Chapter Five

Monday 17 Sep
After a night of no sleep, playing hooky from school and work, we went into Gosforth and knocked about before driving back to London. In a little touristy tea shop we found poesy rings that read, in mediaeval French, ‘You have my whole heart for my whole life.’ He bought them, and then and there slid one onto my middle finger- the old place for wedding rings.
‘With all my worldly goods, I thee endow,’ he murmured, closing his hand over mine, ‘and with my body I thee worship.’
On the drive back to London we reckoned that we could not get married before the weekend- unless we wanted to drive to Scotland- and so set about the bureaucracy for that, to say nothing of notifying family and friends.

Tuesday 18 Sep
On Tuesday at the registry office, giving the information for the notice of marriage, the clerk called the JP out of his office, to have us swear before him that we were of age, because I was a foreign national and still only 19, and George only 22. We swore, and George gave him his father’s telephone number. Herb was phoned, and we were given the license, which was good for 15 days. Good thing George had phoned his mother on Monday night, or it would have given the poor man a stroke. As it was he was ‘very cautious’ – displeased, in a word. But he could do nothing as we were of age. Ellen had pretty much the same response, when I phoned her, telling me I was daft to marry someone I’d known for a week. But she admitted, ’I’m not one to talk,’ for she had married Morgan knowing him for a month, and told me to bring him up. It was all very Montagues and Capulets. The only person who was completely behind us was Hamish, who asked us to come to Scotland as soon as we could. I asked George if that made him Tybalt.
‘Hush,’ he laughed, and kissed me, and laughed again.

Saturday 22 Sep
The registry office was open from 10-1 on the Saturday, so, having already gone through all the bother of changing university records, national health cards, moving house, inviting friends, we got there at half-ten. I came with all my flatmates – Hazel and Beth were weepy behind us the whole time – and George brought his three flatmates, David, and Chris, and at the last minute Hamish arrived, having been stuck on the tube. So we had a respectable wedding party. George wore a grey velvet jacket and drainpipe morning trousers with a red silk shirt. I wore my green velvet dress with the puffed organdie sleeves, and one of Ellen's Ren Faire garlands.
'You look like a Teddy boy,' I teased George.
'Fair Janet and Tam Lin,' he corrected, with a kiss on my cheek.

The ceremony itself was barebones, but indeed there were the words from the Book of Common Prayer 'with all my worldly goods I thee endow' and 'with my body I thee worship.' That had me crying, because of the resonance, but not as much as 'In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost Amen' as he slipped the poesy ring on my hand again. I could hardly do the same, I was shaking so, but I managed not to flub it. And then the words, 'man and wife' and bob's your uncle. In ten minutes, the irrevocable step was made.

Hamish sprang for a wedding breakfast for us at the Bloomsbury caf, so we carried on like the life of Reilly for three hours, with beer and whiskey and champagne. He was a nut-brown Puckish man, Hamish, with hazel eyes and hair, not quite as tall as George, with long hair and a sharp Scottish face. He wore a Ren faire shirt and green trousers, and a Green Man medallion around his neck. After a moment, I realised that he reminded me of Ian Anderson, but his vibe was totally different. He was very grounded and mellow, completely calm and joyful at once, with a roving eye and a merry laugh.

'So, wee lassie,' he said to me, holding out his hands as he came to kiss the bride, 'this is the paragon who has swept away our Geordie. You are well-named. Your light shines from you like a beacon upon the world.' He gave me a hug and a chaste kiss. 'Thank you, darlin',' he murmured, for my ears alone. 'You have saved my friend's life.' My breath caught, for deep inside I knew it was true. More than George's stories of Soho, there was a kind of desperation in his soul that would have undone him if left unassuaged. I nodded blindly. Hamish said, 'George says you're coming to Findhorn next week.'
'Yes.' On the way, we would stop and see my sister.
'We'll get you a caravan to yourselves,' he promised. 'The workshop will do you both good.' It was on transpersonal communication.
'Thank you!'
He moved on to George and they embraced like the brothers they were.
'So, you made it. Well done,' Hamish said.
George was in tears. 'Yes. Thank you for your help! And thank you for coming, brother. You know what it means.'
'I do,' Hamish glanced at me, then clapped George on the arm. 'The Spirit moves in your life, never doubt it. Just listen, and do. And never let go of her.'
George blushed and looked at me. 'I never intend to.'

