become my own mother to myself.
"After only one year in the garden I was the most senior member of the group! If I hadn't focalised, someone from outside would have had to come in. Fools step in! I felt very unqualified, but I was supported by the rest of the group. Now I feel competent on a personal level and with the guests. On the gardening side there's a lot to learn and always will be. My ideal is for the whole group of gardeners to be empowered. I see spirit in everything we do. The plant and animal realms are all part of one world with us on an equal basis; the way of connecting it together is love and appreciation. A lot of lessons in the garden are in understanding interconnectedness. Invisible energies are present and there is a mystery in growth. I find it, for instance, in compost-making. Although I don't see nature spirits, I become more and more aware of them: in the plastic tunnel with the tomatoes and peppers I've felt a real presence beyond something I could see. By learning to work with and trust my intuition I've become able to receive messages from the 'Angel of Cullerne'.
"With the guests I don't do a lot of talking but work more by example. Letting them have their own experiences opens their awareness of what is present and possible in the garden.
"I love the diversity of life here. I have involved myself with Sacred Dance and the Game of Transformation. I already studied dance when I travelled as a teacher, so Sacred Dance appealed to me from the outset. Spirituality is a lot about joy, and in Sacred Dance I can feel the magic of moving together. I like leading it for Experience week groups. I focalised a Sacred Dance workshop with Anna Barton recently and want to do more. I like the way that people have realisations about themselves and move through them in a non-verbal way.
"As to the Game, I'm a facilitator for the 'Game-in-the-Box' and a chronicler for the workshop Game. I want to become a qualified Game guide. The Game gives me a powerful experience of working with unseen beings; there's an element of magic in it, how things are interrelated — a clear purpose creates an equivalent experience. It's been one of my biggest transformational tools, and I use the language of the Game to express the process I've gone through here.
"During one game, when I was chronicler, another player shared that she procrastinated about getting in touch with God. I realised I did it myself. I would intend to meditate, then start something else instead. I caught myself doing it and made myself sit down. Suddenly I knew that God was Love, that the greatest force was Love. It was a total inner knowing. The experience lasted several minutes. It was sublime."
"I was born in Wiltshire, so I have British roots. But my parents were Americans and moved back to Portland, Oregon when I was less than a year old. There I remember the trees in parks near my home, giant old Douglas firs, the remnants of huge forests. I used to go and walk among them and felt a wonderful sense of peace, but also a sense of their trauma at the loss of the great forests which had been cut down. Even as a tiny child I felt a deep friendship with them and made an unconscious commitment to them. When I was about three and a half years old, as I was walking to the local kindergarten, I declared to the trees, 'I've got a lot of work to do!'
"I was brought up a Catholic, and the church moved me a lot when I was young, yet it didn't hold me, and by 12 or 13 I was already a sort of atheist. In my mid-teens I reconnected with nature, in the mountains and forests of Oregon. I was hiking once when I was 19 and sensed a presence come out of the forest and walk around me. I couldn't see it, but I could hear and feel it. I was awed and not a little frightened, and I never told anyone about it.
"At university I started off studying English, but later chose engineering. A few years later, as I got a job with a big multinational company, I also began on my conscious spiritual path. After work in the business world I would go in the evening to meditation groups or others exploring spirituality. I also did dream work. Dreams have always been very important for me. After two or three years someone gave me The Magic of Findhorn and I then realised that my experience when I was 19 had been a meeting with an elemental being. Two months later I was at the Findhorn Foundation. I stayed for some weeks, but only in the last week, in a workshop called 'Revelation', did I receive one — and knew that I would be coming back. Returning to the States, I began meditating every day, establishing an inner discipline.
"At work I was a budding young star, climbing the ladder. I was appointed to be project engineer for a major project at my plant and was sent to the corporate headquarters in Chicago. Flying in, while we were stacked waiting to land at O'Hare airport, I felt something say, 'Now is the time we need you.' It was a call from spirit and I knew it meant now. I gave notice the next morning, spent a couple of months clearing up my affairs, finished my professional exams and came to the Findhorn Foundation. I thought I'd give up engineering and work in the garden, but after one week I was in Maintenance, and I've been in that and building ever since.
"For the first two years I felt fantastic. I had left a city of half a million people and come to a tiny community. But I had a dream that I had left a tiny place and come to a vast one. By working with my dreams and with the Game of Transformation I connected with one of the archetypes of the Findhorn Community, the aliveness and intelligence of nature, and all the early memories of the trees of my childhood reawakened.
