The Findhorn community in northern Scotland is usually described mythically — 40-pound cabbages in otherwise barren soil, communion with Pan and the nature spirits, and in the recent movie, My Dinner with Andre, as a center of light during the coming darkness.

When David Spangler arrived at Findhorn in 1970, he found that fantastic tales weren’t the whole story. “Findhorn was always primarily a working community,” he says. “It wasn’t started around specific religious or spiritual teachings. It emerged out of action.”