Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World

Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World | Bill Plotkin | Essential reading for our time

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Nature and the Hum...

	Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World Bill Plotkin New World Library, 2007 - 528 pages average customer review:based on 17 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Addressing the pervasive longing for meaning and fulfillment in this time of crisis, Nature and the Human Soul introduces a visionary ecopsychology of human development that reveals how fully and creatively we can mature when soul and wild nature guide us. Depth psychologist and wilderness guide Bill Plotkin presents a model for a human life span rooted in the cycles and qualities of the natural world, a blueprint for individual development that ultimately yields a strategy for cultural transformation.

With evocative language and personal stories, including those of elders Thomas Berry and Joanna Macy, this book defines eight stages of human life - Innocent, Explorer, Thespian, Wanderer, Soul Apprentice, Artisan, Master, and Sage - and describes the challenges and benefits of each. Plotkin offers a way of progressing from our current egocentric, aggressively competitive, consumer society to an ecocentric, soul-based one that is sustainable, cooperative, and compassionate. At once a primer on human development and a manifesto for change, Nature and the Human Soul fashions a template for a more mature, fulfilling, and purposeful life - and a better world.

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Meaningful guidance from a learned soul scholar

Nature and the Human Soul reflects 25 years of Bill Plotkin's work, life, service, knowledge, experience, and imagination. In its pages I discovered what I'd been seeking for some time: meaningful guidance from a learned soul scholar, astute insights on how to integrate the paths of enlightenment and sustainability, and a depth brilliance all around. I went on to attend one of his workshops through the Animas Valley Institute and was mesmerized by his vision and model for recognizing and respecting souls in growth and community.

Essential reading for our time

In Nature and the Human Soul, Bill Plotkin has written an essential guide for conscious humans who care about the earth and the future of the earth at this time. It is a wonderful book that is inclusive for all cultures.
Not only has Plotkin mapped a clear path for people to follow, but he has done this with such articulate beauty that he inspire in me a passionate longing to fulfill my human potential. Nature and the Human Soul sings with beautiful quotes, honoring the earth and teaching us how we can make manifest a positive future for humans living in harmony with the earth. I found inspiration and hope on almost every page.
He writes" "Humans have received an inestimable gift. To be alive in this beautiful - self-organizing universe - to participate in the dance of life with senses to experience it.
The great open secret of gratitude is that it is not dependent on external circumstance. It is like a setting or channel that we can switch to at any moment, no matter what is going on around us. It helps us to connect to our basic right to be on this beautiful planet, like the breath does. It's a stance of the soul. Gratitude is the kernel that can flower into everything we need to know. Thankfulness loosens the grip of industrialized growth society by contradicting its predominant message: that we are insufficient and inadequate; that we need to be fearful. The forces of late capitalism continually tell us we need more - more stuff, more money, more approval, more comfort, more entertainment. The dissatisfaction it breeds is profound. It infects people with a compulsion to acquire that delivers humans into the cruel, humiliating bondage of debt. Gratitude is liberating. It is subversive. It helps us to realize that we are sufficient, and that realization frees us. Elders of indigenous cultures have retained this knowledge and we can learn from their practice".
Reading this book and living its lessons can start to heal the planet and change the world so that all of the earth's people can live in abundance, freedom and peace. If you read only one book this year, I recommend Bill Plotkin's Nature and the Human Soul.

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The Power of Here

I recently found myself amidst major upheaval on many levels; a dark night of the soul, without purpose or direction. Having done a vision quest almost twenty years ago, and knowing the power of that experience, I knew it was time for another. I had heard of Bill Plotkin's programs many years ago from a mentor, and have been impressed by the quality, breadth and depth of the programs. So while searching for a program to sign up for, I decided to buy "Nature and the Human Soul" to help me through until I could quest again.

In recent difficult days, and especially in the middle of the night, reading his chapters on the Artisan and the Master have given me perspective for the process I am going through. Such comfort, when very few understand the developmental stages human beings are capable of traveling. This work is brilliant in revealing that there are many more stages to human development than simply childhood, adulthood and old age. The book is a guide for honoring developmental stages, and in the process, creating and nurturing truly mature adults. Something sorely needed in these times.

Just prior to reading Bill Plotkin's book, I read Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth". I find Bill Plotkin's book more grounding, heart-centered, practical and precise in his guidance. "Nature and the Human Soul" guides one, not only in the importance of bearing witness, but also in the power of heeding the earths guidance and consequently, nurtures each human beings' soul-purpose here on Earth.

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The essential connection between humans and nature

My wife Lupa really liked this book and I was curious myself to see what it was about. Nature and the Human soul examines nature and how it informs and otherwise nourishes the human soul. The author breaks up the human life into eight stages and relates a concept of nature to each stage of human development. The author's argument is that we need to cultivate an ecocentric relationship with nature and each other as opposed to a selfish egocentric relationship.

After reading this book, I will say that I have a renewed appreciation of nature and why it's important to have activities in one's life that involves doing something to foster a relationship with nature. I'm not talking about a walk in the park or even a hike in a forest either...I'm talking more along the lines of actively being a steward of nature. In this book, the author argues that we need to bring nature back into our cultural practices so that we can build spiritual and community practices that focus on the well-being of all, as opposed to the material well-being of humans. The author uses different stages of human development to show what can be done during each stage of development to build such practices.

One thing which works against the efficacy of this book is the lack of exercises. While the author makes an excellent argument for integrating into a person's spiritual and community practices, he doesn't offer much in the way of practical exercises to show how this can be done. The theory is in place, but the practice also needs to be instituted to really make the concepts in this book workable.

Four out of Five stars.

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Lotus Guide Magazine Review

Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World
By Bill Plotkin

Going from being egocentric to ecocentric in today's world means that we need to evolve from being our traditionally aggressive, competitive consumer selves and to create a sustainable society by evolving into our authentic adult selves, who can live in harmony with the world around us. While reading Nature and the Soul, it's easy to see that we are first and foremost citizens of Earth; our global problems have no national boundaries or racial or religious differences. To every season there is a time, and our time to grow up as a global society is now...this is not a choice.

Rahasya Poe, Lotus Guide magazine ([...])

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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