I got it. Under the kind words were an admonition: Don't arse this up. Apparently, he had before. Apparently, there had been other opportunities that he had arsed up. I looked at Hamish and he nodded, tapping his nose. I understood that fidelity had been the problem, because he had not really loved them. I looked up at George, who watched this exchanged with a strange expression.
He knew that I knew, and what I knew. There was that telepathy between us again.
'He's right, you know,' he said later. 'Even at Findhorn there were girls I made just because it felt right at the time, but I was too full of myself to let go and be with it, with them, fully...' He shook his head. 'It wasn't the same. When I saw you I knew. The others... were only possibilities. I will never screw around on you baby, I made that vow to you before heaven, and you can take it to the God of this universe unbroken.'

He was not too full of himself to let go now. In less than a fortnight, he had shown me his whole soul in all its vulnerability. It was that contrast, between the strong capable man he presented himself and the tender, vulnerable lover he truly was, in the deepest sense of that term, that made him loveable. Some people might fear he was a tyrant, or over-masterful to put a kind gloss on it - Ellen among them worried that I had 'father issues' – but few of them knew how readily he cried or responded to music or a sunrise. He was much more sensitive than I was, truth to tell. He more than proved that as he laughed and cried all through our bridal night. More than his artfulness as a lover, which was considerable, it was his presence that was moving. He was so utterly responsive. If I was not head over ears in love with him before that, I certainly was then.
In the evening, of that first day, when we paused to eat, George picked up his fiddle, and sang,

Lady, are you happy, do you feel the way I do
Are there meanings that you've never seen before
Lady, my sweet lady, I just cant believe its true
And its like I've never ever loved before
Close your eyes and rest your weary mind
I promise I will stay right here beside you
Today our lives were joined, became entwined
I wish you could know how much I love you
I don't think that Hamish or Ellen or anyone had a thing to worry about with regard to George.

We developed a routine in those first days: before we got out of bed we meditated together. Sometimes it was half an hour; sometimes it was an hour or even two, if there were nothing on the docket. It was not commonly tantric, as we had done at Wasdale. We would do our sitting spooned back to front, with his hands over mine, palm to palm. We 'just breathed' – did the rounds of the guru breath from tantric Buddhism – and got high so often that we lived in an ever-deepening state of bliss.

Wales and Findhorn
Sept-Oct 1973
On Friday afternoon we drove to my sister's farm outside Caernarfon. On the way, George told me about his est experience, because I asked him how he got free of his drug habit. His frankness was astounding.
'I was at the point of slacking off and going through withdrawals simply to get the same high at a lower dose. It was a terrible cycle, but I wanted that ecstasy more than anything and I had a limited amount of money.... And then a guy in my flat – my contact, actually – had a heart attack and died, in our flat. He was 25....' He shook his head. 'I thought – pardon me – shit, that could be me!' He looked at me.
'Do you know about est?' He asked.
I smiled. 'Yeah. There were trainings in Pasadena.'
'But you haven't done it?'
'No.'
He ran a hand through his hair. 'Okay, so you know it's 60 hours and all that – the rules and such?'
I nodded. 'More or less.'
He smiled. 'So we're simpatico....' He took a breath. 'I heard about it and chose it because it seemed like an alternative to Narconon – I considered myself an atheist and just couldn't get with all that "I am powerless, I give it up to God" chat.' He laughed. 'Out of the frying pan and into the fire! Anyway, I signed up for the sessions, which were in Hammersmith, and showed up – late! I was always late in those days –' he never was late now '-and was immediately lambasted by the trainer for breaking the contract. Well, I can tell you, that didn't set well with the rebel I was. I argued with him – said that the train was late; I couldn't get a cab from the station, and what did a few minutes matter anyway? Both of the first were true, but the last was simply a justification. But, from my point of view, I had already pledged to stop using, and I showed up at all, so I thought I deserved favour for that.'
He laughed. 'The trainer told me that I was an asshole and if I wasn't going to follow the rules I had agreed to, I could leave. He also said that I was a poser and had no integrity, and if I were serious about getting clean I'd better sit down and not be such a shit. Well, that knocked me back! They actually read my dossier, and knew who was late, and called me on it.' He looked at me, shaking his head. 'No one had ever called me on anything before, because I was talented and had a temper – ha! – and they didn't want to piss me off. So there I was, the bad-boy, focus of the entire room. Sure people thought I was indeed just an asshole, and I was! But it was great for the ego. I certainly never wanted to walk into a room and not be noticed, in those days...' He ran his hand up my leg and shifted gears. 'So when you said the other day I looked like a Teddy boy, you were spot on.'

