Ann McEllin shares about her time in the Findhorn Foundation
““Some of the most profound experiences that are going to stay with me are the meditations I’ve had here.”
Britta: How did you come to join the Findhorn Foundation?
Ann: I’ll take you right back to 2021. It was during the COVID lockdowns and it was a big change. I was working for a charity in the north west of England, and we suddenly had to work from home. And it was a stressful and quite a lonely experience and then something popped up on my Facebook feed: Meditation from the Findhorn Foundation. I’d heard of the Foundation and always wanted to come and visit, which I never had the opportunity to do.
So I started doing the online meditations with you, Britta, and Ash and the lovestream walks with Yvonne, and I found it really nourishing for my soul to have this connection online with this community in the north of Scotland. So that’s how I first found you.
“On Christmas Day after I had eaten my lunch, I just found myself walking upstairs to my office and completing my CV and sending it off.”
At this time, we knew my husband was going to sell his accountancy practice, and I would leave my job with the charity, and we had planned to retire to the Lake District in England. Just before Christmas 2021, again, this thing popped up on my Facebook feed that the Findhorn Foundation was looking for a Head of Finance.
And I looked at the salary and I laughed (laughing) and thought: Do you know what? That would have been a really nice job, but not now. Not on that pay. And not to go to the north of Scotland where I don’t know anybody – and I forgot about it, but it kept coming back to me and it kept coming back to me and the closing date was the 26th of December and on Christmas Day after I had eaten my lunch, I just found myself walking upstairs to my office and completing my CV and sending it off. And the rest, they say, is history. (laughing)
“Seeing Cluny filled with people from all over the world was deeply moving.”
Britta: What was your overall experience during your time in the Findhorn Foundation?
Ann: I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to come here and experience the Foundation. I feel it’s been a sort of a strange privilege to be here at the end of the Foundation. I mean, I only saw a glimpse of what it used to be like. So when I was here in the summer of 2022, seeing Cluny filled with people from all over the world was deeply moving.
When we moved up here at Christmas 2022, we landed and we stayed in Cluny. And what a privilege it was to be here at that time when the house was so full of people, and to really experience what it’s like to live in community here. This was an experience I will never forget, and I’m really grateful for that.
Britta: What was one of your most wonderful, magical, beautiful, special experiences during your two years in the Findhorn Foundation?
Ann: There have been so many. One of them was working on the ‘Local Place Plan’* with the community, which I’ve really enjoyed. But some of the most profound experiences that are going to stay with me are the meditations I’ve had here. Particularly around Christmas time last year, walking the spiral on the Winter Solstice. It was the first time I was actually here for that.
I went there at 8 o’clock in the morning and went through the whole ceremony, helping to assemble the spiral and then later walking it. And again, the way that it was held in the atmosphere and in the Universal Hall, where it was nearly dark and everything was only illuminated by all these little lights and there were people walking the spiral made from evergreens in the middle of the hall and at the end choosing an angel card with a quality to support them for the next twelve months.
The Solstice Spiral, created each Winter Solstice in the Universal Hall by the community.
This was an experience I will never forget and I hope it is one I will repeat. Because even though my time at the Findhorn Foundation has come to an end, we live in a house close to the Findhorn Ecovillage and Community and we love it here. So I’m still intending that on the next Winter Solstice I will go and walk the spiral again.
Britta: Why are you leaving the Findhorn Foundation?
Ann: Because of the role that I hold, I have seen the financial challenges that the Foundation has been going through which started well before I came here. There were four main events which had major impacts on the financial situation of the Findhorn Foundation: First Brexit followed by COVID, then the loss of the Community Centre and the Main Sanctuary in the fires of April 2021. From a financial point of view, the loss of the Community Centre was a big hindrance for us as we were not able to feed our guests and community members anymore and that hit us hard. Then the last thing was the high increase in energy costs meant that running our main venue at Cluny (a former Victorian Hotel) became very expensive. So we experienced four full blows. One after the other.
The Community Centre, which used to provide regular meals and host events within the Findhorn Foundation at The Park
And I’m really sad, really sad, to see that despite all our efforts, we simply couldn’t bring the charity back to where it used to be in its heyday. So when we could see that we were going to have to close everything down before we re-opened again in the SCIO**, it became very apparent that with the overhead costs and repairs required for all of our assets, the cost was so high that the charity could not support the number of its co-workers.
So from when I first stepped into this role, I was very clear that I felt called to do a certain amount of time here. I thought I was coming here to prepare for the next finance steward. When I arrived, that was what I felt I was here to do. But with hindsight, I can say I was called to do a different role, perhaps to help the Foundation to wind up.
“I’ve worked with such an amazing group of people and I’ve learned so many things that I will be taking away from here.”
So when we could see the numbers, I spoke to our Chief Executive and he asked me how I thought I could help reduce the costs and I said: ‘Well, I’m happy to go.’ We have already trained one of our Transition Team members to take over, Harriet. She is familiar with how to do the accounts and she will be a great person to run with that. I feel it’s my time now to step out. And when I did my own meditations and attunements, what kept coming to me in those was: ‘Release. It’s time now to release’. And I think that in that releasing there’s a great sadness, but there’s also a feeling of: ‘Yes, I completed the role that I felt I was called here to do to the best of my abilities.’
I’ve worked with such an amazing group of people and I’ve learned so many things that I will be taking away from here and I made so many really good friends. Now it’s time for me to spend more time with my husband, take a break and then think about what’s the next challenge? What’s the next adventure that I want to embark on?
Britta: Is there anything you would wish for the future of the Findhorn Foundation?
Ann: I feel and hope that the core impulse of the Foundation and the three principles of ‘Inner Listening, Co-creation with Nature and Work is Love in Action’ will remain. Even if we may not be operating out of the same premises, even if we may be operating with a different group of people. I think that the core impulse of what brought the founders here will continue.
Cluny Hill, part of the Findhorn Foundation
It will continue within our local community here at the Findhorn Ecovillage and it will continue in our global community within the hearts of all the people who’ve been here for Experience Week and all our other workshops and programmes. And I’m just really curious and excited to see how it will manifest and grow in the future and what new form it will take. And I also really wish many, many blessings on all the lovely people I’ve worked with at the Foundation and in our local community. It has been a privilege to work here.
* If you would like to find out more about the ‘Local Place Plan’, please read here.
**The Findhorn Foundation envisions to shift from the structure of a Charitable Trust to a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO).