So, the past few weeks have been really full. We only have one month left and lots of projects and people are either starting to get a little stressed, or go on holiday. This past weekend six people were gone (2 in Dublin, 4 in Amsterdam), and the 12 of us who stayed mostly did homework all weekend. Not too exciting. It was really interesting though, we all decided that the FCS program probably shouldn't be as big as ours is. 18 people is probably too many for Findhorn to hold - there have been secret rumblings of discontent produced by the community surrounding our group, apparently, and it's really just because there are 17 young American people living in a community of mostly older folks from Europe, and there is a disconnect. So sometimes when we get told that we are doing something that is shaking up the community, the person who tells us usually leaves the solution up to us, and says something like "yeah, you could clean that space, but it's good for some youthful energy in the community, so also you could just let them deal." It's a really interesting dynamic.
Here are some things that have happened. You can look at my flickr too, for the corresponding photos!
A few weeks ago we had an Applied Sustainability class session on food and farming. SO exciting. We visited two farms, Cullerne (which provides a lot of food that we eat here), and one that provides for Earthshare (where we get a lot more of our food), which you can read about here. When we got to the Earthshare farm, the farmer who owns it met us in a field and read us a Wendell Berry poem. Then he took us on a silent tour of his farm, and at certain points, like in the plum orchard, he stopped and held up sheets of paper with information about what we were looking at. It was beautiful. Then he gave us cheese that he made from the milk from his cows, and raw milk, and tea from mint he grew, and everybody got an index card with a quote on it that said something about farming, and we talked about them. Mine said "98% of people are freed from the drudgery of producing food." It was said by the US Secretary of Agriculture in 1977. Crazy, no? Everyone laughed at me because I'm the aspiring farmer in the group, and everyone else's quotes were all things like "Farming is co-creation with God." Also at the farm there was a gigantic pile of carrots, more carrots than I have ever seen in one place at one time ever before, and that was cool.
We've actually had a lot of really great classes lately, let me tell you about them.
For Worldviews and Consciousness a few weeks back, right after we got back from Erraid, we had a session about Jung where we did some sand tray/play therapy. We were in this room (the sauna changing room actually) down in Findhorn village, and there were these shelves in the corner covered by a big sheet, and suddenly as we were about to begin, David, our teacher, flung the sheet off to reveal thousands of tiny little figurines. It was a little too overstimulating. First we just chose figurines that represented who we were at that point in time, and then ones that represented who we wanted to become, and wrote about that and shared about it, and then our class created a whole "world" in a sand tray with these little figurines. David didn't tell us what it said about our group, but some of it was pretty self-explanatory. We had a lady-worshipping corner, Ronald McDonald on a cross being protected by the army, a beach party, and various other scenes of meditation and relaxation and a big ole elephant in the middle. There are pictures.
We also had a Worldviews and Consciousness class that was a whole-day retreat at Shambala, which is a Tibetan Buddhist center down the road from the Park. We talked to a Venerable (I don't know how to spell her name) who used to be a Methodist minister for 18 years in the States, and then 7 years ago found Buddhism and took her vows over a period of 5 years during which she studied at various monasteries all over the world. We also talked with a man named Thomas Warrior who was also a Tibetan Buddhist but had not taken vows, I don't think. There was a big picture of the Dalai Lama (who he has studied extensively with) blessing his daughter. He said they got along famously (the Dalai Lama and his daughter) and that they had a special bond, and also that every time the Dalai Lama was in Scotland he hung out with his daughter. They also showed us DVDs that had different monks talking about different aspects of Buddhism. Also Richard Gere was in it a bunch. Yep. We ate lunch (all organic, served home style, with two courses...absolutely incredible) in silence and I spent an hour dancing in the ballroom while Tim drummed and played guitar for me before class started again. A lot of what we learned really resonated with me, and has definitely stayed with me.
The other day Charlotte and I went to Cluny all day to do homework, as it is a more homework-conducive space than the Park, where all I want to do all day is run around and catapult myself into the dunes. After we had worked for something like six hours, we walked into Forres, where we bought some pens and things, and then Charlotte wanted to go into this fishing store so she could buy a knife. It was amazing, here we were two young ladies debating over the best knife ("but that one's not serrated...") while the two older Scottish men who were having a conversation at the counter eyed us with deep confusion. After we chose the best one ("The Forester's Knife"), Charlotte asked the shopkeeper questions about its quality and where it was made, and he amusedly responded. As we left, exhilarated and supremely satisfied, we wondered about what the two men really thought of us. A wonderful experience was had by all, I'm sure.
