News from the Land – Winter ‘22/23

By Kajedo Wanderer | Published: 19/02/2023

Early February: Henry Frosbooke has just finished his offering of ‘Drum baths’ at the Woodland Shelter and is setting up for his part in our fundraising event in the Universal Hall tonight. With Alan’s amazing photographs, Carolina’s singing and more, we are trying to raise funds for a wee wood-stove for the ‘Shepherd’s Hut’ – our now almost complete year-round simple accommodation for a young ‘apprentice’. ‘Succession’ is an important issue for us – as most of us who are active on the land are around retirement age – or even older!  We need younger people to grow into all it takes to be good stewards of this land! I know that they are a bit young but it’s been a delight to see the wee ‘Findhorn fledglings’ and their parents every Friday morning at the fireplace by the picnic table!

I love the winters here – watching the low hazy winter sun paint the trees golden… or the transformation of it all when we do get the rare snow covering everything… And it’s a quieter time – with Nature around us dreaming of the next spring…

As I write this, snowdrops seem to be appearing out of nowhere from the bare winter ground. Here and there in sheltered spots other bulbs are poking out of the earth… but it’s still winter, and in our part of the world we might still be in for some pretty cold weather. 

We have sold around 10 tractor-trailer loads of firewood to community members this winter – all of what we had cut after last year’s storm damage and thinning.  And we are half-way through this winter’s tree felling plan as we continue to make room for a new generation of trees amongst the standing pines in Wilkie’s Woods.

An extract of a poem for this by Antler;

Count the rings and stand on the stump and stretch your arms to the sky.

Think only because it was cut down could you do this.

You are standing where no one stood

But the dark inside a life

That many years.

We had made a start cutting the gorse back on grassland and firebreaks with the topper, but an unfortunate breakdown of the equipment forced us to put this back to after the felling season.  We have been able to cut back the regrowth of gorse on our main heath areas with the brushcutter, but this is a never ending job!  Walking the land I am always amazed by the gorse. It’s resilience – I don’t think there was a month when there wasn’t some gorse flowering yellow somewhere out there. Of course it’s just a token of the ocean of yellow we get in the spring. But still – what an amazing plant!

We have had four or five burials since I last wrote – 50 bodies in the Green Burial ground now! The last one was Katharina Brocke’s – with over 200 people in the Universal Hall and around 50 brave souls accompanied the wicker coffin from the Hall on icy paths to her final resting place. An extract of another poem for this by Antler;

Where your feet touch Earth

You know you are touching

Where something has died or been born…

Let’s make good use of the remaining quieter winter weeks – by listening to the wind in the trees, and the winds of change blowing through us…

By allowing ourselves to become still enough to hear the trees themselves – on windless days…

Allowing ourselves to dream – of the next spring….

Many blessings,

Kajedo Wanderer,

FHT Land Manager

Posted in News

Learn about the Benefits of Forest Bathing

By Christine Lines | Published: 19/02/2023

Last Spring it was such a great honour to be finally visiting the Findhorn Ecovillage for the first time. I had read ‘The Magic of Findhorn’ as an avid teenager seeking affirmation of my spiritual connection to the land, and here I was 44 years later being shown round the gardens by Jonathan Caddy, present Chair of the Findhorn Hinterland Trust and one of the sons of the community’s founders.  It is an awe-inspiring place and combines my interests in Nature, Spirituality, Community and Architecture for the people by the people, all in relative harmony with the other-than-human occupants of the land. 

I felt doubly fortunate too, as I had been invited to deliver my Forest Bathing (or Shinrin Yoku) training here at Findhorn and I felt very excited to be connecting with the wild energy here in NE Scotland having driven up past snowy Cairngorm peaks in late May. The sun shone for the whole of our stay, and many of our students went for a dip in the North Sea.

Shinrin Yoku translates as ‘Forest bath or shower’ and originates from Japan, but the principles are universal, and the research is proving that spending time contemplating our place in Nature with all our senses has some remarkable health benefits, and no nasty side effects. Even a short two hour walk in the woods can really enhance the immune system and reduce blood pressure and anxiety.

My first night at Findhorn was spent sleeping in the woods near the Hinterland Woodland Shelter listening to the owls calling and the denizens of the night whilst being gently held by the pines and the distant sound of the sea across the dunes.

Our first day’s training was held at the Hinterland, and it was perfect for our purposes to explore these stands of conifers, the new growth trees and shrubs, and finally to have lunch deep in the sandy bowl of the dunes and all the diverse plant and animal life that found shelter from the wind in these sun trap hollows. The ecology around these marginal areas is so rich and unique, and I think one of the most abiding and striking aspects of this visit was the realisation that Nature is big out here, there’s a lot of space for Nature, in fact it feels like Nature comes first and humans second which is how it should be really.

