Chapter XII: TO THE END OF THE WOOD


I had received the Angel Card of Healing to take home with me from Experience Week1. Healing was exactly what I had intuited a year before coming to Findhorn and now I had received this universal feedback. As I stared at the mural on the bedroom wall the black semicircles seemed to move towards each other and completion.

After breakfasting the next morning, I went out onto the balcony for a while. The grounds around the area felt to have a very special energy about them. Since time immemorial Cluny Hill had been venerated as a power centre. The Druids had conducted their sun ceremonies there and Lud’s influence was still very much in evidence.

As I surveyed the view from the balcony I saw a hill to which I felt particularly attracted. It was of a reddish colour like something out of a Martian landscape. The area around Baba’s ashram at Prashanti Nilayam had hills like that, I thought. I knew that it was important to climb the hill before moving on to Iona. I asked my host if it had a name. She didn’t know but later on I discovered that it was known locally as The Knock.

By this time, I was behaving in a very intuitive, right brained manner. Returning from Findhorn that afternoon I had stopped the car by the harbour and pointed to the boats in the Bay.

“Look at this place, Jan,” I blurted. “I feel we’ll be living here one day.”

That evening we parked our car at the bottom of the hill and began the short climb up it. A cold wind was blowing off the Moray Firth and in the north west the sun provided one of its magnificent light plays as it began its slow, summer descent to the horizon. I had no idea which direction we were looking in but in that moment I could see that we were being bestowed with the most wonderful blessing of light. Although the wind chilled us through and through we both remained on the hilltop. All there was in the world it seemed was this magnificent sunset before us. I could feel its rays entering into my being and lifting away the veil of doubt and confusion from my mind. It was surely Swami’s golden darshan.

An indescribable joy entered me. It occurred to me that I could move to Scotland whenever I wanted. An inner voice seemed to be telling me that it wasn’t necessary to return south. But what about my plans and commitments? I had prepared Jan a new home, got him into a new school and applied to attend a part-time retraining course myself. How could I be sure that I wasn’t just behaving frivolously, evading my responsibilities? Could I trust this inner voice and the signs I seemed to be receiving? After all, wasn’t this my reason for having travelled up here in the first place?

That night, I sat up in bed asking Baba for the answer. I had started to dowse for answers with a pendulum when my conscious thought processes became too confused. Holding the pendulum between the thumb and index finger of my right hand I asked the question: “Baba, is it right for us to move up to Scotland to live instead of London?”

“Yes,” came the reply. I wasn’t at all sure whether to believe it. How could I be sure I wasn’t fooling myself? Four more times I asked the same question and every time I received an affirmative response. The only thing, I decided, was to sleep on it.


Next morning I got up early and, having made up my mind to accept whatever I was given, prepared to ask the question again. I couldn’t remember my dreams from the night before but recalled they had been of a restive nature as if things were being internally rearranged inside me.

Again I received the answer, Yes. Then I stopped questioning. Clearly, the delay that had kept us in Forres over the weekend had been Baba’s way of getting me to climb up the Knock to receive his darshan the evening before.

After breakfast we drove into town to find the property agents Barbara had told me about. At the first I was told there was a farmhouse that would soon be available to let. “But I think it would be too big for just the two of you,” opined the “manager. I agreed. How would the two of us manage in a big old farmhouse?

We left the office and returned to the car. “Let’s go to Nairn and try there,” I suggested. And then, as I reached to turn on the ignition, added, “You see ... by this afternoon we’ll have found our new home.”

The house agent in Nairn sent us to a small hamlet perched up in the hills which climb away from the coastal shelf of the Moray Firth. The house was modern and commanded a wonderful panorama of the Firth and the mountains beyond. Pleasant enough but was it right for us? I asked myself, walking into the living room and gazing out of a large picture window. It was a clear day and the cliffs around Cromarty were etched subtlely in different hues of light.

Below us, the roofs of several farms and settlements stood out among the fields and forests carpeting a shelf of land that finally edged into an expanse of deep blue sea. Every now and then, the sun reflected off a grain silo which glinted and flashed in our direction. I was getting that weird feeling again that I was being told something. It was the same feeling I had had with the Picasso picture and the mural. Yesterday we had been guided to a hill to watch the sun set over Cromarty. I could feel the Lord’s guiding hand pointing in the direction of the land which lay before us. Somewhere down there lay our new home.

I found Jan in the room which he had already chosen as his. “Come on, son. We’ve got to get back to Findhorn!” I shouted and dashed off to the car.

“But why, dad, we’ve found a nice house already?” he protested.

“Yes, I know. But we’ve got to keep our options open. I’ve got a friend in Findhorn that I must see.” Someone I knew from my Henley days was living there and perhaps knew of other vacant properties.