As I have mentioned before, I've gotten really into dance since coming here. I maintain that this experience would have been worth it even if didn't enjoy any of it (which I obviously am, very much), just because I got to learn about the 5 rhythms, and for the experience of dancing them many many times. Because I never want to be doing anything more than dancing while I'm here (except maybe eating the kitchen's delicious Friday-night sugar-free wheat-free vegan desserts...I'm so serious) I decided to take a dance improv class with my friend Charlotte. We meet every Tuesday for 2 hours with a woman named Jackie and 2 other students, Jo, who is maybe in her late 20s, and Dave, who we think is in his 70s. I never had so much fun in my life. All this dancing is truly becoming a daily practice for me, and building my personal sustainability (health, happiness, etc). I love it. I want to have a thousand dance parties when I return home, with everyone I refused to dance with in the past.
The other day I had what I think was a very Findhorn day. Or at least a few very Findhorn experiences throughout the day. We spent the morning creating a model wastewater treatment wetland system, and hooked it up to a dirty pond, and then we visited the Living Machine, which is what Findhorn uses to transform all its wastewater into water that can be used for irrigation. After lunch, I found myself doing KP for Brian, who needed to go to a NextGEN meeting. So Matt and I walked to the kitchen, and we washed all the pots to a supremely exciting 80s mix (Bruce Springsteen to MJ...Matt says they play it at every Monday afternoon KP) all while dancing wildly, Matt at one point flinging off his shirt and covering me in a cascade of soap suds, amusing all the other KP workers, I'm sure. Walking home from lunch, I passed by a dumpster where a mother was yelling at her child (his name is Storm) "not NOW," as he attempted to climb on in and find whatever treasures he was searching for inside. Ah, the joys of rampant, acceptable dumpster diving.
As we have become more comfortable in the community, Findhorn has become more of this type of day and less work work work, though this weekend I've been pretty holed up trying to finish a paper on identity in Findhorn for my group dynamics class, and getting ready to present my slow eating endeavor to the class.
In other news, I've finally figured out what I want to do next semester, which is moving to Marshalltown Iowa to go to community college there to study sustainable agriculture. I've been writing and talking about it a lot so I'm not going to go into it right here, now, but I'm so ridiculously excited about it all that I'm having trouble staying in the present here sometimes. I'm working on this, but sometimes I just wanna pack up my bags and move on home and settle for the next two years. Enough traveling/living in a transitory space.
Also, I'm just gonna put this out there: I think astrology is kind of cool. And I decided I'm coming home with my own deck of angel cards. Please don't worry. I'll never be New Age, I'm too skeptical.
One more story: last night Charlotte and I were walking home late from dancing in the Universal Hall and we came across a little bird sitting in the road. It didn't move even when we walked right up to it so we stopped and I waited with it while Charlotte went in our house and got a box to put it in that we could nestle up in some bushes where a cat hopefully wouldn't get to it. When she went to pick it up it scampered away, but she caught it, and just as she was setting it down in the box, I heard a noise and turned around, and there, just a few feet away from where the first bird was, was a second, identical bird. Have you ever seen the Matrix? It was like the deja vu when that man sees the second cat. When there was a "glitch in the matrix," or something like that. WEIRD. But anyway, we determined that they were okay, and went inside. I don't know if that was a good story or not, but it was scary and strange and I still don't understand it, so I like it.
Love you all,
Nora
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Monday, April 9, 2007
This one is shorter, I'm so sorry about before
Everyone has been walking around since we got back from Erraid saying things like "I have sooo much love for all of the people here." We are all giddy from a week of lying (can someone teach me when to say lying and when to say laying?) together in the sun and traipsing around on a haunted island, and we're all in love with each other.
Also since we've gotten back a lot of us have noticed that we are eating REALLY fast when we eat in the CC. Even faster than before, which was too fast. So Sarah and I are changing our Art of Fascination project (the one where we share talents or skills or special knowledge with one another) from learning guitar, which I will try and do anyway, to learning how to eat slowly from Tim, who eats slower than anyone I know. We're going to start spending our mealtimes learning how to savor our food. There is talk of incorporating slow food and slow eating into our end of the semester presentation too.
I've started getting more into my assignments and the readings and the writing. Yesterday I finally figured out what I'm going to do for my applied sustainability project, which had been looming over my head. I'm going to integrate sustainable education, permaculture, and community work to develop a weekend/day workshop that can be used at UUI (the church I grew up in). And possibly modified to be used at other churches? Though I am also pulled to just working with UUI specifically. I feel like I can really integrate permaculture principles with UU principles, which is exciting, and I have the model of the green sanctuary to work with. I'm still playing with the whole idea, and am also considering just planning a YRUU conference or a workshop that can be brought to different conferences and meetings. Sooo does anyone have a free copy of the green sanctuary manual that they can send to me?
I stayed up way too late last night and found a bunch of farmer training/certification programs in the midwest, and my excitement for what I am doing at the end of this summer has grown exponentially.
