Podcast appearances and mentions of bill plotkin

As we head into the solstice- that moment when the sun stands still—whether you're in the northern hemisphere where we have the longest day, or the southern, where it's the longest night—this solstice feels like a moment of transformation. The world is turning over, turning a page. The old system is visibly—palpably—breaking apart. A new system will arise from the ashes, because there is always going to be a system. The question is what it looks like, works like, feels like. We are a prosocial, communitarian species, but our culture has shattered from our knowing of our integral place in the All That Is, so it's possible we might end up with a system predicated on hatred, underpinned by fear, where a small number of incredibly frightened people let their traumatised parts run a scorched earth policy in an effort to hold back everything of which they are most afraid, but I am increasingly hopeful that what we're seeing in places is the extinction burst of the old system: its death throes if you like. As I record this, there has been an estimated turnout in the US for the No Kings rallies of between ten and twelve million. This is an astonishing number. If it's true, it's well within shouting distance of the 3.5% of the total population that was considered a tipping point in previous social movements in our recent history: the abolition of slavery in the UK, the civil rights movement in the US, gay marriage in too many nations to count. The difference is that these numbers are based on a pre-internet age. We genuinely don't know what happens when people can see the images on their phones and realise how many of the people around them share the common values of decency, compassion, integrity, generosity-of-spirit.  So if this is potentially a turning point in the making in the US, how do we make this bigger, grander, more of a global movement?  We know we need total systemic change, but how do we make it happen?  How do we create lasting change in our ways of organising everything from food to water to shelter to education. How do we sort our mess of a governance system so we can find those with the greatest wisdom and give them as much power as they need and no more, at all the levels of our culture? As ever, I think the answer lies in our narratives - when ideas become common currency, then we begin to build them into our visions of how the world is and has been and could be. If we can become bold, evolutionary imagineers and craft stories of a different way of organising, loving, relating, caring…then we can live it into being. Which means we need to know in the marrow of our bones what this feels like. Imagination begins in our perception of the possible and part of the horror of the Trauma culture is the systematic stifling of possibility. From our books to our movies to our TV to our TikTok videos, so much is predicated on Trauma Culture narratives of scarcity, separation and powerlessness.  We are told this is the way the world is. That it is human nature to  lack all morality and engage in zero sum strategies that belittle, disempower and crush everyone around us.  Which it isn't. Nonetheless, predatory Capitalism is designed to keep us from imagining things differently. If we're stressed about earning enough to survive while at the same time being hooked on the things we absolutely have to have to feel better, and are being steadily more sedated by the incessant dopamine drips of social media…then we literally cannot step out into other ways of being. So this is our task now - to wean ourselves off the stuff we neither need nor (really) want; off the dopamine drips, and onto things that make our hearts sing so we can build new stories predicated on connection, agency and sufficiency; stories where we are self-conscious nodes in the web of life, and it's our job to ask 'What do you want of me?', listen to the answers, then carry them out to the best of our ability.  That's it. Easy to say. Harder to do.  But we can boil things down to 9 basic concepts:Three Values: Integrity, Compassion, Generosity-of-SpiritThree Baselines: Clean Air, Clean Water, Clean Soil Three ReWoven Connections: between all parts of Ourselves; ourselves and Each Other; Ourselves and the Web of Life. What happens if every single thing we think or do or say or dream is based in these three sets of three? How would our days change? This isn't going to happen overnight, but we can make the commitment to live by them now. Here. This moment.  It's not going to be easy: changing behaviours never is. But we have baselines to work from.  And we might focus on one at a time.  What happens if Clean Water is our priority? How does it change how we live?  What happens if we make Integrity the heart and soul of every interaction through our days - beginning with ourselves? What does it feel like to commit to re-weaving clean, clear, courageous, compassionate connections between all parts of ourselves, ourselves and each other, ourselves and the More than Human world? Clearly I think the inner work is the foundation of everything, though I am aware that this isn't the case for everyone: if you work better in the outer world, if you'd rather lead with head than heart, that's fine, truly.  Go for it.  Find the Values that speak to you and the Baselines you can work with and go for it.  If the Inner Work speaks more to you then know that we in the west need to heal ten thousand years of Trauma Culture in half a decade. It's been at least that long for some of us since our ancestors knew themselves to be an integral part of the web of life. This is the work of the spiritual warrior. It's going to take astonishing levels of courage and commitment. Nobody is pretending this is easy.  But it is essential.And because this is the water I swim in, I'd like to share the basics of how we might get there. It starts with Grounding - with having a clear sense of our physical presence in the world, the flesh and the bones and the teeth of who we are; with sensing the solid earth beneath us as support, containment, holding, as the reality of who and what we are. When our feet are on the earth, there is nowhere left to fall. When we have a sense of roots going down into the earth, we have connection, holding and an open path from the heart of the earth to our heart. If we connect it on up to the heart-mind of the Universe, we have the three hearts in alignment. Just doing this is huge. But then, as we begin really to live in our bodies, so we can begin to recognise the places where trauma sits; the frozen places, the stuck places, the parts of ourselves that leap to our own defence - and are brilliant and wonderful and creative - but who are probably defending against threats that occurred decades ago, if not longer. We carry generational trauma, civilisational trauma. And the healing is ours to do: the good news is that there's a lot of help out there - that just as we really need it, we're beginning really to get to grips with how healing can happen. One to one work is good if you have the means: the time and the money, but many of us don't - and that doesn't mean we can't do the work.  If you'd like to work in groups there's a huge amount.  We offer Gatherings and the Membership, but there's Listen to Thomas Hübl Mystic Cafe — I'll link to his podcast Point of Relation in the show notes —Tara Brach, Michael Meade, Bill Plotkin, Jon Young…a host of others are offering online work that helps you to reconnect to yourself and the land. You have to find out what helps you best, but there's a lot out there. So we do the inner work. And in doing it, we become the still point in the whirling world that...

(Conversation recorded on September 16th, 2024)    Where have all the elders gone? As the world grapples with its unfolding economic and energy crises, it can often feel like we lack capable guides to help our societies navigate these transitions. How can we cultivate ourselves as individuals to become balanced, true adults who are fully equipped to contribute to our communities, the planet, and the massive changes ahead? In this episode, Nate is joined by eco-depth psychologist Bill Plotkin to explore the profound themes of human development, the urgent need for ecological awakening, and the importance of art and nature in navigating the crises of modern society. Plotkin also outlines his eight stages of eco-centric human development to foster a healthier future for humanity and the planet. What circumstances have led to generations of individuals stuck in psychological adolescence? What role does the concept of the soul play in shaping our life purpose? How do we implement a cultural regeneration that aligns with the natural world and the stages of human development, ultimately helping us prioritize the health of the planet, people, and all species? About Bill Plotkin: Bill Plotkin, PhD, is an eco-depth psychologist, wilderness guide, and agent of cultural regeneration. As founder of southwest Colorado's Animas Valley Institute, he has, since 1980, guided thousands of people on the journey of soul initiation and is the training director of the Soulcraft Apprenticeship and Initiation Program. He's also been a research psychologist (studying non-ordinary states of consciousness), rock musician, and white-water river guide.  In 1979, on a solo winter ascent of an Adirondack peak, Bill experienced a “call to spiritual adventure,” leading him to abandon academia in search of his true calling. He is the author of Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche (an experiential guidebook), Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World (a nature-based stage model of human development), Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche (a nature-based map of the psyche), and The Journey of Soul Initiation: A Field Guide for Visionaries, Evolutionaries, and Revolutionaries (a guidebook for the descent to soul). His doctorate in psychology is from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Visit him online at www.animas.org.   Show Notes and More Watch this episode on YouTube   ---    Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future Join our Substack newsletter Join our Discord channel and connect with other listeners  

Click here to send me a text message ...Out here, on the far side of conventional religion, no path is more compelling than the one that leads us to know our natural place within the larger earth community. And there may be no better modern guide than Bill Plotkin, the author of four books on the subject and the founder of the Animas Valley Institute. The way is called "soul initiation," which is devastating to the ego but life-giving to the soul. And it just might help save the planet.Two TipsThis episode is longer than most, so you might find it helpful to reference the Chapters tab above and listen in convenient chunks.You might also find it helpful to read along with the poem with which we begin our conversation, "What to Remember When Waking," by David Whyte. Here's a link: https://www.awakin.org/v2/read/view.php?tid=994ErrataThe notion I mistakenly attribute to Stephen Jenkinson, that true elders consider today's actions in light of their effect seven generations out, is in fact a Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) principle I had read about in Robin Wall Kimmerer's excellent book, "Braiding Sweetgrass." I regret the error. However, both Jenkinson and Bill Plotkin assume a similar point of view, that elders seek to honour both the ancestors who have gone before and the generations yet to come when considering the actions we take today.Bill's BooksSoulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche; Soulcraft; New World Library, 2003Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World; New World Library, 2008Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche; New World Library, 2013The Journey of Soul Initiation: A Field Guide for Visionaries, Evolutionaries, and Revolutionaries" New World Library, 2021The Animas Valley InstituteHome page: https://www.animas.orgPersonal LinksMy web site (where you can sign up for my blog): https://www.brianepearson.caMy email address: mysticcaveman53@gmail.comSeries Music Credit"Into the Mystic" by Van Morrison, performed by Colin James, from the album, Limelight, 2005; licensed under SOCAN 2022

'm Dom. I'm a wilderness guide, and the creator of VIVIFY.I'm on a mission to foster regenerative leadership, blending personal vitality and ecological harmony. I strive to empower individuals to live and lead in ways that enhance their own aliveness and presence and create a deep and lasting relationship with the more-than-human world.​I've had a foot in two worlds for a decade - I've led wilderness immersions in remote locations including Patagonia and Alaska, and and I've held leadership roles at climate-tech companies, serving as Chief of Staff at Terramera and Head of Product at Solara Energy. In a past life, I was also Captain of the Stanford University Golf Team.My work is inspired by the Animas Valley Institute, where I trained in the Yearlong Soulcraft Immersion with Bill Plotkin. I've also completed coach training with the Conscious Leadership Group.I live for movement in the mountains - I've skied on the tallest peaks of the lower 48, completed a solo traverse of the Southern Sierra High Route, and ridden dogsleds across the Boundary Waters. 

All wisdom traditions guide us deeper into connection with nature. Angela discusses a two-part question: What are the similarities amongst healing traditions and why are we so disconnected in the West? Learn More About: Similarities amongst Ayurveda, Daoism and Traditional Chinese Medicine Parts of Western Medicine that were once holistic The purpose and pitfall of categorizing A soulcentric perspective on moving out of consumer culture Resource mentioned: Ayurveda Encompassed: Take your understanding of Ayurveda to a new level and step into a more expansive version of yourself. Gain skills to help your clients flourish. Class starts September 16th, 2024. Free 3-Part Series on Ancient Wisdom + Modern Nuance: German New Medicine, Trauma-Informed Ayurveda and Navigating the Liminal Space Join the Simple Ayurveda newsletter Book: The Journey of Soul Initiation by Bill Plotkin

I've been following River's substack essays for a few years now and I feel a real kinship with his irreverent and genuinely unique perspectives — as well as his talent for self-experimentation and weaving together esoteric yet incredibly practical concepts which he uses for self-exploration.In this conversation, you can expect to learn:

Subscribe, Rate, & Review on YouTube • Spotify • Apple Podcasts✨ About This EpisodeHow can we design virtuous technologies while acknowledging the complexity and unintended consequences of technological innovation?How can we foster curiosity, playfulness, and wonder in a world increasingly dominated by anxiety and technological determinism?This week on Future Fossils (as a teaser for the kind of conversations I am having for my upcoming spin-off Humans On The Loop), I meet with Stockholm-based transdisciplinary technologist, facilitator, complexity researcher, founder of The Psychedelic Society, and once upon a time the youngest-ever board member of Greenpeace UK, Stephen Reid to discuss the importance of taking a more values-driven approach to technology development. Stephen and I agree that it's crucial to consider the potential consequences of technological advancements and to promote a more thoughtful approach to innovation…but for the sake of playing with tension, he places more of an emphasis on our capacity for axiological design whereas I feel more of a need to point out that the rapid evolution of technology can outpace our ability to predict its consequences, troubling efforts to design an enduringly sustainable future. One thing we agree on, and model in this episode, is the value of deeper conversations about the role of technology in society…and how to integrate their transformative potentials.PS — I'm guest lecturing for Stephen's upcoming four-week course on Technological Metamodernism soon, along with Alexander Beiner and Hanzi Freinacht and Ellie Hain and Rufus Pollock. We'll engage critically with ideas like Daniel Schmachtenberger's axiological design and Vitalik Buterin's d/acc. As usual I'm probably the odd duck in this lineup, going hard on epistemic humility and the injunction of digital media to effect a transformation of the modern self-authoring ego into networked, permeable, transjective sub-agencies arising spontaneously and fluidly from fundamentally noncomputable interactions of rapid information flows... Anyway, the point is we'd love to have you join us and sink your teeth into these discussions! I absolutely promise to bring up voting cyborg ecotopes. Big thanks to Stephen for inviting me to play!PPS — Here is another really good, very different conversation between me and Stephen and Alistair Langer on Alistair's show Catalyzing Radical Systems Change.(Editorial Correction: It was Mike Tyson, not Muhammad Ali, who said "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.")✨ Support This Work• Hire me as a consultant or advisor• Become a patron on Substack or Patreon• Help me find backers for Humans On The Loop• Buy the books we discuss from my Bookshop reading list• Buy original paintings and prints or commission new work• Join the conversation in the Holistic Technology & Wise Innovation and Future Fossils Discord servers• Buy the show's music on Bandcamp — intro “Olympus Mons” from the Martian Arts EP & outro “Sonnet A” from the Double-Edged Sword EP• Make one-off donations at @futurefossils on Venmo, $manfredmacx on CashApp, or @michaelgarfield on PayPal✨ Chapters(0:00:00-0:10:29) Stephen's Background and Interests in Technology and Metamodernism (0:10:29-0:18:03) Navigating the Complex Relationship Between Technology and Human Values (0:18:03-0:25:18) The Limits of Axiological Design and the Importance of Community Oversight (0:25:18-0:34:29) Defining and Defending Axiological Design (0:34:29-0:45:03) Exploring Alternative Governance Structures: Guilds and Rites of Passage (0:45:03-0:56:36) Vitalik Buterin's "Defensive Decentralized Accelerationism" (0:56:36-1:06:04) Integrating Humor and Recognizing Irony in the Technosphere(1:06:04-1:12:17) Recovering Awe, Curiosity, and Playfulness in a Tech-Saturated World (1:12:17- 1:12:56) Finding Lightness in the Face of Existential Questions (1:12:56-1:13:28) Exploring The Future and A Call to Action✨ MentionsIain McGilchrist, Daniel Schmachtenberger, Hanzi Freinacht, Josh Schrei, Ken Wilber, Vitalik Buterin, Bayo Akomolafe, Cory Doctorow, Nora Bateson, Dave Snowden, W. Brian Arthur, J. F. Martel, Stafford Beer, Rene Descartes, Bill Plotkin, Joe Edelman, Ellie Hain, Douglas Rushkoff, Robert Kegan, Aldous Huxley, Andrés Gomez Emilsson✨ Select Related Episodes (also available as a Spotify playlist)223 - Timothy Morton, 220 - Austin Wade-Smith219 - Joshua Schrei217 - Gregory Landua and Speaker John Ash214 - Megan Phipps, JF Martel, Phil Ford213 - Amber Case, Michael Zargham212 - Geoffrey West, Manfred Laubichler187 - Kevin Welch, David Hensley178 - Chris Ryan176 - Richard Doyle, Sophie Strand, Sam Gandy174 - Evan Snyder172 - Tyson Yunkaporta166 - Anna Riedl165 - Kevin Kelly163 - Toby Kiers, Brandon Quittem141 - Nora Bateson122 - Magenta Ceiba109 - Bruce Damer094 - Mark Nelson086 - Onyx Ashanti080 - George Dvorsky076 - Technology as Psychedelic Parenting066 - John Danaher060 - Sean Esbjörn-Hargens056 - Sophia Rokhlin051 - Daniel Schmachtenberger050 - Ayana Young042 - William Irwin Thompson017 - Tibet Sprague This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit michaelgarfield.substack.com/subscribe