You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye on the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte
And all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner
They'd be your partner, and...
You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? don't you?
You had me several years ago when I was still quite naive
Well you said that we made such a pretty pair
And that you would never leave
But you gave away the things you loved and one of them was me
I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee, and...

'For all the bad start, I was not one of the shrinking violets. When we were asked to tell our stories, I was right there with my hand up, and I told it all: how my father was distant and small-minded and oppressive, and ridiculed my creativity and abilities. I even told about hearing and seeing things that weren't there.'
'What did they say?'
He grinned. 'I was told not to be such a show-off, that nobody cared about my mystical fantasies and that I was just a poser and nobody special.'
'Wow...'
George laughed. 'No, no. It was all true. Not that I liked it, but it was all true and I needed to hear it.... I hadn't read Watts or Suzuki, so I didn't know what the lingo meant, being "nobody special", that it meant enlightenment. But I sure did need taking down a peg. And they did it!'
He sighed. 'When we got to taking apart our stories, got into what our racket was, and how we were responsible for creating our own reality, I saw that the my racket was that I was unappreciated and misunderstood. My problem was that I expected people to think I was all that because I saw things, knew things, had experiences no one else had, was very bright and talented. ' He smiled. 'The trainer said, so you think you're better than other people? I said Yes. Then he asked if that were so, why I was so miserable. Well, I lost it right there, broke down and cried in front of everyone because underneath all the bravado I felt pretty empty and fraudulent.... He told me that that was just another racket, and asked what was underneath it. Well, I didn't know, and was told to go find out.' He drew a shaky breath. 'I went home and thought about that - didn't sleep at all – and when I came back I told him that underneath was a person who just wanted to be loved.' I held his hand on my leg.

He shook his head. 'It was the first time I had ever admitted to being vulnerable. And that was pretty scary. But when I understood that I just wanted to be loved, there wasn't any drama attached to it – I meant it: I was just an ordinary being, very neutral, and I wanted love because that's what we are. I explained all this and – miracle! – the trainer smiled at me and said, "thank you, you can sit down now." I got it. I got the rest of it too, the next weekend: there's nothing to be, nothing to do, none of this drama and striving matters – all of it.' He glanced at me. 'The trouble was, how to integrate it.' He sighed. 'I've been trying to do that ever since, trying to discover what it means in practical terms. I try not to blame people for my life when it's not working. I try to have integrity and be present. But it is an everyday journey, and anytime I think I've finally got it, I know I'm on the biggest ego trip ever.' He smiled.

I considered. 'Do you think you've made any progress?'
'Oh yes.' He nodded emphatically. 'I'm not consumed by anger and self-justification now... Findhorn has helped immensely, and Hamish in specific. He keeps me on the straight and narrow.' He looked back at the dog, 'he gave me Fergus so that I should care about someone besides myself.... But, I can't rely on him, Hamish I mean. I have to be able to do it myself, every day. So that is my practise.'
And yet, you rely on me, I thought, and Hamish knows it, Hamish encouraged it. And of esoteric things, I know less than you.
George slowed and looked at me quickly, at the winding deserted road, and back again.
'I do need you,' he said, in answer to my thought. 'And you know more than you think, because you are pure.'
I swallowed. 'Aren't you afraid of some kind of unhealthy dependence?'
He regarded me seriously. 'You're much more enthralling than heroin ever was....' He ran a hand through his hair. 'Look, I know it’s transference –' His voice broke, 'but I genuinely love you, and I will do everything in my power to make you happy. I couldn't live without you, not from the moment I saw you.'
Well, I was crying too, then.