Also since we've gotten back a lot of us have noticed that we are eating REALLY fast when we eat in the CC. Even faster than before, which was too fast. So Sarah and I are changing our Art of Fascination project (the one where we share talents or skills or special knowledge with one another) from learning guitar, which I will try and do anyway, to learning how to eat slowly from Tim, who eats slower than anyone I know. We're going to start spending our mealtimes learning how to savor our food. There is talk of incorporating slow food and slow eating into our end of the semester presentation too.
I've started getting more into my assignments and the readings and the writing. Yesterday I finally figured out what I'm going to do for my applied sustainability project, which had been looming over my head. I'm going to integrate sustainable education, permaculture, and community work to develop a weekend/day workshop that can be used at UUI (the church I grew up in). And possibly modified to be used at other churches? Though I am also pulled to just working with UUI specifically. I feel like I can really integrate permaculture principles with UU principles, which is exciting, and I have the model of the green sanctuary to work with. I'm still playing with the whole idea, and am also considering just planning a YRUU conference or a workshop that can be brought to different conferences and meetings. Sooo does anyone have a free copy of the green sanctuary manual that they can send to me?
I stayed up way too late last night and found a bunch of farmer training/certification programs in the midwest, and my excitement for what I am doing at the end of this summer has grown exponentially.
Sunday, April 8, 2007
"ugh there is SO much nora, too much. you wrote a BOOK about erraid" - Nate Redman
I did write a book about Erraid.
I have just returned home to the Park from a week on the island of Erraid. It is, my mom told me, where Robert Louis Stevenson found inspiration for his book Kidnapped. I haven't read it and even though it is always nice to really have a sense of place when you read something, I'm not sure it is something I will ever actually want to read. Either way, I can see how someone would fall in love with the island and write an adventure story about it. We certainly had adventures. Broken elbows and jumping off the pier and prayer poles with sheep skulls on top. I'm not going to explain any of that, which I feel makes it all the more mysterious and exciting, as all islands should be.
Unfortunately for you, or maybe fortunately, depending on what type of person you are, you might not think my pictures give a very good view of the island. That is because, I just realized, I only really like to take pictures that have people in them. I usually think people are more interesting for pictures than places are, unless there is a whole lot of color in the places, and I think it is more fun to look at people rather than places later on to remember the place by. And with our group there is just so much motion to try and capture. And also, it is so beautiful here that sometimes I just get fed up and annoyed and refuse to try and even document it. I took four hundred and eleven pictures while we were on Erraid, and I think probably people are in about three hundred and fifty of them, which I realize and acknowledge is sort of ridiculous. So I don't have any pictures of Loch Ness, which we passed on our way there, or the mountains of Iona, another island we visited for a day, and very few of the water and the beaches and the heather-covered landscape of Erraid. Mostly they are just of the eighteen people I spent my week with there.
Also, before I start, I just wanted to say sorry for not telling you about the things that happened before I went to Erraid. I keep a very nice record of what happens day-to-day here for my daily practice (that I do for Worldviews and Consciousness class), so luckily I have a way to remember what I have been doing and I promise I will go back and talk about some of the other things I did in March.
We left last Saturday, March 31st, at 5 in the morning. We all stumbled out of our beds and wandered down the field of dreams to the runway (I don't know if I ever explained this before, but the main street of the Park is called the runway because it really used to be a runway! Findhorn is right next to a Royal Air Force base and I guess it used to be over in the part that is Findhorn too) where we got some instructions and sleepily threw our bags and our selves onto two of the Findhorn buses. The buses were named Pegasus and Sir George. I rode on Sir George. Before we set out we all held hands and attuned for a safe ride. After that most people fell asleep, but I spent the whole time listening to music and watching the sky turn from black to green-black to pink-gray and finally a burst of sunrise color. We passed Loch Ness while the sky was still a pre-dawn green-gray color and it was eerie and it all felt very fitting. There were flashing green lights at places along the loch to show when a bridge was coming (I think), and all those colors combined contributed to me thinking most of the way there about big underwater monsters and why people believe in them. Then once the sun rose we came to what I guess was the highlands. We were in the mountains for hours! Coming from the pancake-flat part of the midwest, it was exciting and a little unbelievable. We rode in the buses for a long, long time, maybe six hours all together, and took two ferries as well, until we all got out at a big old cow farm in the middle of nowhere. We walked across a sheep field and there was the beach! Just hangin out. It was so crazy, I've only been to the ocean a handful of times that I can remember outside of the 6 months I spent living in Vietnam, so my first thought was "this is just like Vietnam!" Which it was NOT. But I guess that is what having limited experiences to draw on will do to you. We climbed in batches of 8 people onto the little motor-converted rowboat and Heather (an Erraid resident) sped us across the little stretch of water to Erraid. The tide was really low, so probably half of the group opted to walk across a little further down the coast where there was a sandbar. Erraid is pretty well connected to Mull, another island, and you could walk over most days if you wanted.
