Where I Had Been Before
As my time in Findhorn, Scotland, was nearing its end, I took a walk in the woods, venturing farther than I ever had before. The afternoon was cool and crisp as I wandered through the Hinterlands toward the wind turbines. The sky was turning from blue to shades of lavender and pale pink. Before I reached the tree line near the turbines, I suddenly felt a presence—something I can only describe as knowing. I had been here before. I cannot understand this event with my mind, but through a deep awareness in my heart. For the first time in my life, I truly felt within my body the path unfolding before me. I was walking where I was meant to be, where I always knew I would be.
I kept walking toward the beach, passing the pine trees and the dunelands. The cliffside offered an unobstructed view of the North Sea, an open shoreline stretching roughly 180 degrees, marked by a line of stones the size of my fists in various colors, smoothed by eons of crashing waves. Military pillboxes lined the beach, half-buried relics of times not so long ago, stone sentries standing guard on the coastline, silently waiting to be reclaimed by the ocean.
As I walked back up the incline and through the dunes, my mind echoed, “I have been here before.” In the dusk, I headed inland and west toward the setting sun and Cullerne House. I came across a clearing between the gorse and the trees. A pyre of freshly cut branches was stacked, ready to be lit and burned, large enough for a hundred people to stand around. Next to it, on the left, a spiral, a labyrinth. I walked it in the fading light. I had a vision of the bonfire fully ablaze – a single dancer, skin bare, arms raised in exaltation to the fire. I made my way out of the spiral feeling grateful, grounded, and whole. In the lingering twilight, just before true nightfall, I returned to Cullerne with a feeling that I was carried, watched over, and loved. My heart was healing. My soul had come home.
What I experienced can be described as the magic of Findhorn, a feeling I had heard stories about from the very beginning, in that desolate caravan park, and that many others have also felt in their own ways. The night before I was to leave the ecovillage, I visited the spiral again. This time, the setting sun surpassed my initial encounter, adding a sparkle to the lightly falling raindrops. As a double rainbow appeared overhead, the wind turbines turned silently in the purple-hazed distance. This felt like a smile and a hug—a friend saying, “Thank you. Please go and share what you have experienced here. We welcome you back home whenever you wish.”
My learning came in unfamiliar and unexpected ways during my time at Findhorn, and I know it laid the groundwork for the inner strength I needed throughout the rest of my journey. My conversations within the community foreshadowed the kinds of interactions I would later have with people I had yet to meet. I know this is where I was meant to start. Findhorn was the beginning—a soft landing, a foundation that would support me along the rest of my path.
