Disjointed

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