Stories from the land…
“Spiritual ecology is, at its core, achingly simple. It is the recognition of the universal spirit that imbues all living things – a recognition that must be embodied through conscious spiritual engagement with the Earth.
It is not about learning something new but remembering something very, very old.”
-Emanuel Vaugh Lee – Sufi teacher & founder of the ‘Emergence’ magazine
‘Co-creation with Nature’ was what put our community on the map. The stories of the supernatural growth of plants due to our founders’ willingness to listen to and follow the guidance they received when working in the garden, came at a time when ‘flower children’ were eager for ways to put their back-to-the-land dreams into practice. It got us a lot of attention. More than sixty years ago.
The term ‘eco-village’ did not exist yet, but there was a growing consciousness concerning the need of humanity to find more harmonious relationships with all the other life forms we are sharing this amazing planet with.
Fast forward to today – ‘ecovillage’ has become a mainstream term and the growing awareness of accelerated global warming, climate change and species extinction are globally making any form of cooperation with nature a valid alternative to the deadly exploitation of our natural environment. And living in the Park Ecovillage Findhorn, the willingness to co-create with Nature is expected from anybody working with the land here.
But frequently there is, as can be expected, quite a bit of tension between different interpretations of it.
Having been part of the FF’s Park Garden department for around 30 years I had the opportunity to learn from experience, as well as participate in trainings in related practices such as ‘Attunement to Nature’. Like all spiritual practices our ability to ‘attune’ is a gift we all have and we can choose to develop & improve it through dedicated practice.
I like thinking of it in musical terms: Tuning an instrument, for example. So that all strings of a violin sound their uniqueness in harmony with all the other strings. Or an orchestra tuning their instruments to be able to play a piece of music ‘as one’. ‘At-one-ment’… I have also learned that it universally begins with our commitment and ability to ‘listen’.
No small feat – to ‘be still and listen’ – one of Eileen Caddy’s mantras. It has taken me many years of meditation practice to cultivate that state of ‘inner stillness’ in which there is room for more than my own mental chatter. Permaculture teaches us that before we interfere with Nature, we must take time to ‘listen’ – observe, observe, observe.
And I have learned that in the natural world hardly anything exists independent from its context. All things are interconnected (rather like the strings of the violin) and to attune to one thing I must understand it in its context as much as possible. So, as Buddhism teaches us, an individual tree is made up of many ‘non-tree- elements’. The tree is interconnected with the soil, the climate, the world of tiny beings (unseen, mostly) and all the many creatures which live in it and off it. We know today that trees in a forest are connected underground through an intelligent web of mycelia.
‘Attunement’ has become a commonly used ‘gardening tool’ here in this communicy, used to harmoniously interact with our environment. And that’s where my/our dilemma begins. In yearning for a harmonious co-existence with all other forms of life, I have to make decisions when interfering with them. I have to decide what I want to grow in ‘my’ garden. How to deal with invasive ‘weeds’. Which species to support, and which to discourage on the land.
I have to cut back the ‘bullies’ – in the hinterland this is mostly the gorse, which will otherwise overtake all of our heath and grasslands. And I need to cut down trees to turn the monoculture tree-plantation that we inherited into a bio-diverse woodland. But in whatever way we interfere with our natural environment – I ask for forgiveness first. As I know that creation necessitates destruction. The ‘shiva-theory’.
Hopefully our actions begin with dedicated listening. Attunement to whatever it is we wish to undertake. Observing the piece of land over and over again. Maybe paying someone who has been trained to look and see, to look for specific species, to conduct a survey. Making sure that the human beings potentially impacted as well as the animals, plants and tiny creatures, are all listened to.
‘Attunement’… and then, when we have done all that and brought the different unique voices together on one instrument, we can play music. All doing the best we can to take good care of the land we are living on.
Being a hopeless romantic I have learned that there is so much more to ‘Love’ than the romantic aspect of it. I have learned that it is often hard work to make love stay and grow. It does not always feel good having to say ‘no’ to some of the demands of my wee girl. And yet I have to accept not being liked when I do the loving thing I need to do in setting boundaries.
Similarly to our work with the land. Sometimes we have to be cruel to be kind. Love needs us to be both romantic/spiritual and active/practical. These themes have come up frequently here in our community. Ir was good to see that when there was a willingness for the individual strings to be tuned to the greater music, compromises were achieved and the work was done with consideration of all voices. Those of the creatures inhabiting the land, as well as the human voices.
And maybe we, as Ecovillage Findhorn, can still play a role in humanity’s struggle to find ways to co-create with Nature, rather than just dominate and exploit it until we have devastated the very planet we are living on.
For the highest and best for all…
Kajedo
Land steward of the Findhorn Hinterland Trust