As usual, Katherine was nowhere to be found. Our relationship had, it seemed, consisted of an unending series of missed connections! Wandering about the large house in which I knew she was residing, I bumped into its owner.

“I’m looking for Katherine,” I explained. “We’re planning to move up here from London and we’re looking for a suitable property to rent.”

“As it happens,” replied the owner, giving me a telephone number, “these people have got a lease on a house which they no longer need. They want to move out as soon as possible but need to find someone else to take over the lease.”

I dialled the number and waited for someone to answer. I thought of Barbara, the lady who had sold me the rabbit and who told me she lived in a farmhouse not far away. A man answered and gave me directions to the house. The farmhouse was called Woodend, somewhere off the road on which we had just come from Nairn.

Returning the way we had come I began to ask myself if this could possibly be the same property the agent in Forres had mentioned. Turning off the main road we drove over a level-crossing and down a straight country road towards the Culbin forest and the sea. We passed several farms. The rich, cheesy smell of dairy cows was in the air. A sign pointed to the left indicating that we were close to Macbeth’s hillock. I knew that Shakespeare had based his play around the area of Forres and Cawdor. The dream I had had about travelling to a forest place by the sea flashed past me. Could I be driving to the place I had dreamed about?

By now we were negotiating a small woodland road. A clearing gave us a fleeting view of a vast expanse of ultramarine and the Highlands beyond. The air was pure. Everything had a sparkling look about it. A sense of timelessness hung over us, the road and the conifers. We drove around another bend and there, in front of us, was Woodend.

I parked by an old barn with peeling blue paint on its doors. I could sense an unusual energy about the place — particularly in a corner of the house by a black, wrought iron gate leading into the garden. It feels like Baba’s there in that corner I thought. I noticed that in the centre of the front lawn, a circle of grass had been left uncut. Harold Armstrong came out of the kitchen door and I introduced myself. Walking around the house I was surprised at its size. Surely it was too big for my son and me... but something within was telling me it was just right: we had been guided here.

Then I saw that all the events of the Experience Week and after had been a preparation for finding this place. It felt as if Baba had been reeling me in with a line attached to a ring round my nose! The front living room had an aroma of sweet flowers and herbs. “My wife uses the room to dry them in,” Harold informed me. I knew it would make a perfect Shrine Room.

Some months ago, I had read a book by Reshad Feild in which he relates a story of receiving a vision of a healing centre whilst climbing a mountain in India. Years later he had found the very place somewhere in the south of England. It had inspired me very greatly and I wondered if Woodend too would become a place of healing.

“I think we’d like to take it,” I told Harold. It turned out that the property was the one mentioned to me in Forres. As we walked out of the front door, a woman walked in through the garden gate. It was Barbara who I had met at Cluny hotel. Events seemed to have come full circle. I no longer felt any reserve about taking on such a big house. This was Baba’s work. Again, I could feel his presence in the corner of the house.

I returned to Forres to inform the agent that we had found the house with which they dealt, that we had spoken with the tenants who wanted to move and that I would like to take the place on. She promised to contact the landlord to arrange a meeting as soon as possible. The next day I drove over to meet him. “I’m looking for a tenant to live at Woodend for at least two years,” he told me. I assured him that I had no plans to move again in less than that period. I also told him that I was a devotee of Baba and that we held bhajans on Sunday evenings.

“It’s all weird to me,” he said, putting his arm over both of us. “But I like you!”

The deal had been clinched. Everything had moved so smoothly, I had no doubt that Swami had paved the way and this was confirmed, dramatically, during a subsequent visit to Woodend prior to our moving in.

We left Rosinante on some waste ground behind the Scania guest house with my lucky rabbit sitting in the driver’s seat. The little blue Renault was destined never to return to the south from Scotland.

Before leaving for London, my host, Norma, gave me a white, cloth shoulder-bag of the kind used by Sai devotees at the ashram. “Someone gave me this bag and told me that I would know who to give it to!” Surely, another of Baba’s leelas...


Though the long, 12-hour coach journey to London wore us out we didn’t mind. A new life lay ahead of us. I had travelled to Findhorn on a hunch which had worked out. The dream was coming true.

The clean air of the mountains seemed very far away and the south felt overcrowded and stale. Even the trees — starved of prana2 — looked pale and washed out. I was impatient to get everything done and to head back to the Highlands as soon as possible.

Jan went back to his old home for a day and I stayed at Janet’s before returning to London. That evening, I walked around Wallingford to visit my old acquaintances before finally leaving. Except for my old campaigning friends, Wilf and Rita, they were all out. I felt sad about having to leave that way. Yet, it seemed appropriate.


Within days we were heading towards the M1 in a sleek, new Transit rent-a-van loaded with all our belongings: clothes, books, stereo, a few blankets, some cutlery that had been given us and an old ‘fridge. There was no furniture. The van looked as if it had been loaded with the contents of a rummage sale!

