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THE FINDHORN GARDEN

Pioneering a New Vision
of Man and Nature in
Cooperation
by
The Findhorn Community

Book sales:
www.findhorn.org


by Wonderflight

"We gladly come to draw all of you into a new vision, for
an expanded consciousness is dawning upon all humanity
like the light of the sunrise falling on closed eyes.
Open your eyes and experience the freedom of joy."
The Devas

The Findhorn Garden

In the garden we feel
that we are indeed pioneers...
we are learning the very secrets of creation.

PETER

MAN CREATES THE GARDEN: PART 1.

Excerpts from, The Findhorn Garden.

3-2-06

If I had stopped to question what we were doing or where we were going rather than proceeding in faith, step-by-step, the Findhorn garden could not have come into being. Certainly, the Findhorn Bay Caravan Park would have been the last place I would have chosen to live, least of all to start a garden.

Driving past it on my way to Findhorn village, I had often thought "Fancy living in a place like that, cheek by jowl in those tiny caravans." Yet one snowy November day in 1962, I found myself moving our thirty-foot caravan trailer onto a site there.

The six of us... my wife Eileen and myself, (Peter Caddy) our three boys, Christopher, Jonathan and David, and our colleague Dorothy Maclean—were to live in that small caravan for the next seven years.

One day on the sand of this caravan park a garden would flourish and, eventually, a thriving spiritual community of nearly 200 people. We knew none of this at the time. We only knew that we had been led to this place by the guidance Eileen received in meditation.

During the previous ten years every action of our lives had been directed by this guidance from the voice of God within. If we were faithful to it we knew all our needs would be met and the nature of our work at Findhorn revealed.

For five years before moving into that caravan at Findhorn, I had been the manager of a large< nearby hotel. During our time there, the hotel had trebled its financial takings and risen from a three to a four-star rating... all in accord with the direct guidance of God. You can imagine, then, what it was like to come from the lap of luxury... with a five-course dinner each night... to this caravan surrounded by gorse and broom, sitting on sand between a rubbish dump and a dilapidated garage.

3-3-06

I was unemployed, with no prospects of a job, and the six of us were living on eight pounds (about twenty dollars) a week Unemployment Benefit. Looking at the facts alone, our situation was a disaster.

However, the arduous spiritual training Eileen, Dorothy and I had undergone in our lives enabled us to accept this extraordinary state of affairs. We had learned to surrender everything, including our wills, to God.

Thus, when we were told that what we were doing at Findhorn would be of importance to the world, that there was a pattern and plan behind it, impossible as this seemed considering our circumstances, we accepted it. When guidance told us not only to live in the moment but to enjoy it, that is what we set out to do.

The boys reveled in the freedom of beaches to play on after the restrictions of a large hotel. The rest of us found the situation a challenge, an opportunity to apply the spiritual training we had received.

One of the key lessons I had been given was to love wherever you are, whomever you are with and whatever you are doing. So I set to work to improve our surroundings, painting the inside and, when weather permitted, the outside of the caravan, as well as building an annex for Dorothy.

Meanwhile, I went round for job interviews, certain that I would soon receive a position and we would move from the caravan park. Each week I queued up at the Labor Exchange with my former employees to collect my eight pounds.

Personal pride never became an issue because I knew that what I was doing was right and in the divine plan. That was the only thing that mattered to me.

The weeks of unemployment grew into months, the months into years, and I moved from Unemployment Benefit to National Assistance. Each time a job came up I did as guidance told me and went for an interview, but always something happened to prevent me from getting it, to the ever-increasing consternation of the authorities.

At one point, after about four years of this, a lot of publicity arose in the Press about lay-abouts on National Assistance not doing enough to get themselves a job, with the result that I was asked to come before a special committee.

They learned from my record that I had been a senior officer in the Royal Air Force, manager of a prestige hotel, that I was a good organizer, efficient and extremely healthy. Then why was I without a job? Eventually, the Board sent one of their investigators around to see me. He had with him a fat file with a complete record of my efforts to obtain employment.

After going through it, he looked up at me and said, "Would you say that God is preventing you from getting a job?" Amazed at his understanding, I replied. "Why, yes, indeed." "Well," he said, "then presumably if we cut off your money. God will provide for you."

3-4-06

He had played his ace card. "Yes...yes, I expect... yes, he would." So that is our first publication of Eileen's guidance. God Spoke to Me which we had sent out to a small mailing list.

I started my first garden at Findhorn with no intention of it becoming a major project. While I had always been interested in gardening, I had actually done very little. Throughout our first winter in the caravan park, I spent the evenings and bad weather days poring over garden books of every conceivable point of view—organic and nonorganic, traditional and progressive... looking forward to a time when I might start my own garden.

However, to create a garden there at Findhorn seemed as absurd as Noah building an ark where there was no water. We were situated on a narrow sandy peninsula jutting into the North Sea waters of the Moray Firth and were exposed to near-constant winds from all sides with only a belt of conifers to the west to provide shelter. Worst of all was the soil: just sand and gravel held together by couch grass.

Despite this, by springtime of 1963, since I was still without a job, I decided to begin a small garden. I erected a woven wooden fence on one side of the caravan to stop the sand from seeping in at the door and to give us a private place to sit outside. Inside this, I planned to lay a concrete square for a patio and leave a small patch, eleven feet by six feet, to grow a few radishes and lettuce.

With no money to purchase the cement for this patio, we had to proceed in faith, knowing our needs would be met. As Eileen's guidance had told us: "Consider how I fed the children of Israel with manna from Heaven. Forty years in the wilderness I did it for them. Why should not your every need be met? Are you not My chosen children? Have I not laid My hand upon you? Believe that all things are possible and make them so."

"Always remember, it was their daily needs I met. Therefore, never hoard anything. Whatever you have, use as a gift from Me and know there is plenty more where that came from. My gifts are unending, for all is Mine. Whenever you attempt to put something away for a rainy day, remember this, and you will cease looking ahead, you will cease looking behind, and you will live to the full, now. As your needs are met, give constant thanks."

3-5-06

We went ahead and cleared an area for cementing. Sure enough, a few days later a neighbor came to tell us that a truck had just left a whole load of cement in bags, slightly damaged by water, in the dump across the road. Though it may seem an astounding coincidence, events like this had become normal in our lives. We could only be thankful and proceed.

I collected several tons of the cement in the back of my car and completed the patio and a slab of concrete around the caravan . I hadn't found my winter research into gardening exactly encouraging. Most of the books, besides containing discrepancies, had been written for gardens in the south of England where the growing season and climate are far more favorable than they are in northeast Scotland. Furthermore, they were written for gardens with soil, and clearly what we had here was sand with a mass of stones and gravel about a foot below.

To prepare for planting I had to remove the turf, a tangle of couch grass. I turned this upside down into the bottom of trenches eighteen inches wide by one foot deep and chopped it up thoroughly. Then the fine sand was replaced on top. We found the soil so dry that water formed bubbles on the top and ran off. Despite this, we sowed our first seeds.

At this time a job turned up which I thought I had a reasonable chance of landing, but again, somehow, it fell through. Eileen was very concerned about this recurring situation, but she received the guidance: "It is not right for Peter to have a job yet, but he must be willing to go for the interviews. You need not give them any force, and it will not come about. When he goes for interviews, he will have to let Me guide him in action."

