Hedging

You never know which life experiences are going to turn out to be useful.



Spring in Scotland! 
 Snowdrops and crocuses!

Many years ago I was inspired to make a wigwam – a rounded hut constructed of woven branches – at the far end of my backyard in Burlington, just beyond where the fire pit is now.  I worked on it for a long time, using mostly young, springy birch saplings from a friend’s land in Hinesburg, and it stood for several years. I remember showing it to a new acquaintance who admired it then asked: “Do you do a lot of environmental sculpture?” Environmental sculpture! Yes! I thought – that’s what I do!

 That wigwam is long gone now, its constituent parts rotted back into the soil they came from, but, suddenly, the modest skills I acquired in making it came back into play here at the Findhorn Foundation last week.

 I had gone with the new Park Garden focaliser Gabi to work in a particular section of the Park. She pointed out a few of the tasks before us: weeding a sunny flower bed; weeding a shady bed (it was a cold day); cutting back some vegetation, and then she said: “And there’s a willow hedge by Legacy that needs weaving.” Legacy is a new building, a wheelchair-accessible meeting space, and the land around it, disturbed by construction, is being freshly landscaped.  The nine and half metres (31 feet) of woven willow hedge on the western side of the building must be about two years old and last year’s shoots had yet to be corralled.

The finished hedge

Legacy willow hedge, unfinished -
 you can just see some of the
uncorralled shoots at the far end..



 



















Willow, you see, grows fast and furiously in this damp climate. It’s often coppiced or pollarded – that is, cut back low to the ground, or above head height – so that a crop of long, new young shoots emerge every year. These very pliable shoots are known as “withies” and they’ve been used since time immemorial for making baskets, hurdles and anything else that can be woven from them.

 Obeying the normal anti-gravity response of plant life, a coppiced or pollarded willow puts out its new shoots from the top, the cut end, but if the live withies are, rather, bent into the horizontal plane and fastened down, new shoots, also obeying the anti-gravity imperative, grown straight upwards from nodes along the length of the withy, like spikes from the rounded head of a London punk.

 

 

Me weaving the Legacy hedge

 

 Willows will grow, and vigorously, just about whatever you do to them. So if you plant them as a hedgerow, you can bend the live withies annually, weaving them in among one another, increasing the density and height of the hedge every year.

These characteristics of willows have led people to use them to create intricate environmental sculptures. Rather than weaving the withies in haphazardly, as I must admit I did with my Legacy hedge, they may be coaxed into recurring patterns, shapes and even structures. I aspire to create such structures in my own little domain, but I’m afraid that the soil in my own backyard in Burlington, Vermont, being chiefly composed of sand left behind by the receding Champlain Sea 12,000 years ago, is too dry for willow growth. 

 However haphazard my hedging might look to me, Gabi admires it, so she’s entrusted me with further willow projects. The next one is a challenge.  A short row of willow trees stands just beside the Visitor Centre. They’ve been pollarded and have sent out shoots. Could I create a bent-willow feature using the live withies in place, six foot up? If I can’t do that, I can just cut them all off.  It’s a challenge, I admit, and I’m thinking about it.

Here are the pollarded willows awaiting treatment. The Visitor Centre is the white building to the right. The little gazebo behind the trees is of national importance as the haunt of an endangered species: cigarette smokers!
Re the willows - I think I'm going to add another horizontal pole across the tops of the grey upright branches then bend the yellow withies down in a pattern and secure them to the horizontal. I'll use jute twine to tie them, not try to just weave them. I'm currently recruiting for a step-ladder-holder.
Looking at this photo, I can see that my horizontal needs to echo the waves of the woven fence below. Or could I bring the withies all the way down to the existing fence? It's a thought in progress.





Amelanchier canadensis
(photo, UConn)

 Meanwhile, I decided to earn a meal ticket by volunteering in Cluny Garden last Friday (remember Cluny, aka “Hogwart’s”?)  A small team, consisting of me, Kicky, Louise-Marie, John, Adam and David, began clearing a hedge-wide strip at the back of a well-grown perennial bed bordering a parking area. We discarded “weeds” but carefully saved dozens of perennial daisies and oriental poppies, and rescued and replanted elsewhere every single bluebell, crocus or daffodil bulb we dislodged while digging – and I can tell you there were a lot of them!

We were able to start planting a hedge of serviceberry, also known as shadbush, Amelanchier canadensis, a hedging shrub that will be a glory in all seasons.  This was the first outdoor planting of the year - Spring is really here!

So you might say I’ve been a bit hedged in this week – by such lovely hedges!

 

 

Here's an elegant willow structure with my sister Elizabeth and me in it, Chichester, England, June 2012.

