Day 22. May 3. Monday.

Well, here I was having a pretty good day, and then by accident (except there are no accidents) I ended up having a very delightful day.

Here’s how it happened: I took the 4.3 hr. train ride to Forres, way up near Inverness. Parts of the ride were really beautiful, but Tom Kelley had cajoled me into working on a new journal article with him so I spent most of my time with my nose buried in my laptop, finishing it.

We based the article on a very complex chapter I had written in Prevention from the Inside-Out about how formlessness actually comes into form within human beings. We wanted to bring the chapter up to date, and Tom wrote a really beautiful section on the implications for what this means for a new approach to mental health and changing problem behaviors. I was impressed! So I finished that and wrote an inspired endorsement for a book Dean Rees-Evans is working on.

I don’t know where the time went but it was time to get off in Forres. I overheard a guy on the train calling a taxi, but it sounded like they were booked. So when I got off the train I asked him about it, and before I knew it we were sharing a taxi, the driver let him off and dropped me at the door of the Airbnb I was staying at in Findhorn.

Mike, the proprietor told me where I could take a nice walk, so I walked through the forest to the beach. Really nice, very long, very wide beach at low tide. Of course it is very cold and much windier than that. I was walking down by the water when I realized I had to jump over a few ocean-made-low-tide-streams or I’d be trapped. Then I went to take another photo and my lens cap was gone. If it dropped when I’d jumped a few times it could have been anywhere and the strong wind would have blown the lens cap far away. I retraced my footsteps in the sand and couldn’t find it. Bummer! Then acceptance. Then okay.

I came off the beach into Findhorn Village and had the best, fresh fish and chips I’ve ever eaten. The best before that had been in Llandudno (or something like that), Wales with Amy about 9 or so years ago when we led a training together in Colchester, and then Dean and Merryn graciously drove us around England, then left us in Wales. I never thought any fish and chips could ever top that, but this one did. I loved every bite. I was in heaven. Of course the better the fish and chips, the more lethal it is, but it was worth it, even though my stomach suffered later.

Then I walked another mile back to my room and checked my emails. One had come in from Gillian who told me she knew someone in Findhorn who would like to meet me if I was up to it. Absolutely! So Jane Duncan Rogers, author of Gifted by Grief (her husband had died 4 years earlier), drove down from Forres to meet me. Turns out she also did some work with Sheela so she knew her, too, but hadn’t met either of them in person yet.

Jane took me on a tour of Findhorn Park and shared the history with me. Had that not happened I would not have had nearly the experience of being here. Jane made the place come alive for me.

Then we sat down and had tea, and over tea she told me she was a little familiar with the Three Principles. As we talked about some of the difficulties Findhorn experiences about the complex governance of this place, which organically sprang up from nowhere, never as a planned, intentional community, all of a sudden I got a flash that the governing entities of this place could use Three Principles understanding. Jane and I began talking about how this might be able to happen. Serendipity!

Besides her being a really nice and enjoyable person I am very grateful to Jane for vastly improving my Findhorn experience. I would have left here without a real feeling for this place—and who knows what might happen here in the future?