It’s deep winter and I am now looking forward with joy and affection to next May when we hope to once again be back amongst the wild tracks and sandy woods looked after so well by the Findhorn Hinterland Trust with our 3 day training course.  Further information is in the flyer that follows- doo join us if you feel inspired.

Stefan Batorijs

Founder and Director of Nature and Therapy UK

Forest Bathing/ Shinrin Yoku Training 27th-29th May 2023

Nature and Therapy UK would like to invite you to join us in the magical surroundings of the Park Ecovillage Findhorn for our 3-day Accredited Shinrin Yoku Basic Training Course.

Shinrin Yoku literally translates from the Japanese as ‘Forest-bath’ or ‘shower’ but we like to think of it as a complete immersion of all the senses in the rich, sensory and mythical realms of the Forest. Recent research has demonstrated a vast array of healing benefits from these slow, mindful excursions with the trees. 

Nature and Therapy UK have been leading Accredited Forest Bathing Training courses for 6 years, and our students come from all over the world.

Our three stage training allows practitioners to progress at their own pace. The courses are led by Founder and Director Stefan Batorijs, an experienced Psychotherapist, Lecturer and Spiritual Ecologist with over 25 years’ experience in working therapeutically with groups and individuals in Nature. 

Our courses explain the science behind forest bathing alongside practical and spiritual practices that emphasise an experiential way of learning. They are for those who wish to deepen their own understanding and relationship with Nature in order to support and guide others to discover their own personal connection and healing in the woods.

For further information and to BOOK NOW  

 

Posted in News

FHT’s Newest Trustee and Treasurer

By Christine Lines | Published: 19/02/2023

An Interview with David Hammond

To start with, can you tell us something of what brought you to Findhorn?

The driving force was that my family was in London and looking for a healthier place to live and bring up a child, somewhere with clean air and good water, with like-minded people.  We’d been visiting places that seemed to fit, then I saw an advert for a job running a mail order business here.   I knew William Bloom and Sabrina Dearborn who were connected to Findhorn, and the interviews were happening when we were due to be up in Scotland visiting friends, so I went for it and got the job – an unusual way to land here!  

Once we moved to Findhorn, I remember meeting Eileen and feeling a real kinship with her, impressed with what she’d been through, what she was teaching by example, just living it.  When I would go to early morning meditations, she was so regularly there and present, living and breathing it. Maybe it sounds corny, but I felt like I’d come home – this was my tribe!     

I love the three principles of the community that developed here – inner listening, love in action and co-creation with nature – the simplicity of them, it all felt very relevant to me and a really good combination of deep respect for nature and its central part in life, but also a recognition of the spirit moving in nature and ourselves, and the communication between the human and non-human world.  I felt that was all acknowledged here in a really beautiful way.

Can you say more about that nature connection?

From an early age, trees and being out in nature was really important to me – I remember I used to go out for runs in Windsor Great Park, which was full of beautiful, mature trees, and I could really sense their presence, strength and holding.  My best friend and I used to go out really early in the morning, take our guitars and sing by a lake or under the trees, just immersed in that world where nature was still the strongest force.  To this day it’s still one of the strongest inspirations for me – a walk in the woods or sitting under tree, I feel nourished by that presence and open to creativity. I often experience that nature, especially woodland, is a healer for me.  If  I am ever feeling stressed, I can get up and go out into the Hinterland and walk to the sea, and it gets me back in balance, calm, at ease and centred.  I feel huge gratitude for the nourishing, balancing effect nature has on me.

And I’ve always had a thing about squirrels, I feel a real connection with them.  There were a couple of reds playing high up in the trees in Pineridge one day and I just felt completely delighted by their chasing each other up and down, and jumping from one tree to another.  I just love that combination of climbing and flying they seem to have – these two were clearly playing!

I love too that nature is so close here, in literally two minutes you can be walking in nature without getting in a car, it’s just there on our doorstep.  The proximity to the sea is really important to me – I’ve always loved it, perhaps because my Mum was born by sea, it’s in my blood.

It seems you have had a wide range of roles and a breadth of experience here in the community?

After the mail order business, I worked for Trees for Life doing fundraising and accounts.  It felt purposeful, engaging and meaningful, and even though the conservation work wasn’t right on the doorstep it felt very pertinent.  I loved being involved in an organisation restoring beauty and balance.  Of course I was based in the office, but I would sometimes go and plant trees!  I found it really inspiring to work with Alan Watson Featherstone’s way of living and walking his vision.  He had an embodied authenticity about him and was someone I could believe in, his passion and love for his work was so palpable.  I so appreciate Alan’s photography of the richness and diversity, often unnoticed and hidden away, right on our doorstep too.  It’s a beautiful gift he brings of awareness and love.