It seems I was being asked to concentrate on the garden and my work there. I decided to cultivate the area between the wooden fence and the garage. As there were a lot of rabbits about, I put up a wire fence to protect the plants and prepared the earth in the same way as before, only this time adding manure collected from a nearby riding stable.

As time went on and prospective jobs fell through, I continued to add to the garden. Behind the garage was a piece of ground I could cultivate with enough extra space for compost heaps, which I felt were vital. During April I tackled this area and started collecting ingredients for compost. As with every other part of the garden, my training in positive thought and reliance on God... put into action through hard work... brought us everything we needed to transform the barren soil.

3-6-06

We were off to a good start when we learned that a bale of straw had fallen off a truck on a nearby road. I jumped into my car and set out to find it. On the way back, I saw a young man whom I knew walking along the road and offered him a lift. Feeling a bit foolish with straw lying on the back seat of the car, I explained that I needed it for a compost heap I was starting. "Well," he said, "you know that field we just passed at the end of the road with horses in it."

"Why don't you take the horse manure from there for your compost?" "But I don't know the people who own those horses," I replied. He said, "I own them." The next day we all went down in the car with bins, buckets and an old tin bath to collect horse manure for the compost heap.

The owner of the caravan park delivered grass cuttings by the load. A shop in town gave us old potatoes and vegetables too spoiled to be sold. Dorothy and Eileen cut seaweed off the rocks on the shore by Findhorn village. This was cold, hard work but compost was vital to the garden.

Another crucial ingredient was potash which comes from the ashes of wood fires. Since our only fuel was coal, I was constantly on the lookout for possible sources of wood ash. Whenever I saw smoke go up on the horizon, from fires connected with tree felling, off I would go to see what might be collected.

Every single ingredient in that compost gave us not only additional nutriment for the soil but an adventure as well. The love and appreciation we felt for each item we collected was itself a major contribution to the compost.

Our other needs in the garden were met in the same way. For example, in exchange for helping a neighbor to dismantle old garages, he gave us wood for fences and frames to protect tender plants from the cold and wind. Within the frames we created hotbeds, using fresh horse manure mixed with straw and leaves for heat.

You can imagine the amazement of the local people at the sight of three adults... Dorothy, Eileen and myself... back out in the fields again, this time following horses with shovels and buckets to collect that precious, fresh manure. No wonder strange stories go around about the Findhorn community!

Next, I tackled the steep slope covered with gorse and brambles behind the caravan. Digging into it, I found nothing more than gravel. There was hardly even sand. The soil had washed down the slope and settled between the caravan and the garage. The only answer was to exchange the two, wheel-barrow gravel out, shoveling soil in.

This involved an enormous amount of work, but it had a spiritual as well as physical effect on the area. I was told that by working in total concentration and with love for what I was doing, I could instill light into the soil. It is difficult to explain, but I was actually aware of radiations of light and love passing through me as I worked. This did not happen until I got a spade in my hands and started
digging.

Then, like connecting up negative and positive poles in electricity, the energy flowed through me into the soil. This work was transforming the area and creating an intangible wall of light, like a force field, around the caravan. When this area of the garden was prepared, I planted it with leeks and celery, rutabagas (called swedes in Britain) and turnips, more radishes and lettuce, peas and beans and a few other vegetables.

3-7-06

Our days were interspersed with times of quiet, inner activity. When the weather permitted, we meditated on the patio. Both Eileen and Dorothy wrote down the guidance they received each day from the God within. This ranged from advice on inner development, to the food we were to eat, to specific tasks for the day.

My own guidance took the form of intuitive flashes of inspiration... often received while working... that carried a sense of conviction, a deep inner knowing. These were sometimes confirmed and amplified by the guidance Eileen received. One of the advantages of working as a group was that our personal guidance could be checked with the others when there was any doubt as to whether it was coming from the lower self, or from a higher level. When we all felt the same inner knowing, it was right to proceed.

Of the three of us, Dorothy had always had the closest link with nature. One morning in May, a couple of months after we had first started the garden, she received a message during meditation that brought us into a totally new phase in the garden's development. She directly contacted a spirit of the plant kingdom, the deva of the garden pea.

We knew the devas to be that part of the angelic hierarchy that holds the archetypal pattern for each plant species and directs energy toward bringing a plant into form on the physical plane. During my spiritual training, I had been made aware of the nature forces, particularly the "elementals," the spirits of earth, air, fire and water.

To me, devas and nature spirits were an integral part of the creative process, the life force personified. In fact, at one time, I had been very interested in conscious cooperation with them. Now, here was the Pea Deva offering to help us in our garden. I jumped at the chance, thinking: At last! Now we can get straight from the horse's mouth the answers to any questions we have on gardening.

I brought out all those questions that had stumped us over the past several weeks as our gardens began to grow, and Dorothy put them to the deva of the species concerned. Strange as it may seem, we received the answers. Practical answers to practical questions.

They told us how far apart plants should be, how often to water them, what was wrong and what to do about it. These were just straightforward gardening answers that any gardener might know. The point was, we didn't know them.

Moreover, the devas told us that this kind of conscious cooperation between man and the nature forces was a pioneering experiment for them as well, and together we discovered some methods of gardening that went beyond the normal practices.

For example, after I had sown our first lettuce seeds, I did as the garden books advised, thinning the rows and planting out the thinning's to make five or six rows out of the original one. But most of our transplanted lettuce started dying, and we didn't know why.

When Dorothy asked the Lettuce Deva what to do, we were told it would be better to sow seeds thickly in each row, then eliminate those that are weak, rather than transplant. We could recycle the life force in them through the compost. This proved to be sound advice.

3-8-06

However, when this work first began, it caused a certain tension between Dorothy and myself. Beautiful messages or guidance from God were of no use, I felt, unless they could be applied in daily life. However, contacting the various devas was delicate work, and she needed to relate to their light, transcendent realms.

I, of course, was more down-to-earth, pestering her for hard-core practical advice for the garden. Eventually, we got the right balance, when we realized that in order to "bring it down here" she had to "go up there." But both aspects were essential... the spiritual and the practical. To create Heaven on Earth, as we were told to do, it was necessary to be firmly grounded in both worlds.

It is the same in cooperating with the devic realms. Man does not forego his own powers and
abilities, approaching the devas as if helpless, expecting them to supply the answers. Not at all. Man contributes his part to the work as an equal, and the devas respond by contributing theirs. True cooperation begins when we realize that man, the devas and nature spirits are part of the same life force, creating together.

As a representative of man in the garden, I accepted communications from the devas as advice yet knew that I must create the garden as I saw fit, considering the available time, workers, weather and material resources. The ultimate choice of action on this planet always rests with man. This sometimes meant we could not put into immediate practice what we were receiving and learning from them, but our conscious cooperation with the nature kingdoms was beginning.

The devas were teaching us not only how to supply the material needs of plants, but also how to perceive the plants true nature. We were asked to see the world around us in terms of the life force or energy behind the outward form. As the devas told us:

"In our world, which is closer to the world of causes, we see that all things are a manifestation of intelligence and that all happenings are related. If you put the horse before the cart, all power will be in your hands and you will work in the world of forces as we do."

The devas told us that, because our thoughts and states of mind affected the garden, one of the most vital contributions we could make was the radiation we put into the soil while cultivating it and the love we gave to the plants while tending them. This love, rather than a sentimental emotion, was the ability to be truly sensitive to the needs, both material and spiritual, of the plants in our garden.

