John Lynch, Art.D.

John is a university professor, where he weaves eco-centric experiences and perspectives into his offerings. He has degrees in outdoor education & leadership, sustainable communities, and ecopsychology & environmental humanities. A Sower of soulful seeds, John maintains heartfelt support towards fellow seekers negotiating the wild terrain of possibilities waiting within all of us. In addition to his work at Animas Valley Institute, he has training and certifications in gestalt practices and dialogical processing. John is an avid adventurer of wild places, professional outdoor educator, musician, wilderness guide and local initiator of soulful practices in his northern Arizona community. Above all else, however, John strives to be a loving father and partner.

Events with John Lynch, Art.D.

Nature and the Human Soul: A Special Online Program for Parents & Educators - May, 2025
May 22 - June 27, 2025

This Program is full. Please sign up for the waitlist. This program is offered to parents and educators only. Anchored in traditional four-directions wisdom, contemporary depth and archetypal psychologies, and twenty-five years of nature-based soul guiding, the Soulcentric Developmental Wheel (SDW) is a new ecopsychology of human development and cultural transformation. It’s a blueprint showing how richly we can grow and mature when soul and nature are embraced as our wisest and most trustworthy guides. It includes an integrated set of developmental guidelines that can help every human mature into an adulthood of visionary leadership — precisely what we need…

A Wild Passage – August, 2025
August 10 - 16, 2025

This immersion is both foundational and adventurous. Remember, life is a wild adventure, and this program is a great starter to rewild one’s life. Many, if not most of us humans, have been domesticated and indoctrinated by homes, schools, churches, and offices – we’ve lost our wildness. We have forgotten that our primary place of belonging is the Earth community. This program is a step back into wildness, a pilgrimage into wild places, and an awakening from our anthropo-centric slumber. We will venture into wildish places leaving our previous identities behind. We will engage in conversation with each other, but…

Soulcraft Intensive for Earth Activists, Online - November, 2025
November 3 - December 15, 2025

Humans are responsible for global ecological devastation. Consequently, it is up to humans to fight for protection of Earth’s life-systems from ourselves. Yet, the cost of such efforts include profound stress and despair. By including the cultivation of our inner psychological ecology through nature-based soul-centric practices, Earth activists can foster greater resiliency and vision in their mission to protect the physical ecology. The root cause of environmental catastrophes stem from pathological cultures. Healthy, mature cultures emerge from the combined depths of our psyches and the Earth’s imagination, acting through us. The revolutionary potential of our dreams, visions, and encounters with the…