I worked in accounts and as company secretary for several organisations around the Findhorn area for some years and then I moved away for a while to be near family working in building and construction, and then returned and took the job as operations manager for Duneland for a couple of years.  Once the East Whins houses were built, I needed to move on to something where more of my natural strengths lay! I had started serving on the board of Ekopia, and then, with my background as part of a wholefood collective, I stepped in to working as food buyer at the Phoenix, eventually managing the shop and cafe for about eight years, which I really enjoyed.  We turned it into a CIC, aiming to support the community as much as we could with money, time and resources.  I think any business operating in an area is benefiting from that area and so has a moral obligation to give back, not just to a few shareholders, but to everyone – we need more connectivity.

After the pandemic, I went to work with FACT for a while, and am now operations manager for Moray Carshare, which allows me to use my skills and experience, but also leaves me with much more space.  I love what it’s about – fewer vehicles on the road, sharing resources, and hopefully a move to electric and possibly hydrogen vehicles.  It feels like part of solution, a contribution to the issue of human transport needs.

So  how did you became aware of and involved with Findhorn Hinterland Trust?

Kajedo (FHT Land Manager) and Jonathan (FHT Chair) have become dear friends over the years and I have a lot of respect for all the work they do.  Now I find that I have more space in my life, I see all the good that Findhorn Hinterland Trust is doing and has been doing for a long time on so many levels, and I feel a deep appreciation of what is being created.  There’s the conservation work, community building, education, and the environments that are created – the conservation hub is amazing and inspiring, whenever I walk past it I appreciate what a great resource it is.  And of course before that there was the Hinterland shelter, which has long been a place to sit and have a fire, play guitar, have gatherings and parties, and the green burial site where there are funerals and also celebrations.  In 2017 I organised Parkfest along with Ariane (Burgess), and the Hinterland part of this on the Sunday was wonderful, with wood-crafts, fun things for children and families, music, it was a huge success.  The recent fundraiser for the Trust, with Henry and the Woodland Orchestra was so full of connectivity, I could really feel the unifying energy and sense of togetherness, even though we were inside, having his drums made it come alive and feel like we were out in nature!  It was great that as a musician and sound engineer I felt I could contribute that night.

So it seems you are going to be contributing in many different ways to the trust?

From my Parkfest experience, I would love to see us putting on a biennial woodland festival, which could serve as a fundraiser and also it could be educational, community building and loads of fun!  It will also require a lot of volunteer time, and I think we need to start tracking all our volunteer hours, not only to use that information for grant applications and matched funding, but also to raise awareness of how much energy it takes to make things happen and to acknowledge the huge gift our volunteers bring to us!

I hope that my business and strategic experience will be useful, and I’m keen on thinking about the sustainability of organisations both structurally and financially.  We need to think about the next generation, and Findhorn Hinterland Trust is all about that – the conservation of a beautiful resource we have inherited and how we pass that on in a great way.  To do that is going to require thinking about succession, how we are resourced, and maybe I can help with that.

There’s also a question for me to do with resources the community has possibly taken for granted.  Findhorn Hinterland Trust takes care of a large area of land which people enjoy, just like the park gardens, and this isn’t free to maintain!   Householders contribute money for infrastructure maintenance, but it seems to me the word infrastructure could easily be applied to all the other physical things we enjoy, like trees and land and I feel the conversation around sustainability needs to bring that in.

Overall I feel very new to Findhorn Hinterland Trust, so I’m coming with a general sense of goodwill and wanting to help, and I don’t know everything we do yet, but that will come!

Interviewed by Vivienne Wylde

FHT Member and Temporary Membership Secretary

February 2023

Posted in News

Honouring End of Life Paths

By Christine Lines | Published: 19/02/2023

Having joined the Findhorn Hinterland Green Burials Team in 2021 I have now, so far, been directly involved in nine funerals in Wilkies Woods.  I felt I wanted to write a little about some of this experience with you by sharing something about my friend, John Wragg, whom we buried on Friday 13th January 2023. 

I had met John just shy of 3 years earlier and I was regularly involved in his life. John was a quiet, gentle man with such depth that at times I had to tell him that what we were talking about was way over my head. I always enjoyed spending time with this fascinating human being who due to his underlying health conditions sometimes struggled to make himself understood but was never impatient with my inability when I was not able to make out his words. John was a generous man who remembered my birthday and wrote me a card even though I don’t celebrate it myself and he always gave me a wee gift and card at Christmas.