Something very strange was happening in our lives. I was being mysteriously prevented from getting a job so that all my time and energy were going into creating this garden. Now we were establishing a relationship with the devas who had previously been so shy of modern man with his destructive ways. Why all this concentration on the garden?

One morning during meditation, it struck me. We were pioneering something new. Twentieth century Western man was consciously working, hand-in-hand, with the spiritual aspects of the nature kingdoms.
That evening Eileen received in guidance:

"Tell Peter that what illuminated him this morning was indeed so. You are working with nature, with the devas and elementals, and are gradually finding harmony with them. What is now happening is something new, and this is the way the world is to be re-created. You are all learning the secret of creation in your various ways."

Now we began to understand why we had had to leave the hotel where everything on the material level was provided. We were preparing to live in a new consciousness and had to learn, once and for all, the power of man to create his own world. We are all capable of bringing about what we set our minds to if it is for the good of the whole. Our work was to create a perfect garden in cooperation with nature.

Normally, to create such a garden would require a good deal of money, and we had neither salary nor bank balance. What we did have was what anybody else anywhere could have... ourselves, our positive thoughts and faith in God's unlimited abundance.

In learning to see the world in terms of causes rather than effects, we had to rely on God as the source of all supply rather than looking to a salary and bank balance for security. The principles we were working with in this were not new; they are part of the ancient wisdoms, but they have no reality unless they are lived and proved. This time of unemployment was the perfect opportunity to put them into practice.

In June, 1963, Eileen received: "You realize, at last, that no longer need you be controlled by events, but by your power of thought you control them. You can bring about anything by your thoughts. That is why this new-found power can only be used when there is no self left to mar it; otherwise it could so easily be used for the wrong motive and not for the good of the whole. Used by that higher part of you, only good can be drawn to you and you can create only good."

"This is the secret of creation. What you think, you create. This is where your faith and belief must be unshakable. When there are any doubts or lack of confidence, you are unable to bring about these truths in form. My wonders are to be manifest in form. Heaven is to be brought on Earth. We are one. Therefore, all that appeared impossible in the past is no longer so. Everything is possible."

It had seemed miraculous that all our needs were being met. Yet this was not really a miracle at all; it was the natural result of working in accordance with the very laws upon which creation is based.

We were frequently assured in guidance that the work we were doing was vital for the future and that it extended beyond the garden. Whenever we wondered or questioned, we were reminded to think of Noah: "The garden is like the ark I asked Noah to build. It is difficult for you to see the reason for it, for you cannot see into the future, but let Me assure you that it is vitally important. Every single thing that is put into it is vital. Everything must be done under My guidance, with the help and cooperation of the devas and nature spirits. This is a work to unite and make whole that which has been sorely torn and divided." Slowly, we were beginning to perceive the significance of our work in the garden.

All life processes in the garden were being speeded up. The devas told us: "In terms of life force, the improvement in the soil is tremendous. Not only have you worked as few humans have ever worked, but we, too, have had a constant rain of radiations pouring into the soil. It has been a combined effort and because of the push of it, the results are much faster than normal."

Being continually in the garden as we were, we just accepted it, not fully realizing how overflowing with abundance and vitality it was. Then one Sunday afternoon we went to visit the gardens of nearby Cawdor Castle, which had been cultivated for several hundred years by professional gardeners. We were amazed to see that our vegetables were actually much larger and in better condition than theirs. With gratitude, we began to realize the effects of cooperation with the devas.

The garden was becoming the mainstay of our vegetarian diet. That summer of 1963, Eileen began receiving specific instructions on refining our bodies through eating our own produce. We were tol that the foods we were growing in the garden with the help of the devas and nature spirits were filled with the life force that our bodies needed.

Eileen's guidance:

[We were told that our aim was to raise our vibrations, and to help us to do this we were given instructions on what to eat. "You are building light-bodies; therefore absorb the light which you get from the food in the garden. This food is tended by the nature spirits, devas and angels who help provide the life force. It is not the amount of salad you eat; it is being in the right state when you eat it. Always give thanks for what you are given. This is vital food and it is precious. Your aim is to cut out all body building food and eat the food that has the highest life force."

We were told to refine our eating gradually, doing nothing drastic, but to follow the diet I was given from within. It had nothing to do with any known diet, so we could not turn to books for direction. We learned to live on vegetables from the garden, honey and fruit, phasing out first red eat, then white meat and poultry, then fish and finally cutting down on eggs. We found our sensitivity grew and we became more in touch with the spiritual realms and the nature forces in the gardens.

I ate only one meal a day of raw foods and drank pints and pints of pure, clear water, with no tea or coffee or stimulants of any kind. I was told that, as our bodies became finer and less dense, our skin would absorb substances from the ethers and the sun and air. "Bathing in the sea is good for the body. It tones it up. The more fresh air and sunshine you get the better, but on no account is this to become a fetish. Do all in moderation and enjoy it."

To be honest I got bored eating raw food all the time. It was a real struggle. Peter and Dorothy ate mountains of salads and lots of garlic, which is cleansing for the body. At first I refused to eat raw garlic until the smell forced me to in self-defence.

Not only our diet but physical exercise as well was important in our lives. I was told through Eileen's guidance: "My son, it is most important to keep your physical body fit and healthy so I can use you at any time to do anything for Me. Some form of exercise is needed daily. What you do is not as important as doing it each day. You do not know what I have need of you to do for Me, but I can assure you that I have much and you will need to be in perfect health to do it. Now it's up to you."

Little did I know what lay ahead of me over the next years. I went for long runs along the beach every day, finishing off with a plunge into the invigorating waters of the Moray Firth. I did indeed become physically fit.

Winter was coming again, and we were still at Findhorn. What were we supposed to do now? The guidance Eileen was given in December, 1963 clarified this: "I want you to look upon this place as a permanent home and know that all the effort that is put into it will bear an abundance of fruit, not only material fruit but spiritual fruit as well. Remember, this is a vast work. Peter will need the help and cooperation of each one of you to bring it about on all levels. It is only when you seek that you find; therefore, never sit back and expect anything to fall into your lap."

The aims of the garden were becoming clearer. Guidance told us: "You are to have as many varieties of fruits and vegetables as possible. Contact with the devas is essential, and this can only be done when each plant is actually grown."

The devas themselves told us they liked variety in the garden, because each plant added its unique radiation and because as many devas as possible wanted to participate in our experiment.

3-13-06

During 1964, we grew sixty-five different types of vegetables, twenty-one kinds of fruits and forty two different herbs. As we sowed seeds or set out young plants, Dorothy welcomed the deva of each. Like Noah's ark for the animals, our garden was beginning to gather a representative selection of the plant life that could be grown in our part of the world.

We found that our expanded and overflowing garden was requiring a great deal of hard work. I was kept busy from dawn until dusk, and in this land near the midnight sun, those summer days were indeed long. Dorothy joined me in the morning and Eileen in the afternoon, digging, building paths, making fences and frames, creating hotbeds, gathering materials for the compost, turning the heaps, making liquid manure, sowing, planting, thinning, weeding, watering, encouraging, loving.

Every square inch of soil was handled by each of us several times. Every plant we invited into the garden was given the environment and conditions in which it could best express its life. With all this work, we retired to bed at night physically tired but in a state of complete relaxation, because we knew that we were fulfilling the divine plan.

I had the overall vision for the development and needs of the garden. Yet it was equally important that others work in it as well. Eileen's guidance pointed out to us: "You are all to help as much as you can. You must remember that the more you all put into the soil by way of radiations the better. You each have a certain something to contribute to the whole. This is not just Peter's garden, it belongs to all of you."

