Your Wild, Sacred Soul with Bill Plotkin

Program Description

Deep into his career as a psychotherapist and research psychologist, Bill Plotkin recognized that as we surround ourselves with the trappings of our culture, and distance ourselves from nature, a host of emotional and spiritual troubles emerge. He placed himself in nature’s guiding hands and found his true calling in helping others find theirs. He now leads vision quests, in which individuals engage the natural world as both the medium and the context for a passage to adulthood, and a maturity that too often is beyond reach in our urban society. He explains, “A true adult is someone who has recognized consciously what their mystical relationship is to the natural world, which comes into our consciousness as a calling to bring a particular gift to the world.” The rewards include a richer life, of course, but they go much further, as our individual sacred callings become the seeds that lift our world to a brighter, more loving place.

Bill Plotkin, PhD, has been a psychotherapist, research psychologist, rock musician, river runner, professor of psychology, and mountain-bike racer. As a research psychologist, he studied dreams and nonordinary states of consciousness achieved through meditation, biofeedback, and hypnosis. The founder and president of Animas Valley Institute, he has guided thousands of people through initiatory passages in nature since 1980. Currently an ecotherapist, depth psychologist, and wilderness guide, he leads a variety of experiential, nature-based individuation programs. Dr. Plotkin is the author of Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche (New World Library 2003) and Nature and the Human Soul: Creating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World (New World Library 2008). To learn more about the work of Bill Plotkin go to www.natureandthehumansoul.com

Topics Explored in this Dialogue:

• Why it may be terrifying to discover what you’re called to do
• Why adolescents often have such a difficult time in our culture
• How the government and our educational institutions make it difficult for us to grow up
• What we lose when we don’t spend time in the natural world
• What is a new definition of adulthood

Program Number: 3237              Host: Michael Toms              Interview Date: 1/28/2008