There was somebody attending the camp at the same time who had recently come from Scotland. This person had visited a spiritual community called Findhorn and had some photographs, books and a slide show. He showed the slide show in the evening and talked about the experiment at Findhorn around cooperation with nature – how humans were consciously working with the angels and the nature spirits. And I went, "Oh my goodness, this is what I’ve been experiencing. This is it. I have to go there. This is my next move".

I had also been reading in Alice Bailey’s "Letters on Occult Meditation" about certain preparatory and advanced schools where people will be brought together to be trained in "world service". And it was indicated that the preparatory school in Britain would either be in Wales or Scotland. I wasn’t sure if Findhorn was really the place mentioned, but it had all the hallmarks.

In the book, it was suggested that the preparatory school would be surrounded by water on three sides and a few miles from the nearest town. That’s exactly where Findhorn was located – on a peninsular with the purifying elements of wind and water.

So with this information and the impact of the slide-show, I resolved that I would return to the farm and finish the harvest, go to Stockholm to earn some money and then leave for Scotland. And that’s what happened. I arrived at Findhorn on Valentine’s Day of 1973. It was a conscious choice because I thought it was an appropriate gift of love to myself in starting a new phase. And when I walked through the doors late that evening and when I sat in the sanctuary and met the community the next morning, I felt that I had come home. It was an amazing feeling.

Tammie: I bet.

Michael Lindfield: All of me felt accepted by the community. People came from varying backgrounds. Some of them I would probably not have said hi to, or believed that we had anything in common, if I had accidentally bumped into them on the street. But what we had in common was a deep inner link - we were there for the same reason. It felt absolutely right to be there. I thought at that time that I’d be at Findhorn maybe a year or two at the most. I ended up staying nearly fourteen years.

Tammie: Wow! I had no idea you'd been there so long!

Michael Lindfield: Yes. And I noticed that there were different cycles within cycles. Every now and again, I got the sense that it was time to move on, but invariably something would happen whereby the community seemed to expand its possibilities and begin exploring further aspects of itself. The need to move on that I was sensing was, in fact, something that happened in place - I didn’t actually have to move somewhere else.

Tammie: Right.

Michael Lindfield: So the "in-place" move was a chance to explore more of myself and more of what Findhorn held as a promise. For fourteen years Findhorn’s rhythms and my rhythms were in sync. It was like our biorhythms were pulsing together.

Tammie: Hmm.

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.