\oiiva\noj N'aoHaNid Page 22 RAIN May/June 1984 Aerial vieie of Findhorn’s Universal Hall and the caravan park Findhorn at 21 by Steve Rudman It all started in 1962 when Eileen and Peter Caddy, their three sons, and their friend Dorothy Maclean moved to a small caravan—or trailer—located on the windswept shores of the Moray Firth, about a mile from the fishing village of Findhorn in northeast Scotland. They were out of work and penniless, and with the "guidance of God" decided the best way to feed themselves was to plant a garden on a seedy old rubbish dump next to their caravan. Peter was the gardener, and Eileen received messages from God on where to plant things. (When the caravan grew too noisy for her meditations, God suggested that Eileen use the public toilet instead for her spiritual communings—and she did.) Furthermore, Dorothy began to hear voices in the garden she identified as Devas—the angelic presences that guard each plant species. The results of the group's amateur gardening made news around the world—they grew 40-pound cabbages and 8-foot delphiniums on a sandy soil where only scrub grass had grown before. According to Lindsay Robb, a consultant to the Soil Association of Great Britain and the United Nations, "The vigour, health, and bloom of these plants in this garden in midwinter, on land which is almost barren, powdery sand, cannot be explained by the moderate dressing of compost.. .. nor, indeed, by the application of any known cultural methods of organic husbandry. There are other factors, and they are vital ones." People from all over the world came to see the gardens. Two Americans wrote influential books about Findhorn in the 1970s. Paul Hawken's Magic of Findhorn drew many young people to visit; some of them stayed for a few months. David Spangler's Revelations: Birth ofa New Age came to form the philosophical basis of what was evolving at the community. To many, Findhorn was Fi)}dlwrn's Universal Hall r NonvciNnod NafinciMd
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