Nature & The Human Soul Intensive Online – January, 2026
January 14 - February 26, 2026
With Bill Plotkin, Ph.D. and Brian Stafford, MD, MPH
Anchored in pan-cultural four-directions wisdom, contemporary depth and archetypal psychologies, and forty 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 in this century if we are to create a just, compassionate, and sustainable world.
A life-span model of development from infancy through authentic elderhood, the SDW presents eight distinct stages of life and shows how these stages are almost always independent of chronological age, biological development, cognitive ability, or social role. Rather, the movement from one stage to the next comes about through progress with psychological and spiritual tasks that are specific to each stage. The SDW presents an achievable vision of a contemporary way of life that holds soul-discovery and life- enhancing contribution to the more-than-human community as its most central features and goals.
(If you are a previous Animas participant familiar with the 4-directions-based map of the Self [the four facets of wholeness] and the subpersonalities — as introduced in Wild Mind and used on many of our programs — please note that the SDW is something quite different and complementary.)
During this intensive, we employ talks (with handouts), conversation and storytelling, small groups for deeper sharing, and asynchronous experiential exercises such as journaling, land wanders where you reside, deep imagination journeys, and more as we explore the SDW and its applications to education, parenting, rites of passage, psychotherapy, personal growth, the journey of soul initiation, spirituality, and cultural renaissance. You’ll discover how to use the SDW to clarify your own next steps of nature-based and soul-infused development and learn a set of principles and practices by which you can align yourself with the lifelong journey of growing whole.
Eight 3-hour sessions will take place via Zoom during the following dates and times:
January 14, 10:00 – 1:00pm (PST)
January 15 10:00 – 1:00pm (PST)
January 22 10:00 – 1:00pm (PST)
January 29 10:00 – 1:00pm (PST)
February 5. 10:00 – 1:00pm (PST)
February 12 10:00 – 1:00pm (PST)
February 19 10:00 – 1:00pm (PST)
February 26 10:00 – 1:00pm (PST)
NOTE: Sessions will be recorded, however we encourage that participants miss no more than 1 session. This is not meant as a watch later course. If you think you might miss more than 1 session, please do not register.
Guides
Bill Plotkin, Ph.D., is a depth psychologist, wilderness guide, and agent of cultural evolution. As founder of western Colorado’s Animas Valley Institute in 1981, he has guided thousands of women and men through nature-based initiatory passages, including a contemporary, Western adaptation of the pan-cultural vision fast. Previously, he has been a research psychologist (studying non-ordinary states of consciousness), professor of psychology, psychotherapist, rock musician, and whitewater river guide. In 1979, on a solo winter ascent of an Adirondack peak, Bill experienced a call to adventure, leading him to abandon academia in search of his true calling. Bill is the author…
Learn more about Bill Plotkin, Ph.D.
Brian Stafford is a guide to the wilderness of nature, wildness, and soul. Called out of academic medicine to serve as a guide to the depths and to serve as an agent of cultural awakening and transformation, he guides with humor, playfulness, fierceness, compassion, discernment, and a deep remembering of the fullness of what each human life can, should, and was meant to be. A native of Colorado and the former holder of an endowed chair and professor of psychiatry and pediatrics, he is currently a guide, Board Member, and Training Director of the Wild Mind Training Program at Animas. He…
Learn more about Brian Stafford, MD, MPH