Rating: 
Summary: Guidance into the Mysteries
Review: Bill Plotkin's Soulcraft is a beautifully crafted, accessible guide to the ancient practice of vision quest (or "Time of Lamenting" as a vision fast may be more accurately called). This book manages to combine sound psychological expertise, stirring personal narrative, practical advice and glimpses into the mysteries of Nature as a sacred mirror for Soul. If you yearn for deeper connection with Nature and your own soul, no matter your spiritual orientation, this book will prove an invaluable resource. Plotkin, founding director of Colorado's Animas Valley Institute, brings a wealth of experience as both a counseling psychologist and wilderness rites guide to the book. He weaves his own personal stories and those entrusted to him by guides and vision quest participants over the years together with concrete explanations of the practices of Soulcraft. The result is that the book speaks directly to the part of the soul where the longing for Quest resides. Many books that speak to soul connection or spiritual practice neglect talking about the shadows or the "dark side." Plotkin has an unerring knack for exposing and using our ancient fear of the dark (including the darkness that lies within ourselves) to forge new paths for self insight and true connection with our world (inner and outer). In this and many other ways, the Soulcraft practices offer guidance toward soulful adulthood. Plotkin also defines soul and spirit in a way that makes more sense than any other model I have yet seen. Speaking as a person who was guided by Plotkin on an 11-day vision quest, this book was written by a man who not only walks his talk, but dances it skillfully, brilliantly and whole-heartedly. I recommend that anyone who feels the heat from the fire that lies at the heart of this book immediately get in touch with Animas Valley Institute, because the guidance and wisdom provided by Plotkin and his fellow guides is shatteringly generous in ways that are too numerous and deep to describe.
Rating:
Summary: Guidance Through the Mysteries
Review: Bill Plotkin's Soulcraft is a beautifully written book that manages to combine carefully crafted and sound psychological expertise, practical advice, stirring personal narrative and glimpses into the mysteries of Nature as a sacred mirror. If you wish to deepen your personal connections to Nature and your own soul, no matter what your spiritual orientation, this book will prove an invaluable resource. Plotkin brings a wealth of experience in both counseling psychology and in guiding people through wilderness rites of passage to this book, and has himself passed through such rites. He shares his own stories, as well as those entrusted to him for this purpose by guides and vision quest participants over the years. Their words, paired with Plotkin's evocative descriptions of the practices of Soulcraft, make the book speak directly to the part of the soul where the personal longing for Quest resides. Plotkin has an unerring ability to expose and use our ancient fear of the dark, and of the dark places within ourselves, to forge new ways of seeing ourselves, and new areas of strength that lie buried under exactly those fears. In this and many other ways, these Soulcraft methods help us to step into our own soulful adulthood. Speaking as a person who has been guided by Plotkin on an 11 day vision quest, I can say that this book was written by a man who not only walks his talk, but dances it brilliantly and fully.
Rating:
Summary: An Essential, Hazardous Journey
Review: Bill Plotkin's Soulcraft, grounded in the author's formal training as a clinical psychologist, and in his decades of experience as a wilderness guide who guides his clients through both inner and outer wilderness, provides readers with an experience-based, intellectually stimulating, and potentially life-altering antidote to mainstream Western civilization. Based on the premise that virtually all of us live lives that attempt to satisfy the ego's needs while ignoring the soul's deeper yearnings, Plotkin guides us to a severance from our ego-based lives, through an encounter with soul, and finally into a return, with new knowledge of the gifts we carry to our people--family, friends, co-workers and community. As he encourages us to grow from our necessary and valuable uninitiated adolescent need to be accepted by society, into our initiated adult need to live authentically these gifts we carry, he treats us to his own story and the stories of others who are doing the work of authenticity. More than 30 practices validate the presence of the word "craft" in the book's main title. Whether the reader is drawn to meditation, drumming, dream work, deep imagery, befriending the dark, wandering in nature, working with shadow or any one of more than a score more approaches to living a soul-based life, Bill Plotkin challenges us to live our true callings, and provides us the means with which to do so. Soulcraft engaged me both experientially and philosophically, calling me to both act and think. It's no accident that Thomas Berry wrote the foreword, or that Brian Swimme, Angeles Arrien, Robert Johnson, and Derrick Jensen, among others, praised the book before publication.
Bill Plotkin, in the words of David Whyte, whose poetry graces many of these pages, carries "what is hidden as a gift to others." For this we should all be grateful.
