Hello all!

Having completed the Laidlaw Programme this Summer, I thought I would write my summary before the start of term again!

After a very busy exam season and May Week in Cambridge, I headed up by train to the north east coast of Scotland to Findhorn. "Findhorn" is a name slightly pulled in two directions, one- the name of the local town, two- the name of the ecovillage and spiritual community that resides just inland from the coast. The latter was where I stayed and worked through my LiA experience. The ecovillage and spiritual community was brought together through the spiritual and technical leadership of Eileen and Peter Caddy and, pulling in like minded, values-based followers, the place eventually blossomed into an authoritative location for thought and technical leadership for those seeking more meaningful relations with the world, themselves, their local community and nature. 

As someone with a keen interest in climate change, especially how its meaning shifts and morphs from place to place and melds itself with different understandings and imaginaries through different fields and spheres- professional and lay; scientific and spiritual; English, Scottish; urban, rural and many more- I was excited to see just how people engaged with the beautiful environment up in Scotland and how the community had served as a pioneer in early engagements with sustainable living. 

The ecovillage and spiritual community that resides in it come from such a disporate range of backgrounds and it was fascinating to hear the stories and history of the place and tales and stories of belief, faith and leadership to make the world a better place. However reality often has a way of making those goals difficult to achieve. The ecovillage was previously ordered and co-ordinated around the leadership of the Findhorn Foundation. However through the squeeze of COVID which dried up revenue from international courses and visits the Foundation collapsed. From its remains many different organisations have sprung forth, and I was initially going to work with one, Ecovillage Findhorn, to survey and interview the youth of the community and to hopefully follow the current of self-reflection towards visions for the future and tangible actions to achieve it. 

In short, my vision for leadership failed. This was due to a variety of reasons- the diluting of "youth" to encompass the demographic of the ecovillage (youth being under fourty); lack of clear normed roles and connectivity as well as personal struggles with energy and exhaustion. Especially difficult was conveying or convincing people of the changemaking mandate that I was attempting to grasp. As a small community things are very personal and change takes time to be entrenched and enacted. 

However, I was ultimately not deterred by these initial difficulties and worked to attempt to generate impact on different levels. I spoke with one of the key leaders of Ecovillage Findhorn frequently and at length about the struggles of leadership as well as the bureaucratic difficulties of bringing a community with one foundation against the vision of another. Talks ranged from theoretical impetuses changemaking draws from and the difficulty of mitigating liberal attentiveness to self-actualisation and existing culture that can be expanded to any changemaking exercise. In a somewhat Foucauldian manner (in that power and liberty seemed not to be at right angles with each other) there were struggles to disseminate responsibility and ownership democratically. These conversations revolved around questioning, coaching and debating with leadership over values, framing and correct approaches to self leadership and wider community drives. 

On a different level of impact, I began to work on the ground- literally at the grassroots- at the communal garden of Soillse. Planting potatoes, beetroot, chopping piles of roots for compost and shifting manure was ultimately a great way of sifting through my thoughts and dwelling on my own ideas of self leadership. While my hands moved my mind did as well. Thus, I was able to dedicate a lot of time towards thinking around the struggles of Findhorn as well as leadership more broadly. Especially the struggles of liberal democratic values espoused by Schmidt in one podcast seemed to blend quite well. As one leads through leadership decisions have to be made, but how to resolve this with moral impetuses to hearing everyone out and accepting everyone's viewpoint. Having spent time with a variety of stakeholders I was able to summarise my thoughts and findings with the leadership team and conduct visioning exercises with them, 

Finally, my time in Findhorn was spent learning more about climate change and preparing for my disseration research around the politics of climate in Fiji. In line with my own beliefs about contributing as well as taking, even if it is just research- I have also created a documentary about life in Fiji by the water- so watch this space!