We got to Ell and Morgan's at teatime, and Fergus bounded out of the car and into the sheepfold like a blue streak. We all laughed, then Ell opened her arms and gave me a hug.
'There you are, sissy!'
I was so glad to see her! I had missed her at the wedding, but she couldn't come down because Moran was croupy. We were the same height, but Ell was softer than I, and had been before she had Moran. She had curling fuzzy long brown hair and the family blue eyes. Morgan was tall and swarthy, with crinkly black hair and a beard, and jet-black eyes. He hadn't much to say for himself ever, but he played the fiddle like nobody's business. We stood away and she turned her attention to George. I watched her visibly start and blink, before she put on her big sister guise again. She smiled warmly and took his hands.
'Welcome, George. Welcome to Myfanwy, and the family.' Her breath caught and she hugged him impulsively. I heard her thinking What would Mama think of this!

George looked at me. He heard. 'Thank you, Ellen, Morgan.' He shook Morgan's hand. Ell was crying. 'Well, I can see that you really love her,' she said, 'so I am easier in my mind.' I stood amazed. Ell had never been squidgy or sentimental, always forthright and practical, so her rush of emotion meant something
George nodded. 'Thank you.'
We went inside to a tea of hot pot and Welshcakes – what else would one eat on a sheepfarm than lamb and mutton? – and homebrewed wheat beer. Moran was put to bed, and afterward we had a jam session until midnight, interspersed with questions and answers back and forth between Ell and George. We had to leave pretty early – it was four hours to Forres - so we trudged upstairs for a few hours' sleep, tucked under eiderdown, as the temperature had dropped to a hard frost. Fergus slept at the end of the bed, as he was used to doing at home, though Ellen's dogs slept in the kitchen.

George murmured, in the sleepy frigid darkness,
'Your sister is just as I imagined.' He kissed my temple. 'I see where you get your common sense. I'm happy to have met her. Thank you, darling.'
I smiled, half-awake. 'You won't say that about Jack...'
'Likely not,' he agreed.
We made an Alpine start, getting up at three and loading the car while Ell made us a box to take along, and steamy thermos of tea and brandy.
'Just like Alberta,' she smiled, handing over the stash at the car. 'Oh! Do you remember the McKay hut, sissy?'
I nodded. 'We tried the North face of Mt Alberta,' I told George.
'We were snowed in for two days and finally it lifted,' Ellen added. 'Except Daddy didn't want us girls crossing the glacier. We rebelled and set out ahead of him and Jack.'
'But it was bad weather for ice-climbing. We only got 100 feet up the face before we had to bail.' I said.
Ell and I looked at one another and burst out laughing. It was one of our better adventures.
George smiled and shook his head. 'Girls on the rope! Come on, cupcake,' he said, opening the passenger door,' before we have frostbite.' The Austin had no heat.
Ell and I hugged and we promised to come by for longer on the return.
She crunched in her boots back to the door of the house and waved us off down her dark country road. I felt very squidgy, realising that our time would be very limited now.
'You love each other very much,' George murmured, with a glance. He gripped my leg with strong fingers.
I nodded. 'I love her more than all the rest of the family combined. We have always been close.'
'You will always be, no matter where we are,' he said. I looked at him.
'Thank you for that!'