Ben is the author of the phenomenal new book: The Way Home: Discovering the Hero's Journey to Wholeness at Midlife. I was really excited to talk to Ben because the hero's journey has been a framework that I still use myself as a way of orienting and meaning making. Ben shares how his own life has been a series of spiraling journeys, embodying the hero's path.In this conversation, you can expect to learn: 

Leah Kostamo, a counselor and spiritual director, discusses the ways in which her helping practices integrate and collaborate with nature. She emphasizes the shared meaning of caring for creation as a way of joining in God's work and finding hope thereby. In her musings about self-care and creation care, she emphasizes the ways that nature can heal us. She also highlights the growing recognition in psychology of the role of nature in the healing process. Connecting with nature is, she points out, also a way for pushing back against climate despair.Also, just a quick heads up: If you'd rather, you can actually WATCH this episode with Leah Kostamo on YouTube! Go to YouTube and search: "Earthkeepers podcast" or click the link HERE.Leah Kostamo's website and counseling serviceLeah's work at A RochaMentionsA Rocha CanadaYour Brain on Nature (book and website)Bill Plotkin, Animas Valley InstituteHuman-Nature Counselling SocietyTakeaways·      Caring for creation is a shared meaning among Christians and a way of joining in with God's work.·      Nature has a healing power and can reduce stress and anxiety.·      There is a growing recognition in psychology of the importance of nature in healing and well-being.·      Guides are needed to help people reconnect with nature and learn to listen, receive, and connect again. Connecting with nature can provide a container for processing deep emotions and wounds.·      Parents can support their children who are struggling with climate despair by listening and learning from them.·      Being present in nature and practicing mindfulness can help cultivate a deeper connection with creation.·      The church can play a role in mediating nature and providing opportunities for people to connect with creation.Keywords: Leah Kostamo, counselor, spiritual director, A Rocha, Christian environmental organization, conservation, creation care, shared meaning, hope, encouragement, healing power of nature, self-care, psychology, guides, reconnect with nature, nature, climate despair, hope, parenting, listening, learning, presence, church, creation careFind us on our website: Earthkeepers Support the Earthkeepers podcast Check out the Ecological Disciple

In this episode we discuss the following books: The Last Ranger: a novel by Peter Heller; Soul Craft: crossing into the mysteries of nature and psyche by Bill Plotkin; Darcy Myth: Jane Austen, literary heartthrobs and the monsters they taught us to love; Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange; Ariel Crashes a Train by Olivia A. Cole; There's Always Next Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib; Sapiens: a brief history of humankind by Yuval N. Harari; Sapiens: a graphic history. Volume one, The birth of humankind by Yuval N. Harari, Light Bringer by Pierce Brown (a Red Rising novel). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest for this episode is  the wild and wonderful Danielle Dulsky. Danielle is the author of The Holy Wild, Seasons of Moon and Flame, Woman Most Wild, The Holy Wild Grimoire, and most recently, Bones & Honey: A Heathen Prayer Book. A heathen visionary, painter, poet, storyteller, and word-witch, Danielle teaches internationally and has facilitated circles, embodiment trainings, communal spell work, and seasonal rituals since 2007. She is the founder of The Hag School, and believes in the emerging power of wild collectives and sudden circles of curious dreamers, cunning witches, and rebellious artists in healing our ailing world.On this episode we discuss:Her formative experiences in a fundamentalist Christian church, and why she believes we choose the families that will wound us in exactly the right way for our own growthHow she met the Goddess during time spent in Ireland as a young womanWhat it means for her to embrace the term "heathen," and how she sees it as living on "untamed spiritual ground"How she came to know the Goddess a trickster and fringe dweller, and what shifts when we embrace her in this way - as opposed to a victim of oppressive patriarchyPlus Danielle reads two beautiful prayers from her latest book, Bones and Honey! Show Notes If you'd like to know whose ancestral tribal lands you currently reside on, you can look up your address here: https://native-land.ca/You can also visit the Coalition of Natives and Allies for more helpful educational resources about Indigenous rights and history.Please – if you love this podcast and/or have read my book, please consider leaving me a review, and thank you for supporting my work!You can watch this and other podcast episodes at the Home to Her YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@hometoherYou can learn more about Danielle and her work at her websites: https://danielledulsky.com/ and  https://www.thehagschool.com/. Danielle's latest book is Bones and Honey: A Heathen Prayer Book.During this episode, Danielle mentioned the book Mysteries of the Dark Moon, by Demetra George. She also mentioned the work of depth pyschologist Bill Plotkin and philosopher Bayo Akomolafe.I referenced the activist Valarie Kaur, and specifically her "Breathe and Push" speech. You can watch it here (I've watched this so many times and every time I end in tears): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCenwgheIBs  Favorite quote from this episode: "The ancestors are in us, whether we want them there or not. We are the living ancestral altar."  For more Sacred Feminine goodness and to stay up to date on all episodes, please follow me on Instagram: @hometoher.To dive into conversation about the Sacred Feminine, join the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hometoher To go deeper in your Sacred Feminine explorations, check out the course offerings via Home to Her Academy: www.hometoheracademy.com And to read about the Sacred Feminine, check out my award-winning book Home to Her: Walking the Transformative Path of the Sacred Feminine (Womancraft Publishing), available wherever you buy your books!. If you've read it, your reviews on Goodreads and Amazon are greatly appreciated!

After days, weeks, even years of preparation, each Vision Quester headed off for a three-day solo fast on a mountainside in Southwestern Colorado. Every experience was unique. But everyone had an experience, a Soul Encounter, that awakened us to our place in the Universe. Here, Vincenzo Falone and I tell our own stories of going solo.Links to Vincenzo FalonePersonal and Group Mentoring: https://liveinfullexpression.comThe ManKind Project: https://mkpusa.org/crossroads/Links to the Animas Valley Institutehttps://www.animas.orgBooks by Bill Plotkin (all books published by New World Library)"Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche," 2003"Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World," 2008"Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche," 2013"The Journey of Soul Initiation: A Field Guide Visionaries, Revolutionaries, and Revolutionaries," 2021Personal LinksMy web site (where you can sign up for my blog): https://www.brianepearson.caMy email address: mysticcaveman53@gmail.comSeries Music Credit"Into the Mystic" by Van Morrison, performed by Colin James, from the album, Limelight, 2005; licensed under SOCAN 2022

Eleven days camping on a Colorado mountainside, three of those days a solo fast, seeking an encounter with Nature that might grant us a vision of our mythopoetic identities, our unique place in the Universe: it would have been an ambitious undertaking for someone half our age. But somehow Vincenzo Falone, from New Jersey, and I, a Canadian from Alberta, felt drawn to be there, both of us in our late sixties (and one of us pushing seventy rather hard). This is the story of what got us there. Links to Vincenzo FalonePersonal and Group Mentoring: https://liveinfullexpression.comThe ManKind Project: https://mkpusa.org/crossroads/Links to the Animas Valley Institutehttps://www.animas.orgBooks by Bill Plotkin (all books published by New World Library)"Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche," 2003"Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World," 2008"Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche," 2013"The Journey of Soul Initiation: A Field Guide Visionaries, Revolutionaries, and Revolutionaries," 2021Personal LinksMy web site (where you can sign up for my blog): https://www.brianepearson.caMy email address: mysticcaveman53@gmail.comSeries Music Credit"Into the Mystic" by Van Morrison, performed by Colin James, from the album, Limelight, 2005; licensed under SOCAN 2022

Kent Dobson guides through wanderings and wonderings, mystery and myth, and a deep question or paradox. Kent has a long history of teaching, whether that's leading in a classroom or on a stage, speaking on his podcast Hints and Guesses, writing a book like "Bitten by a Camel", facilitating a wilderness intensive, or guiding a pilgrimage to Israel. SHOWNOTES:KentDobson.comHis Book - Bitten by a CamelHis Podcast - Hints and GuessesKent at Failure LabHis Final Teaching "A Thing Ripened" at C3 in Grand Haven, MichiganEd Dobson's Book - The Year of Living Like JesusBill Plotkin's Book - Wild Mind: a Field Guide to the Human PsycheSupport the show

This week on Sea Change Radio, we dig into the archives to hear from someone who works to amplify first people's voices in the fight for climate justice. We speak with the Executive Director of Indigenous Climate Action, Eriel Deranger. We discuss the intersection of the indigenous people's and the Black Lives Matter movements, take … Continue reading Eriel Deranger + Bill Plotkin → This article and podcast Eriel Deranger + Bill Plotkin appeared first on Sea Change Radio.

For me, a lot of my adventures and career shifts came while wandering, being open to what the universe showed me and the serendipitous events that arose.Some of you know I was a climbing guide for a decade, and that would have never crossed my mind as an option I'd come up with thinking about careers in my head! I was on track to get my degree in psychology then go to grad school for my PhD.But one day, a guy I was teaching a beginner's rock climbing course with said, “Hey, you should apply to Outward Bound.”I never thought I could do that, but I applied and got the job. The youngest woman ever hired by that branch at the time. And that led to more jobs. Then, voila! Climbing guide.Or like when I did an ice climbing clinic in Ouray, Colorado and wandered into a group of women who signed up for a program with a life coach and I was like, what's that? And I called the coach up and asked where she studied to be a coach and voila! Life coach!So yeah. Wandering is the shit!One of the things that I was introduced to during my yearlong apprenticeship with Bill Plotkin and Sage Magdalene is ETCs, or “experiential threshold crossings.” ETCs are practices for embodying our mythopoetic identity before we're ready to choose a delivery system for our unique Soul purpose. This could be a career, a practice for creativity, a free offering to your community…These practices reshape our Ego to be a channel for that identity. They bridge the transcendental experience we had and this future delivery system to embody your Soul as a gift to others.I've found that most of the time we need to get clear through action - get out of our heads and stop thinking that we can think our way to clarity and instead get out there and DO shit to get more clear.Wander.The gift of wandering really need to be embraced, because one of the most profound and enriching gifts we can give ourselves is the freedom to explore, question, and navigate the myriad options that shape our purpose.That word - purpose - carries a lot of weight for many of us. We long for it because until it's clear, we often feel untethered, searching for direction.And because modern industrialized society isn't set up to help us discover it, it's elusive. It would rather we stay obedient cogs in the corporate wheel. This environment makes seeking our purpose both an inspiring adventure AND a potential source of seep suffering and frustration.It's in this kind of labyrinth of choices that I really started to resonate with a quote from poet Ranier Maria Rilke, “Live the question.” Rilke encourages us to embrace the ambiguity and uncertainty of this epic adventure!When we're exploring our purpose, it's essential that we start asking lots of questions - deep ones that do more than just keep us on the surface. And instead of rushing to answers, we want to try to savor the questions themselves, because that is true exploration.This gives us the gift of curiosity. We learn to view uncertainty and not knowing as an opportunity for growth and discovery.But here's the paradox: when we see a bunch of paths to walk down, the pressure to choose one can be overwhelming.What if, instead of being restricted to a single destiny, we allowed ourselves to explore all the things? What if we took the time to wander and explore?But there's resistance to this, right? We sort of judge wandering as purposeless meandering through life. It suggests a lack of direction.What if we reconsidered wandering as a form of purpose in itself? What if the act of exploring without a predetermined destination held its own value?This doesn't mean wandering has to be aimless. It can be more of a dance, be open to what arises, which can often lead us to the unexpected - and surprisingly delightful - discoveries.As for getting clear about our purpose, it's good to have a beginner's mind and be willing to adapt and shift with the skandas of life, the ebb and flow of our evolving purpose. This helps us not get stuck in some box of rigid goals.It helps us discover the inability to reinvent ourselves and our purpose as new things are revealed to us. It helps us discover our authentic selves.I found this was - actually, IS -  so true for me as I peel away layers of conditioning to discover even more layers of authenticity that lie deeper than I ever imagined. It's a really cool process.Another important piece to this is being patient - with both our wandering and our perspective about our purpose. This frees us from comparison and expectation. We also no longer seek to fulfill the dreams of others but to live authentically.In the end, I've found that our purpose unfolds over time, weaving together the threads of our life's journey. Like what I did always seemed to take some threads from what I did before (and now).This process gives us permission to evolve, to make mistakes, and to grow. We learn to appreciate the imperfections and detours, recognizing that they are integral to our journey.Finding a balance between action and patience allows us to navigate our purpose with intention and commitment. We learn to discern when to pause and when to move forward.So how can we begin to incorporate the wisdom of living the question into our daily lives? I could go on and on about this, but here are some suggestions to start:Consider shadowing someone in a field you're interested in.Plan time to adventure and meet new people and have conversations - you never know what will arise!Allow quiet time for reflection and insight. Either through daily time or a solo camping trip or even a longer-term program like the Adventure Mastermind.(Be sure to check out the full Episode for more ways we can “live the question” daily)No matter what you choose to do, get out there and wander - remember not all who wander are lost! AND if you're feeling lost, that's totally cool too because the goal is to live the question and get comfortable with not knowing the answers, right? You will learn:// How wandering helps us connect with our Soul Purpose// Why we should lean in to the unknown// The truth about the gift of wandering// How adjusting our expectations can help us receive these gifts// Ways we can begin to “live the question” in our daily livesResources:// Episode 42: Being Multi-Passionate// Episode 71: How to Find Your Purpose// Episode 99: Rebel Purpose// If you want to engage and commit to this path for a longer term experience, visit AdventureMastermind.com to get on the waitlist to be the first to hear about the next dates and locations. (P.S. If you've already done the mastermind, stay tuned for a special alumni retreat. We'll pick up right where we left off and dive even deeper!)// If you're new to the squad, grab the Rebel Buddhist Toolkit I created at RebelBuddhist.com. It has all you need to start creating a life of more freedom, adventure, and purpose. You'll also get access to the Rebel Buddhist private group, and tune in every Wednesday as I go live with new inspiration and topics. // Want something more self-paced with access to weekly group support and getting coached by yours truly? Check out Freedom School – the community for ALL things related to freedom, inside and out. Plus, we have entire months devoted to wisdom and compassion. Learn more at JoinFreedomSchool.com. I can't wait to see you there!