My relationship with John through my role as the Caring Community Coordinator placed me in such a special position when it came to saying goodbye to him. Due to our connection, I felt a deep sense of privilege at being able to honour John through this final phase of his life path. Having been a part of his life over the previous three years, through good times and some really hard times, and being very included in everything to do with him and his family made this funeral very special indeed and being able to assist John’s family complete this chapter of their lives will remain an enduring precious memory for me.

I qualified as a midwife from Stirling University in 2008 (was a mature student!) and during my student years and working for a couple of years post-grad I helped to transition many babies into this world. I never failed to feel wonder at this process, but I found ante and postnatal midwifery far more satisfying and, in some ways, so much more important as the preparation for birth and integration into parenthood was about the ‘long-haul’, the place where the rubber meets the road. I now find myself positioned at the other end of life’s transitioning through this realm and being able to help people in preparing for their final journey whilst they are alive as well as being able to honour them in death has become my greatest privilege. 

John was easy to be with, easy to discuss such matters with and easy to lay to rest. John was not afraid of death nor dying and was quite certain he had achieved his life’s purpose in this realm of existence. John had prepared his end-of-life plan with detailed instructions which made everything so much simpler for his family and the Green Burials Team. 

Thank you to all his dear community who came to say a final farewell to the body of a man now free and to share this moment with his dearly beloved family. 

And finally, what a wonderful gift we all have available to us in the fact that we have a green burial site right in our backyard, so to speak, which allows us to make choices in line with our values. John was deeply connected to the natural world and will be so content now that his earthly remains are naturally returning whence they came from.

Laura Shreenan

FHT Funeral Coordinator

 + Caring Community Coordinator 

Posted in News

Chair’s Round Up – Winter 2023

By jonathan.caddy | Published: 19/02/2023

Winter can be a quieter, more inward season but in terms of the FHT it has been a most active and productive time.  

We organised and put on a couple of gatherings at the Universal Hall – the Biodiversity Exhibition Event in November which gave an opportunity for trustee Alan Watson Featherstone to showcase and inspire us with his work exploring and photographing the incredible  diversity of life on the land we steward and the Woodland Orchestra Fundraising Event held on the 4th February which further allowed Alan to share his work but also gave the opportunity for artists such as Caroline Waldman, Henry Fosbrooke and a whole collection of community friends to entertain us with nature based music and song followed by great dance music offered by Mark and Karawane DJs.  Both were fun community building offerings with the latter raising funds for the heating system for our Shepherds Hut, the accommodation on wheels that George Paul and I are readying for young apprentices to learn land management skills from Kajedo Wanderer our Land Manager.

This is all a part of our succession and resilience strategy to make sure the FHT’s good work carries on into the next generations as managing woods, land and our responsibilities around our green burial site require us to think on a much longer timescale than a single human life.  Thanks goes to all that helped raise £810 on the night but especially to Tor Schei from the Ewe House community in Kinloss who donated a brand new wood stove which he delivered the next day for a voucher  allowing his community members a few nights in the finished hut in our woods.

The Woodland Shelter and Conservation Hub have also been centres for other activity.  We had another very successful Christmas Tree Event with the usual fire to gather around, mulled wine and nibbles and tree collecting from the land but this time we had Henry Fosbrooke up with his drums and Barbara Swetina with her accordion to further involve and entertain us. This year it raised over £1000 to go towards our work.  It  was followed in the Christmas holidays by the Conservation Hub becoming a fantastic Santa’s Grotto as part of a Christmas trail for children and families organised by the NFA – Santa felt right at home and it was a splendid and memorable sight to behold that I am sure will be repeated in years to come.

The Woodland Shelter also became the appropriate end of life ceremonial space for community member John Wragg’s funeral with the green burial team in action running this and then some weeks later successfully organising the further burial of community notable Katherina Brooke.  That brings the total number of burials on the site to 50.  It gives me a great sense of pride to have had the FHT develop and now so smoothly run this community resource that also financially contributes much to running the activities of the trust.

Elsewhere in our community we have started a new series of Sanctuary rebuild work parties to further help with the preparation of the site before building actually happens sometime around the end of March/ beginning of April.  FHT actively supports this work that contributes to the wider community as part of its building local community charitable purpose by allowing the use of its tools and expertise to help the process along. At present Pete Finch’s old office is being dismantled to make way for underground services and give the new building a little more space.  Do join us Tuesday mornings from 9.30am to 12.30pm.  These work parties are in addition to our usual monthly land based work parties the last Saturday of the month with an outline of the variety of things we get up to now available on a FHT Events Calendar on the website which also notes other FHT activities that we know will be happening this year – do put these dates in your diary.    

