Letter from Findhorn: Work is Love in Action.

Tomorrow morning I’m going to work in the house-keeping department doing laundry and other household chores. This will be one of 3 mornings this week I’ll be doing this as part of the Findhorn Foundation’s (http://www.findhorn.com) family experience week in an idyllic setting on the east coast of the Scottish Highlands.

The Findhorn Foundation is a “center of spiritual education and personal and planetary transformation” that offers a “Family Experience Week” in which one can gain an insight into their special blend of the pragmatic and the divine through a week long immersion into daily life here. This blend is expressed in the promotional brochure for the program which states “It is primarily through the work programme that the community receives spiritual training”. And the oft repeated wisdom here that “Work is love in action”.

I am here for a number of reasons. To take a vacation with my family from the intense pressure cooker we have been in through the development of Gate 3 over the past year. And what a wonderful vacation it has been – enjoying the exuberant energy of the Edinburgh Festival; traveling through the brooding Highland landscapes in a storm that originated across the other side of the Gulf Stream; and drinking down Langoustines with a couple of pints of Scottish Ale in a quaint seaside town with white sand beaches that go on forever.

But the reason I’m here at Findhorn in particular is to gain deeper insight into this very question – how do we put soul back into our work-lives? Is there room, in a fast paced, technologically sophisticated work environment for talk of “love” and “transformation”? How do we translate these principals from a slow paced, bucolic British village to the urban center of the high tech revolution?

For now I won’t offer any answers to these questions. The answers will hopefully emerge, positively affirmed, through our own living experience, as we continue to develop the workclub in Emeryville. We will continue to expand our own work community and explore with each other tangible and effective ways to make all our work more effective, impactful and meaningful.

We already know that we need others to be productive in our work. We also know that the work we do IS important as a source of livelihood as well as to the people we deliver services and products to. The opportunity now is no less than moving closer, deeper and more fully to a realization of our work as love in action.

With love from Findhorn

Neil

Comments

[Frank McClung]

Neil,

Your question "how do we put soul back into our work-lives? Is there room, in a fast paced, technologically sophisticated work environment for talk of “love” and “transformation”?" is right on. Recently picked up a magazine on the newstand called "Worthwhile" exploring work, passion and profit. A good start as is Work Club. I've worked out of my home office for two years now as a graphic designer and have wondered about your questions. Honestly, I think the system of school has dumbed and numbed our souls into doing passionless work to feed the corporation or economy, but leads our lives empty and wanting something deep. Let me know what you discover, I'm interested.