Erraid, which was a lighthouse-keeper's community until the 1950s, was bought in 1977 by a Dutch family who wanted a safe place for their children to have adventures. But when they bought it it was all rundown and the old lighthouse-keeper's buildings were all fallen to pieces and they didn't have the resources to be there and fix it and do upkeep and all, so they approached the Findhorn Foundation to see if they wanted to be the custodians of the island and it became a partnership that continues today. The island is still owned by the family and the Foundation has a small community (currently 7 people) who live there and maintain it, and the Dutch family comes for maybe 6 weeks out of the year for holiday (the community members stay in other housing on the island and take care of the gardens and the animals during this time). Erraid is as close to self-sufficiency as I have ever seen. There are outdoor composting toilets and the drinking water is pure rainwater that is collected from the rooftops, which is heated from mostly the wood-burning stoves that also help to heat the houses, and a lot of the food is grown right in the front yards (there is also cheese and milk and eggs and sometimes meat from the sheep, cows, and chickens). Guests come pretty much every Saturday from Findhorn (which sends a lot of workshops and groups like ours, as well as individuals) and elsewhere. While the nineteen of us were there, there was also a family of 6 people on holiday from Germany, a family of 3 from Findhorn village, and another couple. So the community has the capacity to hold about 40 people. And it really is a community. There is a daily flow, community meetings at 9:15 and shared work time 4 days a week in the morning and afternoons. Two tea breaks a day (11:30 and 3:30), shared dinner every night (at 6) and lunch on the work days (the other days you can eat leftovers from the communal fridge or get ingredients from the food room and cook for yourself), and meditation and taize singing (5 and 5:30 pm on weekdays, 10 on the weekends). Someone walks down the street (there's only one) ringing a bell to call all the people to every activity. It's like the Park in some ways (we all chose angel cards for the week -- mine was freedom -- we bless every meal, we attune before group meetings, we check in a lot, we do KP, we eat oatcakes for tea, etc) but it's mostly different. Which of course it would be having a population more than a hundred people smaller. I have decided I like Erraid more than the Park, but still don't see myself settling, at least not for a long time, in a community like them.
The first day we were there is a blur, I remember eating a big bowl of soup and toasted sunflower seeds and afterwards collapsing with everyone in my class onto the green grass and lying in the sun for hours. We left some not so nice weather in the Park, but were lucky enough to have full sun for most of our time there (it just keeps getting warmer and warmer and stays light so late into the night now). I took a walk by myself later in the afternoon and stumbled upon the shell of an old stone house. I sat in the window and journaled for something like 2 hours, which was really wonderful because I haven't been writing for myself near enough. It seems sometimes like half my homework is journaling, so I hardly ever have the energy for any more of it. Something about Erriad immediately brought everything I have been feeling and thinking right up out of me though. The residents all say that if you are supposed to be on Erraid, you find your way to Erraid. I hope some of you end up there someday.
The next day I went to the beginning of the week meditation and then our group had an attunement, where we set intentions for the week. Mine had to do with making a conscious effort to think about school, relationships and time and how they interact in my life. I have big decisions to make for after the summer and being at a place like Erraid where I could do a lot of reflection came at exactly the right time. We also chose some intention cards and setback cards to give us guidance for our intentions. You can ask me what mine said if you are interested. I spent the rest of the day lying around in the sun again. I started to get a sunburn, but it was worth it. I have missed the sun, or at least the temperatures that allow for being still outside in it without my big blue jacket.
One of the best things about Erraid was that all our housing and roommates were all mixed up from what we are used to at the park, and also we all stayed down the street from one another on the little row houses, whereas at the park my house is a walk from anyone else. So I got to know people I don't usually get to hang out with. We all seemed to congregate in whatever house had the warmest fire going at the end of every night, instead of going home to our own bungalows as happens a lot here.
Monday was our first work day. We all met up for community meeting in house no. 8 and sat in a circle on the floor (obviously). We went around the circle three times - the first was for a check in, the second for the residents to explain the jobs they were doing and how many people they needed to help, and the third was for everyone to say what work they had chosen to do. I worked in the garden in the morning and the candle studio in the afternoon. I didn't realize how much I missed weeding until I got out into the jerusalem artichoke patch I spent the morning digging up and weeding. I'm thinking of working at a farm in Danville instead of doing something that would be better paying when I get home this summer because I realized how much I miss it all. But anyway, have you ever had jerusalem artichokes? They are also called sunchokes because they have are related to sunflowers, and have a big stem and flower in the summer when they come up. They look like a mix between little knobbly potatoes and ginger root and taste sweet, sort of, and very starchy. We dug up a trashcan and a half of them in this tiny little patch to the sound of our sniffly noses and the cows in the pasture next door, telling stories about things we have found in the woods (clothing, notes, etc). Then in the afternoon I scraped wax off of candle molds with a knife and polished finished candles. Erraid makes a lot of candles and sells them at the Park and also at Cluny, as well as in some other local shops. They are all rainbow and very nice, if you are into that sort of thing. And I went to meditation and taize singing, which was a strange experience as a lot of the songs in the Erraid songbook I know as old YRUU worship songs that I have sung hundreds of times. Hello, fourteen years old. The meditation room is up by itself on a hill, with windows for walls, and is guarded by a cranky old goose who extends his long neck at anyone nearing the door and taps at the windows with his beak at the beginning of every meditation but seems to settle down along with us.