On the personnel side, we are very happy to welcome our new Treasurer David Hammond onto our trustees team which has allowed Christopher Raymont to step down from this role but still carry on as bookkeeper and trustee.  Vivienne Wylde is also exploring becoming a trustee but for the time being she is filling in as temporary Membership Secretary for Arun Patel who is away for an extended period this spring.  She has become part of our newly formed Membership Subgroup who are looking to extend our already 154 strong paid membership to 200 by the end of the year.  Membership is important as it shows a level of engagement and appreciation for our work and helps balance out the unpredictability of our income which is still 60% dependent on green burial activity.

Spring is now in the air and thoughts turn towards the FHT Apiary where eleven hives have so far survived the winter which saw some snow and cold weather and the plants in the Woodland Garden start their growth into the new season. Join us as regular work parties with the bees and plants start soon – Draeyk will be there  in the garden every Saturday from 9am and the Bee Team on Wednesdays from 2pm -4pm starting the 12th April meeting at the Conservation Hub   – phone 07825212816 for more information.

Jonathan Caddy

FHT Chair

11th February 2023 

Posted in News

The Great 60th Birthday Tree Plant 

By Christine Lines | Published: 04/12/2022

A Force for Repairing the ‘Metabolic Rift with Nature.

Since university, I have held the opinion that the nature/human dichotomy is the fundamental crux of the climate and ecological crisis and our failure to address this false separation will only escalate such crises further. This understanding emanated from my discovery of Edward Wilson’s work on Biophilia, who suggested that humans share an innate tendency to affiliate with nature and other forms of life. Our long and paralleled coevolution with(in) nature forged a symbiotic relationship where we became codependent to satisfy our physiological and psychological needs. 

An entomologist by trade, Wilson’s arrival at the Biophilia hypothesis stemmed from observing the interconnectedness of all life and the paradox of human’s apparent disconnect. For centuries now, our relationship with the rest of nature has been compromised through human interventions like industrialisation, capitalism and urbanisation to name a few. An unintended consequence of this was what Marx described as a ‘metabolic rift’ between nature and society that resulted in the loss of dialogue between humans and other forms of life. In order to overcome this rift, we must re-weave ourselves into harmony with the natural kingdom and what better way to do this than getting one’s hands dirty in the soil?

During the 60th birthday celebrations, I had the pleasure of planting my first ever trees guided by the stewardship of the Findhorn Hinterland Trust. Alan Watson gave my group a quick demonstration and within minutes we were planting Rowans, Silver Birches and Field Maples across Wilkies Wood. Living in London, I seldom get the opportunity to connect with the Earth and the soil beneath our feet. Cherishing every moment, the trees I helped to plant brought me great joy and a sense of connection with the land that I hadn’t felt since my last visit to Findhorn, where I spent time volunteering at Cullerne Gardens.

I always find that working with the soil can facilitate new ways of relating to, defining and being in nature, overcoming the nature/human binary I’m constantly exposed to within my bubble of urban living. Tree planting is a true force for repairing our rift with nature, as it allows us to reconcile our inherent metabolic relationship with the natural world. We were even joined by a friendly Robin who appeared to approve of our work.

Planting trees isn’t just great for our mental health, but a key pillar of climate action as nature’s way of storing carbon. We often get bogged down with the news about exponential emissions entering the atmosphere and not enough about how to draw carbon back down again.  This can alienate us from action, as large-scale emission reductions tend to operate in governmental arenas like energy and infrastructure. On the contrary, the drawdown movement can mobilise the masses by engaging people in activities such as regenerative agriculture and the tree planting I took part in at Findhorn. This way we can all feel empowered to pull carbon from the sky and participate in climate action at the local level. As we were all informed at school, the carbon cycle is a natural process, but we’ve disrupted it so much to the extent that we now need to remove more than we emit. 

Planting the tree is just the first step. It will take decades of observation, care and nourishment for the trees we collectively planted to grow to their full potential. I now hand over the duty of care to the Hinterland Trust and look forward to returning over the coming decades to monitor their growth.

I would like to thank my uncle Jonathan Caddy, Kajedo Wanderer, Alan Watson Featherstone and all those involved who gave myself and others the opportunity to connect with the land at Findhorn in such a meaningful way. 

Travis Caddy

New FHT Member

and Nephew of FHT Chair

Travis works in London for a company called Evident which is a world leader in certifying renewable energy and clean assets. He had just returned from COP27 before joining the Findhorn Communities 60th Birthday celebration.  He was one of three ‘virgin’ tree planters in the group of 25+ participants who attended the ceremonial event,  who had not had the opportunity to plant a tree before.  He was greatly moved by this simple act.  