We got to Findhorn at just before seven – George had pushed the Austin up to 80 on the deserted roads, which was rather exhilarating. He liked to drive fast. Peter Caddy was out when he arrived, in green wellies, and he gave George a big hug.
'Nice to see you, my boy,' he said warmly, with a keen look. He turned to me appraisingly.
'This is Claire,' George said hastily,' my wife.'
Peter didn't miss a beat. He wasn't an RAF officer for nothing. 'Wife?' He teased, deadpan. ' You hadn't even a girlfriend when you were last here!' He held out his hand.
'Welcome to Findhorn, young lady.'
'Thank you, sir,'
He waved his hand, 'Bah! None of that! Call me Peter.' He peered at me keenly. 'Sheena would say you were one of the Young Ones,' he murmured. Sheena, I learned, was Sheena Govan, his second wife, the famous psychic. 'You have a great spirit, but you doubtless know that.' He looked at George. 'Dashed clever of you,' he said. 'What happened?'
'I heard a voice to look up when she came into the shop,' George said plainly. 'It said that she was my path.'
'...And this was when?'
'A fortnight last Monday.' He spoke simply and forthrightly.
'Well done,' Peter said, with a smile. 'You're coming along.' He clapped his arm again. 'Well, don't let's stand out here freezing. Come inside while I make some tea. The others should be straggling along any minute.'

We went into the sanctuary, which was attached to the community centre, and sat before the range while Peter made tea. Presently, Hamish and Andy ambled in, sleepy and wearing sheepskin boots, and came awake when they saw us.
'Geordie!' Andy exclaimed. 'Och, you made it!' They hugged. Andy said 'Oh and this is the wee lassie! Welcome to you!' He hugged me too. Andy was thin with loose brown hair and a classic Scots profile.
'Hello Claire!' Hamish gave me a great hug, 'Are you biding fine?'
I nodded, and blushed.
Peter looked up.
'Oh so you've met her.'
Hamish laughed. 'That's why I went down to London... Och, Geordie, we've just time to get you settled before the meditation. Come on, lads!' He grabbed Andy's arm and the three of them went out to the car.
'I'll look after her,' Peter called.

When they were gone, he handed me a cup of tea and a boiled egg and led me over to the sanctuary which had chairs set up in a circle.
'I can see what you are,' he said appraisingly. 'But tell me about yourself. You're a Yank.'
'I on an exchange at the Royal College of Music, from Juilliard.' It was odd to have someone regard me as other than George's 'find', and Peter's mix of avuncular concern and formality was comforting.
'Ah music.' Peter said. 'I expect you're brilliant then.'
I smiled at the teasing. 'I'm pretty good.'
'You have family here?'
My breath caught 'My sister lives in Wales. We've just come from there... I have a brother in the States. My parents are dead.'
He nodded. 'You don't seem the impulsive type. What do you hope?'
Well, that was a very direct question!
'...From George, or from life?'
He smiled. 'Very good. Either. What are your dreams? You're very young.'
I could hardly answer the obviousness of that last remark, so I considered how to put my hopes succinctly. 'I want to live a traditional country life,' I said. 'Raise animals, make things. Live off the land, and with the spirit of the land.'
He smiled. 'You're in the right place for it. I assume you have some experience with all this?'
'Some. The rest I can learn as I go. God will lead.'
'Very good.' He was silent for a while, drank his tea. 'He's very restless you know,' he said of George. 'Always seeking something out there, outside himself...' He looked at me keenly. 'But I have to tell you, I can see that something's shifted in him, so I'd guess that's your doing. What do you want from him?'

That was a very hard question. I thought and finally said. 'I don't want anything from him; I just want to be with him, be together. Where we go and what we learn are just the journey.'
'Young lady,' Peter said very seriously, 'you are a great teacher.' He finished his tea. 'But I expect that the burden of strength will be on your shoulders. He will rely on you. Can you bear it?'
There was that word again!
'We have talked about this.' I nodded. 'I don't know if I can bear it. We each have strength in different ways. I guess we'll lean on each other.'
He nodded, quietly, thoughtfully.' You'll do well,' he said at last. He patted my shoulder. 'Drink your tea. I see David and Julie coming up. I'll bring them to meet you.'
David was David Spangler, the resident god of the place, and Julie was his wife. David, for all how George and others went on about him, reminded me of Winnie the Pooh, except that his gaze was penetrating and direct. I was finding that this was the one common thread of this place. But David was not portentous.
'My fellow American!' He said, smiling, and threw his arms wide. I couldn't help giggling.
'Welcome,' he said.
'Thank you.'
'The Queen of Rods has arrived.' He said enigmatically to Julie. She poked him. 'Just repeating what John said,' he responded. He looked at me. 'You're plenty earthy, that's good. You'll need to be. George's goals are in the new paradigm. You'll need all the help Gaia can give you.'
This sybillic insight was rather unnerving. John, George told me later, was David's guide.
'Don't mind him,' Julie said quickly and gave me a hug. 'Welcome.' She was English, with a broad Manchester accent.