It was pinpointed concentration in each moment that was needed to create the garden. I focused all my energy on it, thinking about little else. I found that with this attitude it was possible to let my intuition guide me in the work. For years as part of my spiritual training, I had been learning to follow and trust those inner prompting's. Of course, mistakes were made, but they always taught me something.

I saw that listening solely to the rational mind would bog me down with reasons, pros and cons, on every action. So I tried to tune into the voice of the higher mind and plunge into action. Soon enough I discovered whether I had responded to true intuition or merely to the desires of the separative personality. Gradually I learned to distinguish between the two. Eileen received guidance supporting this intuitive way of working:

My son, let the garden develop naturally. When you are in the middle of something and suddenly feel that it is right to place a certain vegetable in a certain place, do so, even if it means changing everything around again. The garden is rather like a crossword puzzle, and when you get the right plant in the right place, you will see where the next plant should go. Now, this may not be the usual way of gardening, but this is not the usual garden. You will find that the whole garden will develop as you carry on and do one thing at a time, without too many rigid plans.

Ultimately, since it is love that fulfills all laws, it was my love for the garden that put me in tune with it. I remember one year we had several thousand annuals sown in boxes, waiting to be set out. When it came to planting them, I really didn't know what the various plants were. I laid out the boxes in three rows... tall, medium and short plants. Then I planted a patch of this here and a patch of that there, as I was prompted in the moment.

The outcome was such that when a gardening expert, one who specialized in annuals, later came to visit, he said, "I've never seen such a beautiful display of annuals. What a lot of time and effort must have gone into planning it." As far as the beauty of it was concerned, he was right; the colors and forms blended in perfectly. But I did have to admit to him that I hadn't planned it at all.

In 1964, our second season, the garden was literally overflowing with life. The devas and nature spirits were outdoing themselves not only in quality... the produce was filled with amazing vitality and flavor... but in quantity as well. At the beginning of the season, I had estimated the number of red cabbages we would need for the year. At the average weight of four pounds, we would require about eight.

But when those red cabbages reached maturity, they were so large that one weighed 38 pounds and another 42. It was the same with a white sprouting broccoli which grew to such proportions that it fed us for months. When I eventually pulled it up, it was nearly too heavy to lift. Certainly this was beyond the natural pattern for these vegetables.

Considering what we had been told over and over about the power of thoughts, perhaps our enthusiasm contributed to the energy and growth there. We did, indeed, do everything with great zest in the garden. It may also have been that something spectacular was needed to draw attention to our garden, to pave the way for a time when we might openly talk about our conscious cooperation with devas and nature spirits.

Because we were constantly in the midst of it, we didn't actually think too much about what was happening. We didn't even think to take photographs of these early phenomena. Then Eileen received the following, commenting on what was happening:

"You are in a fully protected area where you can put into practice and bring about My wonders. You can create by your right thinking. I have put you here in this place which is specially prepared and protected so you can learn to make My Word live, so you can team up to bring about the truths I have been telling you for a very long time."

"Now you are beginning to see them manifest in form, brought down from those higher realms so you can behold them with your own eyes. Like an artist, stand back every now and again and survey the work you are doing from a distance. Otherwise you may fail to realize what is going on. You are so close to it, so on top of it. Remember, everything is very concentrated here, everything is pinpointed. You are living in the middle of a powerhouse and can fail to realize the terrific power that radiates from this area."

3-15-06

During the early summer of 1964, I had been strongly prompted to plant out thousands of seedling lettuce, not really considering what could be done with them since we could not possibly use such a vast quantity. We had lettuce everywhere, between radishes and fruit trees, along Celery trenches, planted on each ridge. The entire garden was a mass of brilliant green.

As it happened, there was a shortage of lettuce in the area that year and individuals and shops came from far and wide to buy ours, as well as our spinach, parsley and radishes. The taste of organically grown vegetables and the quality of produce from this special garden accounted for the speed with which the word went round. With the money from the sales we were able to buy more seeds and plants for the garden.

That autumn we began a fruit garden. As we put in each plant, Dorothy contacted the deva of that species. All expressed great excitement in joining us, and with their help we hoped to grow apple, pear, plum and even peach and apricot trees; bushes of greengages, cherries, black currants, red currants, gooseberries, raspberries, boysenberries and loganberries; and a large patch of strawberries in the vegetable garden between the patio and garage.

Despite our determination and the willingness of the devas, the growing season here wasn't long enough to allow the peach, apricot and pear trees to bear fruit. The devas have said that man one day will have the ability to control weather conditions but only when he has a deeper understanding of the wholeness of life.

The other trees and bushes produced fruit abundantly. In fact, the story eventually came back to us from London that strawberries weighing a pound each were growing at Findhorn. The strawberries were indeed huge, but what I actually had said was that the plants were prolific enough to provide us with a pound of strawberries each per day. It just goes to show that people hear what they want to.

This remarkable abundance continued throughout the next summer as well. As we took visitors around the garden, it was interesting to note how most assumed we were using artificial fertilizers in order to obtain such growth, as if nature alone were not capable of this. It certainly made us realize the power of conscious cooperation with the nature forces. But we still did not talk to visitors about our work with devas and nature spirits. However, I soon did find myself in the position of having to explain publicly what was happening in our garden.

In autumn of 1965, I asked the County Horticultural Adviser to come and take a soil sample. I felt it was time we got some expert gardening advice on the varieties of plants best suited to this soil and climate. I admit that I felt the soil must be lacking in some ingredients, even though the devas had told us that if the soil was deficient, they, with the help of the nature spirits, could produce from the ethers the elements needed for perfect growth.

The adviser's first comment on arriving was that he knew this type of soil well and that it would certainly require a dressing of at least two ounces of sulphate of potash per square yard. I pointed out that I did not believe in artificial fertilizers and that I had been using the ashes of wood fires as a source of potash. For the next two hours he explained why wood ash could not come anywhere near satisfying the soil and that a few other ingredients would be necessary as well. He nearly convinced me.

He took away samples of the soil to be analyzed and returned six weeks later, baffled. The analysis had found no deficiencies whatsoever. All necessary elements were present. He was so impressed that he asked if I would take part in a radio broadcast on our garden, with him refereeing a discussion between myself and a professional gardener, well-experienced in broadcasting, who advocated conventional chemical methods of gardening. I agreed.

On the program he asked me what had accounted for the growth of the produce in our garden. He himself had seen the astonishing size, color and vigor of our plants. Not feeling that the public was yet ready for talk about devas and such, I attributed it to the use of compost, organic gardening methods and hard work.

However, I did use the opportunity to voice my opinion that the whole balance of nature was being upset by man who was now beginning to reap the results of what he had sown. Hopefully, our garden was seen as a way to help mend the situation.

In response to the soil analysis, the devas told us: "We knew that this garden would confound the experts, because it is not like other gardens. Yes, we can and do draw unto ourselves what is needed in our work from the everlasting life substance. This process is speeded up when the material we need is available to us in a form easier for us to use, that is, when it has a/ready been converted previously. This, of course, is where your cooperation in putting materials into the soil makes all the difference to the plants."

"This process is also easier for us when your creative power is flowing to the land, when what is coming from you is of the highest. Man counteracts our work not only by the poisons he purposefully puts forth but also by the many ways in which he breaks cosmic law in his selfishness. When all is more or less in line, as in this garden, our creation forges ahead not only unimpeded but accelerated."