It was Thursday — Baba’s day. I could feel his blessings as we drove out of Oxfordshire in a magnificent sunset. By driving through the night I expected to be at Woodend the next morning. Beyond Birmingham, the traffic began to thin out and by the time we had got into the Lake District the road was quite desolate. Closed fuel stations, restaurants and ghostly shadows loomed out of the trees. A hillside was momentarily captured in the headlight’s glare and disappeared into the night. Only the stars kept us company. I scanned the skies to find Polaris, the North Star, which would guide us to Scotland.

By the early hours of the morning we were in the Cairngorms, north of Aviemore. I turned off the A9 and cut across moorland towards the Darnaway forest. As our headlights pierced into the coming dawn I could see several rabbits run across the road. The moors lay asleep under swirling clouds of heavy mist and I drove almost by instinct down the old Military Road towards Nairn. The heater kept us warm inside the driver’s cab and Jan was asleep on the seat beside me.

We crossed the Findhorn over an old stone bridge after Ferness. I could see the rushing shallows lit by the early dawn as the river made its way towards the sea which now lay just a few miles away. All of a sudden I screeched the van abruptly to a halt. In the middle of the road sat an owl, eyeing us solemnly. I sat and watched, waiting for the bird to move. Jan had been rudely awoken when all the cardboard boxes behind us had fallen over him. He rubbed his eyes blearily and looked to see why I had stopped. I tooted the horn and pointed to the owl which remained, quite stubbornly, in the centre of the road. Clearly, we had invaded its domain. Slowly, I edged the van forwards towards the old bird and at the last moment he flapped across to the grass verge.

“Where are we, dad?” asked Jan, yawning and pushing away the assortment of boxes that had toppled over him.

“Nearly home,” I replied. As a pale morning sky rose in the east we drove out of the hills towards the waters of the Moray Firth and the mist enshrouded shelf of coastal land on which stood Woodend.


For nearly two years, I had driven with a picture of Swami below the dashboard of my car. On the back of this picture was the advice, START EARLY - DRIVE CAREFULLY - ARRIVE SAFELY. Rosinante’s long journeys had finally got us to our new home safely. Thanking Baba for having us guided us to the end of the road I took the picture out of the car and mounted it to the front door at Woodend, dedicating the house to his work. The journey was over.

Soon, Swami’s pictures were adorning the room which was still full of the scent of Barbara’s dried herbs. Some of the Sai devotees from the Findhorn Community were to attend bhajans for the first time at Woodend the following weekend. There were strong energies around the farmhouse but they needed to be aligned. Once Baba’s pictures were up I could feel a new flow of light radiate from the Shrine Room. Even a picture of the Lord emanates powerful blessings and later I found that I could detect this energy with dowsing rods.

I cooked our first meal on a little camping gas stove which stood in the kitchen, dwarfed by the emptiness around it. There were no chairs or tables so we sat on the floor as if it were a picnic. The food tasted good.

We turned in late that evening. Jan had an old camp bed and I slept on a mattress on the floor. I didn’t sleep much that night and at 4.30 AM dressed and went outside into the front garden. The sky was bejewelled with stars. The musky smell of the sleeping forest mingled with dew on the lawn. Behind the trees to the East the first pink light of dawn was beginning to finger over the horizon. Soon the sky would greet us with a dragon-red sunrise.


Just before moving to Woodend, I had experienced something quite remarkable. One day, I had driven over to check my mail. The house was empty.

“If we’re out, you can come in,” Harold had kindly told me. We wandered through all the rooms, inspecting them. I felt particularly drawn to one upstairs which lay directly above the Shrine Room. It had been in the corner of the house that I had felt Baba’s presence on my first visit. I went inside.

Some furniture had not been moved out yet and by the window was a black-and-white picture depicting Jesus. Standing before it, I found the powerful eyes and cheekbones a little disturbing. The feeling I had experienced with the Picasso picture and at the house in Nairn had returned again. I felt weak in the knees. The picture’s power, it was clear, had drawn me to it and I must have sensed it even whilst standing outside the house. Now it seemed to be telling me that I had been brought to the house, while it was empty, just so that I could undergo this experience.

Later, on asking Harold about it, I was amazed to hear that it was a copy of a picture that Sathya Sai Baba had materialized for a devotee who had asked him for a likeness of Jesus. The picture had been given him though neither he nor Barbara were devotees of Baba. Now I understood why I had sensed Baba in that part of the house! Woodend, I felt, was exactly where the Lord wished me to be.


I had seen a stone circle replace the uncut grass in the centre of the front lawn. I didn’t know why I was being asked to do this but it occurred to me that it might have something to do with attracting and stabilizing ley energy.

