interviews

A Conversation with Michael Lindfield on:

Life, Meaning, Findhorn, and Transformation

cont. p. 6

Tammie: That there was a reciprocity.

Michael Lindfield: Yes, and then when it was time to leave, it became very obvious. It was time to move out as a family and this coincided with a new stage in Findhorn’s growth.

The community had just finished a seven-year cycle that I was very much a part of, and was just about to embark on the next cycle. This next phase would focus on building the ecological village. I was very passionate about this, but I didn't feel that I was to be one of the actual builders. My time had come to an end there. I believe that if you're going to stay for a cycle then you've got to make a commitment to be fully present. I didn’t have that sense and so it was a perfect time to say, "right, we've completed our cycle. Let’s move on".

So that’s what we did as a family - the four of us. We spent the last four-to-six weeks saying goodbye to people and selling little odds and ends and basically getting ready to leave. There was a little wrench and a tug at the heart-strings in leaving good friends that we'd known for years, but otherwise it was an effortless transplant. We pulled up our roots. No roots were broken. The roots let go and released themselves from the soil of the community without much resistance if you want to use a gardening analogy. We had a sense of "leaving with ease" which is always a good indication of right timing. However, it didn't guarantee that everything would be easy sailing from then on. It just meant it was good timing –we were in rhythm.

Tammie: Do you still feel connected to Findhorn today?

Michael Lindfield: Yes, I do. I'm part of a listserve of former Findhorn members. I still feel connected on a deep level - a connection to what it is, to what it's attempting to bring through and give to the world and to what it's given me. I support it in my thoughts and I'm sure I will return in the next year for a visit. I went back four years ago for a week and although the forms looked a little different, the same spirit was abroad. Findhorn is definitely an experience that will live with me forever. There is nothing inside of me saying that I have to go back to find a missing piece of myself. I don't miss anything because there's nothing to miss. If you're connected with something or someone then you have that living inside of you always.

Tammie: Absolutely.

Michael Lindfield: I don't know what else to say. It was a very special place. A lot of lessons and a lot of insights. It helped me grow and blossom and look at things in ways I would not have managed alone. I didn't, of course, have time to discover and work on all those lessons of life that help make us whole- that is what lifetimes are for - but at least it shone a very clear light on my life and gave me a sense of direction.

Tammie: I think that one of the things that I recently discovered was that while I've always maintained the importance of being connected to the natural world, what was really amazing to me during a retreat that I recently did on the ocean, was that I saw more profound change in those five days within this natural setting where people began to settle into a natural rhythm. We almost began to breathe in rhythm with the ocean. And I think that even perhaps part of the magic of Findhorn is not only the community and the values upon which it’s based, but also that it exists in such an incredibly beautiful natural setting.

Michael Lindfield: Yes. It all helps because the community isn't just a community of humans; it's a community of lives. Some of the community members live in the natural world of elements and elementals, some of them live in the angelic or devic world, and some of them live in the human world. Findhorn was a grand synthesis of all these lives.

Tammie: You've maintained that life is a teacher, and I'm just wondering what experiences in your life have taught you the most?

Michael Lindfield: Life is a teacher because life - as I allow it to impress itself upon me, to move through me and from me - has a purposeful, loving direction built into it. It moves me and it illuminates me and shows me its secrets when I have the eyes to see. When I think of life as a teacher, I think immediately of Mother Nature. I go back to farming and gardening where some of my greatest lessons have been.

I remember being asked by Anders, the Swedish farmer, to take off my shoes and walk on the soil and feel the earth. It was a profound moment in my life – going barefoot on the warm, moist soil, I suddenly felt reconnected to the livingness of this planet. I realized that for several years I'd been walking the streets of Stockholm on the concrete sidewalks and that just a few inches below my feet was this living pulsing earth that I was not consciously aware of. It was a revelation that day in the fields that re-connected me and re-assured me that I was part of a living system called Life.

