The Seagull Of Cluny

While convalescing from a painful, if ignominious, injury,1 I have been put in mind of an incident at a place that I called home for many years.  It was at one of the two main sites of a spiritual community in the north of Scotland called the Findhorn Foundation; the original, home site being on a windswept peninsula forming one side of a tidal body of water called the Findhorn Bay, with a small fishing village at its furthest point - hence its name; or vice versa - and a caravan park butting right up against it and just further inland; and hence its name, of the Findhorn Bay Caravan Park, and the name of the body of people within it who make up, at that original site, the spiritual community referred to, and now, plus the ‘eco village’ of people who have been attracted to that location because of the spiritual/environmental core activity going on there.  Much like the secular village that grew up around the monastic site started by ’Saint’ Bernard in Clairvaux, France.  Our ‘Bernard’ being an Englishman by the name of Peter Caddy, in concert with his wife, Eileen, and their spiritual partner, a woman originally from Canada called Dorothy Maclean.    

The other main site of the community is at a former hotel on the edge of the Royal Burgh of Forres, inland some five miles away, called the Cluny Hill Hotel, which Peter (and the others, each in their way) had been the managers of, in the late fifties-early sixties, for five years preceding their move to the caravan park.  That’s all another story; mine here has to do with the fact that the budding spiritual community located at the FBCP bought the hotel - under conveniently rock-bottom-priced circumstances - thirteen years later, in late 1975, to house the greater numbers of guests who had started coming to the community, having heard of it from various sources.  That’s when it all came into my life, when I ‘heard the call’ from my then-home in Southern California, and became a member of the founding body of multi-national incarnate souls who were involved in bringing the lovely building - now christened Cluny Hill College - back to life under new management, as it were.

Some years after this beginning - and a very successful beginning, and developing period, it was - there was an interesting event at ‘dear old Cluny,’ as it became known to many, members and returning guests alike.2  For whatever reason, many seagulls were attracted to its area (on a flank of the hill from whence it took its name), and often gave us wonderful views of them, soaring about, from the curved windows of our dining room, as from the prow of a ship, sailing the seas of a transformative life.  One spring, many years later, I, and other members, noticed that a couple of them had chosen to build a nest in one of the many inert chimney tops dotting the multi-angled roof of the large building, and we kept an eye on the proceedings.  The day came when we noticed that a squab had been born into the situation.  But - alas - the day also came when it toppled to the ground, in the back of the building, on the edge of our parking lot, from having tried to take its first faltering steps out of its sheltered home, and life thereto.  What to do (as its parents must have been wondering also).  We decided that we humans needed to stay out of the matter, lest our scent on the poor thing put its parents off from engaging with it any further, as having nothing more to do with them.  At the least, what our house focaliser at the time (a lovely young German woman) chose to do was to put out pans of water for it to drink from, and we warned our guests to stay away from the area as much as possible, to ‘give it some space,’ as we refer to ourselves in our own passages through life, and its challenges.  Time passed.  I would watch the proceedings from the windows of the passage to our meditation room (the former billiard room of the building’s hotel days; a perfect setting for a meditation room, with its majestic, exposed wooden beam ceiling), before checking the time, and going in to lead a meditation.  And I noticed that when I was outdoors in that area - our parking lot - the squab’s parents would be flying in low circles over the area.  On their watch, too.  

And then lo - the day came when there was action!  I was returning to ‘Cluny’ - the building - via its back door when I saw the by-now fledgling flying from its ‘home base’ on the perilous ground through the archway to our meditation room on towards the back of the building and back again.  It knew how!  Knew the native abilities of its species.  Had activated that link.  And the day was not long after, that it flew away.   To experience life from its new vantage point.   Cluny having given berth to a different kind of transformative experience, than of us humans...   

I have sometimes thought of that metaphorical experience in the passing of my earthbound days.  And now, as i sit here - very gingerly - typing these words, and, er, ‘facing’ my mortality - if rather humiliatingly - I think of how we, too, will someday ‘shuffle off this mortal coil,’ and fly free

as a bird.

