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Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche Paperback – August 29, 2003

by Bill Plotkin (Author), Thomas Berry (Foreword)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 427 ratings
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Since 1980, depth psychologist Bill Plotkin has been guiding women and men into the wilderness—the redrock canyons and snow-crested mountains of the American West—but also into the wilds of the soul. He calls this work soulcraft.

There’s a great longing in all people to uncover the secrets and mysteries of our individual lives, to find the unique gift we were born to bring to our communities, and to experience our full membership in the more-than-human world. This journey to soul is a descent into layers of the self much deeper than personality, a journey meant for each one of us, not just for the heroes and heroines of mythology.

A modern handbook for the journey, Soulcraft is not an imitation of indigenous ways, but a contemporary nature-based approach born from wilderness experience, the traditions of Western culture, and the cross-cultural heritage of all humanity. Filled with stories, poems, and guidelines, Soulcraft introduces over 40 practices that facilitate the descent to soul, including dreamwork, wilderness vision fasts, talking across the species boundaries, council, self-designed ceremony, nature-based shadow work, and the arts of romance, being lost, and storytelling.
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  1. Print length
    320 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    New World Library
  4. Publication date
    August 29, 2003
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 1.08 x 9.02 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1577314220
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1577314226
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

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"Here is an abundantly wise and carefully crafted survival guide for the wild soul currently dozing (or dying) at the heart of your civilized life. Plotkin has wandered again and again into the nourishing darkness, and has returned with this earthly bundle of insights and images — talismanic tools for awakening to the outrageous depths both within us and all around us. He has bound them into a book that is immensely practical, alive with ritual intelligence, thick with useful tools from a host of courageous comrades."
— David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous

"As we enter a future where humans and the natural world are more intimate with each other, we will surely be powerfully influenced by this new guide into the mysteries of nature and psyche. In Soulcraft, Bill Plotkin gives us an authentic masterwork. In the substance of what he has written, in the clarity of his presentation, and in the historical urgency of the subject, he has guided us far into the new world that is opening up before us. We will not soon again receive a work of this significance."
— from the foreword by Thomas Berry, author of The Dream of the Earth and The Great Work

"The fundamental worldview of industrial society is that Earth is like a gravel pit or a lumberyard — just a resource for human use. We live disconnected from the evolving earth community, but our deepest allurement is a rich, intimate participation in nature and the ongoing adventure of the Universe. In this stunningly original and inspiring guide book, Bill Plotkin shows us how to reconnect with the sacred powers of life, of nature, of soul, and the ways that each one of us can reinvent ourselves and discover our unique way to flower forth."
— Brian Swimme, cosmologist and author of The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos, The Universe is a Green Dragon, and coauthor with Thomas Berry of The Universe Story

About the Author

Bill Plotkin, PhD, founder of Animas Valley Institute, describes himself as a “psychologist gone wild.” A cultural visionary, author, and guide to the entwined mysteries of wilderness and psyche, he’s been blazing new trails for decades. His ecocentric re-visioning of psychology invites us into a conscious and embodied relationship with soul and with the more-than-human world. His other books are Wild Mind and Nature and the Human Soul. He lives in southwestern Colorado.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ New World Library (August 29, 2003)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1577314220
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1577314226
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.06 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.08 x 9.02 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 427 ratings

About the author

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Bill Plotkin

Bill Plotkin

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Bill Plotkin, Ph.D., is a depth psychologist, wilderness guide, and agent of cultural evolution. As founder of southwest Colorado’s Animas Valley Institute, he has, since 1980, guided thousands of women and men through nature-based initiatory passages, including a contemporary, Western adaptation of the pan-cultural vision fast. He’s also been a research psychologist (studying nonordinary states of consciousness), professor of psychology, rock musician, and whitewater river guide. In 1979, on a solo winter ascent of an Adirondack mountain, Bill experienced a “call to spiritual adventure,” leading him to abandon academia in search of his true calling. Bill is the author of Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche (an experiential guidebook), Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World (a nature-based stage model of human development), and Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche (an ecocentric map of the psyche — for healing, growing whole, and cultural transformation). His doctorate in psychology is from the University of Colorado at Boulder. To learn more about Bill Plotkin and Animas Valley Institute, visit http://www.animas.org

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
427 global ratings
Great book; Amazon Sold New & Sent Used Book
5 Stars
Great book; Amazon Sold New & Sent Used Book
The author is fabulously insightful. I'm enjoying it immensely.The book, however, was not new. As you can see, the photo shows underlining and crumbs in the crease. I've passed the return date, but buyer bewareI don't know how to complain about the book and not give the book a bad review.
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Top reviews from the United States

Chris C.
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolute gem of a book
Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2024
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This book is a must-read for those on the downward path or those wanting and connect more deeply to themselves and the world at large. It is full of various practices to initiate and deepen your soul work, with plenty of anecdotes to give an applied understanding. The book also touches on how this work correlates with the problems and possibilities we face as a whole human race. This book put words to feelings that were left unvalidated by my environment, and has given me much knowledge on where to go with this sense of something greater, and for that I am forever grateful
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Will Szal
5.0 out of 5 stars Nature-Based Spirituality
Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2013
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I’m just returning from a five-day Soulcraft intensive led by Bill Plotkin of Animas Valley Institute. The event took place up in the Rocky Mountains of Northern New Mexico at a retreat center called Vallecitos Mountain Ranch - nestled in a valley at 8,800 feet.

