Extraordinary things happen when fairies are around. In 1962 Peter and Eileen Caddy, their three children and friend Dorothy Maclean were living in a caravan park near the seaside village of Findhorn, Scotland. To make ends meet they planted vegetables – no easy feat with dry sandy soil, a cold windswept location and only twenty-six inches of rain a year. Then Dorothy discovered she could contact the nature spirits, who told her how to make the most of the poor soil, and everything changed.
Over time sixty-five different vegetables, forty-two herbs and twenty-one types of fruit flourished in this soil. The fort pound cabbages, eight foot high delphiniums, and roses that bloomed in the snow attracted horticultural experts near and far, and the internationally acclaimed spiritual community of Findhorn was born. On visiting Findhorn IBM research scientist Marcel Vogel commented, ‘This garden isn’t growing from the soil, only in the soil. The plants are fed by the consciousness of the community.’