Tuesday I washed windows all morning and walked to the beach with eight other ladies in the afternoon. It was wild. We walked over heather and lots of muddy bogs on our way, and came up over a hill and suddenly there was the most beautiful beach I have ever seen, framed on either side by big brown rock cliffs and guarded by little herds of very pregnant horned sheep with big black faces and mounds of white woolly hair. We all threw off our welly boots and our clothing and ran shrieking to the beach where we jumped into the ocean and laid out like mermaids on the rocks and the sand. It was a little too cold despite all our enthusiasm but I worked on my sunburn (it has since faded into a very nice freckly tan) anyway. We talked about...boys. I felt a little like middle school, but in a really good way. It is certainly weird to be pretty much the only one here in a committed relationship with someone at home, but everyone is very nice and they all indulge me and ask me lots of questions about Nate and let me tell as many stories as I want when we get down to talking about that sort of thing.
Wednesday was magic, and a day full of firsts. I took my first shower since coming to Erraid, and also we herded sheep. We really did! With a real shepherd and dogs who looked sort of like Socks (the dog I grew up with), who I have now realized is too beautiful and fluffy and pampered to be a real sheepdog. The sheep are about to all have babies, and they needed to get shots and things from the shepherd, who comes and herds the sheep maybe 7 times a year. There are about 150 sheep on Erraid, and they pretty much have free reign of the island, so it is a job to collect them all (one square mile is bigger than it sounds). The way we accomplished this was by making a big line and walking in the line across the island, which sounds pretty simple, which it was. By moving slowly toward the sheep they would just naturally walk away from us and clump together. At certain points we would hold the sheep we had already collected in a little circle while other adventurous people went up into the cliffs to gather the strays. All I could really do the whole time was wonder how exactly I got there, sheep herding (shepherding?) on a little tiny island off the coast of Scotland. What were the events in my life that led me there, to a place so out of the ordinary? Most everyone else I know is sitting in rooms in the USA and doing things like reading books and writing papers and I am in Scotland, herding sheep and calling it school. I recommend sheep herding if you ever get the chance, because it is an Experience. It is gentle and strange and a little intimidating to be holding a big flock of sheep and keeping them from running up into the hills. After getting back from shepherding even more sunburned, I sat in the warmest living room to be found writing and talking until I couldn't stand being dirty anymore and took a shower. I was planning on going the whole week without one (why not, it's something I've never done before) but after the trek around the island I caved and showered in the brownish, sweet-smelling peat water that they pipe down from up the hill behind the houses for bathing. I used someone's Herbal Essences shampoo, which seemed very out of place.
Thursday we went to Iona. I didn't think I wanted to go but in the morning when we woke up Dana and I convinced each other we should, so we did. And it was wonderful. We danced in this ancient broken-down nunnery (built in 1230), danced in a field with some newborn lambs, danced on our way to the abbey, probably danced in the abbey, danced our way to the most delicious surprise organic, sustainable restaurant, danced out way out after two hours and too much loud conversation, and danced down to the beach. We hopped some fences and walked through some public backyards and I ate the most delicious chips of my life. I'm sorry I don't have more history to tell you; it was mostly about church-related things and I couldn't really focus on anything but the laughter coming at me from all sides from my wonderful friends. Later that night as we (5 or 6 of the ladies) lounged in the no. 6 living room around the fire, 3 shirtless boys (Matt, Brian, and Tim) came in, plugged in a boom box playing Brazilian music, and danced silently for us for 10 minutes, then walked silently out. Things like this happen every day here.
Friday I finished my book of Flannery O'Connor stories that I brought with me. It was sort of a strange place to be reading such a grotesque book, but I've really been trying to make time for some outside reading, as it keeps me sane. Nighttime was an open-mic, a bonfire, and the darkest night I have ever seen. Saturday morning was goodbyes and 6 hours on the bus. We made a stop off at Cluny to drop off Erraid's laundry (the bus goes back and forth anyway every week, and Cluny has better capabilities for washing lots of linens, so they are done there), where I found cake in the stillroom (where the dishes are done) and mistakenly took a piece outside, where Tim tackled me to get at it. There are probably still cake crumbs littering the drive up to Cluny, remnants of our tussle on the tarmac. I actually never had a chance. I was on the ground in seconds, feebly holding the cake while he devoured it from my hand and over my head.