"1982 was a key year. I heard of the idea of the 'planetary village', creating a human ecology in harmony with nature as a model for the planet. It felt like my life calling. I also met Frances and dreamt that I had found my life partner. We were both inspired with the idea of a cooperative venture with nature expressed as a local planetary village. We lived together for three years and then felt God wanted us to make a deeper commitment, so we married. But it was a commitment to a larger vision and purpose, too.
"Until four years ago my main focus was on developing myself. At the beginning I had a dream which said, 'You'll be able to work on construction after you've worked on reception!' I realised it meant 'receptivity. I received a lot of healing. In 1985-6 I felt the initiation was over, my apprenticeship was finished, and I moved more into a leadership role, working on the Management Committee. Now I felt like a journeyman, and began to use more of my professional skills. I developed a workshop called 'Dreams and the Spiritual Path' and led it for several years. I learned to be a guide for the Game of Transformation and I still lead Game workshops — it's a good balance to the physical work.
"But the main thing has been the development of a nature-related ecology. I have a sense of tremendous excitement in the nature kingdoms at the possibility of working with a conscious humanity. it is my main motivation. I experienced the magic of this co-creation when we reconstructed Traigh Bhan, for which I've been responsible for seven years. We had a very difficult re-roofing job that lasted more than a month. The weather there is extremely wet. At the beginning we prayed not to have rain. We felt a sense of willingness. It rained the day before we started, then for 38 days there was no rain at all. Each morning we meditated and asked the weather devas that if it was possible for it not to rain, we would be very appreciative. The day after we finished, it rained. We felt that when we climbed up on the roof, a greater energy was with us as well. That energy is in the Findhorn Community too, waiting to be called on.
"The expression of that co-creation here is in the development of a planetary village in the Park. This isn't the only planetary village. It's one of thousands that are growing, to demonstrate a sustainable lifestyle. What is needed is a combination of four elements: spirituality, ecological awareness, economic sustainability and a nurturing cultural and social atmosphere. Here we are working on all four elements; other places tend to emphasise one or another. The spiritual impulse began everything in the Findhorn Community; our cosmology gives us a purpose and a location on Earth; and there is already a rich community life. Where we're breaking new ground is in economic diversity. The final expression will be an ecologically sustainable lifestyle, which will involve the development of the businesses. As yet, we've still a long way to go. We have only just begun to make real the idea of ecological housing.
"We're translating all the ideas into form by understanding what's here and blending our needs with those of nature. We're studying soils, geology, what kind of materials to use and how buildings are to be placed in the landscape. At the moment we're at the point of changing from the development of an overall plan to actual building. It's taken longer than we thought, but in retrospect the timing is just right. The community has to be ready to release old ideas and be open to the new.
"We are bringing together a building and landscaping team. It's been hard to draw people that have the skills we need — builders and landscape architects — grounded in spiritual awareness. That is the special synthesis required. At present we have 12 people in the building department, and eight others working with planning and design. We've formed a Development Wing to make it real. It's distinct from the educational wing of the Foundation, but still part of the charitable trust. We're all volunteers with a spiritual motivation. What has to grow is a building and landscape school where we're teaching a new way of building and landscape design that focuses on the practical expression of 'work as love in action'. A self-build group is coming here to help us with the building school in 1990 and we'll hopefully expand that into landscaping and gardening. The first windmill of our wind park is up; our vision is for a sustainable, non-polluting energy supply, roughly 70% wind, 20% solar and 10% wood based. We are investigating a new system for sewage treatment so that all organic waste can be recycled on site. It may also provide energy — we hope to start a pilot scheme next year. We'd also like to develop our own water supply and purification system and increase our food production.
"From 1990, we should be building five to ten houses a year, using non-toxic local materials. They will embody passive and active solar heating systems and be energy-conserving as well as beautiful and nurturing homes, sensitively designed and placed.
"The images of the founding group of the Findhorn Community are still very real for me. The concept of God is alive and accessible; nature is intelligent and is ready and willing to work with us. We all have our own Eileen and Dorothy within us, giving us a way to connect with God and the nature kingdoms in our daily work. I feel that if we're to be successful with bringing this planetary village into reality, it will really involve that level of cooperation."
"I was born in Vienna to parents who were both graphic designers by trade, and I had a very happy and unperturbed childhood. Music was always important in our family. I learned the recorder when I was six. When I was eight, I saw my first piano, at a friend's party and discovered I could straight away make melodies on it. Next Christmas a friend of my mother was selling a grand piano and my parents bought it for me as a Christmas present. Of course, many children learn to play instruments in Austria.
"I had my own theory of reincarnation in those days. I thought we all came here three times. My friend, who saved her chocolate, was obviously in her third incarnation but I, who gobbled mine up, must be in my first. I used to imagine myself on a cloud with the angels, watching my life like a film. Sometimes it was scary to see, but I knew it was only a movie and that I'd eventually be back with the angels. School was boring to me, but at the piano I could dream. I wrote my own compositions and loved to distinguish the different classical composers.