I first heard the term psychospiritual descent to soul from Bill Plotkin, eco-depth philosopher and SoulCraft Guide who has dedicated the last 40 years of his life guiding people through nature-based soul descent. In the introduction of his book, Journey to Soul Initiation, he refers to himself as a "Cocoon Weaver", apprenticed by the archetype of Death. Reading Plotkin's work for the first time a year and a half ago was a homecoming of resonance. He languages the rite of passage of the psychospiritual descent to soul like no other I've read. In this episode of the Kinspirit podcast, I share five practical things to consider while moving through soul descent. If this episode finds you at just the right moment, I pray it supports you and reminds you of what's awaiting you on the other side. Mentioned in this episode: ⁠Women Who Run with Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes⁠ ⁠Descent & Rising: Women's Stories and the Embodiment of the Inanna Myth by Carly Mountain⁠ ⁠Nature and the Human Soul by Bill Plotkin⁠ ⁠Journey to Soul Initiation by Bill Plotkin⁠ Learn more about Thresholdkeeper Retreat: Thresholdkeeper is a midsummer, threshold-crossing respite for healers and medicine keepers in the redwood forests of Mendocino, CA taking place on July 27 - 30. This is a retreat for the ones who hear the unmistakable call to surrender to the wisdom of the Pysche's Song. It is for those who know that their life's work is to traverse the deep world – the liminal spaces of mystery, death, change, birth, and initiation – in order to gather the ingredients of the medicines they know will serve their people in these times of immense cultural change. Thresholdkeeper is for those who honor that the path of becoming is not rainbows and fairies, but the daily work of firmly walking upon rich, dark soil of a changing Earth. Learn more about the Thresholdkeeper Retreat at ⁠www.thresholdkeeper.info⁠

Steve McKenzie joins us for Season 1 of Birdsong (2021). Steve (Soulpaths Founder) is a trained Vision Quest facilitator and Vision Quest protector trainer (Stalking Wolf lineage, New Jersey). He is a Family Constellations facilitator (Margarete Koenning) and provides group workshops, as well as one-one constellation work. He is an Ontological Coach (Newfield Institute) and provides personal nature-based mentoring. He conducts Sweat Lodges and Ancestor Circles at a variety of gatherings and venues, including his base at Kupidabin Wilderness, near Samford (QLD, AUS). Steve also works with similarly-minded men to deliver Men's Soul Connection weekends. He understands the relevance and place for ceremony and ritual, connection with Nature, living our life purpose, earth spirituality, shamanism, sacredness, consciousness, working with ancestors, Elderhood, ancient wisdom, and inner transformation. He has deep respect for the First Nation peoples and Ancestors of this land and ensures such ceremonies honour and acknowledge the peoples and the Spirits. Connect with Steve: www.soulpaths.com.au   TIMESTAMPS: [5:55] A tiny little cricket on Vision Quest changed Steve's life… [9:45] Horse riding through Mongolia inspired Steve to live in a yurt for three years [16:00] Perceptual shifts from living in a traditional spherical dwelling vs square shaped buildings [20:08] Why the initial trip to Mongolia? [24:37] Feeling the call to adventure - Steve's initial Vision Quest and Stalking Wolf training [27:57] Sitting alone in a three meter circle in the wilderness, for four days, with no food [30:34] Approaching the rhythms of nature and observing the little things [32:45] Distractions, fixating on time and tracking the movement of the sun [34:39] Opening the heart to the medicine of the tiny little cricket [39:04] Ancestral spirits, spirit beings, and the spirit world [41:52] The journey of the soul & Bill Plotkin's eco-soul-centric model of initiation [50:55] Everyone has their own unique gift to share with the world [55:25] Clearing the atmospheric fog of conditioning to see the glimmers of gold within [57:41] What is your archetypal soul name? [59:00] Holding space at the base camp while people are out Questing [1:01:07] There are energetic concentric rings that ripple out from every single event [1:07:36] Shamanic ways of knowing and supernatural / extrasensory modes of perception [1:11:34] Questing in a group setting vs Questing by one's self [1:16:00] Musings on ancestral trauma and baggage

After I had my daughter, Maia, I found it really challenging to meditate. It just felt like there weren't enough hours in the day to do all the things I wanted to do, like spending time on personal growth and spiritual practice. Then, I remembered all these Tibetan Buddhist stories of teachers receiving dharma talks in their dreams, and I knew that the Tibetan traditions of dream yoga in particular has been practiced and cultivated over centuries. It can be a powerful tool for awakening. My solution? To try dream yoga! (Leave it to me to not just sleep lol!). We spend a third of our life sleeping, and in many cultures throughout the world, this part of our lives holds a state of consciousness that can help us with personal insight and spiritual growth. We dream for hours during our sleep too - at least 2 hours on average.  It's a fertile place for practice … but hard to learn. I won't dive into Tibetan dream yoga practices here, but let's start this journey together by talking about dreamwork in general, and how we can use our dreams to help us on our path, starting tonight! When we use dreams for Soul work, we operate on the premise that every dream is an opportunity to develop our relationship to soul - to who we are beneath our surface personalities and routine habits. Dreams are one of the main ways our Soul speaks to and guides us. So we can approach them with gentleness, reverence, and an open mind, which is essential to powerful dreamwork. Dreamwork can also interact in complex and synergistic ways with other pathways to the soul. This is why it's only one of the many tools we play with on the Adventure Mastermind. For example, dreams can add energy to ceremony, or inform next steps to take after an altered states journey.  In general, there are 3 types of dreams. While not all of them necessarily offer a deep level of Soul guidance, they are fruitful places to explore. One type of dream is the decompression dream: these are the ones that your brain generates to digest and work through what's gone on during the previous day. These dreams are more surface, touching on superficial things. An example of this might be seeing a picture of a vacation or adventure you took with an ex, so somehow they or that adventure popped up in your dream, or you were studying for an exam and dream about that topic. Psyche dreams are generated by our … psyche (!) and tend to be charged with some kind of emotion. After a dream like this, you may feel anxious, angry, erotic, scared, or any other kind of emotion. Psyche dreams invite us to understand something or work a particular issue out. An example of this is like when we wake up from a dream feeling pissed at our partner for something they did in our dream (but not IRL!). The third dream type is a sacred dream. These are more rare and may only happen a few times in our whole life. These dreams can feel more real than our waking life, which is similar to how we may feel after a psychedelic or altered states experience. They're said to be direct revelations from your soul. There are tons of ways that we can approach dreamwork, but here, I want to cover just a few: seeing dreams objectively, subjectively, and archetypally. Objective dreamwork takes an approach that relates to the “reality” of our waking life, like a more surface analysis.This mostly works best with decompression-type dreams. When we're doing “Soulcentric dreamwork,” as Bill Plotkin says, we don't use this approach very much because it's more superficial. We don't get into the unknown and underworld and all those juicy depths. Subjective dreamwork does the opposite. We take a u-turn and instead of analyzing our dreams for what they mean about external things in our everyday life, we reflect back on ourselves. In this approach, everything in a dream is thought to represent a part of the ego or self instead of things from the dayworld: our sub-personalities, traumas, attitudes, wounds, and potentials… This dreamwork gives us a chance to integrate all these different parts of psyches, which is what the Soul yearns for. Archetypal also sees the contents of the dream as being part of the self, but it also brings in the collective unconscious. It brings in archetypal symbols and myths and patterns like the hero/heroine journey, birth, death, and archetypes of the huntress, healer, mother, father, etc. The cool thing is that you get to choose which one of these approaches resonates with you the most depending on a given dream. And when it comes to archetypal dreamwork, you also can have more of a free-association approach with symbols. How can we actually apply these approaches to our dreams every night? // First, we can check out what type of dream we had and choose which approach we will use. // I also recommend dedicating a journal to your dreamwork. Use it to record your dreams. Maybe find a way for you to verbally record your dreams when they happen and then write it down later, if you need to. Journal in as much or as little detail as you want, but remember that details can be so helpful. (Check out the full episode of the podcast for some prompts to help you get started) // Try to focus on what a symbol in a dream means to you before you try to look outside of yourself in a book for what it might mean. You can start with free association and just blurt out what arises when you think of the symbol. Be sure to not censor your thoughts and feelings. Let it flow! Remember that your dreams have unique and highly personal meanings that only you can truly understand. For example, some may say that red symbolizes anger. But in some cultures, red can symbolize power, celebration, fertility, prosperity, and repelling evil. Those are going to potentially be very different interpretations of the color red.  So trust your associations with your dreams the most. Use YOUR intuition. // I also want to remind you to have an attitude of non-judgement and curiosity. Resist the desire to filter things out, or judge or repress. The more open we are to whatever arises, the more we will understand the meaning of our dreams. // Consider what the dream might mean if every symbol was a part of your psyche - showing up in a way to help make you aware of something that wants to be seen and known. // Finally, remember that “the only way out is through.” When challenging dreams emerge, we can learn and heal so much by going toward the difficult moments. Today, I want to invite you to set an intention to remember your dreams as you fall asleep. Committing to a dream journal will help you remember as well. Then play with this by taking one dream you remember and go through the process above, no matter how silly or what kind of dream it is. Use the subjective approach, and ask yourself, “If everyone and everything and every experience in the dream is a part of me, what am I to know or learn from this?”  Every dream is a gift for exploring our unconscious mind in an adventurous, compassionate way.  You will learn:// How dreams can show us hidden truths about ourselves// How dreams impact the decisions we make and the way we show up in the world // The 3 types of dreams, and which ones can help offer our Soul guidance// Different ways we can approach dreamwork// Some tips and questions to help you get started and curious about your dreamwork Resources:// Episode 145: Your Wild Mind – The West and Our Shadows // If you're new to the squad, grab the Rebel Buddhist Toolkit I created at RebelBuddhist.com. It has all you need to start creating a life of more freedom, adventure, and purpose. You'll also get access to the Rebel Buddhist private group, and tune in every Wednesday as I go live with new inspiration and topics.  // Want something more self-paced with access to weekly group support? Check out Freedom School – the community for ALL things related to freedom, inside and out. Learn more at JoinFreedomSchool.com. I can't wait to see you there!

This is ''Pathways of Teshuvah, Part 3 - How Do We Move Forward, Together?'' This recording is part 3 of a 3-part discussion with breakthrough academic, Dr. Pesach Chananiah, and youth mentor / gardener / veteran, Mr. Marcus Kar, on reconnecting to Nature for sacred communion and emotional wellbeing. In this segment, Dr. Chananiah and Mr. Kar share on how to apply their Nature-reconnection learnings to modern life. About Our Guests  Dr. Pesach Chananiah (author) is a Jewish ecopsychologist, educator, and community organizer working in interfaith and environmental spaces. He writes about the psychological impact of disconnection from land, through a Jewish lens, and explores modes of healing through embodied spiritual practice in the natural world. Read his paper, Pathways of Teshuvah, on AllCreation.org.  Marcus Kar (special guest) is a decorated veteran and a native of “North” Minneapolis, a predominantly African-descent (African-American) community struggling to overcome racism, economic poverty, and other forms of America's institutional biases. Marcus is program director at Youth Farm, North Minneapolis, “a multi-faceted youth development organization growing food and young leaders, healthy bodies and minds, positive identity, neighborhood connections, community opportunities, and healthy relationships.” Program0:00 Dropping into the session: a final summary.                We are exploring 4 quotes and 4 keywords,                 re: Place, Possibility, Universal, Indigenous       0:30 Rav. Korngold quote (place)        0:50 Rav. Comin quote (possibility)         1:20 Dr. Channaniah quote (universal)        2:00 Dr. Channaniah quote (indigenous)2:25 Dr. Chananiah         2:55 Sharing “hitbodedut“ (Hebrew term for “alone time for spiritual purpose“) with kids        3:55 Were always moving so fast, right?… but, when I can get out into the wilderness…         5:05 Sharing & exploring the things all humans share: Earth, lands, food, dreams …6:15 Do you have more of a sense indigeneity today? 6:49 Dr. Chananiah         > Going Lech Lecha (Hebrew term for “Go! Leave! Go for you.“)        > Eco-awakening: Bill Plotkin, Nature and the Human Soul        9:00 10 years of exploring Nature & the human psyche        9:30 Nature immersion essential for middle-childhood health and development, and the psyche 10:30 Does Nature-Connection bring a stronger sense of identity, Life skills, kinship, process-awareness?11:30 Mr. Kar         “The impact of Nature on everyone is the same.“        “My kids are learning how to process their feelings in green spaces,“ but camping is not safe for Black people. I'm trying to get rid of that. (paraphrased)         13:30 Giving kids today the tools to process their feelings and Grow Everything (plants, foods, relationships, community, possibilities,,, everything)        14:05 Marcus's wish for this audience14:30 Marcus & Pesach sign-off with gratitude15:20 Official wrap-up         > Pesach's paper: http://www.allcreation.org/home/pathways        > Marcus's interview: http://www.allcreation.org/home/marcus-kar        > Envisioning Transformation: http://www.allcreation.org/home/winter-2022        > AllCreation.org: http://www.allcreation.org        > BioIntegrity https://www.biointegrity.net/

Summary: Alasdair shares the mysterious events that have led him to journey to the Sonoran Desert to participate in a vision quest.Mentioned on this episode:Animas Valley InstituteFAR OUT #74 ~ Exploring Ayahuasca: Drinking it for the First Time Support this podcast:Discount link to purchase organic, raw ceremonial-grade cacao ethically sourced in Guatemala (a portion of proceeds support this podcast)Become a patron at: https://www.patreon.com/thefaroutcoupleMake one-time donation with PayPal (our account is aplambeck22@gmail.com)Leave a review on iTunes!Share this episode with a friend! :DConnect with us:Website: www.thefarout.lifeEmail us at info@thefarout.lifeWild Within @ www.thewildwithin.orgCredits:Intro music: "Complicate ya" by Otis McDonaldOutro music: "Running with wise fools" written & performed by Krackatoa (www.krackatoa.com)

As we conclude our journey through the thirteen keys for self-reconnection and balance, Ceryn invites you to consider those ideas of Human and Soul, and what they really mean. All too often in these spiritually-focussed circles, we see our human selves being diminished and painted as less than the soulful side of us; but the truth is that both are vital. It is only within the synergy of the two that we are able to find a true sense of the sacred in ourselves and our lives. But how do we do that? The answer to that might just come in the form of our 13th key, grounding. Dive in while we explore all this and more.Episode NotesWithin this episode, Ceryn mentions the book Wake Up Mother which she is involved with. To learn more about Wake Up Mother, visit the project website.Meanwhile, Ceryn also references two other books, specifically:Eyes Wide Open by Mariana CaplanSoulcraft by Bill Plotkin.The Divine Feminist will be taking a break after this episode. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to be amongst the first to know when we return. In the meantime, if you'd like to stay up to date with Ceryn and her work, check out the following:The Divine Feminist on InstagramCeryn's website, including links to her social media profilesProject Earthwork, which offers live monthly sessions on YouTubeLove Light and Bullshit Bingo, the podcast Ceryn offers with Yolandi Boshoff.If you would like to order one of Ceryn's Soul Integration Readings, do so before 14th March 2023 to enjoy the current package and pricing. Music is Start Again by Alex Beroza, copyright Alex(2014), sourced through YouTube and available to hear in full here. Finally, if you enjoy The Divine Feminist and would like to buy Ceryn a Ko-fi, you can do that here.