Now we are home, the homework is looming over my head, and it is almost time for Sunday brunch. I will go to the beach today and reminisce about the Grecian beaches of Erraid and wish you were here. Only seven weeks left, and it seems like nothing.
Love,
Nora
P.S. If you get time, please check out the Erraid community's website. The history they have provided there is very nice.
P.P.S. To all of you who have asked me how my mono is, thank you! I think it is mostly gone, or maybe all the way gone. I don't really know, but I feel like I have more energy. I still feel like I have to walk slower than other people, but that might just be because I am kind of a slow-moving sort of person.
I have just returned home to the Park from a week on the island of Erraid. It is, my mom told me, where Robert Louis Stevenson found inspiration for his book Kidnapped. I haven't read it and even though it is always nice to really have a sense of place when you read something, I'm not sure it is something I will ever actually want to read. Either way, I can see how someone would fall in love with the island and write an adventure story about it. We certainly had adventures. Broken elbows and jumping off the pier and prayer poles with sheep skulls on top. I'm not going to explain any of that, which I feel makes it all the more mysterious and exciting, as all islands should be.
Unfortunately for you, or maybe fortunately, depending on what type of person you are, you might not think my pictures give a very good view of the island. That is because, I just realized, I only really like to take pictures that have people in them. I usually think people are more interesting for pictures than places are, unless there is a whole lot of color in the places, and I think it is more fun to look at people rather than places later on to remember the place by. And with our group there is just so much motion to try and capture. And also, it is so beautiful here that sometimes I just get fed up and annoyed and refuse to try and even document it. I took four hundred and eleven pictures while we were on Erraid, and I think probably people are in about three hundred and fifty of them, which I realize and acknowledge is sort of ridiculous. So I don't have any pictures of Loch Ness, which we passed on our way there, or the mountains of Iona, another island we visited for a day, and very few of the water and the beaches and the heather-covered landscape of Erraid. Mostly they are just of the eighteen people I spent my week with there.
Also, before I start, I just wanted to say sorry for not telling you about the things that happened before I went to Erraid. I keep a very nice record of what happens day-to-day here for my daily practice (that I do for Worldviews and Consciousness class), so luckily I have a way to remember what I have been doing and I promise I will go back and talk about some of the other things I did in March.
We left last Saturday, March 31st, at 5 in the morning. We all stumbled out of our beds and wandered down the field of dreams to the runway (I don't know if I ever explained this before, but the main street of the Park is called the runway because it really used to be a runway! Findhorn is right next to a Royal Air Force base and I guess it used to be over in the part that is Findhorn too) where we got some instructions and sleepily threw our bags and our selves onto two of the Findhorn buses. The buses were named Pegasus and Sir George. I rode on Sir George. Before we set out we all held hands and attuned for a safe ride. After that most people fell asleep, but I spent the whole time listening to music and watching the sky turn from black to green-black to pink-gray and finally a burst of sunrise color. We passed Loch Ness while the sky was still a pre-dawn green-gray color and it was eerie and it all felt very fitting. There were flashing green lights at places along the loch to show when a bridge was coming (I think), and all those colors combined contributed to me thinking most of the way there about big underwater monsters and why people believe in them. Then once the sun rose we came to what I guess was the highlands. We were in the mountains for hours! Coming from the pancake-flat part of the midwest, it was exciting and a little unbelievable. We rode in the buses for a long, long time, maybe six hours all together, and took two ferries as well, until we all got out at a big old cow farm in the middle of nowhere. We walked across a sheep field and there was the beach! Just hangin out. It was so crazy, I've only been to the ocean a handful of times that I can remember outside of the 6 months I spent living in Vietnam, so my first thought was "this is just like Vietnam!" Which it was NOT. But I guess that is what having limited experiences to draw on will do to you. We climbed in batches of 8 people onto the little motor-converted rowboat and Heather (an Erraid resident) sped us across the little stretch of water to Erraid. The tide was really low, so probably half of the group opted to walk across a little further down the coast where there was a sandbar. Erraid is pretty well connected to Mull, another island, and you could walk over most days if you wanted.
