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The Findhorn Garden: Pioneering a New Vision of Man and Nature in Cooperation

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This is a book of conversations and pictures with each of the founders of the Findhorn garden and community. The most remarkable thing about Findhorn is that it is a flourishing garden with plants from every climate (even tropical), growing many times normal size, in sand in Scotland, of all places! Throughout the years horticulturists have tested the soil and declared the results incomprehensible, even impossible. Findhorn also does not use pesticide, but instead talks to the insects and makes agreements about what the insects eat and what they don't (after all, we wouldn't have anything without them and they should get their share of Earth's bounty!). The candid thoughts in the book, simply expressed, gave me the shivers, they felt so true. I can only read it in spurts because after only a page or 2, there is so much to digest and think about. The pictures are only in black & white, but I find myself constantly looking at them in awe of the Joy and Life coming through in the people and the plants. This would be a great book for environmental scientists to read, as we move into a unique time where serious decisions will have to be made about natural resources and how to use our waste. The Findhorn community presents an idea that things would be so much easier for us if we allowed the veil to come down that exists between man, beast, and the spirit world. According to them, the Universe is full of helpful entities who genuinely WANT life to continue and for us to create heaven on Earth.

This is one of those extraordinary books, like those of Carlos Castaneda, that, whether you believe them or not, are valuable for the way they open your mind to new possibilities. There really was a wonderful, unexplainable (in normal terms) garden at Findhorn, and people came from far and wide to see it. This book tells the story of how that garden came to be. Personally, I squirm at some of the assertions about the channeling of nature spirits. However, over the years I have recommended this book to a number of people, because it unsentimentally makes a human-nature connection that is real but rarely mentioned. The second half of the book is dull and unnecessary to its main point, but I and others I know have reread the first half many times. If you are interested in human-nature connections, or if you like to have books that remind you that life and the world are larger than our views of them, you want The Findhorn Garden in your library.

I became attached to The Findhorn Foundation before reading any of the publications that have made it famous. It is an amazing place, and although I did not personally connect with Nature Spirits during any of my visits, I did have what I can only call spiritual experiences that prevent me from doubting any one else's connections to energy we don't understand. To those who have placed reviews that judge the place without going there, you should open your minds. It is not a hoax, but a place where many people are able to access a different perception of life. Findhorn really isn't about gardening, but about people and their relationship to the earth and each other. That's what makes this book so beautiful. It gives us an insider's look at some of the Founding members of a place that has nutured a diverse collection of caring, open minded, peole. Findhorn Foundation members have been advisors to the UN and are on the leading edge of the Ecovillage movement, reforestation, herbal remedies, spiritual and personal development, and alternative medicices that have all come closer to the mainstream since the 1960's. For me, The Findhorn Garden is both a history of a place I love, and an inspiration in keeping my mind open to the infinite possibilities of the universe -- even though I'm quite happy just having an ordinary life with an ordinary garden!

This book is lovely and fun! Sure its concepts are also outrageous to the logical mind, but remember so was microbiology 100 years ago. The controversy of this book doesn't reach the underlying meaning: Through a lot of love, humility, faith and hard work you can lead a gentle and honerable life that creates beauty and gives life and hope where it appears hopeless. Even if you think you can't hear nature spirits and they are someone else's imagination, you can still find strength and peace while working with the natural world. Plus the more people learn to appreciate and love the natural world as part of us, the more we will collectively be able to hold for the future. The people who founded Findhorn are inspiring on many levels. It is wonderful.

This book gets you thinking about why some people's gardens flourish and others perish under the same conditions. Second half of the book gets a bit tedious in places, but worth a read.

This little gem could have been written by the great mystic St. Francis of Assisi himself. He was the saint who spoke to the birds, animals and plants, and whose statue people like to put in their gardens. It is the story of some folks in a sandy strip of wasteland in a trailer park in northern Scotland who produced a garden that to this day astounds farm and soil experts. How they did it is the story. Though it was written decades ago, it is very timely in that it shows us how we can reconnect with the life that surrounds us in the world of nature instead of mindlessly destroying it. Because it points the way to a conscious appreciation for the earth and its gifts, I think it ranks with the greatest wisdom/spiritual classics of literature.

I have been fascinated by the story of Findhorn since I'd heard about in the 70's. I finally decided to learn more.
It is a stretch to believe in nature spirits and devas but not so far that I can't make the leap. The real message is for us to honor the earth and all that it gives us.
This book was written around 1975. The fact that they continue with their message today is a testament to their dedication and to the truth of what they teach.

Findhorn has now become an ecovillage; Dorothy MacLean left it in 1973 to return to her native Canada, and only occasionally returns; David Spangler also left in 1973; Peter Caddy and Eileen divorced, and Eileen no longer shares any messages from the "devas" or nature spirits; and although a vigorous garden still exists, the days of 40-pound cabbages, and broccoli that were too heavy to lift from the ground, are long gone. Findhorn mostly serves as a conference and retreat center, these days. But this 1975 book was written back in (or shortly after the end of) the "glory days" of Findhorn.

Here are some quotations from the book:

"(The devas) told us how far apart the plants should be, how often to water them, what was wrong and what to do about it. These were just straightforward gardening answers that any gardener might know. The point was, WE didn't know them. Moreover, the devas told us that this kind of conscious cooperation between man and the nature forces was a pioneering experiment for them as well." (Pg. 7)
"In 1970 a young man, David Spangler, and his spiritual colleague Myrtle Glines came to Findhorn from America... When he arrived he found us to be a dozen or so people working in a garden and living a God-centered life. Within the following eighteen months community membership grew to 150. During David's three-year stay our identity expanded into that of a New Age community and training center... The lessons we had learned growing plants we now applied to growing the people who joined us..." (Pg. 30)
"However, working in cooperation with humans was pioneering for the devas as well, and so they could not always forsee what would happen in the garden." (Pg. 63)
"We are incarnate spirit. So too, do plants have at least etheric bodies, if not higher ones as well." (Pg. 116)
"A visitor to the Findhorn garden today would find it quite different from the phenomenal young garden Peter created in the mid-60s. Cabbages are back to their average weight of three to four pounds each, and foxgloves once more aspire to reach four rather than eight feet." (Pg. 150)

What were the odds three to five people of advanced spirituality would meet at this time and place to participate in the miracle of Findhorn Garden? This book is a classic on the subject of sustainability. Findhorn Garden is a forerunner or foretaste of what our earth will become as we attain higher levels of awareness. As someone with a background in urban and regional planning, I believe the Findhorn Experiment - the cultivation (by purely natural,organic means) of a garden of incredible vitality and diversity from an area originally devoid of topsoil - is our common future, and it is a bright future indeed! All those who fear the earth cannot sustain a growing world population should read this book and reconsider.The Findhorn Garden: Pioneering a New Vision of Man and Nature in Cooperation

Found this book amazing...have been a gardener for years and realize I was aware of alot of this but never really "got" into it. Shows you can always grow more aware .