Soulcraft Musings

Today, January 20, 2017, we inaugurate Soulcraft Musings, a new offering from Animas Valley Institute (see below). This is the same day America inaugurates a new president, a cultural upheaval currently mobilizing thousands of response teams worldwide. On this day we commence our humble project of Soulcraft Musings in support of the deepening, diversification, and flourishing of all life. At this time in the world, may we all inaugurate actions and projects that collectively give birth to a life-enhancing society.

The journey of descent to soul has largely been forgotten in mainstream culture, but there is nothing more essential in the world today. The experiential encounter with soul is the key element in the initiatory journey that culminates in true adulthood. And true adults — visionary artisans — are the generators of the most creative and effective actions in defense of all life and in the renaissance and evolution of generative human cultures.

The encounter with soul is not a weekend workshop but an unfolding journey over many months or years. Harvesting its fruit and feeding the world with its bounty plays out over the rest of one’s life. Every day holds opportunities for each of us to prepare for the journey to the underworld of soul, or, once we have embarked upon the journey, to take our next steps, or to gather its mystical treasures and hone them into practical shapes, or to fashion never-before-seen delivery systems for carrying these gifts to the Earth community.

We, at Animas Valley Institute, would like to gift you with this weekly email of trail markers (cairns) on the journey to soul. These Soulcraft Musings, although each only a couple minutes of reading, will be, we trust, valuable guidelines and support on your journey. Each includes references for further reading, study, and practice. And each features a resonant image and poem.

The central theme that ties together all the Musings is, of course, soul and the human encounter with soul. But even the original depth meaning of the word soul has been lost to the modern mind. What we at Animas mean when we speak or write about soul is not what you’ll find in contemporary religious, spiritual, philosophical, or psychological traditions or in everyday conversation. We’ll explore these and many other fundamentals and principles in Soulcraft Musings.

If you’re already on our list, you’ll receive an email with a Soulcraft Musing once a week. If you’re not on our list and would like to subscribe, please click here.

And please feel free to share Soulcraft Musings widely with friends, family, and colleagues.

In wildness and wonder,

Bill Plotkin

Founder

Animas Valley Institute

View Previous Musings

Language of the Soul:

Musings’ Collages Revisited III

Over the years, I have woven these collage images for the Weekly Soulcraft Musings — each a sacred echo from the depths of soul’s unfolding mystery. Through their whispered shadows and luminous breath, I invite you to journey into the unseen realms — where textures shift, veils dissolve, and the sacred murmurs of the soul awaken beneath the surface.

For all images, please CLICK HERE.

FOR SOME TIME, I (Doug), have been pondering how our increasingly turbulent times can invite the opportunity to develop a greater capacity of resiliency. I am talking about the kind of resiliency that gestures toward a greater willingness to suffer raw, (often) wretched vulnerability without knowing what the future will bring. Essentially, I am asking myself, how might I bear the unbearable within mounting natural and cultural crises accelerated by such an extremely volatile political/social climate.

Creating this collage summoned forth a collection of images and allies to coalesce around me — and in this case, the feminine represented by a dark-skinned woman in the center wearing a cape holding a galactic portal interconnecting all worlds, all time. I guided myself on a short, deep imagery journey, while holding the word resiliency as my guide to see what might emerge. Up came, surprisingly, and not entirely surprisingly, Puma, the Moon, a nest with eggs, the Greek God Prometheus, and a sapling emerging out of the wastelands of a parched and seemingly lifeless Earth. Also, puzzlingly, there was an image of a man who would proclaim himself as king with money flowing into his hands! In the background the tree of life holds these images with outstretched limbs. I have a strong sense that there is an ongoing exploration that awaits me regarding each of these specific images AND how their powers and energies might bundle together to guide me to newer and deeper insights about resiliency.

In the meantime, out of curiosity, I googled what creature is considered the most resilient on Earth and up came the tardigrade (bottom left in collage), a tiny animal that I had previously not heard of. A tardigrade is also known as a water bear or moss piglet. It is an eight-legged segmented micro-animal. These adaptive creatures live in diverse regions of Earth with individual species able to survive intense and punishing conditions — exposure to extreme temperatures, air deprivation, radiation, dehydration, starvation. Some have even survived in outer space. I believe these are the first creatures that came to life after the Chernobyl disaster. In an interconnected world where we share with all life forms our genetic make-up give or take a chromosome or two with all life, this made me realize that perhaps humans, like water bears, have a huge capacity for resilience. (But do we need disaster to bring to bear?)

Why Prometheus? Outraged by Zeus’s decision, the demi-god Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it back to humanity, providing them with warmth, light, and the potential for advancement. He paid dearly for helping humans in this way and suffered extensively at the hands of King Zeus. I admire those who question authority and do what they know must be done! In this collective Promethian moment, we too must question self-appointed authority and do what must be done to reclaim our deepest creative passions and collective powers in an attempt to derail oligarchic derangement. Perhaps Prometheus can teach us about the close relationship between positive resistance and deep resiliency — if and when we are prepared to risk everything on behalf of the whole.

I am becoming increasingly aware that this form of resiliency is not simply about bouncing back. Rather it is what helps me leap forth in difficult situations or in a crisis or to courageously make a descent that allows me to break open even further so I may bring back and share a wild tardigrade-like vision, a more embodied and capacious response in dark times.

I love sharing these wild images with you and it is my hope that this glimpse into a sliver of my process may invite your own deep imagery to guide and illuminate your way.

For all images, please CLICK HERE.

To read previous musings click here.