—

footnotes:

1) A story in itself.  Briefly: I have been experiencing severe problems with my computer, in ‘its’ not downloading properly.  My Internet (and telephone) provider has sent its technicians out several times, in response to my complaints; during the last-but-one of which the guy even changed my modem and the wall jack apparatus.  But my machine still showed signs of not responding properly (especially in not downloading my emails; some hijinks going on there???).  He was satisfied when I was able to access a couple of other sites on the web, and said, in parting, that I ‘probably had a problem in my software’.  (A problem in my software; note that…)

   That was difficult to believe.  It’s an Apple Mackintosh, with an excellent reputation; only a little over six years old; and I run two separate virus cleaners on it, just to make doubly sure that that potential factor - fly in the ointment, as it were - has been covered.  But my problem persisted, and has been getting worse.  Finally I lugged my machine - that is, my computer - into the office of a downtown computer repair person - over a half-hour in, straining mightily under the load - and back again the next day, after he checked it out, and showed me, on his equipment, that my computer itself was perfectly fine, and indeed, was in excellent shape.  A clue: He had it on a wireless hookup to his modem.  So I reported this to my Internet provider, who once again sent out a techie.  A few days later.  By which time - and after I had had to strain with a difficult bm, which seemed to put the cherry on top of the sundae, as it were, with my nascent hemorrhoids (which had always receded before, with just a little pressure applied on them from without) popping out to dangerous, and very painful, proportions - I was in dire straits.  To the point where I a) had walked - very  carefully - to the supermarket one night to purchase a tube of ointment for my condition, and b) haven’t had anything to eat for nearly a week now, not wanting to chance ’straining at stool’ again and possibly rupturing my tender buds, and dying from blood loss and septicemia.  That’s how bad my situation feels.  And accordingly, I have written - while standing - my ‘last will and testament,’ parceling out my meager estate, including belongings.

   What an ‘end’ this would be…   

   In any event: He came, he fiddled around a bit, he concluded: The problem was in my computer.  Nothing to do with them.  I explained again that I had had my machine checked out by a man who makes a living repairing such things, and it, er, passed with flying colors.  He didn’t know anything about that, he insisted; according to his equipment, their modem and its link to the wall jack were functioning perfectly.  How about checking the cable between the modem and my machine, with a volt meter, I encouraged.  To be met with the fact that he is/they are not electricians; they operate within their parameters of training, and his had proved to him that the problem was with neither their modem nor its link into the wall jack.  To ‘prove’ this, he linked his smart phone up to my modem (how, I didn’t see or know), and showed me on it that he could access the sites perfectly that way that I was having trouble with.  So, I thought aloud, could the answer be for me to go to a wireless connection with my modem?  He averred that that could be an answer, and left, washing his hands of the whole business.  (While I have been reduced to washing my hands after every application of Preparation H to my extremely sore bottom, at one bottom of the matter.)  

   So I check on my modem, and I see that it gives a Network Name and a Wi Fi Password.  My local computer repair guy tells me how to enter this info on my computer.  Done.  

   Blocked.  The password is Not recognized.

   Am I going to have to pay some more money to my Internet provider, to be able to access this way around my problem?  My problem, that may well have to do with their link from my/their modem to my machine??  Which feels very much like a form of extortion???…

    I am currently not coping very well with this particular challenge - set of challenges - in my life.

   But with that observation, i’m getting ahead of my telling of this story a little  So, back to it.

   (P.S. I suppose I could go to an Emergency entrance to a somewhat local hospital (I have no doctor, having no medical insurance.  Can’t afford it), and perhaps get a stronger form of hemorrhoidal ointment.  But would that really do anything about the, my, matter?  Sometimes, things just have to run their course.  A pulled muscle simply needs time to heal, for example.

   Patience - if not called for in the particular circumstances - COULD be a virtue.  Well worth cultivating…

   …as we await our Ascension out of this dark space that we currently inhabit.

   But to continue.)

2)  N.B. There is an interesting link between that name and historical goings-on of a spiritual nature in the Cluny in the south of France.  And speaking of tenuous links.

     (Which was associated with St. Bernard as well.  Who, it also turns out, was associated with a man by the name of Peter (ka the Venerable).
     But to continue.)

—-

P.S. Specifically as to my email site bearing the brunt of the ‘operation’: Somebody blocking my ability to communicate out??  Perhaps even for a good reason: to keep mr from buying into all the negativity???……  

   For whatever reason, I am well out of my comfort zone these days.

   Nevertheless, I am the captain of my ship.  I am not a victim.

   Although I may need to say it a few times, like an affirmation…

   …until I feel fulfilled, whole, and complete.

   So be it.