We sat in the community meditation, with about thirty people there. The community was at about 200 at the time. Meditating with thirty people was a very different experience to meditating with George: we settled in with blankets and shawls covering us and immediately, a great stillness arose. Instead of the mere balance, the yin-yang of masculine and feminine energies, there was a sense of gathering in grain that had been scattered, except that the grains were points of light, and as everyone dropped their outside concerns, the light suffused and radiated upwards, so that it seemed that a great column of light, like a waterfall in reverse, was rising from the centre of the room into infinity. But it was coming from infinity too – not draining anyone. It was the great cosmic cycle from the Source to the points of light and back again. It was restful and invigorating at once. I knew why George considered this his spiritual home.

Slowly, as if by mutual consent, everyone returned to their everyday consciousness, and there were hugs between those sitting next to one another. I looked at George and he had never seemed so peaceful, or radiant. We did not have to speak, but he leaned over and kissed my cheek. I leaned into him and he put his arms around me, murmuring wordlessly.
Workshop guests did not normally attend the community meditation; George was more or less regarded as a semi-permanent resident. Guests stayed at Cluny Hill – the original hotel from which Peter and Eileen had been sacked before they founded Findhorn. So we had an hour and a half to settle in properly before the workshop met there in the old ballroom. We walked through the garden over to Andy's caravan – he had taken his most necessary personal items and moved in with Hamish and his wife Joan for the week. Joan, like Hamish, was a native Scot, and from the area; they might have been siblings they were so alike in colouring, height, weight, and temperament. When I mentioned this, Joan laughed, and said 'small gene pool!'

Andy lived alone as he was not married, and his caravan was a single, and nicely, but sparsely furnished, with lots of plants hanging in the windows and a small garden out front, set in a Celtic cross pattern. There was a common room with a kitchenette, and a bedroom, the bed in which took up almost the entire space. In the common room were an eclectic assortment of instruments, ranging from a bombard, to Tibetan bowls, to a concertina. We would be right at home. In fact, George stayed with Andy whenever he was there, so for him it was home. After sorting out our things, we walked back to the community centre for breakfast – it was entirely vegetarian – and sat with Eileen and Myrtle. Eileen, as Peter had, seemed to regard George affectionately as some sort of wayward son; he was the same age as Jonathan, the Caddys' youngest, so this was perhaps understandable. He certainly treated Eileen with all the fondness of a loving son. I was grateful that Eileen simply accepted me and did not ask a lot of probing questions, as I beginning to feel rather scrutinised by everyone who wanted to know if I measured up – and I hadn't even met Herb and Annie yet! It was very noisy in the community centre, and I was unused to being around so many people and so much energy; I felt a little disorientated.

We could have taken the bus to Cluny, but we decided to walk instead. It was a long walk and took us all of the forty-five minutes left us. We held hands all the way and in the wooded part of the path George asked if I were all right.
'Tired, I think,' I admitted, 'and a little overwhelmed.'
'I thought you looked a bit peaky,' he said.
I smiled. 'It's not what you think,' I said.
He spoke softly, full of tenderness, 'and what do I think?'
I smiled again and swung his hand in mine.
'Though I shouldn't be surprised if you were,' he smiled ruefully.
'The Queen Anne's Lace works.'
'That's not what I mean..'
I shook my head, smiling, because he was not apologising.
'Is that an invitation?'
'Well we do have a long lunch break...'
I laughed. It was just the right thing to say.
'This will be intense,' he said after a bit. ' But not as intense as est. And we will be together, which is most important. I did this on my own before and it took a lot of talking with Hamish to really process it. And it is a small group – only twenty, not 200 '
'I consider myself forewarned.'
'Good.'