It was 1982, the year Britain had, for the first time in its history, become an oil exporter, and the Findhorn group had announced they wanted to create a ‘Planetary Village’, a living example of how people could make sustainable use of the environment around them in an harmonious existence with nature and each other.
They already stood out from the crowd: 20 years earlier, husband and wife Eileen and Peter Caddy and their friend, Dorothy Maclean, had arrived with their caravan on the windswept shores of Findhorn Bay on the Moray Firth.
The spiritual community became the Findhorn Foundation, dedicated to “planetary service, co-creation with nature and attunement to the divinity within all beings”.
By 1970, their numbers had swelled to about 50 strong, with their off-grid way of life attracting some 500 visitors a year. As well as those seeking spiritual guidance, were others curious to see the odd ‘eco’ homes that had sprung up: such as some made from two large empty wooden whisky vats joined together, others like ‘hobbit’ homes with turf roofs and insulated with straw bales and tyres.
Add new comment