Page 19 - C.A.L.L. #28 - Spring 2007

A tribute to Eileen International
Caddy Communal Studies

Association
Jonathan Dawson, a

sustainability educator based Ninth International Conference
at the Findhorn Foundation in DAMANHUR, Valchiusella
Scotland and President of the
Valley, Italy
Global Ecovillage Network. Eileen Marion Caddy, 29th June - 1st July 2007
Published in the New 1917 - 2006. Conference Trip: 2nd & 3rd
Statesman, 21 December 2006 July 2007 (Optional)

This week saw the death of Eileen Caddy, one of the co- "communities: yesterday's
founders of the Findhorn community, at the age of 89.
Eileen has been a treasure and a huge source of inspiration utopia, today's reality"

to the community. We are pleased to inform you
that the Conference Website set
The last of the many gifts that she gave was the clear up by Damanhur now contains
instruction that her passing be a cause for thanksgiving more up-to-date information
rather than mourning and, true to her wish, the about the conference
community seems almost to have an extra skip in its step programme and details about
this week. the post-conference trip, which
will take place on the 2nd and
So many glorious stories surround Eileen and the other 3rd July 2007. This promises to
early pioneers who were involved in the creation of this be a wonderful conclusion to
settlement back in the early 1960s. Most centre around her the conference and bookings
unwavering obedience to the guidance she received from will be accepted until the 30th
the inner source that she called ‘the God Within’. March 2007 only.

This guidance ranged from the bizarre (‘Build a community
Please check out the Damanhur
centre that can seat 200 people’ at a time when there was Conference Website at:
neither money in the bank nor any plans to create a
community as such) to the unexpected (‘if the caravan you http://www.damanhuricsa.org/
are sharing with six others is too noisy, go meditate in the html/home.asp
public toilets’ – she did, for years) to the many gems of
wisdom on achieving stillness and connecting with inner Please note that all enquiries
divinity that were later collected into the book ‘Opening concerning the conference
Doors Within’. should be sent to Damanhur at
conference@damanhuricsa.org
Whether it made obvious sense or not, Eileen’s guidance and not to the ICSA Office at
was the compass by which the emerging community Yad Tabenkin.
steered.

The key moment in defining the nature of the community Stop Press: The international
came in 1971 when Eileen returned from a meditation with news media had a heyday when
the guidance that it was now up to members to get their 97-year old Deganya Aleph, the
own guidance – no longer would she be the sole source of "Mother of the Kibbutzim",
authority. This mirrors a tricky moment in the evolution of decided by a vast majority to go
many intentional communities: how to stage the transition over to "graded salaries", while
from the founders to the next generation? maintaining a generous Social
Security network for its weaker
This is all the more difficult in cases like Findhorn, where members. (Thus, Deganya will
the authority of the first, founding generation is remain far more communal
recognized as being divinely inspired. Eileen’s guidance than most ICs.) Some of the
ensured the transition to a mature community that had to media compared the event to
find the wisdom and inspiration to make its own decisions. the breakup of the USSR!

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