"At 171 went to a special school for music students. It was a difficult time. I was confused and turned to my boyfriend for closeness and affection. I could not communicate well with my parents and tried to hide the truth about this relationship from them. Adult life seemed very dull and neither sex nor my daily piano studies could fill the void which I felt inside. I turned to marijuana which seemed to give me magic and sparkle in this inner darkness. Although I wasn't sure if God existed, I prayed for help.
"Soon I met a man who did yoga. He introduced me to Huxley's Doors of Perception. I realised that the reality we saw wasn't the only one, and that to open oneself through meditation was better than through drugs, because the results didn't go away and there were no side effects. I started yoga and began to read Jung and Steiner. The knowledge of the invisible worlds brought the sparkle back into my life, without the drugs.
"I moved to Salzburg to train to be a primary school teacher, but I never taught. One day I visited some master classes in music and saw a student from Japan playing Bach solo sonatas on the violin. I had a deep experience — for me it was an invocation of the Divine. I had to get back into music. I trained in the piano and recorder, earning some money by busking. I was involved in the Steiner community and it was there that I heard about the Findhorn Foundation. I read The Findhorn Garden. I liked not only the pictures but the love and care with which the book was produced. In 1978 I booked a ticket and came here. I was 23. I felt I was coming home, as if there was five times more of me than I'd experienced before. But I Wanted to finish my music training. I wasn't ready to join.
"Seven years later I had moved to Munich and had a relationship, a nice house with a garden and a marriage proposal. I decided to visit the Foundation just once more — and then the chapter of my 'normal' life closed. I didn't run away from it; it was just finished.
"I was preparing to do Orientation when the 'Angel of Findhorn' gave me another option. I was invited to be part of an Argentinean music group, Los Incas, and become a 'star'! I played out my dream and toured with them for a while, but it didn't satisfy me. Although I had missed out on Orientation, I was in time to do the Essence programme and in those days you could become a member after taking part in that, too. It was a difficult period for me personally, but I found a lot of love and support in the group.
"Three of us from that Essence programme joined the Foundation, but when the rest of the group left it felt lonely. It was a hard start. I worked in the kitchen. Gradually I started introducing songs and musical games into the shifts; although I was shy, if I pushed myself I found it created togetherness between us and uplifted us. From the guests I started collecting songs, rounds and chants from different cultures.
"After a time I was invited to lead an evening with a departmental guest group, to share music. Some Germans who were there invited me to do something similar in Germany. I tried it, as a step in faith. Three people came. But one of them was a yoga teacher, and she organised another workshop inviting all her friends. That time there were thirty. They asked their friends and I found I had become a workshop leader.
"After two years in the Foundation I felt I needed more time for music. My soul was crying out for it; I wouldn't be satisfied without it. Personnel supported me to go independent, though I had no idea how I could stay. Now, two years later, I own a caravan in the Caravan Park and two or three times a year I go on tour in Europe. I do little things here like giving lessons, and I get some meals by working for the Publications Department. I work with our Ceilidh band too, and we've produced a tape. I'm always putting on informal concerts, or providing music for meditations, celebrations and conferences. I've become the community musician!
"People get inspiration and healing through the work I do. Music and singing is a sort of spiritual hygiene that is lacking in the lives of many individuals. I once did a workshop with Danaan Parry on life vocations — I felt that my piece of the puzzle is to bring more song and dance to the planet.
"My dream and hope is that we are developing a sacred society, a society that is in touch with love and truth. My work is to create sacred spaces where we can encounter one another in a new way of being and see how we like it. Music heightens a sense of joy and ecstasy that heals us from within. The more I deepen my connection with music, the more I sense it as a form of prayer, making the Divine tangible between us. My vision is that my music helps to bridge gaps between nations, remove barriers between religions. We're all children of one Divine Being."
In Rainbow Bridge, the community's internal newsletter, one finds from time to time articles from places like Paris or Bologna or Stuttgart. They are extracts from Anna Barton's travel journals, lovingly sent in to keep us in touch with the events of her Sacred Dance workshops abroad. Anna is 53.
"My father was a policeman. In the war we were evacuated to Surrey, otherwise I was a Londoner. I was the eldest of four children, so I was expected to be responsible, something that's bugged me ever since. We were Church of England and that's stayed with me too, although I don't believe in the confessing and 'miserable sinner that I am' bit. I still tend to see God as a father figure, who rewards me when I'm good and punishes me when I'm naughty. I'd like to grow out of that, because it's not true. There's also a part of me that believes in God within, working from my own centre, knowing that that is God. I can find that place more easily than I used to.