This is the final episode in our 4-part series on our Wild Minds, based on the book of the same name by Bill Plotkin. If you missed any of the previous parts, I'd encourage you to check them all out - links in the resources! This week, we're talking about the West, where the mystery and the qualities of Soul lie. I love the depths, mystery, and romance with the Divine that are available to us in the West. The West is where the sun sets, bringing us into the night, and the darkness. In the same way, it brings us into the darkness of our psyche, turning us inward and wondering about the meaning of things within ourselves. It's often paired with mystery and shadow. Think of the repressed, “forbidden,” unconscious pieces of the psyche. Those are in the West – and while they may seem intimidating, they are also juicy AF. Why do I find the West so delicious, when it has to do with things like darkness, fear, death, grief, or the unknown? And why even begin this journey into the Mystery? In the facet of the West, we can glimpse and be taken over by the version of who we were meant to be in this lifetime. This “death” of sorts of our prevoius selves allows us to reshape, like a caterpillar dissolving so we can eventually express our true identity, like a butterfly. This facet of the West can be called our Inner Beloved, Muse, Soul Guide...I personally identify my work as a Guide in the West as being a Soul Midwife. When we experience love in the West it's like romance... like that profound love you feel that you just know you're totally screwed when you feel it. Bill Plotkin says it promises to “devastate us in all the right ways,” and I have found that to be 100% true. This romance isn't just with another human - it's being entranced by sunsets and sunrises, raging rivers and babbling brooks, raunchy dance parties under the stars and the delicate flutter of ballet slippers. It being in love with ALL of it. The growth that takes place in the West isn't easy. In fact, it's usually scary AF. It shakes us to our core. But when we finally surrender to what's possible in the West, we see the futility of the way we've been doing things, of our default ways of being. We feel exposed, vulnerable, and READY. In this way, the West is also a place of deep change. The West also holds our intuition, our deep imagination - recognizing and appreciating things that can't be seen with our normal eyes, while also conceptualizing and taking initiative. All of this is (ironically) lost in “Western” culture - or more accurately, in modern industrialized society - leaving us disconnected from nature's ways and undermining the health and survival of humanity, other species, and the Earth's environments. Our wild imagination and the depths of the West have to be suppressed to keep the industrial wheel turning at the rate it currently is, and we are paying the price for it. If we compare the East with the West, the East gets “high” with the universal. It wants to ascend to the heights and get the meta view. It connects with the Spirit and our place within the universe. The West gravitates toward the individual, the unique, and gets down in the shadowy darkness to explore in detail. It connects with the Soul and our own unique identity and purpose. Both of these - the Spirit and the Soul - are necessary parts of our spiritual paths. Now, what about the sub-personalities of the West (aka “subs”)? What happens when we come from a wounded place in the West? The subs of the West can be called our Shadows. Most of our Shadows are actually valuable resources that were unconsciously banished or repressed during childhood and early adolescence in an attempt to keep us safe, by winning acceptance from our family or society. This doesn't mean it was successful at that. It just means it tried, and this was necessary in order to form a more socially accepted personality - your first identity. There are many ways our Shadows can appear - the Sinister Shadow and the Golden Shadow, for example. The Sinister Shadow can appear in our dreams, or it can be projected. For example, people of one nation or ethnicity may project “evil” onto another group. Or someone with a repressed sexuality may believe others to be … slutty. I think of the phrase, “the pot calling the kettle black,” here. The Golden Shadow has traits that our Egos think of as “too positive” to be ours. Like certain talent, or creative abilities, or qualities like generosity or compassion or intelligence. “I could NEVER be like that!” Maybe these came about because we were abandoned or punished as children if we expressed these qualities. Or our parents considered them inappropriate because they felt uncomfortable or jealous. Whatever the reason, we abandoned it as a possibility for us. What's tricky about all of our Shadows is that by definition, they are unknown to us. They're not conscious processes that we're actively trying to hide, like trying to look courageous when really we're scared shitless. Rather, the shadow is what is true about us that we don't even know ourselves. And if someone pointed it out, we'd probably seriously deny it ;) But like other subs, these Shadows exist to protect us. So, they're worth getting to know. So how can we identify our Shadows if – by definition – they're unconscious? We can start to see signs that something might be a shadow – and get really curious about it. Check out the full podcast (and Bill's book) for a list of signs that our shadow might be acting up. Here are a few to start with:// We have a strong emotional reaction to someone we don't even know very well// We project our own socially unacceptable traits onto others, like greed, sexuality, cowardice, rage, weakness – we strongly judge others and claim we could never have that trait ourselves.// Our dreams – especially characters in nightmares// Heros/Heroines we feel are exceptionally admirable// Episodes of extreme emotional overreactions to events// Complete this sentence: “One thing that's absolutely not true about me is…”// Personal qualities most of your best friends have that you don't believe you could ever possess These things don't definitely mean something IS your shadow, but they're helpful places to start getting curious. Once we think we have identified a Shadow, we can treat it as if it definitely IS a shadow and see what happens. If we get intimate with it and we have an intense emotion or powerful insight, then that's a great start. Then we can work to find and retrieve the gift - the resource - that it holds for us. And we can make whatever apology, amends, or restitution that may be appropriate.The initial goals of working with our Shadow are to uncover our unacknowledged wounded traits, take radical responsibility for them, learn to soften or eliminate them, and stop projecting them onto other people or elements. This way, we're way less likely to unconsciously sabotage our relationships and opportunities in life. The more advanced goal of Shadow work is to get to know our shadow more intimately so that we can uncover the gifts it has for us to live a more authentic life. Remember: advanced West subpersonality work - Shadow work - can be hazardous - psychologically, spiritually, and interpersonally.  So be gentle, safe, and discerning with this work. Use a guide if you have access to one. So, rebels, we've got some work to do! The childhood war of survival is over, for most of us. So how can we cultivate aspects of the West so we can integrate more parts of us, and begin healing our wounds from a resourced place? Listen to find out. What you'll learn:// How the mystery and sweet darkness of the West facet can add richness to our lives // How, and why, modern industrialized society actively represses the qualities of the West facet, like our capacity for imagination// Our Shadows, why they develop, and how they keep us from growth and sharing our gifts with others// The dangers of Shadow work // How can we identify our Shadows (when by definition we're unconscious of them) and get curious about their hidden gifts Resources:// Episode 105 - Soul vs Spirit // Episode 142: Your Wild Mind - The North + Protectors // Episode 143: Your Wild Mind - The South + Wounded Children // Episode 144: Your Wild Mind - The East + Our Need to Escape // Wild Mind, by Bill Plotkin // If you're new to the squad, grab the Rebel Buddhist Toolkit I created at RebelBuddhist.com. It has all you need to start creating a life of more freedom, adventure, and purpose. You'll also get access to the Rebel Buddhist private group, and tune in every Wednesday as I go live with new inspiration and topics.     // Cultivating our connection to our true selves and finding wholeness within us and in nature is a key part of the Adventure Mastermind. If you want to dive into this work in this container, learn more and apply at AdventureMastermind.com. There's ONE SPOT LEFT, and our first retreat is in March!     // Want something more self-paced with access to weekly group support? Check out Freedom School – the community for ALL things related to freedom, inside and out. Learn more at JoinFreedomSchool.com. I can't wait to see you there!

Today we're continuing our series on the Wild Mind by diving into a different facet: the South. The South is about our wilderness, our emotions, our sensuality, and sense of belonging in the world - the natural world. I love talking about the South because I feel like it has been a strength in my life, especially at times like when I was at UC Santa Cruz (a clothing-optional University at the time), living amongst the ancient redwoods, dancing wildly to drum circles on the beach, and riding my bike to sit under my favorite acacia tree and watch the sunset; or when I was a climbing guide and slept under the stars over 250 nights each year, and having playful meetups with lovers all over the world. The energy of the South is returning to me as I intentionally create more time in the wilderness and to connect with my place in this world in this new iteration as mom and online biz gal. You know, we seem to forget as humans that we are also animals. And we tend to default to human exceptionalism, an idea that we're better than other species, or that we hold more value. Even in Buddhism it's said that because of the type of sentience we have and the capacities of our brain, that humans can achieve enlightenment more efficiently and make greater progress on the path, helping more beings along the way. But the flip side is that we can also cause more harm than other species, right? And the disconnect from nature and the resulting harm gets even more out of control the more we forget that we are also animals - we have had, and continue to have, a symbiotic relationship with other beings, plants, and the Earth.  This is where the South comes in. The South (for those in the Northern hemisphere - if you're in the Southern hemisphere, flip the North and South in this series) is the place with the most sun, the most warmth. Humans are outside more, exploring more, watching the sunsets and sunrises, connecting to the natural world. And with it, there's a more playful, relaxed, warm energy in our hearts. These qualities of the South are so important to Soul work because the type of adventures and explorations that we often encounter on the path and during altered state journeys often contain symbols, messages from our subconscious minds, aspects of our collective consciousness, and more. To navigate all this, we need to cultivate our instinct - our ability to trust and respond even without thinking. This is the domain of the South. The South also allows us to tap into the deep knowing that we belong here, just as we are. It helps us mitigate fears that may arise about being untethered to any sense of home. It allows us to trust that what arises is for our greatest good, because it IS. We become intimate with our Inner Healing Wisdom. Bill Plotkin calls the healthy facet of the South the “Wild Indigenous One.” It's not an invitation to cultural appropriation, but rather a reminder that we all descend from a lineage of indigenous people, and that when we are in touch with that and how it is alive in us now, we are fully and passionately at home in our bodies and in the natural world... How do we know we're in the South? If you've ever connected with another species, like having a silent moment with a wild animal while hiking or running, or having your pet come lick your tears, knowing what you need, or appreciating the gentle cradling from a favorite tree as you sit in its branches - that's the South. If you've fully appreciated being born in a human body and all the sensual pleasures and experiences it allows - sunsets, wild uninhibited sex, hot chocolate, trail runs, massages. Yum!  Or enjoyed what it's like to fully feel an emotion as it moves through your body, feeling alive and present in the world - even when the emotion is a challenging one… Then you have felt and connected with your Wild Indigenous One. I remember once, after a breakup, I was thinking about all the great times I had with this lover and the things we created together. As I reflected on how we were moving on and felt the sadness, I started to cry… but I was surprised when I noticed I was also in deep gratitude for the beauty of being alive, for ALL the complexity of emotions available to me.  How beautiful it was that I was alive and that I had the capacity to feel the entire range of emotions, from love and passion and bliss and pure joy to grief and loss. How this pain was 100% worth it. You might start to realize that the South has been actively suppressed in most modern industrialized societies. This makes sense, because the South helps us tap into our unconditional worth and belonging, while capitalism and consumerist culture thrive on having us believe that those things come from the outside, from things we can buy and that we “need” to be whole…and consequently, also things that can be lost or taken away. This is why actively cultivating the qualities of the South is essential - now more than ever. When we are in our South, we recognize the Buddhist concept of interconnectedness - that everything in the Universe and on this planet has come into being due to its relationship to - and dependence upon - everything else. We fell this more intuitively when we're in nature. We also open to full emotional expression. While the balanced South doesn't see emotions as toxic and doesn't suppress them, our South subpersonalities have a very different experience of our emotions. When we react to events through the filter of our woundedness, our emotions often seem unpleasant, and we may then end up acting on our emotions in ways that harm ourselves or others; acting in toxic ways, even towards ourselves. These subpersonalities are unbalanced or uncultivated parts of ourselves. They're generally thought of as the Wounded Children, as they often have the common theme of fear of being abandoned again. When they are activated, it feels as if the world is going to end - even as adults. I think of a temper tantrum of a toddler that feels all is lost because of a lost toy, and throws themselves onto the floor thrashing about. This is what we do when our Wounded Child arises when we're grown-ass adults - an adult version of this (and for some of us it might still look similar to this;). There are several subpersonality types that exist in the South, and I go into them in a lot more depth in the full episode, but one I'd like to highlight here is The Rebel. The Rebel is generally “against it,” no matter what “it” is. They may have had opportunities to make more money but refuse to do so, because they don't want to “give into the man.” Even if it's not compromising deep values and even if they can't pay their bills and end up with infinite money stress. They often don't trust anyone in “the establishment” (or in life), usually because of an abandonment they've experienced before. Despite the tough outer shell, there's this underlying belief that they aren't worthy or qualified for the rewards of mainstream society in more traditional ways (like money and success). So they rebel against almost everything: religion, teachers, parents, anything from dominant culture. This subpersonality is common in those of us from the poverty classes and oppressed people (myself included!), and for good reason, as these groups are traditionally marginalized in white-supremacist capitalist culture and feed this rebel tendency. However, this sub is also quite prevalent in other groups. Of course, being a rebel isn't all bad. It's actually pretty awesome, right? We tend to have more freedom and know how to have a great time. A popular saying in Camp 4 between us dirtbags was from economist Thorstein Veblen: “At either end of the social spectrum there lies a leisure class.”  But when this rebellion comes from a wounded place, we're often causing ourselves - or others - unnecessary harm. When I was living in my car as a climbing guide, I felt so much pride in needing so little to feel free and alive. To not “need” to work excessively. But I also had a better-than-thou attitude and had no qualms about ripping off those I considered to be privileged and “better off.” I remember once a Walmart cashier didn't scan one of my larger items, and I didn't mention anything. Stick it to the man! But still… stealing. I checked these less healthy parts of me once I started to heal that wounded child in me. But I still like to get away with shit;) Just as the North's Loyal Soldiers can be called Protectors, the South's Wounded Children can be called Orphans. Most of us weren't literally orphaned, but all of us experienced, at some point of another, and kind of loneliness of our psyche, an abandonment in that sense - key moments in our life when we realized holy shit, no one is watching out for me right now and I have to fend for myself. Even if our family was fairly supportive, at some point we felt…alone. The wounded emotional basis of the Southern subs arises because while we, as adults, may have learned to manage our emotions to some extent - repress them. Managed emotions aren't fully processed emotions, and fully processing them is what we need in order to continue developing in a healthy way.  What's happening here is really a disconnect from our authenticity in order to gain some degree of safety - physical or emotional. But when we do this, we forget who we really are, what we really want, and why we're really here. We forget that we're not here to DO more and more and more. We're here to BE who we authentically are, because that is why we were born. The discovery of who we authentically are and what we truly desire is the journey of the South, and one that's very common on the Adventure Mastermind. Because of this disconnect from our authenticity, the wounded South often shows up as emotional reactivity, impulsive behavior that takes us by surprise, feeling as if our emotions and reactions arose out of nowhere, out of our control. How can we start to process our emotions and integrate them back into us? There are 4 essential steps: // Understand and identify what emotion(s) our Wounded Child is feeling.// What happened (or what do they think happened) that elicited the emotion?// Understand that it makes perfect sense that they'd be feeling exactly those emotions under those circumstances. “Anyone in that same situation would have done the same thing.” This is truer than many of us would like to admit.// Understand what this tells you about them (aka YOU). After this, the most important piece is that we take action, because our challenging emotions arise when we aren't having basic needs met. But the problem is when our South isn't healthy, we believe others need to fit it and that we aren't capable of doing it (or shouldn't have to). Therefore, taking action is key so that we bring this sovereignty back into ourselves. We can figure out how we can act on our emotions and the information they give us. Maybe we need to create better boundaries and stick to them. Perhaps we need to take more time for self-care - pr leave a toxic job or relationship. We can listen and do things differently...  What's one thing you can do today to more fully cultivate and integrate your South? Something that will help it grow, like time in nature or dancing naked in your kitchen. Or perhaps something that will help you get to know your wounded child better, and learn to care for them? Pick one small thing to do today to get closer to the Wild One in you.  In this episode, you'll learn:// What the sensuous, embodied, and emotive energy of the South means to our Wild Mind and why it's so important for Soul work// How we can connect deeply with our Wild Indigenous One, despite society's attempts to repress it// What the South's subpersonalities are, and 4 steps we can take to assimilate them in a healthy way Resources:// Episode 128: Bearing Witness - Who Did You Tell?  // Episode 135: Reclaiming Parts of Ourselves // Episode 142: Your Wild Mind - The North + Protectors // Wild Mind, by Bill Plotkin  // If you're new to the squad, grab the Rebel Buddhist Toolkit I created at RebelBuddhist.com. It has all you need to start creating a life of more freedom, adventure, and purpose. You'll also get access to the Rebel Buddhist private group, and tune in every Wednesday as I go live with new inspiration and topics.   // Cultivating our connection to our true selves and finding wholeness within us and in nature is a key part of the Adventure Mastermind. If you want to dive into this work in this container, learn more and apply at AdventureMastermind.com. There's ONE SPOT LEFT, and our next cohort starts at the end of February!   // Want something more self-paced with access to weekly group support? Check out Freedom School – the community for ALL things related to freedom, inside and out. Learn more at JoinFreedomSchool.com. I can't wait to see you there! 