Now the Stone Circle cried out to be born. Jan was embarrassed at the thought of his ‘hippy’ father building anything so ostentatious. But a restlessness within me told me that it was perfectly right to go ahead. The stones would come from the locality. At Randolph’s Leap, in the riverbed, I found a large white, rounded boulder which seemed to call out from the water, ‘asking’ to become part of the circle. I climbed down a precarious stairway to collect it. Hugging it to my body, I returned up the ladder with what became the central, ‘Christ Stone’ in the circle on which was later placed a hercamite quartz crystal from New York State.

(Centuries before, the Iroquois Confederacy had been established in Upper New York State and with it a great spiritual, transformative force had entered our Planet. Now, a little part of that energy had found itself in a modern Stone Circle in Scotland).

One evening, through the third eye, I saw great beams of silver ley energy shooting down towards the stones. As they touched the central Christ Stone their rays were deflected in all directions of the compass. Some months later, a friend told me that she saw “an umbrella of light with a radius of about five miles emanating from Woodend.”

A strong metaphysical guidance had led me to create the circle which was, in fact, a stone mandala. Perhaps it replaced a much older circle which had existed in the area thousands of years ago in the times of the Celts or the Picts. Eventually, the circle changed its form. It was only after the metamorphosis had taken place that I had understood its meaning. The circle had become a large, stone, Amerindian medicine wheel anchoring the power of the four directions into the Earth below. Some months later, a friend visited us from the USA and presented me with another medicine wheel as a beautiful confirmation of what intuition had led me to create in the garden.

The area around the Moray Firth felt to be full of powerful Earth magic. I have so often sensed it within the psyche and everywhere around. Hardly touched by the industrial revolution, the area was still full of the accumulated folk ritual of past centuries. I had never felt at home in the south. Now, living by the shores of the Firth I could feel strong, ancestral and spiritual bonds with the surrounding country. I had let my intuitions guide me and, beyond all doubt, I knew that it was right and important to be living here.


The intuition (prajna or pratibha) is a most profound and powerful faculty whose source is the light of cosmic consciousness. It is latent in human awareness and, when the left and right hemispheres of the brain are balanced, the intuition feeds its creativity to the rational left brain which may use such insights to its advantage. It is a ‘seeing intelligence’.

Over the years I had learned to rely as much on the intuitive mind as the rational. I began to understand how ignoring this seeing intelligence could actually create a neurotic and self-destructive condition. After my brief forays into psychedelics I had rushed willy nilly back to the safety of consensus normality. Finally that normality had become so painful that I was forced to search beyond its apparent limitations for my salvation. In the early ‘eighties I had begun to practise Hatha Yoga. Then I had learned that there was no division between what we call the third and fourth dimensions. The only division is what we create to separate what we call the physical from what we insist is the metaphysical.


Most of the first few months at Woodend were devoted to the practical side of running a home as a single parent. There wasn’t much time for meditations and channellings. But from time-to-time I received an insight or a synchronous experience that would tell me that the inner receiver was still in good, functioning order. Then one day, six months after reaching the farmhouse, I received a message from Swami as I sat before his picture in the Shrine Room.

“You have dedicated this place to Me,” he said, “and so it is named. For it is at the end of the dark forests through which you have travelled to get here.” At one level, I thought of all the difficult past lives that had been revealed to me. At another, of the owl who had stood before us in the Darnaway forest that night. “Now, you are at the end of that darkness.”

The message went on. “Your feelings about this place and your guess that I know and approve of what you are doing is correct and I keep on giving you hints of this.”

“I speak to you all the time if only you will listen! Did I not assure you of this even before you reincarnated? Do not doubt for doubt is death! ... believe in Me and give yourself totally to Me. Then all that happens to you happens to Me and I both give and experience Ananda.

“When you work with the Lord all is assured. All is yours. That is why I assure you that your dream will come true. And soon.”

I interpreted this last to mean that Swami had, indeed, guided me to Woodend and that he approved of my plans to create a Sai Place of healing there. Somehow the means would be found to purchase the farmhouse.

Since moving to Woodend and despite the long, dark northern winter, I had certainly felt an inner healing. The bhajans we held, every Sunday were, in particular, a great blessing and a privilege. Every time I looked towards the snow-clad mountains across the Firth or watched the sun set over their peaks I knew what the Lord meant.

“Be patient and know that you are in my hands and that all will be well. My love for my children spans all the ages and it is timeless,” Baba had continued. “See beyond illusion my child and there you will find me! Be happy, be joyous, for today you have learnt to celebrate the very act of existence. Take my love and let it shine from the end of your wood!”

I was home.

1987, the Hopi Year of the Rainbow Dreams, came and within me I could feel its lights dancing for joy. The long night was nearly over and the dawn, which had been no more than the faintest hope through centuries of darkness, was here at last.


© RW 1989