Foreword to Soulcraft by Thomas Berry

Soul is fundamentally a biological concept, defined as the primary organizing, sustaining, and guiding principle of a living being. Soulcraft is the skill needed in shaping the human soul toward its fulfillment in its unity with the entire universe. The universe and the human soul find their fulfillment in each other. Soul gives to the multitude of living forms wondrous powers of movement and reproduction, but even more wondrous powers of sensation and emotion. Soul, in all its diversity of expression, enables the flowers to bloom in the meadows. It enables all manner of living forms, the birds, the fish, and other living beings to find their way through thousands of miles on their migration journeys back and forth across the continents and in the dark depths of the sea. The entire universe is shaped and sustained in all its vast interwoven patterns by the mysterious powers of soul. Such was the understanding of soul in our western world until the sixteenth century when Rene Descartes (1596 1650) taught that the natural world was simply a mechanistic process to be known simply by scientific measurement.

Humans differ from, other living beings in having a soul capable of reflecting on itself, thereby providing it with intellectual and moral capacities associated with spiritual beings. Once the existence of soul in the other than human world was rejected, it was difficult to sustain any acceptance of soul in the human world. Such was the situation throughout the nineteenth century and throughout the industrial civilization in the twentieth century. Then, in our psychological studies, we began to realize that nothing made much sense without the presence of soul. Acceptance of the soul dimension of the natural world was begun in the studies of C.G. Jung. He saw the need for restoring the human soul in its integral presence with the vital powers of the earth.

Further, in our association with indigenous peoples, we began to appreciate the profound sense of realism they manifested in their ritual communion of the human soul with the deeper powers of the universe. In these earlier cultures, the universe was experienced primarily as a presence to be communed with and instructed by, not a collection of natural resources to be used for utilitarian purposes The winds, the mountains, the soaring birds, the wildlife roaming the forests, the stars splashed across the heavens in the dark of night: these were all communicating the deepest experiences that humans would ever know. The inner life of humans, the joy and exaltation we experience in celebrating our place in the great community of existence, these depended on our experience of a universe that provides us with both our physical and our spiritual nourishment. All this was recognized as the world of soul.

Above all, this larger context of human existence was a caning world. It provided food and shelter, also healing in time of sickness. Beyond economic needs, the natural world in all its wonder provided inspiration for song and dance and poetry. Such we find with the Australian aborigines, who saw the visible world as the creation of a more profound reality known as the Dreamtime. Each aspect of the landscape was identified as related to its songlines.

Throughout this earlier world, not only in its indigenous phase but also in tile earlier classical civilizations, this manner of relating human affairs to the larger universe was dominant. Life was livable. As Henri Frankfort tells us in his study, Before Philosophy, the entire world was addressed as "Thou", not as "It." Life in its comprehensive extent was a meaningful and a fulfilling experience. The tragic dimension of existence could be dealt with by the assistance we received from this other world. The integrity of our psychic world was preserved.

Indigenous peoples attained the inner strength needed to deal with the challenges they confronted in the wild through their ritual communion with these powers present throughout the natural world. The Plains Indians of North America identified and sacralized their human presence at any moment by offering the sacred pipe to the four directions, then to heaven above and the earth below. In this manner they knew where they were, They knew also that they were not alone. They were at the center of the universe. The powers present throughout the natural world were there to guide and support them in the hunt, in their endurance of the heat and cold of the seasons, in their confrontation with enemies.

Civilizations also found their validation in their ritual integration with the great cosmic liturgy of the seasons as well as with the celebration of the dawn and sunset. These transition moments were sacred. To know how to insert our human affairs into the larger functioning of the universe was the primary context of existence in all its forms. The integral functioning of the entire human order depended on this relationship. Government found its authority and the efficacy of its functioning in its alliance with this larger design of the universe. Education was based on initiation into this process. The whole of life was thought of as a celebration of existence. There were the anxieties concerning food and shelter, there was sickness and death. Yet so long as there was assistance from the powers of the universe, these could be accepted and dealt with creatively. Suffering and death could be endured without fear because they occurred in a meaningful context of interpretation.
In those days, the Plains Indians of this continent were already practicing soulcraft in their Vision Quest with its days long fasting and praying on some mountain top. The initiate was taken far beyond the visible realm, into the abiding world beyond sight and sound, into the world of soul. This inner psychic world in its relation with the outer world was already familiar to the person facing the later challenges of life. These peoples also established rituals for the dangerous transitions moments of individual lives. Especially at the moment of birth, it was important for the Omaha Indians to present the infant to the universe with the invocation that both heaven and earth would care for the child with all their powers.