This week, I'm going to be referencing one of my fave models of the human psyche, proposed by Bill Plotkin. It's really good medicine for many of the individual and societal challenges we are undergoing. In his book, Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche, Bill describes a nature-based map of the human psyche, using it to emphasize what can be right about us humans and where we can go wrong. Its basic premise is that our minds have amazing resources, untapped potential, and limitless depth - the extent of which we may not even be aware of.  Those “potentials” of our psyche are called the four facets of the self, the four dimensions of our innate home wholeness. Our innate Buddha nature, as I see it. Healing involves incorporating all parts of ourselves again. The goal in this work with our Wild Mind is to fully integrate all aspects of us - the whole of our multifaceted minds - and commit ourselves to our purpose so we can better serve our people. This helps us feel fulfilled, purposeful, and have a deep sense of belonging. The approach that's used here incorporates the cardinal directions: North, South, East, and West. Each has various qualities similar to those found in nature relating to these directions (and I've found they also correlate to elements we see in Classical Chinese Medicine and other constitutional and elemental-based traditions like Ayurveda). I can't cover all the facets in one pod, so this week, we're going to start with the North. It's described as the Nurturing Generative Adult. Examples of this are how you felt when you've cared for someone close to you (a parent, a pet, a kid, yourself). You might have noticed how good it felt to do so, and what an honor it was to do it. It also relates to when you feel satisfaction from bringing something from an idea to reality - an inspiration into a piece of art, a song, a book, a poem, an invention… It also means taking care of the things around you instead of disregarding and disrespecting them. We tap into our inherent wisdom, and cultivate discernment to accompany this wholeheartedness.  Being a grown-ass adult. When we are in conscious awareness of our Nurturing Adult, we're able to accept things about other people and do a whole lot less judging. We're less attached to things. We've created conditions for ourselves - and others - to heal, change, and mature. The integrated North is amazing, and I could go on and on about it, but what about when we're out of whack? I know most of us want to know how to fix it when shit ain't right. The way the wounded Nother shows up can be described in a few subpersonalities that create a false sense of safety and belonging. One way is our Inner Critic: How we shit-talk, shame, doubt, and talk down to ourselves from something we might want to take a risk for, closing us off to our greater possibilities and capacities. This is the most common one I see people asking about in coaching. We also might be encouraged to forego our dreams and needs to be useful to others - perhaps while also having power over them (people pleasers, enablers, co-dependent relationships etc). We may do our best to be indispensable to someone because we secretly fear that no one else would want to be with us.  There are many subpersonalities, and you can listent to the pod for more, but those two are some of the more common ones we dive into. All of these subs serve the purpose of keeping us safe - protecting us. Bill calls them the Loyal Soldiers. What they all have in common is to get us to act small, either by not expressing ourselves fully, or not embodying our potential, so that we have a sense of security and belonging in the world… even if we never actually feel like we belong. Their intention is good, and we have a false sense of security and safety, but at the expense of an authentic life. Most subpersonalities form in early childhood in response to physical, psychological, or social woundings. They exist to minimize the chance of more pain and suffering, but at a certain point in our personal development, their strategies get in the way of our growth way more than they provide a true sense of safety and belonging. Whatever the strategy, the Loyal Soldier's adamant about this: if you're forced to choose, it's better to be suppressed or inauthentic than kicked out of the community or emotionally devastated. Because what we think that would really feel like is death. Our truest Self knows there are options - for me I sought out therapy and coaching and this work with Bill and other Soul work - but when we're stuck in the wounded North, we might see only options like extreme buffering, or addiction or suicide, which is, in essence, turning the pain onto ourselves. So how can we cultivate a healthy relationship with this aspect of ourselves? We can start by connecting with our Loyal Soldiers. You'll hear the story of the Loyal Soldiers of Japan in the podcast, but we follow the same path that worked so well for them // We thank our Loyal Soldiers for their service. Maybe write a letter or recall all the specific incidents when they saved us. // Then, after thanking them and helping them feel loved and appreciated, we can also remind them that the war is over - AND that we have more resources now than we did “back then.” // Finally, we can give them another job. Perhaps we can call into awareness the ways they can apply discernment and protect us from real threats like potentially abusive partners and manipulative or toxic work environments. This piece is important because they are a part of us and won't just disappear. // We can also get important support from the facet of the Self in the opposite direction of the sub in question). In this case, it would be the South… but you'll have to check out next week's episode to learn more there!  In this episode you'll learn: // What it means to embody our Wild Mind and welcome ALL parts of our complex being (even the parts we don't like as much)// What it looks like when our “North” is balanced… and when we're out of whack// What our “Loyal Soldiers” are and how to integrate them in a healthy way// How we can cultivate genuine safety and a sense of belonging instead of the false sense that keeps us playing small Resources:// Episode 68: Integrity - Living Your Truth // Episode 82: How to Live in Polarity // Episode 139: Nature and Reconnecting // Wild Mind, by Bill Plotkin // If you're new to the squad, grab the Rebel Buddhist Toolkit I created at RebelBuddhist.com. It has all you need to start creating a life of more freedom, adventure, and purpose. You'll also get access to the Rebel Buddhist private group, and tune in every Wednesday as I go live with new inspiration and topics. // Cultivating our connection to our true selves and finding wholeness within us and in nature  is a key part of the Adventure Mastermind. If you want to dive into this work in this container, learn more and apply at AdventureMastermind.com. There's ONE SPOT LEFT, and our next cohort starts at the end of February! // Want something more self-paced with access to weekly group support? Check out Freedom School – the community for ALL things related to freedom, inside and out. Learn more at JoinFreedomSchool.com. I can't wait to see you there!

My first backpacking experience was at 18, and it blew my mind. I didn't grow up with camping or other experiences in nature – I lived in a poor and violent neighborhood. While it may sound odd to some, for me, being in the wilderness was also one of the first times I remember feeling...safe. Out in the middle of nowhere, I wasn't at risk of someone shooting or mugging me. Sure, there were bears and rock climbs, but to me, they felt way less scary than the urban violence I was at risk of. From then on, I spent every minute I could learning about how to rock climb, mountaineer, and take care of myself and others in the wilderness. Since that first backpacking trip into the High Sierra, I've spent countless hours decades guiding people into the wilderness all over the globe: in the US, Mexico, Nepal, India, the Philippines, and more. I found that not only was guiding people on adventures a lot of fun, but that wilderness transformed and healed me. I also discovered that this wasn't unique to me. In fact, many people I guided had the same insights and revelations. These days, I intentionally commit to holding my retreats with clients in nature, and ideally in actual wilderness, because of the power of place in our healing, growth, and development as whole human beings is very real. I also incorporate nature into the online courses I teach. These adventures are crafted to facilitate, as Bill Plotkin calls it, “the descent to soul.” Time alone in nature, when approached in a certain way, can be a lot like the time we spend meditating or doing yoga in terms of the mindfulness and insights it brings to us. It can also provide us insights in the same way that plant medicine and other entheogens can, especially when combined with fasting, solitude, and silence. For example, the Adventure Mastermind is designed to help people uncover their greatest gift - not only in terms of what is most unique about them, but also of what they can offer to their people. The container of immersion in nature helps facilitate this because it helps us tap into a deep knowing that we all have (and have grown distanced from in modern industrialized society). We all need to periodically remove ourselves from our community and move beyond the “group consciousness” that forms in a community to find the thing that we uniquely contribute, and that doesn't exist yet in that group. Even if some of us hate camping or getting dirty, we need this ongoing dialogue between the wild and the civilized in our lives to help facilitate this more effectively. Many of my clients with free and adventurous spirits that travels the world, blown about by the winds of synchronicity like a feather, wonder how what they're doing contributes to the world and to their people.  I believe this is an area of huge disconnect in modern industrialized society… and in Western psychotherapy which is often all about “fixing” ourselves in some way and being obsessed with our own personal development when really, we have a longing to be of service. But if we just focus on personal growth out of the context of what we bring to our people, we lose out on our own dharma - our personal duty - and how we serve our people and our planet. This discovery of our purpose and our place in this wild new world is something very different than deciding what we want for our next career. It's more about asking, “What was I born to be (not do)?” And not “be” in the sense of a specific job, but BE in terms of a human BEing vs a human DOing. The answer to that becomes more clear when we connect to nature. It can take weeks, months, or years to get clarity about what we see, but that doesn't mean we should wait that long to take action. After all, as I've said before, clarity often comes through action. Some people may hear this or look at the things we do on the Adventure Mastermind, like spending time connecting to the natural environment and non-human beings, and think it's kind of whacked (especially when we're sober!). But for nature-based communities it's more the norm than the exception to be in communication with the surrounding environment because everything is seen as living, breathing, communicating and connecting with us. At this point I've guided hundreds of people on wilderness fasts and altered states retreats in nature and many other ceremonies, and I've noticed that for many people these outings are their first visceral experience of the world as fully alive.  These inner adventures are often said to involve a descent and a “death.” So people often wonder, “Why would the ego risk its own death?” It's important to remember that the part that dies is the part that is actually holding us back. We're willing to risk our ego because a part of us knows that no matter how much we love the life we have now, it's so... flat compared to what's possible if we were willing to let go of our ego as it currently is. Just like we're willing to risk life as we know it when we fall in love.  I've found, in my own journey, that when we leave the Soul aspect aside, we miss out on truly being present with the entirety of the human experience and with this one precious life we're all given. The journey of the soul is often what's missing in modern industrialized society, and it's often also an intentional omission. This makes sense, since when we awaken to our true purpose, we often realize that consumer-based society is empty and we stop contributing to its continuation with the same earnest ...and we no longer buy into its bullsh*t.  What can help us counter the things that try to keep us separated from our true calling? Other adults that have gone through the process are important to have access to, as are guides —people in our lives who can say, “Oh I see what's going on here. They're not going crazy - they've just heard the call!” They can see ah yes, this is an existential crisis or existential anxiety…nothing has gone wrong here. We are awakening to what IS wrong. I dive deeply into this in Episode 108 about Existential Anxiety.  But one of the main things we can do is reconnect to nature and discover how we fit into the bigger picture of our community, because when we are present and connected to the wild outside of us, we are shown the wild within us, the part of us that knows its purpose without the stories of modern industrialized society that we are not enough and need to DO more. When we are disconnected from nature, we forget the simplicity of this miraculous life.  Often in Western psychology, just as people start to awaken, they are shut down and “treated” with the goal that they are able to “function” and conform and behave again. But as Krishnamurti said, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” In actuality, the only thing we “need” to do is be authentically us – and discovering what that is, who we authentically are, is the Soul journey. If enough of us can find and offer our own gift, the world will change. Listen to the pod for some simple practices you can start right away to connect to nature – and your purpose. What is a simple way you can move a little closer towards that wild animal body of yours and its relationship to the wild outside of us? You will learn:// How nature helps us reconnect to our WHOLE selves// Why it's important to take time away from our community and civilization and head into the wild// Why modern industrialized systems want to keep us disconnected from purpose// Where plant medicine and guides can fit into our reconnecting with nature// One simple practice we can use to shift towards Soul and reconnect with nature on a daily basis Resources:// Episode 71: How to Find Your Purpose // Episode 96: Unplugging in an Uncertain World // Episode 105: Soul vs Spirit // Episode 134: What You're Meant to BE // Wild Mind, a book by Bill Plotkin about exploring nature and the human psyche // If you're new to the squad, grab the Rebel Buddhist Toolkit I created at RebelBuddhist.com. It has all you need to start creating a life of more freedom, adventure, and purpose. You'll also get access to the Rebel Buddhist private group, and tune in every Wednesday as I go live with new inspiration and topics. // Cultivating our connection to nature and therefore our true selves is a key part of the Adventure Mastermind. If you want to dive into this work in this container, learn more and apply at AdventureMastermind.com. Our next cohort starts at the end of February! // Want something more self-paced with access to weekly group support? Check out Freedom School – the community for ALL things related to freedom, inside and out. Learn more at JoinFreedomSchool.com. I can't wait to see you there!