Spirit of Night

I'm reading  "To Hear the Angels Sing", a book by Dorothy MacLean, one of the founder of the Findhorn Community, and the person who first made contact with the nature spirits here.

 

Dorothy lives here in the community and faithfully appears at the 8:35  meditation every morning, wearing a red coat on these cold spring mornings.

 

I want to share with you this message from the Spirit of Night, quoted in her book:

 

"I love all life, and with my cloak I cover up each little yesterday for each of you. In me you find rest and when you leave me you go with new life, life whose wrinkles I have ironed out while you were in my care. I am the inviting nothingness of darkness into which you must float in faith, unknowingly, from which you return renewed."

 

I tried to find an illustration of the spirit of the night with which to embellish this post, but nothing appropriate came up in Google images. I guess I'll have to draw one, or commission one, myself!

Moving to The Park

 

So, as I said in my previous post, on Saturday February 14, I moved to The Park.

This is what happened:

After my first week at Findhorn, spring cleaning Cluny, I enrolled in the four-week “Living in Community as a Guest” (LCG) program.  I’d told some of you that there was small chance I might not be accepted, but I was. However, it turned out to be a bit too tightly scheduled for me to participate in the things I want to do in the community, particularly Sacred Circle Dance*, so I’ve moved out of that program half way through.

(*Out in the wide world we call it “Circle Dance”, but here at Findhorn, one of the sources or channels of the dances, they call it “Sacred Dance”; it’s the same, except I think that they take it rather seriously and we have more fun!)

Once I’d realized that LCG wasn’t for me, things moved fast:  the chance to rent a room in a bungalow in The Park shared with a very nice person called Mary, came up quickly, so Im writing this, on the morning of Sunday February 15, sitting at a desk in the front window of the bungalow, looking out on the main thoroughfare of the Park, and, a little closer to my window, the sparrows, chaffinches and robins that frequent the bird feeders.  Americans, I suggest you Google the European robin: it looks different from the American version, and I didn't manage to snap one.




The bungalow is called "Caroline" after its owner, who's in Australia.
It has two bedrooms, two living rooms, bathroom, kitchen and garden.

House sparrow meditating on peanuts

And here's a blue tit at the same feeder.
Yes, I know non-British people are going
to snigger at the name! I guess we're used to it



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My back is warmed as I sit here bird-watching by the glow of a small woodstove, fueled with sawn up pieces of old whisky barrels. The woodstove is a Reginald (That’s actually the brand, not a name bestowed upon it at Findhorn.) I love these stoves: they’re made in Waterford, Ireland and they carry the image of a large round medieval tower, Reginald’s Tower that stands in that city.  My paternal great-grandfather, James O’Mahoney (pronounced O’Marney) lived in Reginald's Tower. He held the appointment of Sherriff of the city and the residence came with the job!

 

 

I’m already happy with my decision to move to The Park: lots of spontaneous and planned events happen in this community daily, and now I’m here to participate in picnics, ceilidhs (pronounced kay-lees), parties, walks, meditations and other projects- like yesterday, when I spent two hours with a group of people dismantling old VHS cassettes that had accumulated in the boutique, and separating out the components for re-cycling. Today I had a chance to tell two stories (including "The Little Jersey Heifer") at a "wee ceilidh". 

The dismantling of cassettes may be symbolic: here I am with six weeks ahead of me to sort out the components of my life and re-cycle myself. I wonder who will emerge.

 

Here’s a little more detail about my process in making this change

for those who wish to read it:

There seem to be about 20 LCGs in the Community at present: there may be more in summer. The program is offered in rolling four-week blocks:  participants mostly live at Cluny and are integrated into the work departments at both Cluny and The Park. I, for instance, was assigned to Park Garden. LCG is not cheap, but comfortable accommodation and good food are provided, and each subsequent block of four weeks costs less and less – you can look in the catalog at findhorn.org.

LCG is designed to help people get to know the community and to begin to understand community life. It’s a focalized program – that means there are two staff members running it who support participants. In addition to work there’s a weekly “Sharing” on Tuesday evenings and a weekly “Education” session on Thursday afternoons.  LCG is a part of the system here, and people who want to become permanent members of the community enter LCG , then move on into further programs and eventually become staff members themselves.