 

Posted in News

Out of the Ashes Story – Callum Bell

By Christine Lines | Published: 04/12/2022

Out of the Ashes 2021

A Hinterland Retreat that Made All the Difference 

How an FHT retreat workshop impacted the life of a young Scottish lad and how these events provide opportunities for young people to engage with the work of the Park Ecovillage, Findhorn.

This is a story of how the Findhorn Hinterland Trust and in particular its land manager Kajedo Wanderer totally changed my life. In the Winter of 2020, I was writing my dissertation in environmental philosophy in my home-city. The year before that, I was lucky enough to go down a rabbit-hole studying philosophy, environmental humanities and religions in Kyoto, Japan. When I came back to Glasgow in the thick of lockdown, I felt much angst about my life not reflecting what I was writing about, thinking about or dreaming of.

I love Glasgow – but going from exploring the many shrines, temples, forests, and mountains of Japan, to a winter of lockdown living in my childhood bedroom for the first time in five years was a blow. I was flying and then my wings were clipped.

Through my spiritual studies, I was increasingly curious about the idea of ‘manifestation’. I imagined living somewhere more rural. It should have a beach nearby, as the sea calms me down and my ancestors lived on Islay. It should have forests, as that’s where I feel most myself – ‘Callum Bruce Bell’ literally means ‘beautiful dove of the forest’. There should be a strong sense of community – my dormitory during my cherry blossom year in Japan provided me with the most powerful feeling of community I had known, and I needed more of that. I should have the opportunity to immerse myself in the arts wherever I was, because all that is good in my life came from a healthy diet of movies, music and books fed to me by my parents. I wrote all this on a piece of paper and then set it alight.

The next month, my environmental studies led me to the idea of ‘ecovillages’, and a quick Google search made me realise I did not have to leave Scotland to find one. Here was this place, Findhorn, that I somehow had never heard of despite living in Scotland for 22 years. Clicking onto their social media, I saw ‘Out of the Ashes camping retreat with Kajedo Wanderer, with the Findhorn Hinterland Trust’. Perfect! It began in summer, when I planned to travel throughout the UK following my graduation. This was my chance to dive into this place that seemed strangely aligned with everything I was hoping for.

As I arrived in the Park after a journey with four connections, my senses were overloaded with caravans, colourful clothes and houses, and accents from all over the world. Plus, it was a sweltering hot day. Was I still in Scotland? It certainly wasn’t Kansas anyway.

The first person who welcomed me was Kajedo, who is essentially the person who put out the invitation for someone like me to appear at that specific time. I was the only male participant on the Hinterland retreat, and the youngest by a decade or two, but I still felt I fitted in perfectly. Kajedo gave us tours of the Park’s history, of the land’s history, and led us through deep personal sharing’s around the Hinterland campfire. 

This was a totally new world for me. I’d been obsessed with spirituality since bingeing Alan Watts YouTube videos at 14, but somehow I barely knew anyone or did anything in the outer world associated with ‘spirituality’. In the sacred space held by Kajedo, I found myself talking about feelings and experiences that I’d mostly kept to myself for years because I knew I would’ve been judged for them in most other settings. The retreat was massively cathartic, and so I jumped at the chance to do Seva (selfless service in Sanskrit) on two more retreats over the following months.

I was gobsmacked hearing about Kajedo’s experiences in the Himalayas and with Native American teachers. The possibilities of what I imagine could happen in my own life began to expand and expand. I’m definitely not the most practical person, but I also got a massive buzz from clumsily starting the campfires and rushing to deliver food and tea to new participants.

At the end of the last retreat, I was sad that I probably wouldn’t be in Findhorn again for a while. Our group stayed on for an extra night and went to ecstatic dance. During a passionate, and (unusual for me at the time) sober dance, my life so far flashed before my eyes in a wave of gratitude as I knelt before a centrepiece which read ‘Art is Life, Life is Art’. Once the dance ended, we sat in a circle and Peter Vallance announced a graduate job that fitted my CV perfectly. Thanks to Kajedo and Hinterland and the Universal Hall, I’m still here over a year later. We’ll see what happens next.

Callum Bell

 

Posted in News

News from the land – Autumn 2022

By Kajedo Wanderer | Published: 04/12/2022

Looking out of my window, as I am reflecting on the past few months on the land, I am in awe of the beauty of our ‘golden October’.

In awe of nature’s color-schemes. The ocean of yellow in the gorse at spring-time gave way to the purple of the heathers in the summer, and now the trees are changing their outfits from green to shades of yellow, gold, red and brown. And bit by bit their leaves dance to the ground to become another layer of soil…

As you might know, our planned camping retreats have not really happened, except for Jenny’s ‘plant day’. But we have had a good camping season and lots of events – mostly around the shelter area on the Green Burial ground.

We ran successful guided tours of the land once a month, and kept up the monthly work-parties.

