interviews
A Conversation
with Michael Lindfield on:
Life, Meaning,
Findhorn, and Transformation
cont. p. 2
Michael Lindfield:
So back to your question about how I knew it was time to leave. In
January of 1986, I came to the U.S. to give lectures and conduct
workshops. I was down at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. I
had a sense that it was probably time to leave Findhorn in the
not-too-distant future. Nothing clearly defined - I just had this
sense. I even received a job offer in San Francisco on my way up to
Seattle. Something was definitely stirring. When I got back to the
community, I remember driving from the airport. As I approached the
community and drove through the main gate, it felt as though I had
to duck my head - like the ceiling level was lower. It was nothing
to do with Findhorn being less evolved or less powerful, it was
simply that Findhorn wasn’t the right fit anymore somehow.
Tammie: I
understand.
Michael Lindfield:
I talked it over with my wife Binka, and we both decided that it was
time to move. As an American citizen, she had been living in
Scotland for 12 years and wanted to get back home. Our children were
ten and eight years old and the prospect of them growing up with two
cultural backgrounds was appealing. It definitely was the time to
move. There was such a "rightness" about it.
We decided to move that summer and so in May
we packed up our belongings into boxes and wrote, 'Lindfield' and
the word 'Seattle' on them and put them on a container ship. We
didn’t have any other address. We told the shipping company that
we would give them a proper address in a couple of months. We
didn’t know exactly where we would be. Then we bought four one-way
tickets to the States for the beginning of July.
Tammie:
Wow!
Michael Lindfield:
Two days before we were supposed to fly out, I got a call from a
friend of mine in Seattle who said there was a position opening up
at a local University for a Director of Community Education and that
I should apply. She mentioned that the deadline was in two-days time
and that I should hurry up and send in my application. I thought,
"My goodness, things seem to be moving at a fast pace."
So, I put together some papers and FedExed them over to Antioch
University in Seattle and then got on the plane.
We landed in Boston because my wife’s
parents are from New England. I called Antioch University and was
told that my name was on the short list of candidates for the
position and would I come over for an interview. So I flew out and I
went through a number of days of interviewing and waiting. In the
end I was offered this position. And so within a few days of
arriving in the States, I had landed a job. I asked when they wanted
me to start and they said, "next week please". So I flew
back to Boston, went up to New Hampshire to get myself together. My
in-laws were very gracious and gave me an old car they were about to
trade in. So, I packed a few belongings and drove across the country
to start work. Now, it so happened that friends from Findhorn who
were living in Issaquah - a 30-minute drive east of Seattle - had
just decided to take a year off and travel around the world with
their family and were looking for someone to house sit.
Tammie:That’s
amazing Michael.
Michael Lindfield:
They needed someone to look after their cat, car and house. And I
said, "We’ll do it, thank you very much. Wonderful."
Tammie:
Right.
Michael Lindfield:
And so there I was with a job and a house. I was able to give the
shipping company a real address. Two days before my wife and
children were scheduled to fly out west, I got a call from the
shipping company saying that my belongings had arrived in Vancouver,
Canada and that they would be trucking them down. So the following
day I helped unload the boxes. I managed to get everything unpacked
and put away so when the children arrived they had all their
familiar bedding, all their toys - everything. It was perfect
timing.
Tammie:
How wonderful.
Michael Lindfield:
And I just said, "Thank you, thank you." For me, that
whole experience was a sign of being in the right rhythm. There are
other times when it’s like pulling teeth and nothing seems to
work. Sometimes, you just have to let go, and know that it’s
simply not the right timing. Other times, one actually has to push
on through because the resistance may be a barrier of one’s own
making.
Tammie:
Yes.
Michael Lindfield:
That’s where the discrimination lies. When things don’t seem to
be working out, it is useful to ask if these signs are really coming
from the Cosmos telling us the stars aren’t right so don’t do
it. Or is it more a question of, "No, I need to push on through
because this situation is of my own making and I am the
solution." So for me timing is very important. The whole of
life is built on rhythm and timing. It’s the in-breath and the
out-breath - the sense of knowing when to breath in, when to breath
out, when to move, when to be quiet.