I quickly clarified, in my first week of LCG, that my chief connection to the Findhorn Community - a connection of more than 20 years standing - is through Sacred Circle Dance. I began to find that being at Cluny and being involved in LCG hampered my ability to participate in Sacred Dance and other activities at The Park. I  reached a watershed when Laura Shannon,

Laura Shannon - her photo,
I haven't taken one of her yet.

who has just returned to The Park for a few months, announced that on two Tuesday evenings, February 10 and 17, she would be offering special one-off programs to the “experienced” Sacred Dance group. Laura is celebrating the 30^th anniversary of her first encounter with Sacred Dance here at Findhorn, and is sharing her story as well as her dances and their healing properties with us.

It seemed amazing, almost miraculous, to me, that I should be here at Findhorn when Laura is offering these two unique sessions. There was no possible way I was going to miss them, yet I was expected to be at the LCG Tuesday evening “sharing”. I entered discussions with my focalisers.  Decisions are made here through meditation, attunement and guidance. On the Thursday afternoon our LCG “Education” session was to take a shamanic journey, moving into inner realms and connecting with a spirit animal to seek guidance. I asked my little red fox to show me who could help me on my path  and, to my utter astonishment, he led me down a trail to a place where Peter Caddy was leaning against a tree, and Eileen was standing beside the tree, smiling, and encouraging me onward. With guidance like that, nothing could stop me! 

Now, you have to understand that Peter and Eileen Caddy are two of the (deceased) founders of the Findhorn Community. They didn’t set out to found a community, and their story is well documented. I really hadn’t expected to meet them in the shamanic world. With their encouragement, I made my move, and everything fell into place: accommodation, volunteer work in the Community, transportation, supplies – all with a little help from me remembering to tether my camel, of course.  

 

Sacred Dance in Universal Hall, Findhorn Community.
This is some other time, not last Tuesday evening, when 25
of us gathered to dance with Laura Shannon in this same space.



Universal Hall

Cluny - or Hogwarts?

View from my room, week 1

 It feels as if I’ve been here a very long time. When I look back at the photos of snow on trees I took in my first week here, they seem to have been taken many years ago. Time expands in the Findhorn Community, because, I think, we pay so much attention to our spiritual, emotional and psychic lives. A lot of time is spent in meditation, and a lot of time working with one another to understand what we’re doing and why. Add all that processing to the physical work, whether it be spring cleaning, cooking or gardening, and a great deal seems to happen every day.



Snow!

An awareness of the synchronicity of words, thoughts and events also adds to this elongation of time. When you stop to examine the meaning of just about everything from birdsong to bus timetables, time slows.

Yesterday I found myself needing to get from the Park to Cluny, a distance of some five miles, at a time when no buses were running. I voiced my need to my work group as we walked toward Moontree. Someone said: “Oh, you can easily hitch hike, there are always people going that way,” but Angus said: “If you go to our house right now you should find Elisabeth just about to set off for Cluny.” Their house was two minutes away and, indeed, there was Elisabeth putting on her coat, delighted to be able to help me. Since I had two heavy bags to carry, it was my turn to be delighted - not to have to hitch hike.  Life here, if you expect the best, seems to progress as a series of happy accidents. They call it “magic”

In reality, I’ve been here just 19 days. I’m spending my first three weeks staying in Cluny Hill College, one of the two campuses of the Findhorn Community; the other is called “The Park”.  Cluny looks a bit like Hogwarts, here’s a photo:

 



Cluny Hill College, Forres, Scotland

It’s a rambling old hotel with more than a hundred rooms, and it’s set in northern Scotland, in the small town of Forres, famous for its floral displays and charity (thrift) shops. No floral displays right now in February but abundant goods in the charity shops. Rudolf (from the Netherlands) even managed to buy a real kilt, Black Watch tartan, which he wore for Scottish dancing last Saturday.

Cluny’s resemblance to Hogwarts extends to being a place of learning: many courses and workshops are held here, attracting participants from all over the world, and, like Hogwart's, it has a really impressive dining room.

Cluny Dining Room

 

The food is particularly good – no meat but occasional fish – and tea, toast and jam are available round the clock.

 

Everything, even the carpet cleaner,  has a name.



Susie certainly enjoys the food!



Many course participants share rooms, it’s considered to be a part of community living, but I’m fortunate (I think) to be billeted alone in room 33. It has two single (twin) beds, a wash basin, a closet (wardrobe – which language am I writing in? ) a chest of drawers (bureau) two nightstands (?)and an efficient radiator. Nonetheless I make myself a hot water bottle every night from the always-boiling water in the kitchen, just for the comfort factor.  I’m supposed to have a room-mate, her name is Anna, but she’s got herself involved with a staff member who lives here permanently so she resides in his room, not mine, which is very acceptable to me.