Erraid, which was a lighthouse-keeper's community until the 1950s, was bought in 1977 by a Dutch family who wanted a safe place for their children to have adventures. But when they bought it it was all rundown and the old lighthouse-keeper's buildings were all fallen to pieces and they didn't have the resources to be there and fix it and do upkeep and all, so they approached the Findhorn Foundation to see if they wanted to be the custodians of the island and it became a partnership that continues today. The island is still owned by the family and the Foundation has a small community (currently 7 people) who live there and maintain it, and the Dutch family comes for maybe 6 weeks out of the year for holiday (the community members stay in other housing on the island and take care of the gardens and the animals during this time). Erraid is as close to self-sufficiency as I have ever seen. There are outdoor composting toilets and the drinking water is pure rainwater that is collected from the rooftops, which is heated from mostly the wood-burning stoves that also help to heat the houses, and a lot of the food is grown right in the front yards (there is also cheese and milk and eggs and sometimes meat from the sheep, cows, and chickens). Guests come pretty much every Saturday from Findhorn (which sends a lot of workshops and groups like ours, as well as individuals) and elsewhere. While the nineteen of us were there, there was also a family of 6 people on holiday from Germany, a family of 3 from Findhorn village, and another couple. So the community has the capacity to hold about 40 people. And it really is a community. There is a daily flow, community meetings at 9:15 and shared work time 4 days a week in the morning and afternoons. Two tea breaks a day (11:30 and 3:30), shared dinner every night (at 6) and lunch on the work days (the other days you can eat leftovers from the communal fridge or get ingredients from the food room and cook for yourself), and meditation and taize singing (5 and 5:30 pm on weekdays, 10 on the weekends). Someone walks down the street (there's only one) ringing a bell to call all the people to every activity. It's like the Park in some ways (we all chose angel cards for the week -- mine was freedom -- we bless every meal, we attune before group meetings, we check in a lot, we do KP, we eat oatcakes for tea, etc) but it's mostly different. Which of course it would be having a population more than a hundred people smaller. I have decided I like Erraid more than the Park, but still don't see myself settling, at least not for a long time, in a community like them.
The first day we were there is a blur, I remember eating a big bowl of soup and toasted sunflower seeds and afterwards collapsing with everyone in my class onto the green grass and lying in the sun for hours. We left some not so nice weather in the Park, but were lucky enough to have full sun for most of our time there (it just keeps getting warmer and warmer and stays light so late into the night now). I took a walk by myself later in the afternoon and stumbled upon the shell of an old stone house. I sat in the window and journaled for something like 2 hours, which was really wonderful because I haven't been writing for myself near enough. It seems sometimes like half my homework is journaling, so I hardly ever have the energy for any more of it. Something about Erriad immediately brought everything I have been feeling and thinking right up out of me though. The residents all say that if you are supposed to be on Erraid, you find your way to Erraid. I hope some of you end up there someday.
The next day I went to the beginning of the week meditation and then our group had an attunement, where we set intentions for the week. Mine had to do with making a conscious effort to think about school, relationships and time and how they interact in my life. I have big decisions to make for after the summer and being at a place like Erraid where I could do a lot of reflection came at exactly the right time. We also chose some intention cards and setback cards to give us guidance for our intentions. You can ask me what mine said if you are interested. I spent the rest of the day lying around in the sun again. I started to get a sunburn, but it was worth it. I have missed the sun, or at least the temperatures that allow for being still outside in it without my big blue jacket.
One of the best things about Erraid was that all our housing and roommates were all mixed up from what we are used to at the park, and also we all stayed down the street from one another on the little row houses, whereas at the park my house is a walk from anyone else. So I got to know people I don't usually get to hang out with. We all seemed to congregate in whatever house had the warmest fire going at the end of every night, instead of going home to our own bungalows as happens a lot here.
Monday was our first work day. We all met up for community meeting in house no. 8 and sat in a circle on the floor (obviously). We went around the circle three times - the first was for a check in, the second for the residents to explain the jobs they were doing and how many people they needed to help, and the third was for everyone to say what work they had chosen to do. I worked in the garden in the morning and the candle studio in the afternoon. I didn't realize how much I missed weeding until I got out into the jerusalem artichoke patch I spent the morning digging up and weeding. I'm thinking of working at a farm in Danville instead of doing something that would be better paying when I get home this summer because I realized how much I miss it all. But anyway, have you ever had jerusalem artichokes? They are also called sunchokes because they have are related to sunflowers, and have a big stem and flower in the summer when they come up. They look like a mix between little knobbly potatoes and ginger root and taste sweet, sort of, and very starchy. We dug up a trashcan and a half of them in this tiny little patch to the sound of our sniffly noses and the cows in the pasture next door, telling stories about things we have found in the woods (clothing, notes, etc). Then in the afternoon I scraped wax off of candle molds with a knife and polished finished candles. Erraid makes a lot of candles and sells them at the Park and also at Cluny, as well as in some other local shops. They are all rainbow and very nice, if you are into that sort of thing. And I went to meditation and taize singing, which was a strange experience as a lot of the songs in the Erraid songbook I know as old YRUU worship songs that I have sung hundreds of times. Hello, fourteen years old. The meditation room is up by itself on a hill, with windows for walls, and is guarded by a cranky old goose who extends his long neck at anyone nearing the door and taps at the windows with his beak at the beginning of every meditation but seems to settle down along with us.
Tuesday I washed windows all morning and walked to the beach with eight other ladies in the afternoon. It was wild. We walked over heather and lots of muddy bogs on our way, and came up over a hill and suddenly there was the most beautiful beach I have ever seen, framed on either side by big brown rock cliffs and guarded by little herds of very pregnant horned sheep with big black faces and mounds of white woolly hair. We all threw off our welly boots and our clothing and ran shrieking to the beach where we jumped into the ocean and laid out like mermaids on the rocks and the sand. It was a little too cold despite all our enthusiasm but I worked on my sunburn (it has since faded into a very nice freckly tan) anyway. We talked about...boys. I felt a little like middle school, but in a really good way. It is certainly weird to be pretty much the only one here in a committed relationship with someone at home, but everyone is very nice and they all indulge me and ask me lots of questions about Nate and let me tell as many stories as I want when we get down to talking about that sort of thing.
Wednesday was magic, and a day full of firsts. I took my first shower since coming to Erraid, and also we herded sheep. We really did! With a real shepherd and dogs who looked sort of like Socks (the dog I grew up with), who I have now realized is too beautiful and fluffy and pampered to be a real sheepdog. The sheep are about to all have babies, and they needed to get shots and things from the shepherd, who comes and herds the sheep maybe 7 times a year. There are about 150 sheep on Erraid, and they pretty much have free reign of the island, so it is a job to collect them all (one square mile is bigger than it sounds). The way we accomplished this was by making a big line and walking in the line across the island, which sounds pretty simple, which it was. By moving slowly toward the sheep they would just naturally walk away from us and clump together. At certain points we would hold the sheep we had already collected in a little circle while other adventurous people went up into the cliffs to gather the strays. All I could really do the whole time was wonder how exactly I got there, sheep herding (shepherding?) on a little tiny island off the coast of Scotland. What were the events in my life that led me there, to a place so out of the ordinary? Most everyone else I know is sitting in rooms in the USA and doing things like reading books and writing papers and I am in Scotland, herding sheep and calling it school. I recommend sheep herding if you ever get the chance, because it is an Experience. It is gentle and strange and a little intimidating to be holding a big flock of sheep and keeping them from running up into the hills. After getting back from shepherding even more sunburned, I sat in the warmest living room to be found writing and talking until I couldn't stand being dirty anymore and took a shower. I was planning on going the whole week without one (why not, it's something I've never done before) but after the trek around the island I caved and showered in the brownish, sweet-smelling peat water that they pipe down from up the hill behind the houses for bathing. I used someone's Herbal Essences shampoo, which seemed very out of place.
Thursday we went to Iona. I didn't think I wanted to go but in the morning when we woke up Dana and I convinced each other we should, so we did. And it was wonderful. We danced in this ancient broken-down nunnery (built in 1230), danced in a field with some newborn lambs, danced on our way to the abbey, probably danced in the abbey, danced our way to the most delicious surprise organic, sustainable restaurant, danced out way out after two hours and too much loud conversation, and danced down to the beach. We hopped some fences and walked through some public backyards and I ate the most delicious chips of my life. I'm sorry I don't have more history to tell you; it was mostly about church-related things and I couldn't really focus on anything but the laughter coming at me from all sides from my wonderful friends. Later that night as we (5 or 6 of the ladies) lounged in the no. 6 living room around the fire, 3 shirtless boys (Matt, Brian, and Tim) came in, plugged in a boom box playing Brazilian music, and danced silently for us for 10 minutes, then walked silently out. Things like this happen every day here.
Friday I finished my book of Flannery O'Connor stories that I brought with me. It was sort of a strange place to be reading such a grotesque book, but I've really been trying to make time for some outside reading, as it keeps me sane. Nighttime was an open-mic, a bonfire, and the darkest night I have ever seen. Saturday morning was goodbyes and 6 hours on the bus. We made a stop off at Cluny to drop off Erraid's laundry (the bus goes back and forth anyway every week, and Cluny has better capabilities for washing lots of linens, so they are done there), where I found cake in the stillroom (where the dishes are done) and mistakenly took a piece outside, where Tim tackled me to get at it. There are probably still cake crumbs littering the drive up to Cluny, remnants of our tussle on the tarmac. I actually never had a chance. I was on the ground in seconds, feebly holding the cake while he devoured it from my hand and over my head.
Now we are home, the homework is looming over my head, and it is almost time for Sunday brunch. I will go to the beach today and reminisce about the Grecian beaches of Erraid and wish you were here. Only seven weeks left, and it seems like nothing.
Love,
Nora
P.S. If you get time, please check out the Erraid community's website. The history they have provided there is very nice.
P.P.S. To all of you who have asked me how my mono is, thank you! I think it is mostly gone, or maybe all the way gone. I don't really know, but I feel like I have more energy. I still feel like I have to walk slower than other people, but that might just be because I am kind of a slow-moving sort of person.
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