Summary: Alasdair shares his recent experience at a Men's Rite of Passage and why he's been seeking out initiation.Mentioned in this Episode:Illuman.orgAnimas.orgRichard RohrEnneagramBill PlotkinStephen Jenkinson Elderhood in a Time of TroubleSupport this podcast:Discount link to purchase organic, raw ceremonial-grade cacao ethically sourced in Guatemala (a portion of proceeds support this podcast)Become a patron at: https://www.patreon.com/thefaroutcoupleMake one-time donation with PayPal (our account is aplambeck22@gmail.com)Leave a review on iTunes!Share this episode with a friend! :DConnect with us:Website: www.thefarout.lifeEmail us at info@thefarout.lifeWild Within @ www.thewildwithin.orgCredits:Intro music: "Complicate ya" by Otis McDonaldOutro music: "Running with wise fools" written & performed by Krackatoa (www.krackatoa.com)

Every now and then you come across a writer whose words and ideas just hit you bone-deep.For me, most of them have been people whose words make me feel more intimately connected with the world around me: Mary Oliver, Robin Wall-Kimmerer, Richard Powers, Bill Plotkin— and most recently, Mary Reynolds Thompson.When I started digging into Mary's work in preparation for this conversation, I felt that rare but familiar deep resonance. In her latest book, A Wild Soul Woman, she explores five landscape-based archetypes she's written about previously, this time specifically in the context of how they show up in womens' lives.In this episode, we explore about everything from burnout and addiction recovery to defining what it means to move through the arc of the human experience in your own “shero's journey.” About Mary Reynolds Thompson (she/her)Mary is an award-winning author, internationally recognized speaker, and a facilitator of poetry therapy. A pioneer in the spiritual ecology movement, her focus is on the transformative power of landscape archetypes and nature metaphors to reveal our true purpose and right relationship with the planet.Author of A Wild Soul Woman and Reclaiming the Wild Soul, a 2015 Nautilus Award-winner, Mary's writings have also appeared in numerous other publications and anthologies. Through her books, courses, and talks, she reaches creatives, change-makers, and seekers who long to awaken to their most courageous and Earth-connected selves and have the impact they desire.To learn more or contact Mary, visit maryreynoldsthompson.com and follow her on Instagram @wildsoulwriter. Stuff Mentioned + Additional Resources:“The Song of a Wild Soul Woman” - written, creative interpretation by Dancing Wolf, creative interpretation by TreeSistersBodyful Episode #12: Jill Dunkley on Being in Right Relationship with the World Inside & OutsideTreeSistersJungian psychologist and writer Marion WoodmanThe Work that ReconnectsAnimas Valley InstituteWomen Who Run With the Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola EstesUntamed by Glennon Doyle----------------------------------------------------Did you love this episode? Please consider leaving a rating/review wherever you listen to podcasts!NOTE FROM VAL: In 2023, my podcasting is shifting gears... so stay tuned for an exciting announcement about that soon, and Bodyful episodes will remain on this feed to continue to be shared and enjoyed!✨ In Tennessee and looking for therapy? Check out The Gaia Center.✨ Get the monthly Gaia Center newsletter with exclusive content & tips from our therapists✨ Learn about coaching, speaking, and other stuff Val is up to

Every now and then you come across a writer whose words and ideas just hit you bone-deep.For me, most of them have been people whose words make me feel more intimately connected with the world around me: Mary Oliver, Robin Wall-Kimmerer, Richard Powers, Bill Plotkin— and most recently, Mary Reynolds Thompson.When I started digging into Mary's work in preparation for this conversation, I felt that rare but familiar deep resonance. In her latest book, A Wild Soul Woman, she explores five landscape-based archetypes she's written about previously, this time specifically in the context of how they show up in womens' lives.In this episode, we explore about everything from burnout and addiction recovery to defining what it means to move through the arc of the human experience in your own “shero's journey.” About Mary Reynolds Thompson (she/her)Mary is an award-winning author, internationally recognized speaker, and a facilitator of poetry therapy. A pioneer in the spiritual ecology movement, her focus is on the transformative power of landscape archetypes and nature metaphors to reveal our true purpose and right relationship with the planet.Author of A Wild Soul Woman and Reclaiming the Wild Soul, a 2015 Nautilus Award-winner, Mary's writings have also appeared in numerous other publications and anthologies. Through her books, courses, and talks, she reaches creatives, change-makers, and seekers who long to awaken to their most courageous and Earth-connected selves and have the impact they desire.To learn more or contact Mary, visit maryreynoldsthompson.com and follow her on Instagram @wildsoulwriter. Stuff Mentioned + Additional Resources:“The Song of a Wild Soul Woman” - written, creative interpretation by Dancing Wolf, creative interpretation by TreeSistersBodyful Episode #12: Jill Dunkley on Being in Right Relationship with the World Inside & OutsideTreeSistersJungian psychologist and writer Marion WoodmanThe Work that ReconnectsAnimas Valley InstituteWomen Who Run With the Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola EstesUntamed by Glennon Doyle----------------------------------------------------Did you love this episode? Please consider leaving a rating/review wherever you listen to podcasts!NOTE FROM VAL: In 2023, my podcasting is shifting gears... so stay tuned for an exciting announcement about that soon, and Bodyful episodes will remain on this feed to continue to be shared and enjoyed!✨ In Tennessee and looking for therapy? Check out The Gaia Center.✨ Get the monthly Gaia Center newsletter with exclusive content & tips from our therapists✨ Learn about coaching, speaking, and other stuff Val is up to

I'd love to offer you something to consider: I don't think you were “meant” to be a coach or a teacher or actress or painter. You weren't meant to guide psychedelic journeys or catch babies. Or be a mom or dad or any kind of parent. You weren't meant to do any specific career or type of work. I know this can seem counter to what you may hear about “life purpose.”  And a lot of people's raison dêtre (their most important reason or purpose for existing) focuses on their career. This is especially common in modern industrialized societies. However, this focus on career or work as our purpose can cause a lot of problems, especially existential ones. This is particularly true when that career doesn't go as we hoped, and even if everything is going really well, it can still create a problem because we are putting our Soul Purpose into the hands of external circumstances. And last I checked – we don't have control over those things.  As you know, at Rebel Buddhist we are all about freedom. If we think we're meant to be here for a specific career, we end up putting our purpose into something outside of us, dependent on other people, or the economy, or whether people will pay us or agree that they need what we think they do.  That's really freaking stressful – and while we have our moments where we have to disappoint others to stay true to ourselves, our Soul Purpose is not supposed to be stressful to embody all the time. And trust me, your soul purpose for landing on this planet Earth in this body at this time was not so you could DO something that was stressful as heck to figure out how to embody for the rest of your life. I DO believe that we are all here in this life for a very specific reason. And I DO think work is love in action. AND I also feel that work is just one delivery system of many through which we can express our gifts to people. So maybe you weren't “meant” to be a coach... perhaps you were meant to help people move through grief, or realize their potential, or finally see their inherent worthiness and loveability. You weren't “meant” to be a parent...perhaps you were meant to do that thing you do when you drop your kids off at school that makes your heart sing; or that je ne sais quoi when you walk into a room and it lights up with your presence. You weren't “meant” to be a filmmaker... perhaps you were meant to move people, or take them to other realities, so they could intimately know the range of human experience. You weren't “meant” to be a nun or a monk ... perhaps you were meant to explore consciousness or faith or devotion and inspire others. You weren't “meant” to be a nurse or a herbalist or a doctor...perhaps you were meant to know what was needed in a situation that would facilitate healing So, what I believe is that all of those things I described (and beyond) can be done in many different ways.  I remember Bill Plotkin telling us that he realized he embodied his gift when he could do it even when playing poker with a bunch of men that were drinking beer, which was a situation he felt really awkward in since he was used to doing it in the wilderness in sacred contexts. But it still worked – he could stll do his magic...as can YOU, no matter the delivery system.  In this way, we can actually find a sense of peace and freedom when we realize what our gift is outside of the confines of a career path, and outside of external circumstances needing to be a certain way in order for us to embody it.  Remember, careers can come and go, depending on the year, the economy, technology, fads, and trends.  Your place in the ecosystem of the Universe has nothing to do with any of those mundane, worldly things. Your cosmic miracle of a life is meant for something that tanscends all that. Here are some questions we can ask ourselves to help us find out what gift we're meant to bring to the world: // What do friends say after spending time with us?// How do we think we impact others when we spend time with people or other non-humans?// What has come so easily and naturally since you were a child?// What urge do you have that you just can't ignore? For me, one way I phrase my gifts is I serve as a guide for people as they journey into scary places, places that could potentially be traumatic, but instead, are transformed to be healing, empowering, and freeing. This has been true in all the phases of my life: as a kid running my Double Dare club, challenging friends to sneak into a mean neighbor's yard; as a climbing guide in the Himalayan peaks; as an emergency nurse who was bedside trying to hold sacred space as we ran a code or quietly whispering blessings when people died; as a midwife that looked into a woman's eyes as we did a cesarean section without anesthesia or when I delivered a stillborn. And now, I guide people into the depths of their psyche and their soul and their wounds to heal them and their gifts to finally manifest them… as a Soul Midwife. You may be reading this and thinking, “well dang, I don't have anything that obvious.” Well, it wasn't obvious to me until relatively recently.  When I was in it, I used to think about all those careers and wonder if I would ever find “my thing,” only to see, in hindsight, that I was doing “my thing” all along. So, if you can't immediately identify something that feels right to you, don't worry. It's not because you don't have a purpose or gift.  Odds are it got shut down when you were very young. Your brilliance probably scared the fuck out of people. And that's OK because now you get to uncover what that is, and let me tell you - it is a wild ride of a journey. You will learn:// What we weren't meant to be… and what we WERE meant to be// How you can use your career to deliver your soul purpose// How to find the gift we're meant to bring to the world// Why finding out purpose can be hard Resources:// Want to take things to the next level in a 6-month immersion program? Apply at AdventureMastermind.com. Enter into the adventure of your life in a container where you'll feel safe enough to explore your true self with altered states and adventures during this one precious life we have. We only take a small group of people every cohort, so apply now! There will only be ONE cohort in 2023 – the time is now. // Episode 71: How to Find Your Purpose // Episode 99: Rebel Purpose // Want to dive into this work on a deeper level? To study it and practice it together? Check out Freedom School – the community for ALL things related to freedom, inside and out.            It's also where you can get individual help applying the concepts to your own life. It's where you can learn new coaching tools not shared on the podcast that will blow your mind even more, and it's where you can connect over all things freedom with other freedom junkies just like you and me. It's my favorite place on earth and it will change your life, I guarantee it. Come join us at JoinFreedomSchool.com. I can't wait to see you there. // If you're new to the squad, grab the Rebel Buddhist Toolkit I created at RebelBuddhist.com. It has all you need to start creating a life of more freedom, adventure, and purpose. You'll also get access to the Rebel Buddhist private group, and tune in every Wednesday at 11:30am PST as I go live with new inspiration and topics.

When I worked for Outward Bound, one of the most rewarding aspects was how it acted as a rite of passage for many of our students. You may have heard of rites of passage from other cultures (Native American vision quests, once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimages in Buddhist, Hindu or Muslin traditions, for example). They're ceremonies or practices that mark an individual's progression from one stage of life to another.  There are generally three phases in a rite of passage:Separation: the individual changes from their current status and prepares to enter a new stage.Liminality: the person is often temporarily removed from their normal surroundings and community to experience tasks or rituals that prepare them for the next stage of life.Incorporation: The person return and is welcomed back into their community with their newly-attained status and responsibilities. It's important to note that a rite of passage in and of itself doesn't make the transformation happen. It doesn't mean you have a rite of passage then, “Yay, you did it, now go forth!” True inner growth and taking on new levels of responsibility are an essential part of rites of passage – and what they're designed to mark, not create. While it's well-researched that there is a lack of meaningful rites of passage in modern industrialized societies for life stages like transition into adulthood, the absence of a ritual to mark those stages still isn't the most significant problem in terms of obstacles to Soul development. Really the rites of passage are meant to confirm a life transition that has already been reached, often through a long steady process of doing this work. So what's more significant is what happens between the life stages than the rites of passage themselves. The primary work of maturing takes place gradually and on a daily basis as we apply ourselves to the developmental tasks of our current life stage.  Children and adolescents need help with these tasks — and who is supposed to help them? Grown-ass, mature adults. Not adults working out their childhood baggage with their own children or, say, having tantrums while they're the President of the United States of America. For example;) So yes, help from mature adults. And that's where I think we're failing right now. So we need to let go of the idea that the transition from childhood to adulthood takes place in one fell swoop. Between these two life stages is the adventure of adolescence. And it's a real adventure. And we miss out on utilizing it as such. Getting older in and of itself doesn't lead to emotional adulthood or psychological maturity. If you asked most people what adulthood means, they'll say things like: when we fulfill certain responsibilities like establishing a career or steady job, moving out of the home, raising a family… But is this…meaningful? In the sense of what being an adult really means when we look at what our society needs? And what kind of responsibility is that?  As Bill Plotkin says, an adult is someone who understands why they are here on Earth, why they were born, and are offering their unique contribution to the broader sense of the world - not just to humans, but to the planet and all its beings. That kind of responsibility that comes with that kind of Soul development. But don't be discouraged - while it's rare - for most in the modern industrialized world, at least -  to reach true adulthood in their teen years, or even twenties, it's totally possible to do so in midlife. In his book, Nature and the Human Soul, Bill Plotkin states there are two really distinct stages of adolescence - and remember, think of this not just as age, but psychological development - and a major life passage between them.  The adventure starts with puberty, and I think we can all agree the change our body goes through, the hormones, the social shifts that happen around puberty, embodying our sexuality… is a wild ride. This continues through the years of early adolescence then transits through the passage Bill calls Confirmation and then goes into late adolescence, which he calls the “Wanderer in the Cocoon.” In the first half of adolescence, the task is to create a personality — a way of belonging to the human community — one that's ideally authentic and socially “acceptable.”  This is hard AF, especially if you're a rebellious one like I am (and like many of you are) and if you're being asked to gain acceptance into a society that is toxic.  This is obviously easier said than done, especially in toxic cultures that are extremely foused on the individual and that are materialistic. However, doing this is essential because it lays the foundation for the rest of our Soul development. So authenticity - and ziji - means to know who you really are — to know where you stand, what you value, what you desire, what you tolerate and what you don't — and to be able and willing to act accordingly, most of the time, despite the social risks. This takes a minute.The second half of the task in this stage: attaining social acceptability. This is where we can get screwed in the head about all this because to be a healthy adolescent, we need to belong to a healthy community. But when we are part of a toxic community that doesn't honor the process of the human soul, if we are going to “fit in” then we are at high risk of ending up compromising a lot of our Soul qualities. So if - and when - we connect with an authentic personality that is “acceptable” enough, then our focus shifts from our peer group to the bigger mysteries of exploring our psyche and our place in nature and the world. This shift is the passage of Confirmation.  This is when a rite of passage can be really powerful - it publicly confirms the fact that you've succeeded at creating a social presence that works … well enough for your human community.  And it then carries you into late adolescence (the Cocoon), which is the stage when we begin to asking the big, existential and spiritual questions of life:  What do I think differentiates survival and living? A social scene and true community? Academic achievement and deep learning? A “job” and Soul Purpose? Then - after many years of, as Rilke says, “living these questions,” after many expeditions of sorts, exploring our psyche and how we relate to nature, we discover our truth. As David Whyte says, “the truth at the center of the image you were born with.” In many traditional cultures and spiritual paths, a glimpse like this is called a soul purpose or calling, a vision, a soul purpose or calling, or the intuition of our destiny — which usually doesn't show up in more traditional cultural ways, like a job or social role like parenthood, but in a more mysterious way, unique to us. Then, when you commit to manifesting this vision in a kind of delivery system to the world for the benefit of all beings - and I also believe the planet - then and only then do you pass into Soul Initiation (with or without a rite or passage) and into true adulthood. So let's take a moment to reflect on where we are at with this ourselves - and not to shame ourselves, but to be curious so we can open up to what's possible. The world today needs authentically mature mentors to help others in this process. And tht doesn't mean you need to go get another damn training, so stop googling that right now. What is means is to engage in your own process and go through this yourself so you can say yes, it's scary, and often challening, and I've been there. You'll be OK. This is a big part of how I believe we can heal our society and the planet.  In this Episode you will learn:// The 3 phases in a rite of passage // The limitations of rites of passage// The difference between externally- and internally-based rites of passage// How to overcome society's obstacles to Soul growth// The 2 phases before Soul initiation// How to step into true emotional and psychological adulthood// Why we need you to be a mentor who has done the work// Three ways to begin this journey and arrive at Soul Initiation Resources:// Episode 105: Soul vs Spirit // Episode 71: How to Find Your Purpose // If you want to finally get clear about your unique Soul purpose and how to create a life that supports it during this one precious life we have, apply for the Adventure Mastermind. It's deep work. Important, necessary, and essential to what the world needs right now. Be a part of it.  Head over to AdventureMastermind.com and apply for the next cohort. We have 2 altered states retreats, weekly coaching, virtual retreats, and more. I've got you! // If you're new to the squad, grab the Rebel Buddhist Toolkit I created at RebelBuddhist.com. It has all you need to start creating a life of more freedom, adventure, and purpose. You'll also get access to the Rebel Buddhist FB group, and tune in weekly when I go live on new topics. // Want to dive into this work on a deeper level on your own time? To study it and practice it together with a group of people with the same goals of freedom, adventure and purpose? Check out Freedom School – the community for ALL things related to freedom, inside and out.