You’ll have noticed from my description that the bathroom is not en suite. There are three bathrooms on this corridor (the “30s” corridor), two with showers and one with a bath - and what a bath! Long, deep and green, it’s the height of luxury. We’re asked not to take baths between 10pm and 7am in order not to disturb the people in adjoining rooms (that’s me). Consequently I take a bath whenever I think of it, to reduce the risk of yearning for one during the proscribed times. 

Big green bath: the bathroom is called "Emerald".

 

There’s also a sauna, fired up on Wednesday and Saturday evenings, a laundry room and a boutique. The boutique is wonderful – it’s a little room in the basement where people leave things they don’t want.  Every day new treasures appear: I’ve gleaned two dancing skirts, two pairs of shoes; some purple nail polish (varnish); a pair of yellow Crocs; knitting wool (yarn), several books, and a china dish for my rings from Cluny and from the boutique in the Park  I scored three real wool blankets (they were in the bags I had to transport in Elisabeth’s car), which I need because . . . .

. . .  on Saturday February 14, I’m moving to the Park!

See my next post!

 

As a bonus, here are three photos from my first week here: "A Gift to Cluny" was a week we spent spring cleaning many bedrooms and several meeting rooms. There were 19 people in the team, many of whom come back year after year to enjoy this task.

 



Schedule



 

Linda lightening lamps



Kevin plumping pillows



Repairs were needed: Kate's hands.

 

At last: a Findhorn Post!

Funny, I revived this blog at the turn of the year in order to post about my adventures at the Findhorn Community, and it's taken me this long to get to the first. Here it is:

PARK GARDEN
"Park Garden" at the Findhorn Community in northern Scotland indicates a service area, a team of people brought together to care for the park gardens. The gardens themselves comprise a disparate collection of small cultivated spaces scattered throughout the 30-acre “park” campus of this kaleidoscopic community-village. Additionally, there are many gardens belonging to individual dwellings, which are cared for by their owners.

In the tradition of William Morris, so much here is
both beautiful and useful: Flora's gate keeps out rabbits
and deer while delighting the eye. 

For more than 50 years, the Community has developed organically through the direction of spiritual and temporal imperatives, starting from a  single small caravan (mobile home) and barren sandy garden patch beside a rubbish dump, to become a vibrant complex lodestone for people concerned with environmentally sensitive living and construction, and New Age consciousness, from all over the Earth, and beyond.

For four weeks, February 2015, and maybe more, I am one of the carers of the Park Gardens. Our team is small, for even in this mild Scottish winter – mild, that is, compared with my usual habitat of northern Vermont – the ground is cold and little is yet growing. The work, therefore, consists of pruning – I hope to learn a little of the arcane art of pruning apple trees – clearing dropped branches and twigs dislodged by winter storms; raking the last of autumn’s shed leaves; cutting back overgrown shrubs and trees, and planning.

As a new and temporary member of the team I’m not involved in the planning but I bask in the glow emanating from Iris and Nikki after they’ve sat for an hour poring over the elegant herb garden diagram and discussing how they will bring to back into glory and utility this summer.

Here's Iris weeding Flora.

I have helped Peggy trim and re-locate a pile of small logs that had been cut and stacked beside a path by other community members clearing storm-felled trees. Using a hatchet to trim errant twigs and small branches – important if the wood is to be easily moved once stacked - took me back to my days brandishing a billhook on the South Downs as part of Brighton Conservation Volunteers in the 1980s. I spent many happy and rejuvenating Sundays in those days working on conservation projects, from pond digging to stile construction, from tree planting to invasive pulling, with Helen, Ron, Val, Joanne, Bernard and the rest of our faithful team. It was work that fed my soul, as I’m hoping working in the more placid Findhorn Park Gardens, will do.

I've also trimmed shrubs with Lua, raked apart the sawdust piles created by fallen tree clearance - piles that inhibit understory regeneration if left intact - and carted away branches of a pine tree that Gabi was trimming back from where it overhung the narrow road through the community, impeding the passage of high-sided vehicles. I thought the tree would look sad with so many branches removed on one side, but it just looked lighter: pine trees are very forgiving.



Moontree is an exquisite building that serves as meeting place
 for the Park Garden team. It's made with love and heated
with a darling little woodstove. That's master gardener and current team
 focaliser Kajedo Wanderer chopping kindling outside.
 

The trees, indeed, can fit themselves around our human machinations and still retain their inner essence. During my introductory tour of the Park Gardens, Gabi pointed out many trees that were planted as much as 50 years ago, and which have had to work around the humans – oh yes, and the humans have had to work around the trees -  to create the rambling and intricate layout of this exhilarating community. Rambling and intricate, I mean, in all the spheres of existence.

Plenty of kindling!

 

A closer look at Moontree's door