Thus nineteen months after our first garden had been created, the results of our cooperation with the nature forces became apparent to us through more than just our experience. Now, we had the scientific evidence that something extraordinary was occurring in our garden.

Just at this point our faith was tested. Dorothy had begun working as a secretary in 1965 for a gentleman who owned a walled garden a few hundred years old. It had good soil, and was completely equipped with greenhouses, tools, everything a gardener might wish for. He offered it to us free, in exchange for keeping him supplied with fresh vegetables.

That was tempting. But were we growing our garden merely for the produce? What of all the radiations we had been guided to instill in the soil? Clearly, from the rational point of view, we were foolish to refuse his offer, but we knew within ourselves we must have faith in God's guidance and continue at Findhorn.

However, our time of relative isolation was clearly over as word of our work began to spread. As we made contact with others involved in spiritual activities in Britain, our group grew to seven adult members. I found myself travelling from Findhorn every two or three months to visit people in Britain who I felt were on a similar spiritual path. Unknown to me, through several of these contacts, new phases of activity were to unfold in the garden.

There was one person I felt especially prompted to keep in touch with at that time—a very quiet man living in a book-lined apartment in Edinburgh, R. Ogilvie Crombie. I had been told that during his sixty-odd years he had not only delved into spiritual and occult knowledge, but was well versed in the sciences of physics, chemistry, psychology and parapsychology. He was an intriguing man.

In 1966 Roc, as we usually called him, came to Findhorn for the first time. Shortly after, he had an experience which proved to be a turning point in his life... and ours as well.

One afternoon when he was sitting in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Roc had his first visual encounter with a nature spirit, with whom he also conversed. Soon after this experience he had the first of several meetings with the nature god himself, Pan. He felt... and indeed was later told... that these meetings were directly linked to the part he had to play at Findhorn.

The garden clearly had become the focal point for an experiment in the cooperation of three kingdoms: the devic, the elemental and the human. Each of us at Findhorn was playing a distinct and necessary role in the experiment. I was the representative of man, the active practical creator of the garden. Eileen received direct guidance from the [inner] voice of God within. Dorothy was in communication with the devas. Roc had the ability to see and speak with nature spirits. Of necessity, in our individual roles, we did not always see eye to eye. But we were learning how these three kingdoms could work together to create a new world in accord with the divine plan.

The mistakes we made during the course of this experiment only served to point the way toward true cooperation between man and nature in the world today. If a man like myself who was not a gardener could, by consciously cooperating with the forces of nature, bring abundant life from sand, then men everywhere could re-create the earth... providing they followed certain principles. These we were working to discover.

Learning to work with the nature spirits kept us on our toes. While the devas are anxious to cooperate but are rather detached from the results of their work, the nature spirits are more susceptible to direct influence by man and thus can get upset when he interferes with their work. We soon had a nature spirit strike on our hands.

Between our caravan and the wild area of gorse and broom behind it is a small fruit orchard. By May, 1966, the gorse had grown right up around our apple trees and gooseberry bushes. I asked Dennis, a young man who had been with us for three or four months, to cut back the bushes that were interfering with the trees.

Although he didn't like to do this to the gorse in flower, he explained to the nature spirits what had to be done, apologized and proceeded. Lena, one of our group, felf it was all wrong to cut them in flower. Dorothy was almost in tears, saying I was butchering them. I retorted, "Oh, don't be so damned silly," feeling that these women were really going too far. "Every time you mow the lawn you're butchering it."

The next thing I knew Roc was telephoning from Edinburgh, asking me what had I been doing to upset the nature spirits in the garden. Is he mad? I thought. I haven't been doing anything. "Nothing," I replied. "Well, you have," he said, and he came up to Findhorn.

That weekend with us, while crossing the moor covered with flowering gorse and broom. Roc found himself surrounded by a throng of little gorse elves all aflurry. "We thought Findhorn was a place where there was cooperation between man and the nature spirits. How, in Heaven's name, could they have done such an awful thing as destroy our homes?"

The elves lived, so it seemed, in the blossoms of the gorse and broom. They told Roc that they had all left the garden and refused to work there any longer because of this thoughtless destruction. Roc explained that this had not been intentional, that the cooperation in the garden was, so to speak, comparatively new. Man was trying his best and he certainly would not deliberately do anything to upset them.

Later, we held a little ceremony out by the offended bushes in which I expressed my profuse apologies. The elves understood and agreed to return. The strike was over.

This whole episode illustrated how I, as a representative of modern man, could override the sensitive feelings of others perhaps more instinctively close to nature... and in ignorance upset the nature spirits. Later Roc received the following message from a higher being: Remind Peter that at Findhorn, where a pioneering experiment in cooperation between man, the devas and the nature forces is being carried out, the greatest care must be taken to refrain from any action that will give offence.

This particularly applies to the nature spirits who are active in the garden. You cannot continue to expect cooperation from beings, many of whom still doubt that man deserves their help, though they are willing to make the experiment, if you do not respect their principles. There are certain practices common in many gardens which should not be used here.

Peter, as master of the garden, is the one to make decisions. But he must be warned that if he makes a mistake serious consequences will result. Not only will the nature forces concerned depart from the garden, but a penalty will be imposed. This will be severe as there is now no excuse for offending these spirits. He can no longer plead ignorance.

Certain flower spirits left because of what seemed to them to be wanton mutilation of the plants they tend by removing the blossoms. Remember these spirits are concerned with beauty and resent any violation of it. Flowers may be picked to beautify the home.

They will not resent this if it is explained to them. If flowers have to be pulled off in order to stimulate growth of leaves for food, for instance, this should be done before the flowers have opened out. Once they have done so they may have become the dwelling places of tiny little beings whose presence and whose good-will ought to be cherished, not repulsed.

I had often been told by guidance to liken myself to Noah. Well, I could see this had two sides to it. Not only was Noah persevering and willing to follow God's guidance step-by-step, but you might also say he was headstrong and maybe a bit near-sighted. No sooner had we straightened things out with the gorse elves than I discovered that, hanging over one of our black currant bushes, almost smothering it, was a broom plant... in full bloom.

"Ogilvie," I said, "that broom is killing the black currant which we need for food-vital Vitamin C and all. Surely the nature spirits will understand if I cut it back now." Roc just said, "Oh yes, I suppose they will." When Roc consulted the nature spirits, all they had to tell me was: Peter knows. With the abstract air of a scientist about him. Roc said, "Why don't you go ahead and cut it... and see what happens?"

Then I remembered the gorse elves. What could I say? We'd just have to do without the black currants. But the nature spirits had told Roc that if I left the bushes alone I wouldn't regret it; they would make it up to me. Although it was a poor year for black currants in the area, our bushes were overflowing.

Eileen would groan every time I came into the kitchen with baskets of black currants, because it would mean having to make more preserves. The nature spirits had kept their side of the bargain. Since then we have only pruned or cut back plants when they are not in bloom.

We were learning a great deal about relating to plants with care. Both the devas and nature spirits had told us that plants should be forewarned whenever they are going to be picked, pruned, transplanted or otherwise worked with by man.

Thus, in 1967 when the time came to build a green-house, we warned the gorse and broom growing on the site and then lovingly removed them. When we tried to level the area with a light-weight excavating machine, it just sank into the sand. Later, without my knowledge, one of our group got hold of a bulldozer and ripped through the area. The job was done, but what an uproar it brought from the nature spirits.

