Life at Findhorn
A weekly insight into life inside one of Britain's best known eco-villages – Findhorn – by resident Jonathan Dawson.
In pursuit of the aesthetic orgasm
- Posted by Jonathan Dawson
- 13 August 2007
Jonathan Dawson on the art centre that is a stunning monument to the power of vision and persistence
Manifestation forms an important part of the Findhorn mythology – and indeed of our current practice.
This is the art of generating money and other resources to finance initiatives that, in many cases, look improbable if not downright unachievable.
Many are the stories from our pioneering days of the community launching into highly ambitious projects with little in the way of resources, skills or business planning but filled with the conviction that the project was in alignment with some higher purpose. Sure enough and often enough, the right people showed up at the right time and the necessary resources somehow appeared on cue.
One such recent near-miraculous act of manifestation culminated last year in the opening of a United Nations sustainability training centre here (one in a network of only twelve such centres around the world) following a decade of dedicated manifestation work by Brazilian-born community member, May East. But that is a story for another day.
Watching the process of manifestation unfolding is fascinating. It can best be described as the act of visualising the desired outcome so surely and so concretely, that the rest of the process consists in drawing back the curtain to reveal what has been visualised. (Unsurprisingly, this technique seems to work much better for projects that truly serve to make the world a better and happier place for us all than attempts to control, for example, the numbers on the balls in the national lottery!)
Well, the latest practitioner of the art of manifestation here is a most unlikely candidate for the role. Randy Klinger is a self-described ‘secular atheist’, a ‘bacon-cheeseburger’ Jewish painter from New York.
One day, some years ago while in a public library in New York, he heard the ‘still, small voice’ (a phrase used frequently by recently-deceased community founder, Eileen Caddy, to describe communications she received from the Divine) telling him and his wife, Catherine, to move to Findhorn.
He looks over at me, apparently a little self-conscious that even in this place where the veils between the worlds are famously thin, he might be categorised as an oddball ‘hearer of voices’: ‘Let me just say that back then, if you had told me the story I am telling you, I would have thought you were a prime wanker.’
Thus confessed, he continues his story. Randy and Catherine’s first five years in the community were fun, though characterised by poverty and a long though eventually successful process of gaining indefinite right to remain in the country. Once the residency permit came through, they breathed a sigh of relief and prepared to put their feet up.
The Voice had other ideas, though. It instructed Randy to create an art centre that would be ‘the birthplace of the next golden age’ and instrumental in the ‘redemption of beauty’, no less.
Everything he needed, it informed him, would become available at the right time. Being at Findhorn and despite his secular atheism, he took the Voice seriously and started spreading the word.
To Randy’s surprise, people took him seriously and significant donations began to come in. One source wrote him a cheque for £15,000, another for £50,000. A legal structure was set up and the money continued to flow in.
Chance meetings built the momentum. People with exactly the right skills – fund-raising, business management, project design – arrived in what appeared to be a carefully choreographed sequence. Networks developed and new friends climbed on board as the concept caught fire.
Though extraordinary forces were unquestionably at work, Randy was just the man for the job. As an artist, he is appalled by the ugliness of so much of what passes for art. He feels like a one-man mission to resurrect appreciation and unashamed celebration of beauty.
As he describes it, his arms waving for emphasis as he searches for just the right words, beautiful art impacts him in a profoundly physical way. Waves of energy pass through his body, he says, in much the way that an orgasm does. ‘What I am after’, he says, ‘is the aesthetic orgasm’.
Well, Randy’s inspiration continued to work its magic. Highlands and Islands Enterprise agreed to fund a state-of-the-art geothermal heating system to the tune of £22,000. A multinational company donated £38,000 for energy-efficient lighting. This grant was matched by one from the organisation, Arts and Business, to pay for salaries. Money was raised to pay for photovoltaic panels that will generate as much electricity as the building uses. Even the building contractor made a £10,000 donation!
Now, almost £1 million has been raised through donations great and small and, incredibly, the main body of the art centre, comprising nine modular spaces has opened. A little more remains to be raised to complete the project, with the addition of an international standard museum and exhibition space. Just one more twitch of the curtain before the centre in its full beauty is revealed. This is a stunning monument to the power of vision and persistence.
Six hundred people attended the opening ceremony a couple of weekends ago. The first show is an exhibition of the work of Thomas Telford, put on in association with the Moray Council. Strong links have also been developed with the Moray College and with the Moray Arts Club, that has 350 members but until now no space to work from.
The aim of the centre is to research and demonstrate beauty in all its artistic forms, especially through facilitating collaboration between artists in different fields – painters, sculptors, singers, storytellers and so on. Randy sees Findhorn’s distance from the great centres of power and influence to be a great strength. It is here, far from the stranglehold of commercialism and the crass decadence of modern artistic fashions, he believes, that a rebirth of beauty in its purest forms can best be achieved.
One more thing that is distinctive about the art of manifestation. Those who use it wisely do not take it too personally. They recognise that greater forces are at work and that they are primarily vessels through which the beauty of universe reveals itself. So it is that Randy refuses to talk about ‘his art centre’ and prepares to move onto the next thing that The Voice might just have in store.
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