Another example of what the power of nature has taught me is from my neighborhood in Issaquah, Washington. I love running and one of the trails that I take is through a wooded area with a black top path. The developers put in a walking trail for the residents about three years ago. About two years ago, I noticed some areas of "swelling" on the path. Over the next few days they changed into bumps. The bumps got bigger-and-bigger and one morning, to my surprise and delight, I saw that one of them burst and the head of a fiddler fern had broken on through. And I thought, "Praise be – what amazing power!" This tiny fern looked so delicate that it could easily have been crushed by the slightest pressure. However, this delicate creation had just pushed through two or three inches of very hard black top without any apparent damage to itself.

Now if I were to pick this fern and use it to hit the black top, the fern would be smashed. But here in front of my eyes was this incredible manifestation of power. The fern had very gently, persistently and forcefully moved itself through something that I believed to be solid, tough, and impermeable. And I'm thinking, "Wow! Spirit can move mountains!"

Tammie: What a powerful example of that fact.

Michael Lindfield: And this week, as I run the trail, there are more little bumps that have cracked open and more fern heads showing through and I'm going, "Yes!" That image for me is my reminder whenever I feel that I can't go on or that I'm trapped in a form, it's a reminder of what I call, "soft strength" or inner strength. It's life moving irresistibly from the inside out. It's the soft strength at work and no form can withstand its power – no form can imprison it. And that really is a great source of strength for me and a great insight.

Those are two instances of ‘life as teacher’. The other example that springs to mind is just being with my wife and raising two children and realizing what that experience really is - the gifts of who they are as souls and what they bring. I could go on for hours on that one.

Let me give you an instance where the image of the fern and the blacktop path had a very practical application. I am a long distance runner. I take part in hundred mile trail races and 24-hour endurance runs where it isn't just enough to be physically fit. You also have to be mentally fit because otherwise you're not going to last. In these extreme events, it is necessary to draw on one’s psychological and spiritual resources to make it through.

In the summer of 1997, I competed in the Western States 100 Mile trail race through the high Sierras. It was a tough course with over 41,000 feet of elevation gained and lost. At about the 46 mile mark, I felt terrible and thought, "Oh no, I'm not going to make it, this is hopeless. I'm gonna give up, I'm gonna lie down and die."

I was suffering from dehydration and hypothermia and the strength had left my body. I sat huddled for nearly 40-minutes going through the agonies of defeat. And then I remembered the fern and the "soft strength" lesson. I began to focus my thoughts and slowly I was able to cultivate that inner strength. What happened next was like a miracle. I rallied and the strength returned. Within 10-minutes, I was actually getting up and running. I still felt a little groggy but my spirits had returned. With every mile I seemed to be getting stronger.

During those final 56 miles, I had the most joyful and rewarding experience. I made up two hours on my projected time during the night and finished the race feeling elated and in great shape. As I crossed the finish line I'm thinking, "Wow, with Spirit, anything is possible!"

And so when I say life is a teacher, part of the teaching is that life is a mystery and I don't need to know the answers. It's as though I'm a radio receiver and I shouldn't expect to pick up TV images. In my present human condition, I'm currently built for radio waves, but over time I’m sure that we all will develop the capacity to both send and receive TV images. So let's not overdo it. Let's not make what we currently are able to pick up on our inner screens into the whole picture. Let's leave a large chunk of this blank and call it "mystery" and let us allow this mystery just to be there. Let me live inside the mystery, and let me feel my way into the mystery, and the more I know about the mystery the greater the mystery becomes. It's a strange thing, the more I understand about the mystery , the deeper the mystery appears to grow - the more I seem to know, the less I seem to understand.

Tammie: Exactly.

Michael Lindfield: And that's what it's really all about. Living is not just an act of blind faith, although it is an act of faith at some level. Faith for me, is the belief in the good intention of life. Its ultimate purpose is benevolent - in the way that we currently understand that word. It goes beyond words. When I live by faith and trust, then I'm willing to walk out there into the unknown because I know that there is only life. Whatever fears or beliefs I hold do not really matter, they don't change Truth– only my perception of what that truth might be. I can argue with people about the concept of reincarnation and whether it actually is the process for the growing of the Soul in time and space, or I can argue that God does or doesn't exist, but my beliefs don’t change what is. So my philosophy and approach is simple: participate in what is to discover what part I play in all of it.

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