We could all feel devastation in the air. Again we had learned. The earth itself is a living substance, inhabited by many nature beings who deserve consideration. They, too, need to be forewarned. Then an individual operating a machine with awareness can use it as an extension of himself to clear an area with love and care. Man's actions do not have to be destructive. With sensitivity, man can cooperate with nature to transform the world around him.

3-20-06

MAN CREATES THE GARDEN: PART 2.

Our group continued to grow throughout 1966-67. People began to join us from different parts of the world. We now had several caravans, and prefabricated cedarwood bungalows were being erected. The garden continued as a source of food and any surplus was sold to the local people and to the increasing number of visitors. Then Eileen received guidance that the garden was to be extended and made into a place of beauty. For the first time we began to grow flowers.

The flowers we brought into our garden were also from around the world, and we worked to create the proper conditions for them. A greenhouse was constructed; rocks were transported from the surrounding countryside for a rock garden; a water garden and later a marsh garden were created.

We would have this garden represent the world, for we wish to have the cooperation of the world, the devas told us. Although the environments we created were artificial in our geographical area, this was man choosing to re-create the earth—and the plants flourished.

The flowers were literally radiant with light. Many of our visitors told us that they had never seen such a uniformly high standard in any garden before. They were at a loss to understand it in view of the poverty of the soil and the northern climate.

Even the primula, the polyanthus, and other moisture-loving plants thrived in almost pure sand. Foxgloves, which normally grow to three and four feet in rich soil, grew to eight and nine feet in our sandy garden. In the worst possible soil for roses, ours bloomed in perfection.

The time was coming closer when we would have to speak publicly about our work with the devas and nature spirits. It was Sir George Trevelyan, nephew of the noted historian G. M. Trevelyan, who actually saw the significance of what we were doing and himself began to spread the word. At Easter-time, 1968, he paid us his first visit.

Sir George is well-known for the part he played in initiating the adult education movement in England. His college at Attingham Park was also the scene of many conferences held on New Age themes. It was at one of these conferences for New Age group leaders, in 1965, that I first met him.

Even though I was there merely as an observer, and our "New Age community" was externally little more than a few caravans surrounded by a garden, I was prompted to stand up and tell this imposing group that we were actually living the principles they were discussing.

As a result. Sir George invited me to speak. During the discussion that followed, I was asked about our financial policy at Findhorn. At that time we were still living on Unemployment Benefit and considered ourselves lucky if we had a penny left by the end of the week. Our financial policy?

For a moment I was stumped, but then found myself saying, "Well, it's quite simple. One gives up everything to put God and his will first, and then all one's needs are met from God's abundant supply." At that, many people wrote Findhorn off as "airy-fairy" and unrealistic. It was, in fact, almost three years before Sir George came to Findhorn and saw for himself that this principle really did work.

Following his visit he wrote an enthusiastic memorandum to Lady Eve Balfour, founder of the Soil Association, a group dedicated to organic farming and gardening. Sir George was sure she would be interested in our work, especially since she is the author of The Living Soil, a widely read book that deals with the oneness of all life and man's responsibility to the creatures he shares Earth with—animals, plants and insects. Sir George's memorandum began:

3-21-06

"At my Easter visit we sat on a lawn among daffodils and narcissi as beautiful and large as I have ever seen, growing in beds crowded with other flowers. I was fed on the best vegetables I have ever tasted. A young chestnut tree eight feet high stood as a central focus feature, bursting with astonishing power and vigour. Fruit trees of all sorts were in blossom—in short, one of the most vigorous and productive small gardens I have ever seen, with a quality of taste and colour unsurpassed."

"I make no claim to be a gardener, but I am a member of the Soil Association and interested in the organic methods and have seen enough to know that compost and straw mulch alone mixed with poor and sandy soil is not enough to account for the garden. There must be, I thought, a 'Factor X' to be taken into consideration. What was it?"

After his tour around the garden Sir George was not going to accept our radio broadcast "compost and hard work" story."I pressed Peter Caddy for his explanation. Here we have to take the plunge and what follows will appeal to some and be unacceptable to others." I told Sir George that "Factor X" was our cooperation with the devas and nature spirits. And he accepted it.

"The ancients, of course, accepted the kingdom of nature spirits without question as a fact of direct vision and experience. The organs of perception of the super-sensible world have atrophied in modern man as part of the price to be paid for the evolving of the analytical scientific mind."

" The nature spirits may be just as real as they ever were, though not to be perceived except by those who can redevelop the faculty to see and experience them. Perhaps the phenomenon with which we are now concerned is simply one of many examples of a break-through from higher planes leading to new possibilities of creative cooperation."

Not only had Sir George accepted it, but he encouraged us to write about it, thus initiating the first edition of "The Findhorn Garden," a series of four booklets printed on our own hand-cranked machine. The memo Sir George had written to Lady Eve became the foreword:

"As I see it, the implications are vast. The picture the devas give is that from their viewpoint the world situation is critical. The world of nature spirits is sick of the way man is treating the life forces. The devas and elementals are working with God's law in plant growth. Man is continually violating it."

"There is real likelihood that they may even turn their back on man whom they sometimes consider to be a parasite on Earth. This could mean a withdrawal of life force from the plant forms, with obviously devastating results."

"Yet their wish is to work in cooperation with man, who has been given a divine task of tending the Earth. For generations man has ignored them and even denied their existence. Now a group of individuals consciously invite them into their garden. They are literally demonstrating that the desert can blossom as the rose."

"They also show the astonishing pace at which this can be brought about. If this can be done so quickly at Findhorn, it can be done in the Sahara. If enough men could really begin to use this cooperation consciously, food could be grown in quantity on the most infertile areas."

"If Caddy's group have done it, many others can do so too. Wherever we are, we can invoke our devas, who doubtless are instantly in touch with those on the same wavelength anywhere else. This means that many gardeners can link up for help with centres like Findhorn where the break-through is conscious."

"The contact will not necessarily bring a scientific knowledge, though this may follow. It will work in the immediate intuition of the gardener so that his hunches may guide him to the right, though perhaps unorthodox, action."

"This is well demonstrated in Caddy's case, and many others who will acknowledge and love the nature spirits may, even if they are in no way sensitive, find that their gardens begin to grow and respond as never before and that they are led with surer intuition to do the right thing in planting and tending."

"The possibility of cooperation with the devas should be investigated seriously. The time has come when this can be spoken of more openly. The phenomenon of a group of amateurs doing this forces it into our attention. Many people are now ready to understand, and that enough should understand and act on it is possibly of critical importance in the present world situation."

Judging by the response we received to these booklets, there was an increasing number of people "ready to understand." They sent letters thanking us for speaking openly about our work with the devas and nature spirits and telling us how this confirmed their own experiences.

Some responded out of interest in organic gardening, others related to the implications our experiments held for healing the planet, others to the spiritual aspects of our work. Findhorn was emerging into a public role.

3-24-06

During Sir George's visit, we were in the process of planting nearly 600 beech trees as a hedge to enclose the area on which six new cedarwood bungalows had been erected. Our grounds now extended over nearly two acres. Paths were made through the sand, gravel and couch grass surrounding the bungalows. We planned to prepare this area and plant it with trees, shrubs and flowers.

Although our soil was considered unsuitable for deciduous trees. Pan had promised his help and that of his subjects should we decide to grow them. Eileen had received in guidance that trees draw power down from the heavens and up from the earth and that we should grow a variety to attract the many different devas.