Once a farmer in rural Kentucky, Chris Isgrigg is now a practicing psychotherapist in Louisville, KY. He's thought deeply about the relationships that weave each of us to each other and to the more-than-human world and has integrated the natural world meaningfully into his therapeutic approach. This conversation explores how a deeper spiritual connection to our places can help heal and mature us as individuals and as a culture. RESOURCES: Earth and Spirit Center website: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/ Chris Isgrigg's counseling practice, Deeply Rooted Counseling: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/chris-isgrigg-louisville-ky/156084 Bill Plotkin's Animas Valley Institute: https://www.animas.org/

I am absolutely thrilled to be sharing this powerful imperfectly perfect conversation with Max Girardeau from The Visionaries. Max and I talk about his amazing work and vision - how do we help create nurturing school communities and to support young people into healthy adulthood. We also discuss the importance of self-care so that we can care for the planet and serve others. I loved every minute of it. I am sure you will too! Here are some of the references that Max mentioned in our conversation and said he would share with us too: Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft Bill Plotkin, Wild Mind Steven Foster & Meridith Little, The Book of The Vision Quest Frederic LaLoux, Reinventing Organisations Richard Louv, Nature DEficit Disorder Toko-Pa Turner, Belonging

Life. Death. Rebirth. Air. Water. Fire. Earth.Fall. Winter. Spring. Summer. Nature. Nature is a direct connection between us and spirit. Don't believe me? Well, can we agree that Nature is powerful? Think of a time when your well being, your safety, was in the hands of Nature. If you've experienced an earthquake, a hurricane, a wildfire, a drought, a raucous thunderstorm, Nature has a way of making us feel small, which is good in this modern world of puffed up egos. Nature provides the hack codes for the infinite loop of life, death, and rebirth. It has a sense of humor and perfect timing. Let's explore Nature.***THE FANTASTIC BACKGROUND FOR THIS EPISODE IS VIA HOTESDESIGN and find her art on fresh products with this link to Society6***Sources and Materials:Wild Mind by Bill Plotkin on Amazon.comShel Silverstein's The Giving TreeAd for Nature which is so so funny on YouTubeHopscotch the Globe blogMental Floss article on scientific reasons nature is relaxingPsychology Today article, Nature as MedicineLinks to Show Pros and Curious Cat Socials:Art Director – Nora Hotes Link to audio engineer—Aidan Conners Curious Cat on Twitter Curious Cat on Instagram 

Figuring out the meaning of life is one of the most difficult (but significant) things a person can do. We sometimes feel so lost or uncertain of our purpose in life, waiting for a calling.    In this week's episode, we're joined by Rachel Zurer, a former journalist/magazine editor for 10 years. She quit her career as a journalist and found her way to becoming a Story Brand Certified Guide right before the pandemic. Within a year, she earned double while pursuing her mission to help her clients change the world by helping them make important decisions about creating meaningful, abundant lives.    In this episode, we talk about how she heeded her heart's calling, her experience going on a vision quest, cultivating intuition intentionally, and a lot more.   In this episode, you'll learn:   How to surrender to the beauty that can be manifested in your life The power of practicing not needing to understand why How to enjoy the journey of the unknown Why you don't always have to follow your intuition How to calibrate yourself and practice with small daily decisions Why you deserve to be honest with yourself How to use your tools to find your way   If you're interested in more recalibration strategies (in addition to the ones Amy shared!), be sure to go to www.flourishmarketing.co/recalibrate to download our FREE Recalibration Guide.   Here's a peek inside the episode:   [22:47] Cultivating intuition through yoga [29:49] Rachel's 3 Tips on Tapping into your Intuition  [34:35] Learning to trust so you can delegate the things you hate [36:50] The beauty of the journey when you're doing the wandering [41:02] Journal prompt questions [42:14] Letting go to open new opportunities [44:13] Life is like a butterfly   Connect with me!     Wise entrepreneurs know it takes money to make money.  But the whats, whens, and whys don't always seem clear for new(ish) entrepreneurs. Where do you start? Download your FREE guide, “The 5 Most Important Investments to Make as a New Entrepreneur to Grow Your 6-Figure Empire” today and start making smart money moves for your business right away. www.flourishmarketing.co/invest   Podcast Instagram: The Flourishing Entrepreneur FM Website: Flourish Marketing | Strategy, Copywriting & Coaching Schedule a Discovery Call: 30-Minute Discovery Call - ALEYA HARRIS Guest Bio:   Rachel Zurer was formerly a journalist and a magazine editor for 10 years. She quit her job because it didn't feel right. Her intuition told her to move on. She went on a vision quest, moved into an RV and went all over for a year and landed in the middle of the pandemic with a new career as a Story Brand Certified Guide. Within a year a year following her intuition. She was making double what she was ever able to make before and helping incredible clients on a mission to change the world. She is able to connect that embodied wisdom with her ability to market. Resources mentioned by Rachel:   Getting in touch with your intuitive knowing; guided meditation by Diana Chapman of The Conscious Leadership Group Audio version - Whole Body Yes | The Conscious Leadership Group Video of her guiding Tim Ferriss on a recent episode of his podcast More Whole Body Yes resources from CLG: Leading and Living from your Whole  Body  Yes - Concept Vision quest school: Animas Valley Institute | Nature-Based Soul Initiation (founded by Bill Plotkin, author of SoulCraft and many other books) The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks  Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche   Note: This episode's show notes contain affiliate links Where to find more of Rachel:   Rachel's Website: Magic Words Marketing Rachel's Instagram: Magic Words Marketing Rachel's LinkedIn: Rachel Zurer

Last night there was a storm. I woke up thinking about how the wind and rain blew through, shaking the dead stuff from the trees and cleaning off the old dusty residue. Nature is the best medicine, isn't it? I'm reading Wild Mind by Bill Plotkin. He's rethinking Western psychology from the point of the person being a part of this great, vast planet. I'll explore his book deeply in an upcoming episode, but for now, let's take a few lessons to heart and reconnect with nature. Show Creators and Links:Art Director – Nora Hotes, graphic design, multi-media artistLink to audio engineer—Aidan ConnersCurious Cat on TwitterHost, Jennifer Hotes, on Twitter

Today is about the question, “Who am I?”  We talk about why it matters and how we hold it in a context where we debate if we even exist on certain levels. Specifically - I want to talk about the concept of non-self and and Ultimate Oneness as well as how - and if - this can exist simultaneously alongside the concept of the individual soul. I'm going to do this while reminding you that I'm no philosophy or theology expert, and that I'm sharing my own experience of this debate along the path - and it's not a straight line! A friend recently asked me if Buddhism teaches that “nothing exists outside of the mind,” including self. Of course, Buddhism isn't easy to give short answers about. Its teachings include over 2600 years of monastic debate, and of all the world religions, its doctrines are particularly diverse and contradictory, which I dig, but it can frustrate others. Especially if you want black and white answers. The “mind only” school of Buddhism can be interpreted as one that suggests “nothing exists outside the mind.” And you could say that Yogachara taught that while consciousness is ultimately real and perceptions arise in consciousness, perceptions are provisional, without essence, and are dependent. No existence in and of themselves. Now, it's my own personal experience that we see a lot of spiritual bypassing when people ignore the suffering of individuals or groups of oppressed people, for example, and say they believe ultimately that we are One and that the individual self doesn't exist, so therefore we shouldn't focus on peoples' differences and how their experiences in life might be different. They'll shun the idea of the individual and try to transcend that and aim for the Oneness. This seems like a noble cause - to not live out of selfishness or ego-driven desires. But when I think about it, I always end up noticing, “Wait, but I DO exist.” I have a body, a mind, and ideas. I help people and I'm helped by others. That's all real, in some way, right? But then, if I also believe in the oneness of it all, and you and I not being separate, then what is this? Well, as someone who is on both journeys simultaneously - of exploring myself and my not-self - I've found that, as usual, it's not just one or the other. We are both. There are a couple problems with the “mind is real, things are not” view: One is that earlier Buddhist texts discouarge us from taking any firm opinion about whether things do or don't exist. So we can't fixate on either decision like, “The mountain is real.” or “The mountain only exists in my mind.” Each view is sometimes useful, but neither is ultimately true. The second problem with “everything is the mind” is it pretty much naturally leads to moral nihilism, which is definitely not what Buddha taught. For this Rebel Buddhist, the Middle Way - the idea that both can be true - is what I believe. Now, if we're going to go down that Middle Way path, what terms can we use to differentiate between the individual and the emptiness of the individual (the Oneness)? Bill Plotkin's definitions of the soul and spirit are really  helpful here: The Soul is the wild core of our individual selves. It is unique to each person, and is much deeper than our personalities.The Spirit is that single, great, eternal mystery that permeates and animates everything in the universe and transcends all. So, for me, soul-work is on an individual level, and spirit-work is what is touched upon in the more transcendent (beyond the self) practices. And each soul is seen to exist as an agent for spirit. The idea is that your soul is what makes you unique. You are here on this plant and in this body for a reason. All things are fulfilling their unique individual purpose, and humans are not exempt from that. This is also a piece of why I use nature so deeply in my personal work and in my retreats with the Adventure Mastermind and Freedom School. When I was a climbing guide, living and working in the mountains, I was immersed in that connection naturally. When I started graduate school, I cried because my room only had a mall triangle of a window for me to glimpse a bit of sky.. Spirit, on the other hand, is the dimension of our experience in which we sense something larger than ourselves. Many of us have had that experience at one point or another. I think about how many of my clients describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” In other words, at a minimum there is an awareness of being a part of something bigger than themselves.  It's not like we live in that experience all the time. It could just be glimpses of that intermittently. But in general, nearly everyone has experiences of awe and wonder at some point. Watching a sunset. Giving birth. After an epic orgasm… So for me, working with spirit to access these transpersonal levels are my meditation and yogic practices, my personal retreats, and my daily practices. And working with soul is when I'm fully embodied and connected with nature and everyone around me. It's when clear about, connected to, and living my unique Soul Purpose. Some people may block off focusing on soul purpose or find it contradictory to the concept of Oneness as well. Maybe they haven't seen what I've seen. I can't even begin to describe the degree of suffering I witness when people don't know why they're here. We all yearn for - and need - a purpose that can be embodied.  And contrary to the belief that if we focus on the self we suffer more, I've found that to my surprise, as we discover our individual purpose, we are more intimate with the Oneness and interdependenc of all existence, and can transcend our sense of the small self. Like an initiatory process. I dive more into what soul purpose is in the full pod, but I don't believe we're just meant to transcend this life. In fact, I believe we're meant to milk it for everything it's got! To discover, know, and live our gifts and offer them to our communities. Our love for our own life, for all living things, and for community pours itself into the world, like a prayer, through our deepest purpose. And in my opinion, it is essential in this time of radical, global change. In this Episode you will learn:// What is Soul Purpose and Soul Work?// How the concept of “Nothing exists outside the mind” fits in with the search for our purpose// How we can be both individuals and an interconnected Oneness// The difference between the soul and the spirit and the practices that nourish both// How nature and soul work are inextricably linked// The 3 characteristics of Peak Experiences Resources:// Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche, New World Library // Check out my Clarity + Courage Course here! This free 7-day course to help you finally get clear about what you want and how to go get it // Listen to Episode 71: How to Find Your Purpose // If you're ready to learn more about embracing all facets of yourself and your beliefs and heading into the next chapter of your life with a fresh, transformed start, head over to AdventureMastermind.com and apply for the Summer cohort. We have 2 altered states retreats, weekly coaching, virtual retreats, and more. I've got you! // If you're new to the squad, grab the Rebel Buddhist Toolkit I created at RebelBuddhist.com. It has all you need to start creating a life of more freedom, adventure, and purpose. You'll also get access to the Rebel Buddhist FB group, and tune in weekly when I go live on new topics.  // Want to dive into this work on a deeper level on your own time? To study it and practice it together with a group of people with the same goals of freedom, adventure and purpose? Check out Freedom School – the community for ALL things related to freedom, inside and out.  It's also where you can get individual help applying the concepts to your own life. It's where you can learn new coaching tools not shared on the podcast that will blow your mind even more, and it's where you can connect over all things freedom with other freedom junkies just like you and me. It's my favorite place on earth and it will change your life, I guarantee it. Come join us at JoinFreedomSchool.com. I can't wait to see you there. 

