Customer Reviews

Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World

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To individuate is a subversive act. It requires a person to move against their habitual ego notions about how things are and to reject many of the accepted norms of their culture. Individuation is made more difficult in a time of what Jung called 'kairos', a time of the "changing of the gods", a time when the worldview of a culture is itself undergoing a rite of passage. In such times, when the myths of our culture are not adequate to lead us into a new way of being, and new myths are not yet here, we have to return to what Thomas Berry called `genetic guidance', the spontaneously creative and mysterious impulses of the world unconscious that originate in the same instincts through which the earth came into being. In short, we have to return to nature. But where can we find guidance that is not itself coming out of the old Cartesian, nature-phobic fantasy that is the problem? To read a text on individuation that is not grounded in such assumptions requires that the author be `cured' of the disease of Cartesianism and have enough of the Bodhisattva in them to want to share their insights in a labor of love, a book. I am pleased to report that Bill Plotkin's second book, Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World, fits this bill.

Nature and the Human Soul begins with the idea that humanity is engaged in the process of the Great Turning, the move from an ego-centric industrial growth model of civilization to an eco-centric earth community model that is sustainable into the future. The question is then asked, "What does it mean to become fully human in an eco-centric world?" At a time when most therapeutic models are about coping with the dire consequences of our current circumstances, this is an especially generative question, one that is filled with hope for the future. To answer this question fully, Bill Plotkin dives deeply into the structure of the medicine wheel, the wheel of life, to create one of the most innovative and healing imaginations of the process of individuation that I have ever read. What brings this model to life is Plotkin's 25 years of experience as a depth psychologist, wilderness guide and eco-therapist, leading individuals into the wild to seek their destiny. The abstractions of life-span stage theory are given pulse and beauty through the soul-stirring stories of the individuals whose experiences illuminate the phases of the wheel of life. More than just another developmental theory, Nature and the Human Soul has the potential to be a foundation stone in the New Myth that we so desperately seek.

As with Plotkins first book (Soulcraft), I found Nature and the Human Soul to be an incredible map but better than that, more like a constellation of stars that allowed me to see/feel/experience a forgotten story that is our own. It is a glimpse of a great and wild ecological pattern. In fact, I can say that he has succeeded yet again in creating a cocoon on a collective level, one that serves humanity in its full maturation. I think it is a book that will have profound impact and is critical to the 21st Century and all its dangers...I've certainly been sending it to all my friends.

As important as it is to both Depth Psychologies and Eco-Psychologies, this book is also fresh and readable, poetic in its imaging and easily accessible to everyone. The weaving of interviews into the text with elders Joanna Macey and Thomas Berry are startling and poignant as we get to experience their far reaching wisdom. As well, Plotkins own storytelling masterfully draws one into the natural world showing us how nature can teach us and mirror our own humanity. He brings the soul's logic into view. The confluence of this organic developmental model of being fully human (the soul-centric developmental wheel) with ones own personal world is not constraining but rather frees us into our full imagination, expression and potential. It is a message that is highly original, vastly unique, and mysteriously familiar in its deep truth.

Ever wonder, as I have, why Holden Caulfield is still passing judgment on adult behavior, pointing out, more than fifty years since J. D. Salinger wrote "The Catcher in the Rye," that your average adult is only pretending to be an adult and therefore cannot be relied upon as a guide to lead someone like Holden into a deeper understanding of life?
Holden, for all his outward cynicism and irreverence, is hurting inside and deserves a mature response. Bill Plotkin, in his new book "Nature and the Human Soul," offers, in quite an unprecedented way, a competent and compassionate response to the Holden Caulfields of the world.
Holden is everyone of us who has ever gone looking for guidance from a mature adult, someone with the capacity to lead another into a deeply rooted sense of purpose and belonging, a need we hunger for so deeply that it leaves us feeling orphaned in the only world we have come to know, a world too small, too trivial, and too everyday even to acknowledge this longing, let alone respond to it with competency and compassion.
"Nature and the Human Soul" speaks plainly and directly to what ails us as human beings in our process of maturing and evolving, and to what ails this fragile earth, our island home. Bill Plotkin recognizes so clearly that the will required to alter our destructive treatment of the natural world will only come, if at all, by seeing the natural world as priceless in its own right surely, but also as that which alone can speak to our persistent longing to inhabit a place and a purpose uniquely ours in this universe, part of an infinitely complex, interrelated web of relationships and conversations.
"Nature and the Human Soul" is a beautiful thing to behold for its symmetry, honesty, poetry, scholarship, and humility--a practical resource and basis for hope given to us as the fruit of a life lived very deeply and very boldly. The book makes you feel heard and confident that there is indeed a way forward that is authentic and noble and comes as a kindly blessing to the natural world.

I recently found myself amidst major upheaval on many levels; a dark night of the soul, without purpose or direction. Having done a vision quest almost twenty years ago, and knowing the power of that experience, I knew it was time for another. I had heard of Bill Plotkin's programs many years ago from a mentor, and have been impressed by the quality, breadth and depth of the programs. So while searching for a program to sign up for, I decided to buy "Nature and the Human Soul" to help me through until I could quest again.

In recent difficult days, and especially in the middle of the night, reading his chapters on the Artisan and the Master have given me perspective for the process I am going through. Such comfort, when very few understand the developmental stages human beings are capable of traveling. This work is brilliant in revealing that there are many more stages to human development than simply childhood, adulthood and old age. The book is a guide for honoring developmental stages, and in the process, creating and nurturing truly mature adults. Something sorely needed in these times.

Just prior to reading Bill Plotkin's book, I read Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth". I find Bill Plotkin's book more grounding, heart-centered, practical and precise in his guidance. "Nature and the Human Soul" guides one, not only in the importance of bearing witness, but also in the power of heeding the earths guidance and consequently, nurtures each human beings' soul-purpose here on Earth.