About the middle of April I saw an advertisement in a Sunday paper with a special offer of large trees, suitable for gardens, from a nursery on the south coast of England. It seemed foolish to even consider buying these, because in this country deciduous trees should be planted by the end of March. I asked Eileen to check my inner prompting in guidance and we were told to go ahead and order them.

We waited and waited, and finally they arrived at the end of May. After ten days of transport by train, they were in a pitiful condition with shriveled leaves and roots. I truly wondered why we had been guided to get them. Getting no encouragement from the various gardeners I consulted, we went ahead and planted them in almost pure sand and in the teeth of a strong cold northeast wind.

Roc was here at the time, and for several consecutive days he and Dorothy blessed the new trees, and all of us consciously gave them love and support. When Dorothy contacted the Landscape Angel for help, she was told:

"We are including all these new trees and shrubs in a solid downpour of radiations, a wall of it, for they must indeed be stabilized and kept immersed in the life elements. They have to be kept in this wall without a moment's deviation; each one must be upheld the life in them is one with it. Give all your protective love to this wall, and let us thank God together."

Roc invoked the aid of the nature spirits who work with this energy from the devas. He could see gnomes and elves busy at work, particularly among the roots. The trees and shrubs survived and flourished. It seems we were guided to get them to show us that a seemingly impossible situation was possible with the help of the devas and nature spirits working through dedicated channels.

3-25-06

Roc's work with the nature spirits also pointed out to us the importance of the wild garden. In Britain, where there is a tradition of fine gardens, almost invariably an area in each is left wild. There is also a folk custom among farmers of leaving a bit of land, where humans are forbidden to go, as the domain of the fairies and elves.

One Sunday afternoon. Roc had accompanied a group of us on a visit to a local walled garden. At one end of the landscaped area ran a stream with a wooden bridge across it. On the other side was a wild place, cool and dense in contrast to the neat and colorful beds on our side. Roc, obeying an impulse, wandered off across the bridge and into the foliage. Later he told us that beyond a certain point in the area he had suddenly felt like an intruder.

There Pan appeared beside him and told him that this part of the garden was for his subjects alone and was to be so respected. He said that in any garden, no matter the size, where the full cooperation of the nature spirits is desired a part should be left where, as far as possible, man does not enter. The nature spirits use this place as a focal point for their activity, a center from which to work.

Pan also told him that at Findhorn we did not have enough respect for our wild garden. Indeed, we had developed the habit of crossing this area when we went to the beach for a swim, and right in the middle of it Dennis had set up his tent. You can imagine how quickly he removed both himself and his gear on hearing this message! Thereafter, .we made sure to enter this area as seldom as possible.

Throughout 1968 the gardens surrounding the bungalows grew. So did the number of horticultural experts we attracted. Lady Eve Balfour had found Sir George's memorandum fascinating and passed it on to her sister.

3-26-06

Lady Mary, who came that autumn to visit. Although she modestly describes herself as "an ordinary gardener of the organic school," Lady Mary has a store of knowledge acquired through many years of study and collaboration with her sister in agricultural research experiments carried out on their farm.

As we walked about the gardens together, despite her desire to rationally explain away what she saw, she was thoroughly impressed and, as she wrote, "I stared in a kind of rapturous wonder at the compact mass of colour and form." Her report goes on to say:

"The impression uppermost in my mind is that something important is happening here at Findhorn something strange and wonderful, hopefully not unique. Gardens like this are needed the world over, desperately needed where deserts flourish and life dies. Life! Perhaps that's it! Yes, if I were asked to describe the Findhorn garden in one word, I would answer 'life.' Life abounding."

On Lady Eve's recommendation, Professor R. Lindsay Robb, consultant to the Soil Association, arrived in early 1969. With a background in agriculture, conservation and nutrition, Professor Robb had served as a consultant in various posts around the world, including the United Nations mission to Costa Rica.

He clearly was a man with the wisdom as well as the knowledge of the land. As Lady Eve wrote of him, he expressed "not only love for, but a profound understanding of all forms of life, from human beings and what makes them tick, to the myriad microscopic beings whose home is the soil."

Roc and I took Lindsay around the garden. He kept picking up the powdery soil, looking at the partially broken down compost on it and exclaiming in amazement that things shouldn't be growing here at all.
After his tour, he wrote:

"The vigour, health and bloom of the plants in this garden at midwinter on land which is almost barren powdery sand cannot be explained by the moderate dressings of compost, nor indeed by the application of any known cultural methods of organic husbandry. There are other factors and they are vital ones."

"Living as this group is living, on the land, by the land and for the love of the land, is the practical expression of a philosophy which could be the supreme form of wisdom—and freedom."

3-27-06

When Lindsay Robb left, he sent up his friend and colleague, Donald Wilson, founder-secretary of the Soil Association, manager of an organic foods distribution center in London and an expert on compost. Donald was amazed by the quality and size of our produce, but our compost, he felt, left much to be desired. He dug right in with pitchfork and hard-core technical knowledge, backed by years of Soil Association research. His two-week visit left us with our first thirty-five-ton compost heap.

Our association with him pointed out how Findhorn's knowledge could be blended with established organic gardening techniques for mutual enrichment. Donald showed us the techniques, and the devas through Dorothy answered questions he had pondered for years.

Before leaving, he put in a special request to the de vas to get the new compost heap steaming. A few days later the Landscape Angel told us: Yes, we have a/ready begun working on the compost heap in response to Donald's request. Rejoice, a great new surge forward can be taken with the garden as the wholeness of life is more and more recognized and you work on the positive side and not through the negative way of destroying. Give many thanks, as we do.

Donald's emphasis on creating healthy soil abundant in life, rather than concentrating on what should be done about pests and disease, supported what we had several years before received from the de vas and gave us all a fresh look at how we were putting this knowledge into practice. With all visitors coming to Find horn there was this kind of give and take: our technical knowledge was broadened, their spiritual horizons were extended.

To some we represented the fulfillment of a vision. Richard St. Barbie Baker, founder of the Society of the Men of the Trees, paid us a visit to find that his "dream for a caravan community has already been realized. It is indeed an oasis in what was once an inhospitable area of sand dunes." Having dedicated himself for over fifty years to active cooperation between man and nature to reclaim the deserts of the world through planting trees, St. Barbie saw in our gardens a living promise of success for his work.

St. Barbie Baker is one of the most dedicated and untiring people I have ever met. Nothing seems to stop him: among other accomplishments, he initiated the Forestry Commission in Britain while pursuing higher studies in forestry at Cambridge;brought together, in 1929, the traditionally antagonistic religious heads in Palestine to discuss the future of tree-planting in the Holy Land; drafted the plan for the Civilian Conservation Corps with Franklin D. Roosevelt; organized the countries bordering the Sahara in a cooperative effort to reclaim that vast desert. He has totally given his life to heal the Earth.

3-28-06

During his first visit to Find horn, St. Barbie Baker, known, in fact, as the "Man of the Trees," drew up a complete plan for the care and landscaping of the trees in our garden. Since we were still in the process of compiling and publishing our four-part garden story, we asked him to write the foreword to the section on messages from the tree de vas. He wrote:

"The messages from tree de vas through Dorothy reveal the occult explanation that scientific research has been unable to give. The ancients believed that the Earth itself is a sentient being and feels the behavior of mankind upon it. I submit that we accept this and behave accordingly, and thus open up for ourselves a new world of understanding."