What is your sense of belonging? Do you feel graciously knitted within a family, a chosen family, or a community? Do you feel able to show up in your true essence and be deeply received in your nature? Do you feel supported to be whole by the community you desire to connect to? In this episode of the Regenerative Mystic Podcast, I speak with Teo Montoya, a Human Design Analyst, a Metamodern Myth Mender, and Indigenous Futurist. His work focuses on the intersections of individual growth and healing, reconfiguring kinship and deep relationality for an emerging global collective in crisis. He supports individuals in creating a personal myth that contextualizes their gifts, healing, ancestry, meaning, spirituality, and purpose in a land-based ecology of reciprocity. In this episode, we discuss how it is natural to want to belong to a community and to connect to others even though the modern world isn't very supportive of the complexities of what that means and the grace it requires. To step towards true relating, we have to get to the base of belonging, too. Belonging means that we get to honor our essence and show up as we are to community with all the complexity that comes with it. “When we feel safe enough to be seen, that's the only time that we actually feel safe enough to relate authentically.” We discuss metamodernism and why it's about being rooted deeply in Earth's story and the dissolving of black and white thinking. What we're exploring with meta modernity is that there's a meaning crisis and a meta crisis. The meta crisis is the collapse of the ecosystem and politics, while the meaning crisis is the collapse of the personal mythology and what it means to find belonging in place, people, symbology, and time. “We need new meta-narratives for the world as it is to help bring us into context.” We explore our skepticism with the “new paradigm” concept and explore a relationship with how we create a new earth where we are rooted in placehood and community, while also advancing technologically and medicinally. It is important that we socially support people to be healthy, whole, and healed so we can build a culture together. Are you living your true essence? What is your sense of belonging like? Living your true essence is about being sincere in who you are. When we're fully seen in our true essence in relationships, we get a different context of where we belong. “When our essence is expressed, it's sincerity.” Don't miss the episode to hear more on belonging, relating, and showing up to your true essence! In This Episode You Will Learn: [0:29] The importance of community as part of the human experience. [11:12] Understanding why we need to belong to relate and show up authentically. [26:13] What it means working within a metamodernism foundation as humans. [36:17] How to create a culture of nurturers where we're held to who and where we are. [52:19] How expressing your true essence is about being sincere and authentic. [1:09:37] How the beauty of music allows people to connect on a deeper level. Resources Mentioned: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arch.remnant/ Website: https://archaicremnant.com/ Metamodernism: Wild Mind by Bill Plotkin

This week we're talking about the darkness and light inside of us. We will be looking at ways to acknowledge our shadow-selves. Not just acknowledge, why it's worth the effort to embrace your shadow and unleash its power! Darkness and light. You hear it all the time, that we're made up of both. I think the best visual representative of that is the yin and yang symbol. Black and white. Each has a dot of the other inside. Balanced. Perfect. Visually pleasing.Why does darkness or specifically, shadow get such a bad rap?  It's weird because when I make art, I need shadows AND light to define shape. Both are of equal importance, there's no value judgment. So, why do we judge darkness and light attributes of ourselves differently? Show Pros and Socials:Art Director – Nora Hotes, graphic designer, multi-media artist extraordinaireLink to Audio Engineer—Aidan ConnersCurious Cat on TwitterHost, Jennifer Hotes, on TwitterEpisode Materials: Sermon by Reverend Pat, Unity Church of Portland:Wild Mind, a field guide to the human psyche by Bill PlotkinShadow-Self article, Lonerwolf

Reluctant to move on too quickly from my recent conversations with Michael Trotta and Philip Shepherd, I invited my friend Don McLeod to spend some time with me processing what we'd heard. Don, the co-founder of the Wisdom Centre, sees connections between what Michael and Philip were saying and the ancient Wisdom tradition--a way of knowing that is imaginal, embodied, and holistic. Jesus himself, Don believes, was a Wisdom teacher. In the end we found ourselves feeling new hope for the world in the cosmic story that is now emerging. How to find Michael and Philip:Michael Trotta: https://www.storymischief.comPhilip Shepherd: https://embodiedpresent.comOther resources referred to in this episode:The Wisdom Centre: https://wisdomcentre.caDavid Hatfield: https://davidhatfield.ca/edges-process-transformation"The Complete Gospels" (collection of all the known gospels); Robert J. Miller, ed"The Gnostic Gospels" by Elaine Pagels"The Journey of Soul Initiation" by Bill Plotkin"Grounded Spirituality" by Jeff Brown

Reflections on our place in the pattern of life. Bill Plotkin, Spiritual Ecology - The Cry of the Earth, 2nd edition (2016) Image by Vallenfin from PixabayMusic by JuliusH from PixabayIntro Music Credit: Michael Kobrin Outro Music Credit: Michael Kobrin

Hayley Ebersole, Founder of the Body-Mind Freedom Membership, supports soulful visionaries to release overwhelm and stress by cultivating inner and outer strength and wellbeing so they can embody the change they wish to see in the world. As a personal trainer, holistic wellness coach and yoga teacher, her work offers a pathway to physical, emotional and soul healing through reconnection to the wisdom of nature inside of our own bodies through group movement rituals, classes and courses.In a culture that rarely supports positive change, it can be easy to lose touch with ourselves. Hayley explains that as leaders, it is vital to ground our minds and bodies in the natural world. A simple way to do this is by touching your own body during mediation. According to Hayley, this method calms the nervous system and amplifies the benefits of your practice. Hayley finds that when she closes her eyes, places her hand on her belly, and takes a deep breath, she is no longer in her head, but rather grounded to the earth through her own body. Tune into this week's episode of Aligned & Soulful Leadership to learn more about the ways you can deepen your meditation practice, create energetic boundaries and become rooted in nature to cultivate inner and outer strength.Quotes• “In order to do my work and to be a leader in the world, I do need to structure my life around self-care.” (06:33-06:42)• “There was really a shift for me when I began to make the connection between the trauma that many of us hold and a culture that doesn't doesn't generally create space for alternative forms of leadership.” (08:47-09:05)• “If another human touches us, we get a beautiful, juicy hormone dump. But, we can experience a similar calmness to the nervous system by touching our own body.” (17:16-17:32) • “Rediscovering the inherent and natural cycle of nature as our experience innately draws us into our soul.” (23:37-23:56)• “The best way to disempower someone is to disconnect them from their body and the most effective way to disempower someone is to not only disconnect them from their body, but to make them feel like the body is the enemy.”  (30:51-31:09)Connect with Hayley Ebersole:https://www.exploringbodymindfreedom.com/Use coupon code “Empathleader” for 50% off a month's subscription of coaching with Hayley.https://www.instagram.com/bodymindfreedom/Nature and the Human Soul by Bill Plotkin: https://www.animas.org/books/nature-and-the-human-soul/Soulcraft by Bill Plotkin: https://www.animas.org/books/soulcraft/Connect with Kavita Melwani and Aligned & Soul Leadership• https://theenlightenedheart.pro/• Free Abundance Meditation and Exercise:  https://theenlightenedheart.pro/abundance-now/• Receive Your Free Guide: "5 Ways to Feed Your Soul and Rise Into Your Leadership as an Empath"   https://theenlightenedheart.pro/free-gift• Connect for a complimentary 30-minute clarity session explore how you can rise up into your leadership: https://theenlightenedheart.as.me/leadershipstrategyIG: https://www.instagram.com/kavitalifecoachFB: https://www.facebook.com/kavitalifecoachLI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kavita-melwani-coach/

We Didn't Solve The World's ProblemsBut we had fun talking through some of them.In the words of Marianne Williamson "Bryan is a warrior for love, in every sense of the word."That's an honor.And honestly?I just like the term..According to Bryan there's no evidence that great relationships heal the world.I still think they do.After all, "we're so connected, the word 'connected' doesn't even make sense."The ocean in a drop. Ripples.That's Rumi code for 'great relationships heal the world.'-Key Points:A true 'Adult' pushes boundaries for the collective good. To serve the whole.David Deida's like a wizard. In a unique way.Bill Plotkin's 'Nature and The Human Soul' is the new bible. Remember that one.Sacred Union doesn't mean much to Bryan, and he could have a moment of sacred union with his dog.!!-Bryan wants to live in a world where women feel safe, and can fully bring their gifts without having to dim their shine.I want to live in that world too.-Lastly, Bryan's favorite love song's...He gave us three.'Open Arms' & 'Faithfully' - Journey'Rooting For You' - London GrammarAll gems.-We'll get a playlist going next year with everyone's unique contributions.And when the time comes, you know what we're gonna  do.-Thank you @bryanreevesinsightYou're a wealth of wisdom and a gift to the world.-Next guest for the masculine is Stephan Rechtschaffen, co-founder of Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY.Fitting.Happy New Moon y'all, set those intentions!They seem to work. Sending Love,Broderick

Tom Hirons is an oral storyteller, poet, acupuncturist, wilderness vigil guide and storytelling teacher, to name a few roles. I've taken three of his classes, and found him to be a wise and warm guide into stories and storytelling. Something he said piqued my interest, the idea that stories exist in layers, from primeaval myths to everyday gossip. He unpacks this concept, and we consider different metaphors that might hold this.We also touch on grief, initiation into becoming an adult, and ecological collapse.You can find out more about Tom's work and see some beauitful publications that he's made along with his partner in art and life, Rima Staines.https://hedgespoken.org/https://tomhirons.com/ To be notified about our own upcoming creative writing and art workshops, sign up for the Story Paths mailing list here. 

My guest today is Bill Plotkin, PhD, a depth psychologist, wilderness guide, and founder of western Colorado's Animas Valley Institute. Bill has led thousands of women and men through nature-based initiatory passages, and is the author of number books, including Soulcraft, Nature and the Human Soul, and Wild Mind. In our conversation today, we discuss his recent book The Journey of Soul Initiation, which distills decades of his insights into human development and the mythopoetic relationship between humanity and ecology. We explore the Five Phases of what he calls The Descent to Soul, including Preparation Dissolution, Soul Encounter, Metamorphosis, Enactment. We compare his model and the significant differences between Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, along the challenges of navigating through each stage of development. And finally, Bill names the blessing and burden it is to take on one's own unique ecological niche, and how this invites us to become visionary artisans of cultural evolution. Support this podcast http://patreon.com/ianmack Join the Network http://themythicmasculine.com/network

Why are humans destroying the planet and making each other miserable? Are we defective? Or have we lost the map to authentic human development?

In this episode you'll get to hear the second part of my conversation with Bill Plotkin. If you didn't already listen to the first part I recommend doing that first. In this part we explore the last two stages of the descent to soul, metamorphosis and enactment. We also have a look at the concept of sacred wounds, as well as the question of how to determine whether an experience was a true soul encounter. More about Bill: Bill has founded the Animas Valley Institute and he has guided thousands of women and men on the journey of soul initiation. He is the author of Soulcraft, Nature and the human soul, Wild Mind, and, most recently, The Journey Of Soul Initiation: A Field Guide For Visionaries, Evolutionaries And Revolutionaries. You can find out more about him and Animas Valley Institute at animas.org. Who is Pauli: Pauli Saari is a purpose guide, and as such he helps you, an experienced spiritual seeker who is turning your attention from the inner work to the outer work, to get to a place where you are fully engaged in contributing towards a better world in a way that feels deeply meaningful to you. Find out more at paulisaari.com. Free online workshop about purpose discovery: paulisaari.com/webinar.

In this episode I talk to depth psychologist and wilderness guide Bill Plotkin. We take a deep dive into the journey of soul initiation. We explore the five stages of descent to soul, and we also have a look at the practices that can help a person move more swiftly towards a soul encounter. A soul encounter, in Bills use of the term, essentially means the same as finding ones soul purpose. We also discuss the practices that support the process of integrating and embodying ones purpose into ones everyday life. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. I hope that you will too! More about Bill: Bill has founded the Animas Valley Institute and he has guided thousands of women and men on the journey of soul initiation. He is the author of Soulcraft, Nature and the human soul, Wild Mind, and, most recently, The Journey Of Soul Initiation: A Field Guide For Visionaries, Evolutionaries And Revolutionaries. You can find out more about him and Animas Valley Institute at animas.org. More about Pauli: Pauli Saari is a purpose guide, and as such he helps you, an experienced spiritual seeker who is turning your attention from the inner work to the outer work, to get to a place where you are fully engaged in contributing towards a better world in a way that feels deeply meaningful to you. Find out more at paulisaari.com. Free online workshop about purpose discovery: paulisaari.com/webinar.

In our inaugural podcast episode, Bill Plotkin joins us to discuss his new book The Journey of Soul Initiation: A Field Guide for Visionaries, Evolutionaries, and Revolutionaries. We talk about the root source of cultural decay and ecological and biological degradation, the relationship between human development and cultural change, soul as a fundamentally ecological concept, and the map of the Descent to Soul outlined in his new book (the five phases of the Descent are: Preparation, Dissolution, Soul Encounter, Metamorphosis, and Enactment).  Bill Plotkin is also the author of Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche, Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World, and Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche. He is founder of southwest Colorado's Animas Valley Institute and can be found online at www.animas.org. 

Callie is a scavenger-gatherer, hunter, wilderness therapy guide, ancestral skills teacher and goat herder who lives nomadically following the seasons and wild food. Chris Ryan co-hosts this episode with me and we discuss everything from Callie's recent appearance on the TV show Alone, her upbringing & close relationship with loss and death, how she transforms grief into gratitude and a commitment to honoring herself and the earth, and the practical and symbolic beauty of goats and how they can help get us back to a more regenerative relationship with the planet. Find Callie at Caprakhan.com and on Instagram @caprakhan Callie's Book Recommendation: Nature and the Human Soul by Bill Plotkin, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and Tending the Wild by M. Kat Anderson Songs featured: Solo by Oh Wonder and No Hard Feelings by The Avett Brothers How to support the show: Rate, review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes! Support my work on Patreon and get access to perks like an exclusive WhatsApp group chat & book club just for patrons! Visit my website - AnyaKaats.com & Find me on Instagram Get full access to A Millennial's Guide to Saving the World at anyakaats.substack.com/subscribe