Rating:
Summary: Delve into the Journey
Review: I have long held a deep interest in and have studied ecopsychology, and I currently work with EarthLinks, a Denver-based non-profit organization that provides experiential earth education, specifically creating a healing context for at-risk homeless adults and others on society's margins -- thus I was naturally drawn to a new book by Bill Plotkin titled Soulcraft. In it, Plotkin, a depth psychologist, ecotherapist and wilderness guide, takes the reader on a wilderness journey of their own soul -- as the subtitle states: "Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche." The current environmental devastation and sustainability challenge we face is due in large part to the dominant post-industrial consumer-culture's way of creating a 'disconnect' of ourselves from our own soul and from the natural world. As Bill Plotkin says: "When we become alienated from soul -- our inner nature -- we lose respect for outer nature, resulting in pollution and degradation of the environment." Soulcraft offers us an experiential guide to help re-awaken our contact with the soul and helps us rekindle a closer relationship with the natural world, where such wounds, both inner and outer, can be tended and healed. Deep learning can come from close contact with the inherent wisdom of nature -- and a deeper understanding of that wisdom is just what earth literacy is about, reading the 'book of nature.' Soulcraft is a engaging guide to discovering the wilderness of Earth as mentor to and mirror of our own inner wilderness. I recommend Soulcraft as essential reading for anyone wishing to delve deeper into their own inner journey and into the larger journey we all strive for as we transform our culture toward a sustainable future, and a mutually enhancing human /earth relationship.
-- Mary Romano
Editor, Earth Literacy Companion
Rating:
Summary: Find Out Why You Are Here!
Review: My intention for reading Bill Plotkin's book was for research - to learn more about dreamwork, deep imagery, trance dance, and other methods of inner discovery. I got that and much more! Bill Kauth, co-founder of The ManKind Project, once said "As a culture, we are drowning in spirit and starving for soul." Soulcraft showed me how and why this is true and how to open up to hear my soul's calling through connection with nature. The stories of transformation are spellbinding. The poetry is profound. Bill's mastery of the language of transformation makes the book an easy read as well. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has a longing to know their true calling and is ready to embark on the journey.
Rating:
Summary: Find Out Why You Are Here!
Review: My intention for reading Bill Plotkin's book was for research - to learn more about dreamwork, deep imagery, trance dance, and other methods of inner discovery. I got that and much more! Bill Kauth, co-founder of The ManKind Project, once said "As a culture, we are drowning in spirit and starving for soul." Soulcraft showed me how and why this is true and how to open up to hear my soul's calling through connection with nature. The stories of transformation are spellbinding. The poetry is profound. Bill's mastery of the language of transformation makes the book an easy read as well. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has a longing to know their true calling and is ready to embark on the journey.
Rating: 
Summary: Soulcraft;Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche
Review: Read this book at night and as you fall asleep, quest your Soul for answers. They will come; Bill Plotkin has written a powerful book that can facilitate the makings of your prayers.
Rating:
Summary: Soulcraft;Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche
Review: Read this book at night and as you fall asleep, quest your Soul for answers. They will come; Bill Plotkin has written a powerful book that can facilitate the makings of your prayers.
Rating:
Summary: Those who wander are not necessarily lost...J.R.R. Tolkien
Review: This is a book to read in autumn. Follow your rhythm and read on a rock. Read the poetry out loud. The message and the power of these pages is nourishment for our particular starvation.
The warp of this book is the constant of nature as teacher, guide, and lover. The weft is the movement of story as curiousity, disturbance, and evolution. Soulcraft explores wandering, touching, noticing as acts of social disobedience. Soulcraft turns left when most turn right and invites one to climb into the mud. Simple, but not easy, unpretentious, but not without sophistication soulcrafting is always about unearthing threads of one's authentic story.
Bill Plotkin is a weaver of the medicines that are waiting for the patient...at least the one's who are willing to take their first deep breath.
Rating:
Summary: Those who wander are not necessarily lost...J.R.R. Tolkien
Review: This is a book to read in autumn. Follow your rhythm and read on a rock. Read the poetry out loud. The message and the power of these pages is nourishment for our particular starvation.
The warp of this book is the constant of nature as teacher, guide, and lover. The weft is the movement of story as curiousity, disturbance, and evolution. Soulcraft explores wandering, touching, noticing as acts of social disobedience. Soulcraft turns left when most turn right and invites one to climb into the mud. Simple, but not easy, unpretentious, but not without sophistication soulcrafting is always about unearthing threads of one's authentic story.
Bill Plotkin is a weaver of the medicines that are waiting for the patient...at least the one's who are willing to take their first deep breath.
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