This is a must read for anyone wanting to foster a personal and cultural shift from egocentric behavior to what Bill Plotkin outlines as an 'ecocentric' and 'soulcentric' way of being. Plotkin's followup to his Soulcraft publication invites the reader into an elaborate understanding of the human maturation process and the critical need for contemporary individuals to move beyond a stalled preoccupation with adolescent energy. The author's primary tool for outlining the way to Eldership, is the archetypal Medicine Wheel. Plotkin, with great detail, articulates stages and tasks in the Wheel of Life and guides the reader through territory he clearly understands. This is a book not only for those in the psychotherapeutic community but for anyone desirous of wanting to bridge the gap between culture and nature, self and service.

Gary Diggins (Toronto)

"Nature and the Human Soul" is a compassionate and masterful handbook to living the Heart's way. Bill Plotkin respectfully points to our ultimate wholeness and the maturing wisdom of the human being. He points that this wisdom naturally flows when we are open to the wonderment of our natural world. In this manner, we realize the depth of the soul. This important work lights the pathway for all world cultures and also offers essential guidance for our children; the future stewards of life on earth. Perhaps humanity is ready now for our impending transformation and a new world. If this is true for you, Bill is a brilliant signpost.

Also by Bill Plotkin: "Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche."

Katie Davis, Author, "Awake Joy"

In Nature and the Human Soul, Plotkin delves into the soulwork imperative for the survival of our species and the sustainability of our planet. For those invested in personal growth, this book offers a roadmap of the eight stages of development with unparalleled depth, insight, and usability. For those interested in activism and social responsibility, Plotkin confirms that a cultural shift toward greater maturity is the only way our hopes can be realized. The beautiful premise of how these two orientations are interconnected is illustrated in a coherent and heart-centered model- a must-read for parents, educators, and therapists! In fact, if every person from an industrial society were to read this book, I believe we would be well-equipped to co-create the reality of lasting peace that we long for. [...]

Dr. Plotkin has written a book which could be a model for the survival of the human race. It weds a psychological- developmental model for individual growth to the ancient medicine wheel which depicts the cycles of growth known to indigenous peoples around the world. In doing this, it provides a model for ecocentric rather than egocentric development. The end product of egocentric development is an arrested adolescence where self-centerdness, competition, security, and domination are the prevalent features. By implication, Dr. Plotkin says that our whole corporate economy instills this stage by brainwashing us with the idea that happiness depends on more money, more things, and more power over others. In contrast, his idea of a just society, one that honors and reveres nature is called the ecocentric society. In order for an individual to reach the adult stage of development, a more ecocentric stage ,he or she must find a place in the natural world which speaks to a deeper part of himself, the soul. In connecting with this place of soul, the individual finds guidance in developing modes of behavior which encourage compassion, cooperation, love, and humility in his or her dealings with all his relations, including the creatures of nature. If enough individuals reach this stage then society could become truly ecocentric, but it won't be easy. The coporate economy is firmly entrenched in our culture and has been exported to the rest of the world. Nevertheless, this is an important book, one that could change the future of a society stuck in an adolescent stage of disastrous consequence.

Based on a small ad in the Omega Institute catalogue in late 1997, I called someone named Bill Plotkin (who at the time essentially was Animas Valley Institute), and quite as a surprise to me, applied and was accepted for the April 1998 "Spring Canyonlands Quest" in southeastern Utah, did several months of required prep work, and went. Based on that 10-day experience, I spent another 20+ days with Bill and others over the next five years, engaging dreams, Shadow, ceremony, wandering in nature, befriending the dark and other practices under his guidance. So, "caveat lector"--this review may be biased.

As a reader, I allowed myself to be vulnerable to the gentle, fierce guidance within these pages, and open to wild celebration, essential grief, the possibility of completing unfinished tasks, and a deeper understanding of my true place and trajectory on the planet during the time I have. In addition to his wonderful eloquence in the nuts and bolts of soulcentric development, Bill delivers the goods in a poetic prose that speaks to his intimacy with the languages of both nature and words.

The soul-and-nature-based focus of Nature and the Human Soul and the eco-soulcentric developmental wheel at its core are welcome, needed and timely complements to and commentaries on a wide range of what I find to be invaluable, valid and essential developmental models and practices, including Susanne Cook-Greuter's Leadership Maturity Framework (LMF, aka SCTi-MAP), Don Beck's ongoing research and activism with the late Clare Graves' research under the name of Spiral Dynamics Integral, Genpo Roshi's wonderfully blasphemous Big Mind process, and Ken Wilber's continually evolving AQAL framework and his commitment to recognizing and including all that belongs in this very, very big story.

What Bill has done here is remind us, in a very remarkable way, of the cycle of human life within the context of the natural world, of which much of industrial-information-age society has forgotten it is a part. His loving suggestions for parents and children in early (the Innocent in the Nest) and middle (the Explorer in the Garden) childhood alone make the book an essential read. His subsequent guidance through early and late adolescence, adulthood and elderhood, while soul-centered, comes from a generous and wise heart.

Our times are changing, and it's necessary for our culture to grow into a more mature understanding of what it means to be human, living whole, meaningful lives, within the context of our larger and more-than-human-world. This begins with an understanding of who we are in our own lives, our own human nature. This book provides a detailed system and map for understanding the breadth and depth of the possible for the growth of fully-expressive selves, and a vision of what our community, culture, and world might be like the more of us live from this perspective. I absolutely cannot recommend this work more highly, and look forward to a time (soon, I hope!) when this sort of understanding of our whole human nature and development might be common knowledge for all of us.