In our modem world of scientific insight and technological skills, we have thought that we could do without these spirit powers of the universe. Although we know more about the universe, we have less intimate presence to the universe than any people ever had. The indigenous peoples of Australia, with fewer life possessions and less life security than any other people we have ever known, are more profoundly in communion with the world about them than we, in the industrial world, arc in communion with the North American continent.

In losing our sense of soul, we have trivialized our existence. Our industrial accomplishments are simply leading us deeper into a meaningless world, a meaningless, but not an innocent or a harmless world. Nor can all our inventions or our medicinal formulas keep at bay the deep anxieties to which we are subject. Nor can our massive military expenditures keep us secure. We are frightened, both personally and in our communities, by the least threat to life or security. We seek protection through ever greater control over other humans and over the natural world that we inhabit. Yet adequate security ever eludes us. We are threatened, as never before, by natural elements such as the atmosphere, the water, the soil, and various living forms that we have abused. We are threatened by the enemies we have made with the very efforts that we have made toward national security. Not knowing how to relate to the natural world, we are uncertain in our relations with the human world.

We are now finding that without the assistance of the invisible world we become confused and even frightened in times of crisis. We do not know how to call for assistance in these moments of difficulty or how to ask for healing beyond the ordinary medical procedures. We are lacking in persons sufficiently skilled in guiding us through our individual or community crises. We have never spent days and nights fasting on a mountaintop crying for a vision to guide, strengthen, and protect us throughout our lives.

I propose these observations as a basis for appreciating the teaching of Bill Plotkin in his book Soulcraft. The word itself, soulcraft, a newly minted word to most of us, has a startling precision and a stunning power in saying exactly what his teaching is all about. For his teaching is about teaching in its most meaningful form. The term soul sounds mightily throughout his writings. The term craft also indicates the need of a skill that has been weakened considerable in this industrial age but now is revived in its full grandeur. Each of us, throughout out lives, is involved in crafting our souls into some meaningful reality that we become for the unending future. We are also involved in assisting others in the self shaping work of their own lives. Those who guide us, from out parents to our schoolteachers and our university professors, are assisting us in crafting our own souls even while we are learning to assist others in shaping their deepest reality.

But then we have the situation beyond our individual souls. The industrial world seeks to exploit this lovely planet with its flowering meadows, its sky reaching forests, its flowing streams, the wildlife of its forests and fields, until only remnants will exist. Yet now, as we begin the twenty first century, we start to realize that the industrial world has had its day. Those of us who have lived through its twentieth century dominance do, I believe, have a feeling that a new age is dawning. The industrial commercial world can go no further. It has achieved its goal. It dominates the planet. Everything opposed has withered in its presence. Yet such high moments in history seem to last only about a century. Such was the high moment of the Augustan Age of Rome and that of medieval Europe. Within a century, the gothic cathedrals, the universities, the great intellectual syntheses came into being. Then in the opening years of the thirteenth century, with the culminating moment of Dante's Comedia, the creative genius of the period came to an end.

Now as the twenty-first century opens, we have begun our renewal of the Earth. The industrial age will continue its destructive path, but new creative forces are already presenting a future where humans and the natural world are more intimate with each other. The alienation of these past four centuries has already ended. We need no longer spend our energy critiquing the past.

As we enter this new age, we will surely be powerfully influenced by this new guide to the mysteries of nature and the 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. Plotkin understands fully that the mentality of the future will be closer to the insight of the indigenous peoples of the world than to any patterns of our more recent thinking. Above all, we will begin to find the deeper meaning of our lives, and the psychic support that we need, in our participation in the great cosmic liturgy; in the exhilaration of the dawn, the healing quiet of evening, in the springtime singing of the birds, the summertime showers, the autumn ripening, and the winter quiescence.

These are the forces that will craft our souls into the realities for which these same forces brought them into being.

Thomas Berry
June 14, 2003