BACKGROUND
Soulcraft is the artistry and practice of courting and embodying our souls. By Bill’s definition, ego is the attribute in humans that allows us to interact with the world - it’s our personality, and our physical form. Soul is purpose. Yet few people ever embody soul nowadays. And it takes both ego and soul to be human.

Soul is what makes us unique. Spirit is what is shared, universal. A balanced spiritual tradition involves both spirit [ascending] and soul [descending].

Soul is most often encountered alone in nature.

Bill is in his sixties, and has written three books about this work: “Soulcraft” [2003], “Nature and the Human Soul” [2008], and “Wild Mind” [2013]. I’ve read the first two.

LOCATION
The Ranch was beautiful. It was surprisingly “flat” for my perceptions of the Rockies. I covered a lot of milage, and everything was within 1,000 feet of elevation of everything else [moving up from base camp to almost 10,000].

Although the climate is relatively dry, it was wetter than what I’m used to in the Boulder, CO area. There was a surprising amount of green.

Forest was aspens and ponderosa pines, with mountain cottonwoods by the water - sparse compared to Northeast standards. Higher up things shifted to spruce and fir.

There was a river running through the valley, and it was full of brook trout. It was cool, but not freezing.

There was one nearby “peak” big enough to get a name on the map. It was called Quartzite Peak, and I hiked it.

EXPERIENC
All together there were thirty-three of us, with Bill, three guides, a few apprentices, and the rest of us participants. The group was almost all people in their fifties and sixties. Some of us were in our twenties, thirties, and seventies.

Most of my time was spent out in nature alone. As a large group in the lodge immediately after breakfast, lunch, and sometimes dinner, we were given tasks to work with alone in nature. We also met in smaller “clans” each day in order to discuss at length our experiences out in nature.

Some people had some really big personal breakthroughs or “breakdowns” during the event - what we were going through. I didn’t experience any of these in very apparent ways, but did really appreciate the depth of the experience.

There are four primary soulcraft practices that we worked with:
Completing unfinished business from the first three stages [out of eight] of ecosoulcentric human maturation
Wholing - becoming more balanced and present in the Four Facets of the Self
Self-healing - of the subpersonalities
Facilitation of soul encounters

TERMS
The Four Facets of Self are:
East - Innocent, Sage, Sacred Fool, Trickster
South - Wild Indigenous One
West - Muse, Inner Beloved, Anima/Animus, Guide to Soul
North - Nurturing Generative Adult

The Subpersonalities are:
East - Escapists and Addicts
South - Wounded Children (including Outcasts)
West - The Shaw and Shadow Selves
North - Loyal Soldiers: Lion Tamers, Inner Critics, Inner Flatterers
If you’re interested in learning more about this specifics of all this terminology, read the book, go on a course with Animas, or get in touch and we can have a conversation.

CONCLUSION
My experience with Animas was awesome! Highly recommended for anyone looking for deeper ways to engage with themselves and the world.
47 people found this helpful
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Dr. Jud Newborn
5.0 out of 5 stars THE Transcendent "Self-Help" Book-and a Sequel Available Now Too!
Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2007
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The inhabitants of our alienated modern society--and those suffering globally from its negative influences--are desperate for meaning. Self-Help books abound beyond belief. People of all ages, especially in the workplace and corporate world, live lives of such "quiet desperation," as Thoreau wrote, that they can barely discern even the surface they're skating on, much less the depths that lay beneath. Young people worldwide fall into depression, crime, or the false promise of fundamentalism and fanaticism, sacrificing themselves for--what? Surely not our shared humanity.

Bill Plotkin's SOULCRAFT is, I believe, at last, the "definitive" self-help guide, one so profound that it has the capacity, for those open to it, to help reshape our entire vision of the world--and restore to ourselves a fulfilling home within it.

I write this as a cultural anthropologist, author and lecturer who has himself sorted his way through any number of methods to a more balanced, centered life. Plotkin draws from traditional and Jungian psychology, the deep wisdom of the natural world (one of the richest sources of meaning which we have almost succeeded in destroying), and from a wealth of knowledge about traditional cultural practices the world over that provide ancient keys to holistic living. Plotkin draws out the essence of all this and spins it into a welcoming web, each strand another guiding rope hung with tools to empower one on a perilous and promising journey to center.