"How dull life would be if we did not accept anything we could not explain. Think of the miracle of sunrise and sunset in the Sahara; the miracle of growth from the tiny germinating seed to the forest giant, a veritable citadel in itself providing food and shelter for myriads of tiny things, and an indispensable link in the nature cycle, giving the breath of life to man."

The devas, of course, love St. Barbe Baker. During his visit the Leylands Cypress Deva told us: "There is high rejoicing in our kingdoms as the Man of the Trees, so beloved of us, links with you here. Is it not an example in your worlds that it is one world, one work, one cause under God being expressed through different channels?"

"You understand better now why we have gone on and on about the need for trees on the surface of the Earth. Great forests must flourish and man must see to this if he wishes to continue to live on this planet. The knowledge of this necessity must become part of his consciousness; as much accepted as his need for water in order to live.

He needs trees just as much; the two are interlinked. We are, indeed, the skin of the Earth, and a skin not only covers and protects, but passes through it the vital forces of life. Nothing could be more vital to life as a whole than trees."

Clearly, we found support and understanding in each other. A phrase from a prayer by Richard St. Barbe Baker adequately expresses our mutual meeting ground: "Help us give our best to life and leave the Earth a little more beautiful for having lived on it."

The Findhorn garden had demonstrated what could be done by man working hand-in-hand with the devas and nature spirits. Now we had the acceptance and support of others with more technical knowledge. Just at this time new lessons began coming our way.

My pledge to seek cooperation and brother hood with the nature forces was sincere, but I found it was not always easy to carry out in practice. The problem was to differentiate between the traditional gardening practices that took the devic and elemental kingdoms into account and those that simply exploited them. The decision rested squarely on my shoulders. I had been given the authority, as man, to act in the garden. Though occasionally I slipped, I was told:

As long as you make consistent steps toward change on behalf of man, mistakes in the moment will be overlooked and balanced out. My experience in dealing with the delicate sweet peas was a perfect example of the type of challenge I had to confront.

3-29-06

As a child I had watched my father grow sweet peas in the traditional manner, allowing only one main stem from each plant to grow, pinching out all other stems. Flowers were permitted to bloom only when a single strong stem had grown with no tendrils or side shoots. The result was a long-stemmed sweet pea with four or five large blooms. To me this was the standard for sweet pea beauty.

Thus, when Eileen asked me to grow sweet peas for the two tall vases in the community sanctuary, I knew how to go about getting the most beautiful sweet peas possible. These were after all for the glory of God, not man. I grew these plants as I had learned, but also with much love.

Each day I talked to the sweet peas, telling them how lovely they were and what magnificent sweet pea blossoms they were growing... while I pinched off their tendrils and sideshoots. Dorothy, of course, wasn't happy about this. Nor was Roc, who felt it was clearly manipulation.

This was all very frustrating and even infuriating. Gardening to me had meant pinching out, pruning, weeding, thinning and otherwise creating the conditions that would give the plants we had brought into our garden a chance to grow and be fruitful. In the natural environment of a field or forest, a bush is pruned by animals eating back the growth, and I felt that in a garden man could take the place of nature and do the same.

Besides, without pruning, fruit trees and bushes can't bear fruit, and cultivated roses can't give those beautiful blossoms. That's just fact. In order to create, one must, in a sense, destroy as well. Were the nature kingdoms telling me to stop tending the garden? I just couldn't see an alternative.

Attempting to settle the controversy, Dorothy contacted the Sweet Pea Deva. She received a very straightforward message, emphasizing the natural beauty of the sweet pea. However, the deva presented to us a way of bringing about change in the form of plants without causing harm... through cooperation with the inner spirit of the plant, rather than manipulation of the outer form.

Again we were being told to look to the creative power of our thoughts. We were told to ask the nature kingdoms, in faith, for the change we wanted to initiate. Then, if our faith was strong enough and the change was clearly for the good of the whole, they would cooperate to bring it about.

However, the devas had said that we were just beginning to move into a new era of cooperation. In our garden, we were in the interim period of building a bridge to that new world. Therefore, I had to follow my inner feeling that it would not be right to suddenly drop all traditional gardening practices. This would lead to chaos.

One builds the new by taking the best of the old and adding onto it. Moreover, we often did not have enough people or time—or indeed the necessary level of consciousness— to do more than keep the garden well-tended. That was a big enough job in itself.

Over and over we were reminded that in this garden of cooperation our aim is to work with the nature kingdoms in a balanced way, discovering plant forms that are expressive of both man and nature. As Lady Eve Balfour, in a letter to me, wrote:

"Just as we have to learn to be aware that we occupy a physical form, so must we become aware that this is true of every life form. While we identify entities (plant, animal or man) with their forms, we will only be able to see God as divided against himself. But when we manage to reach communion with the reality behind the manifestation, we can, in cooperation, work out compromises for the forms, acceptable to all."

3-30-06

Perhaps, as part of this process, man must change his concept of beauty. But we must remember that the nature kingdom is evolving as well and is ready and willing to change, providing man's motive is in accord with the whole.

In 1970 a young man, David Spangler, and his spiritual colleague Myrtle Glines came to Findhorn from America. For several years before that, David had been a lecturer and writer on New Age themes. When he arrived he found us to be a dozen or so people working in a garden and living a God-centered life.

Within the following eighteen months community membership grew to 150. During David's three year stay our identity expanded into that of a New Age community and training center. His particular contacts with higher beings and his ability to clarify Findhorn's broader role helped to bring this about. The intense energy I had directed toward initiating and developing the garden now began to shift into administrative areas.

While I remained responsible to the vision of cooperation, the actual physical work in the garden had been taken over by other members. Findhorn's focus now was the flowering of human consciousness. The lessons we had learned growing plants we now applied to growing the people who joined us.

Our work in the garden had deeply rooted the energies of love and light in the very soil of Findhorn. The forces of nature had been our teachers, providing us with physical and spiritual nourishment. Just as in the evolution of the planet, plants had provided the environment that made it possible for man to develop, each of the plants we had been guided to grow here contributed its energies toward creating the proper environment for Findhorn's greater work: the transformation of the human soul.

Indeed, the growth of the garden is symbolic of the growth of the soul. The proper environment must be created, weeds that might choke out the finer, more delicate qualities of the soul must be removed, and all actions must be guided by the love that fulfills all laws. Just as you can create conditions for insuring the growth of plants, so the quality of life within the Findhorn community can be likened to a greenhouse environment where the growth and transformation of each individual is stepped up.

3-31-06

In the beginning, while we were in the midst of establishing the garden, we could not see what it was moving toward. Thus, we had to live in the moment with faith in God's guidance. Now, looking back, a clear pattern and plan can be discerned, each apparent challenge seen as teaching the perfect lesson.

A man quite untutored in the techniques of gardening was placed in this unpromising terrain and challenged to create a garden. He was provided with all the necessary channels and situations necessary to revive in him the spirit of true cooperation with nature, under the guidance of the God within.

And the garden grew.

Much has been demonstrated at Findhorn of what can be done in a spirit of cooperation between man and nature. There is so much we have yet to do. In the new phase of experimentation we are moving into in the garden, we must begin to live more fully what we have been given. Some of the directives we have received present great challenges, but we know we must proceed as we have always done, step-by-step, in faith that we are revealing the oneness of all life.

Perhaps in these pages you have discovered ways to make your own sandy places bloom with new life and to enter more fully into the cosmic adventure of living.