In regards to the Green Burials – Jamie Bryson is assisting me in taking over the land-based roles released by Will Russel, who has done a great (& patient) job of training &  mentoring us. We now have 47 bodies buried in the ground (of the G.B. area). We’ve also had a number of memorial trees planted in the memorial wood – on ashes of deceased ones, placentas of babies, or ‘just’ in memory of a loved one.

Draeyk has done a great job with reviving the ‘Woodland Garden’ – I recommend that you should go and see for yourself, if you can.

Wednesday mornings have become our ‘volunteer mornings’ – for conservation work. Where needed a lot of gorse got cut. We have planted some 60 oak trees and a number of scots-pines, and are still waiting for 150 trees from the woodland trust to be put into the ground this autumn.

Jonathan, on Hinterland’s behalf, has been busy supporting the beginnings of building the new main sanctuary in the Park.

We have started (and by the time you read this – hopefully finished) to run the topper over the regrowth of gorse on open areas. Around the turbines, the Green Burial ground, firebreaks and major tracks, etc, etc. It’s the first time we are doing this in the autumn to see if it could make a difference to the regrowth of the gorse.

Of course, as always there are so many different ongoing tasks essential to the conservation of our beautiful piece of the Earth here, i can’t mention them all. Maybe a small measure could be that we have used almost 200 tree-stakes for ‘tree-care’ over the summer. Some to put new, tall tubes around young trees, some just to replace rotten older stakes.

We never run out of good things to do!

And last but not least: Alan Watson Featherstone’s work with our surveys, and his interest in the tiny creatures which are overlooked more often than not, has given me a renewed appreciation of the incredible abundance and beauty of different life-forms on our small piece of land.

Wishing you all a beautiful autumn and festive season.

Kajedo Wanderer

FHT – Land Manager

31st of October, 2022


Posted in News

Meet FHT team member – Jacqueline Buckingham

By Vivienne Wylde | Published: 04/12/2022

To put things in context, can you tell us a little about your connection with nature, where that arises from?

My first connection with nature was within days of being born, being brought to my family farm in the south of England, I grew up there for the first ten years of my life and the farm was my playground, my playmates were animals and nature, it was a very strong connection.  Later I lived in Australia and quite early on met some aboriginal elders.  They would talk about their connection with nature, the land and animals, a really deep spiritual connection, and when they spoke, it just re-awakened something in me, it just made sense.

Fast forward ten years, and I came up to Findhorn 2010.  During Experience Week I learned about the founding principles, and it was co-creation with the intelligence of nature that really grabbed my attention and spoke to me.  That and the ecovillage side of things.  When I returned to do the Living in Community Guest programme I worked in Cullerne gardens – always the nature connection was a strong thread for me.

So now tell us a little about how you became aware of and involved with Findhorn Hinterland Trust?
After I returned to Australia, I received an email from someone living in Findhorn who told me, ‘there’s a job going that is a perfect fit for you!’ I hadn’t intended to move back to the UK, but it was an amazing opportunity and I’m one of those people, when life throws such openings in my path, there’s always a sense of ‘I think I need to give this a go’! That role was fundraising and working in the communications team for the Foundation, where I could bring my skills from broadcasting and charity fundraising to bear. 

The Findhorn Hinterland Trust had always had a co-opted Foundation representative as one of its trustees, and the incumbent person was stepping down. I was approached to step in, I think because of my fundraising and financial understanding, plus I had a reputation as someone with a strong nature connection.  Although I now live in the south of England, I’ve continued as a trustee (even taking the role as treasurer for an unexpected four years!) and I find the role is easy to continue online, including putting together the regular newsletter. I really like to have that strong thread that connects me here more than simply visiting.  It feels like I’m really contributing to something important.  I think the care of the land globally is very important and to be able to do it consciously on this piece of land, it’s great to be part of the team doing that.

Have you seen Hinterland Trust grow during the time you have been a trustee?

Yes!  Just about the time I started, the trust had won a grant specifically to support us in creating a really strong management structure and offering training to trustees.  It really helped us identify areas of work and roles and gave people a clear sense of their contribution to the whole.  There has also been lots of support on the fundraising side and we have benefitted from a couple of grants.  One of which was for the construction of the Conservation Hub, which has been a long held vision!  We have a professional bookkeeper, our Land Manager is now employed by us, and we have a strong support team of volunteers alongside our trustees.  Our projects are steadily growing, such as the Green Burials; we have really good foundations to continue our work.

What are your ideas, vision, passion, hope for what Findhorn Hinterland Trust might be and do in the future?