Make no mistake--this book is not psycho-babble and or self-help pablum. It is not an instant solution; it is a challenging way to open yourself up to an ever-widening world through which, with courage and commitment, you will continue to journey the rest of your life.

There may be some who think the notion of "soul-crafting" is uncomfortably "New Age" (I feared so at first). If so then this is a work that synthesizes everything good and wise that emerged from the wild and ecstatic upheavals of the late `60s, filtered over decades through Plotkin's formal social-psychological training, shaped by his rigorous, wide-ranging scholarship, and brought finally to fruition through the power of his personal experience and heartfelt vision.

And now his newest book has appeared: "Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World." I just ordered mine from Amazon and got it immediately. After what Plotkin has just given me in the earlier book, I can only imagine what this book, described as a culminating life's work, can offer me. I can't wait to read it. --Jud Newborn, Ph.D., author, "Sophie Scholl and the White Rose."
15 people found this helpful
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Jerome Schmidt
4.0 out of 5 stars Disorients, re-orients, action required
Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2018
Verified Purchase
Read this as I began the discernment process for the Right of Passage ceremony I am considering. At first I was having difficulty with relating to the definitions of the spiritual and psychoanalytical terms I am not familiar with. Stuck it out, and by the end I had a sense of the transformation journey I am considering. Very helpful.
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Miguel Castro
5.0 out of 5 stars Hermoso libro
Reviewed in Mexico on February 22, 2021
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Hermoso libro que me a la par con otro autor han cambiado mi vida para bien.
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Raquel Matos
5.0 out of 5 stars recommended
Reviewed in Spain on November 17, 2019
Verified Purchase
I Love this one. this is great for people who wants to deepens their connection and undersstanding of the individual soul.
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UK book worm
5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful and deeply moving book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 18, 2019
Verified Purchase
Its rare that I am so deeply engaged with a book like Soulcraft. Bill Plotkin is a gifted author...he writes with credible wise insight into the human condition, our relationship with nature and the mystery of soul. He is knowledgeable and visionary as he describes contemporary issues which are threatening our wild and beautiful planet. So much of my life (seen and unseen, the visible and invisible) makes more sense. Im so grateful for his willingness to dedicate himself to the task of writing such a gem of a book. If you are trying to make sense of your life and the world around you or maybe searching for deeper understanding and self awareness....this book will certainly provide tools, reflections and thought provoking information/stories and resources. I feel sad to have finished the book which despite its size was easy and light to read (despite its richness). If you read one good book this year or next please try this one! I shall be reading it for many years to come.
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UK book worm
5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful and deeply moving book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 18, 2019
Its rare that I am so deeply engaged with a book like Soulcraft. Bill Plotkin is a gifted author...he writes with credible wise insight into the human condition, our relationship with nature and the mystery of soul. He is knowledgeable and visionary as he describes contemporary issues which are threatening our wild and beautiful planet. So much of my life (seen and unseen, the visible and invisible) makes more sense. Im so grateful for his willingness to dedicate himself to the task of writing such a gem of a book. If you are trying to make sense of your life and the world around you or maybe searching for deeper understanding and self awareness....this book will certainly provide tools, reflections and thought provoking information/stories and resources. I feel sad to have finished the book which despite its size was easy and light to read (despite its richness). If you read one good book this year or next please try this one! I shall be reading it for many years to come.
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11 people found this helpful
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Dr. Susan E. Gleeson
5.0 out of 5 stars this book is awesome. I have actually not finished reading it as ...
Reviewed in Canada on October 19, 2014
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this book is awesome. I have actually not finished reading it as i can only read a few pages at a time, then need time to stop and digest it. It is a must read before you try to tackle his later book Nature and the Soul.
One person found this helpful
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Vicky Gabriel
5.0 out of 5 stars Life-Changing
Reviewed in Germany on February 4, 2005
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I am currently translating this book into the German language. It is the most exciting translation I have done in the last years. Even though I am only copying it down it has already changed my life in a profound way. I am very thankful for the destiny that put this book on my desk - and I know that there was no coincidence involved.
The book provides several practices and approaches that help to address the problem a lot of people encounter in the middle of their lifes - or sometimes even earlier: The moment when you notice that things that have always made sense all in a sudden don't carry any meaning for you any more. It is the first book I ever read that does not only promise to, but actually really helps you finding out what you are here for and how you can act according to this insight. It brings you on your path - the soulpath. Work your way through the practices, exercises, and ceremonies in this book and your life will never be the same again. Seriously, I see a lot of books on new age and nature spirituality walking over my desk, but this one definitely outdoes all I have been reading and working on during the last ten years.
8 people found this helpful
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