I live in the small community of Erraid, on the West coast of Scotland, in the Inner Hebrides since 2017. I am proud to be a Custodian of the Isle alongside Matt, Franzi and Leen on behalf of the Van der Sluis family, who bought the land on Erraid. Our community is part of the Findhorn Foundation. Being a Custodian and a member of Erraid entail many things. They range from having a spiritual practice, to maintaining the land, equipment, buildings and cottages we use and live in. We also share the beauty and raw nature of the island with guests who stay with us and essentially run a charitable business. We also rely on volunteers who make a great difference to the running of the place.
Here work is love in action, with a strong emphasis on inner listening and co creation with nature. Each of us not only hosts guests but also has between 4 and 9 roles or focus areas each, some include things which some of us have never done before and which we’ve had to learn from scratch and through handover notes both written and oral!
Last year in August, I inherited the wild flower meadow. I had absolutely no idea about wild flowers but really liked the sound of them. For a few months, I looked to the community for some ideas but really nothing moved forward. And then a little voice inside me told me to do something about it …by myself! I felt very timid about the whole thing and very quickly realised that this was a golden opportunity to get out of my comfort zone. Suddenly I felt quietly excited and with encouragements from Matt, I made an announcement at the morning meeting about the wild flower meadow. My first step was to spend time in the meadow. I invited some of the volunteers to join me. Together we looked at the land, and exchanged some ideas. Inwardly, I asked the land what it wanted and a quiet answer of a wild flower spiral came. Excitingly, it also came to one of our volunteers Oceana, who was the first to voice it. Wild Flower Spiral Project was on. I followed the principle of co creation with nature to guide my next step by further tuning into the land and asking for support with the project. The small voice said something about bees. The next step was to trace and part dig the outline of the spiral. Then with a strong team of 5,, Arran, Julie, Anthony and Oceana we collected stones from the quarry and placed them in the gap where we’d part digged the outline of the spiral. Once the stones were set, we removed the grass and weed. It took us 2 full days. The spiral was ready. For me, this was a huge achievement. I’d never done something like this. I also knew that the spiral would remain a feature of the community for years to come. I also knew that my next step was to build a beehive!

The community is looking for new members.
If you are ready for a challenge, want to get out of your comfort zone, have practical skills, or are willing to get stuck in and learn, want to live with the rhythms of nature, grow in ways beyond your imagination, be physical, spiritual and live something unique in community, then Erraid needs and wants you!