"After school I trained as a secretary and worked as a telephone operator/receptionist for six months. But my heart wasn't in it, so my parents allowed me to train as a teacher at Lincoln Training College. I had a horrible probation year with a difficult headmistress in Romford, and then I got married. That was the end of my teaching career!
"Dick was in the Air Force in Cornwall. Because of his job we travelled a lot, having children every two years till finally we settled in Cornwall and bought an old water mill, which was big enough for his parents to share with us. We lived there for more than eight years. I became part of the local scene, started a preschool play group and trained to supervise it. I learned to paint pottery and loved it for the creativity. I wasn't so interested in money; voluntary work was more important to me.
"Towards the end of the time, Dick was posted to Kinloss air base. He wrote home about the Findhorn Community and Eileen, whom he repeatedly visited. He told about amazing encounters with nature spirits and spirit beings — though he didn't believe in them! The rest of us decided to come and see the place. It was 1972. I loved the way people were. I'd had a fairly conventional and uptight life. Here were all these flower-power people, singing and dancing. I worked in the pottery. At first we just visited; our life at the mill was too good, and we'd done so much work on the house and garden. But we began to feel a pull. We had a family conference about it. I decided that if anyone was against moving, we wouldn't go, but all of us agreed. We waited till Dick's retirement in 1974. In the meantime we started a new age group and set up the mill as a craft centre with candles, macramé and pottery.
"It was quite a wrench to leave it for the Findhorn Foundation. Eight of us came up — four children and four adults. Dick moved into administration straight away. I did several jobs, among them focalising Reception and reorganising it. We all played a big part in the community. We developed Pineridge garden with the help of a JCB; we sang and played in sharings; I went on to Core Group. Dick and Fred (my father-in-law) became involved in Cullerne, but I didn't want to. I wanted to be more at home. Also, Sacred Dance was becoming more and more important to me.
"In 1976 Bernhard Wosien came to give a dance workshop. He originated Sacred Dance, collecting folk dances from everywhere and simplifying them into circle dances with a spiritual significance. Because I wrote down the dances at his workshop, I was made the focaliser of the ongoing group that formed. It was the Sacred Dance that kept me going in 1979, which was a very bad year for me. I had been ill just previously and had had several operations, our mothers died and my husband began a relationship with someone else. For a time we tried to 'do the new age thing' and accept a triangle, but it was hell actually. Eventually they left. I was 42, without a husband and my children were growing up. I thought my life was over, but dancing kept my head above water.
"In 1980 I did my first workshop outside the community, in Essex. Then I was invited to Paris and Florence, and my second career had begun — my first had been raising the children. The more I danced, the more I realised it was my vocation. With Dick gone, I was dependent on the community allowance; no car, no phone, no holidays. I felt like a little, dependent old lady. As the children left, I was asked to share my house but instead I wanted more independence. In 1985 I became a self-employed dance teacher. It was easy at first, but now I'm having to learn more about business. I didn't know anything about accounts and invoices. The more complicated it gets, the more alien it is. I think that life should be simple. I'm actively trying to get back to a simple life, doing eight or nine workshops a year. Fourteen was too many, last year. When I'm away so much I can't be with my garden, which I love.
"I like to share with the community when I'm away, so I write extracts from my diary for Rainbow Bridge. Here, I lead all the Sacred Dance workshops, also workshops in 'Meditation in Movement' and 'The Joy of Dance'. I'm responsible for all the Sacred Dance in the community. It's a lot of work to organise: an ongoing group Tuesday night, a casual group Wednesday night, performances for festivals and celebrations, making tapes, working out steps for new dances, answering all the letters I get.
"Since I became independent, I've pulled back from the Foundation somewhat. I don't eat in the community centre; I have a smaller group of friends than I used to have. I like to slow my pace down now; I need more quiet and relaxation between workshops.
"Looking back, I have suffered a lot of pain and loss here, but I've gained more than I could ever have done outside. My perspective on values and beliefs has changed. I used to have a set of absolute values. Now I can look at a situation and search for the truth in it. For instance, when my eldest daughter wanted to live with her boyfriend at the age of 16, I said, 'No.' But when I thought about it, I realised that I was more concerned with what people thought about me than about her — so I changed my mind. Prior to coming here I would never have had a relationship with a younger man — I met Alain, my present partner, in the south of France in 1983 — but now that doesn't matter to me. It's who the person is that counts, not their age. It has been valuable for my children, too. When they were ready to go to college, they were glad to get away. They had begun to see the community as their peers outside did. But once they were out, they realised how much they'd gained from their upbringing here. They had much more maturity than their friends.