User:Soulscribe/new article name here

Sirius Community

Sirius Community Center south exposure showing solar greenhouse, PVC panels with grid tie-in, and solar hot water panels on roof.

Sirius Community was established in 1978 as an educational non-profit 501(c)(3) in Shutesbury, Massachusetts by four American former members of Findhorn Community in Scotland who envisioned forming a new community in their own country based on the same principles of cooperative living they'd learned at Findhorn. In terms of physical development, Sirius embraced (as Findhorn had) many environmentally sustainable living strategies coming from permaculture and ecovillage design, eventually laying “human scale” infrastructure for the community using onsite wind and solar energy production, composting waste processing/management, and organic gardening for food production. These methods were not used only as devices to “mimic relationships found in nature,” however, as they were also expressions of deep-rooted conviction among community founders affirming that all forms of natural manifestation – animals, plants, rocks, wind, fire, etc – were alive with consciousness or spiritual presence with which telepathic or empathic communication could be established to mutual advantage. The animist nature of this central focus on “living in cooperation with the natural world” prompted founders from the beginning to describe Sirius primarily as spiritual community, though not in any sectarian or exclusionary fashion common to religious non-profit organizations promoting specific creeds or doctrine. The designation educational non-profit was chosen over religious as basis for incorporation in part due to reported experiences at Findhorn demonstrating that one could learn this ability to communicate directly with hidden spirits or consciousness in nature, that one could even learn how to obtain personal ‘guidance’ from a transcendent universal presence unifying all beings and beingness (God to some), and that most importantly, this learning required neither adherence to any particular dogma or belief system nor specialized qualification in terms of psychic (priestly, shamanic) aptitude.

Findhorn Roots

Findhorn Community’s formation during the early to mid Sixties had reportedly itself been a response to the same observations, as co-founders Eileen Caddy and Dorothy Maclean obtained reputuations as reliable mediums/channels within the New Age community, each eventually attracting an international following. Both women stressed in their teaching that there was substantially greater benefit in people learning to seek guidance through their own inner personal (meditative) inquiry that by petitioning others (psychics, mediums, channels, etc) to ‘mediate’ higher consciousness for them. During the Seventies, all three Findhorn co-founders – Dorothy, Eileen, and Eileen’s husband Peter Caddy – withdrew from hand-on oversight of the ecovillage emerging around them, entrusting administration to a ‘Core Group’ of initiates familiar with the founders’ methods of receiving guidance.

Findhorn co-founder Dorothy Maclean (second from right) during a weekend workshop she presented at Sirius in February 2008.

Americans Gordon Davidson and partner Corinne McLaughlin, along with Gordon’s brother Bruce Davidson and his partner Linda Reimer spent a combined twelve years at Findhorn, immersed in an environment where apparent contact with nature spirits and other transcendent (spiritual) consciousness was so commonplace, it was taken for granted. Their stay at Findhorn occurred during the middle Seventies, in the midst of the period when leadership was passing to the Core Group, a body using group meditation and consensus in efforts to align community direction with ‘Divine Will’.

External links

• The Website for more information about Spiritual Politics