I think my ambitions are quite modest in a sense.  What we have been tasked with, by people or by the land itself, is to care for the land.  To ensure the biodiversity is healthy, that native species are healthy and protected, and to balance that with humans being able to enjoy the land in a collaborative and non-destructive way. There is land management work that always needs to be done, with gorse, non-native trees and so on, to ensure a truly healthy native ecosystem.  We need to ensure the bees we tend are healthy.  Overall for me, it’s really about caretaking/custodianship, so my vision is to have a team that is passionate about that and pulling together to make that happen!

And finally, tell us a little about your relationship with the land, how does it call to you?

I do feel that in this place, because of the consciousness of the relationship with nature that there has been over the last 60 years, that nature responds to that.  There are also powerful energy lines that pass thru this place.  I feel the health and vibration of the land is strong.

Early on in my time here, when I read that the common ground asks us to commit to having a spiritual practice – I didn’t consider myself to be a religious person, so in exploring that question I used to think, actually my spiritual practice is nature!  That’s where I feel closest to something bigger than me, that greater spirit, universal life force, god, whatever you call it, that’s where I feel most connected to that larger sense of everything.  When I am here, mostly my connection involves taking walks out to the beach.  It’s a special place, I have my favourite spots where it feels like the place is alive and vibrant, or I just wander through the woods in a conscious way and feel the energies of the trees and the land.  When I go to morning meditation in Singing Chamber, it’s lovely – in the open air, surrounded by trees and birds.  I just sit there and feel that fullness of spirit!

 

 

Posted in News

FHT Biodiversity – Exploring the Wonderful World Of Lichens

By heather.paul | Published: 04/12/2022

Lichens grow all around us- on trees, walls, pebbles and the soil- and yet we often hardly notice them. They paint the world with splashes of colour and patterns. Many are tiny but all are a symbiosis of a fungus and alga living together – along with yeasts and other organisms – they are indeed mini eco-systems.

The fire pit in between East West and North Whins is covered in a carpet of delicate lichens that grow on the ground, on pebbles and on the stems of heather.

This area, which was a former gravel pit, has been cared for since 2017 by volunteers, ensuring that this beautiful area remains open to the sun and rain and is not covered by gorse or the growth of many self-seeded non-native Lodgepole Pine trees, which would shade out the lichens and cover them with dropped pine-needles. The fragile lichen areas are marked by small notices and ringed with pebbles, and logs indicate pathways.

The fire pit is home to a nationally rare and endangered lichen that is only found in a few places in the UK.  Peltigera malacea or Matt felt lichen, carpets the ground here, its tiny leafy body is dark green when damp and crinkly and brown when dry. In the photo below it is growing with tiny pixie-cup species of Cladonia.

There are other species of Peltigera growing on the ground in the fire pit. These are called “dog lichens’ because the undersides carry hairy projections which reminded people of dogs’ teeth. In the past they have been used to try to cure dog bites.

These Cladonia scattered about in the fire pit have red fruiting bodies containing spores. This is one of the ways that lichens reproduce.

In October the monthly Findhorn Hinterland Trust work party removed gorse and broom from the firepit – without this on-going care these ground-dwelling lichens would be lost as they cannot grow under shade and both gorse and broom would soon overwhelm them.

Further work was carried out by this October work party in a large area to the north of the fire pit where a large translocation had been done in 2020 in order to save some of the lichens that were growing on the ground in North Whins.  All the lichens in the pictures below were moved in 2020 by over 30 volunteers in a daylong work party organized and supported by Duneland Ltd. 

This picture shows the lichens 2 years after translocation.

The lichens thriving here include the rare Peltigera malacea and different species of Cladonia or“reindeer lichens” (the silver-white  species are an important food for reindeer in the Arctic).

Lichens also grow on the larger pebbles in the translocation site and it is hoped that the sandy areas with small stones will gradually be covered by lichens as they settle in and  reproduce. The tiny creamy balls on this Xanthoparmelia mougeotii are a mix of fungus and alga and when they fall off or are blown away they can begin to grow into new lichens.

This picture shows the work done by the FHT work party in October 2022.  Prior to the work party, patches of the rare Peltigera malacea were identified. Volunteers moved this lichen from areas that will be lost by the current building work, helping to complete the translocation started 2 years ago.

Many thanks to Duneland Ltd for the thought and care they have shown towards taking steps to value and save important parts of this amazing local ecosystem and giving time to allow amelioration work to be carried out.  Thanks also goes to Eian Smith, their Executive Director, for the very welcome pumpkin soup provided at the end of the work party!

Heather Paul

FHT Member and Local Lichen Enthusiast 

November 2022

 

Posted in News
Findhorn Hinterland Trust, Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) SC045806
228 Pineridge, Findhorn, Forres, Moray IV36 3TB