Tammie:
Right.
Michael Lindfield:
Yeah.
Tammie:
I'm struck as you share your story by how much synchronicity there
seems to be flowing throughout your life.
Michael Lindfield:
I always get one-way tickets to places.
Tammie:
Now that's faith!
Michael Lindfield:
I am one of these people who grew up in Britain and didn’t
complete high school. I left school in 10th grade to try
and figure out what I wanted to do. I looked at my situation in
Britain and didn’t get a sense of anything opening up. I kept
getting this strong impulse that I should go to Scandinavia. So I am
16 years old at the time, I sell my record collection, my record
player, a bike, and buy a one-way ticket to Gothenburg on a ship
leaving from London.
Tammie:
That took courage!
Michael Lindfield:
I packed a suitcase, and with $50.00 in my pocket, headed off to
Sweden and the unknown. Since early childhood, I’ve always had a
sense that something is moving me. It used to really scare me and I
would ask, "Why am I doing this, why am I going?" But
there was something inside that said, "Trust all of this. It is
part of your education - part of finding out who you are and where
you need to be in life. There is really no way that you can
logically sit down and figure this out – follow your inside."
Acting this way is not logical if you compare
it to the way that you and I have been trained to think rationally
about things. This is a different way of operating – it is an
inner rhythm, an impulse that compels us. And sometimes, one picks
up the signals very clearly, but other times, they are more
distorted and we find ourselves bumping into things because we have
the wrong coordinates. It sometimes turns out that it is not the
right place nor the right time. But basically that’s how I have
attempted to live my life, right from the get-go.
As far back as I can remember, there has
always been this inner guiding star that says, "Follow
me." It was only later in my life when I reached my early
20’s, that I began to realize that this wasn’t just some sort of
fantasy. This was reality, or more correctly, this is
reality. This is how celestial navigation works - we each carry our
own guiding star. And we can navigate to that inner star.
And it’s all a question of practice. We have
to practice the art of inner listening to acquire the confidence and
capability needed on the journey through life. It means daring to do
it. It means going through all the pains involved with learning to
live a soul-directed life. I am so grateful for this journey and the
way I feel supported by life. Life has also given me a lot of hard
knocks but those have been of my own request really.
I invoked the lessons - even though I haven't
always consciously called for them. They have come from the deep
part of me that says, "I want to be whole, I want to move on, I
want to find my home." In response to this cry for wholeness, I
am presented with all those aspects of myself that have been
banished to the shadows of my being. To be whole, and to truly come
home, means to embrace these shadows and bring them into the light
of my Soul. I believe this is the eternal quest that we all find
ourselves on - the homecoming, the search for home. So, that’s how
I see it.
Because of the particular philosophical
framework I live within, one that acknowledges the creative rhythms
and cycles of Spirit, I embrace the concept of reincarnation. So the
process of living many lives to reach maturity as a soul, and find
my way home, is such a natural thing.
I see the perennial shrubs in my garden going
through it. They do things in the winter that look as though they
have died back, but up they come again in the spring. It takes many
seasons to mature and to really bring something to fruition. So how
arrogant on the part of us humans to think that we are so special
that we can do it in one lifetime or that we are so different from
the rest of nature. For me it’s not even an argument. This is the
divine mechanism that I, as a soul, use to fully express in time and
space.
In order to grow, I go through many seasons
and these seasons are called lifetimes. It takes a certain pressure
off to know that this is one step in the journey, but it also adds
another pressure to make the most of this lifetime, as it does have
an effect on the overall journey. Belief in reincarnation means that
I don’t have to pack it all into a few years because after death
there is oblivion or some static state called heaven or hell. That
must be a very frightening worldview to have. I could see how that
could cause a lot of despair. Much of this understanding and
knowledge I received from nature. I can talk more about that when we
talk about some of the experiences that have helped shape my life.
But basically that’s how I move and choose to move through life.
top | continued
| pages 1 2
3 4
5 6
7 | interviews
index
home | birthquake
| about me | sageplace
vision | words of wisdom
chief seattle | life
letters | psychotherapy | essays
| thoughts | interviews
where have the frogs
gone | chat schedule | books
| send
page |
|
