Introduction to Soulcraft – Online Masterclass

Join us online over three days as we explore Soulcraft practices as developed by depth psychologist and wilderness guide Bill Plotkin and The Animas Valley Institute.

With Kate Joyner and Doug Van Houten in partnership with The Animas Valley Institute

Soulcraft is a synergistic set of nature-based practices designed to evoke the life-shifting experience of soul encounter.

Soulcraft practices spring from nature-based cultures, modern depth psychology, the poetic tradition, and wilderness rites of passage — to comprise a truly contemporary Western path to soul discovery and soul initiation.  In order to celebrate Bill Plotkin’s new book The Journey of Soul Initiation, we are running a very special Masterclass on Soulcraft over the course of a weekend.

Your soul is your true self, those qualities that most deeply define and express who you are and the unique gift that you were born to bring to the world, a world so much in need of the socially transforming contributions of initiated, actively engaged adults.

To encounter the soul is to discover the mystical image you were born with, which reveals the path to your greatest personal fulfillment as well as the essence of your true service to society (the cross-cultural wisdom traditions say these are one and the same).

What to Expect

We alternate between practices utilised in group, practices explored in solitude in nature, and sharing and deepening those experiences in small groups. What you discover through one practice is carried into and amplified by what you learn in the next.

By the end of the intensive, you will understand yourself and your place in the world from a more soul-oriented perspective, be clearer about the gifts you were born to bring to the world, and have new skills to enrich your life and to defend the health of the more-than-human world.

Soulcraft practices include:

• Soulcentric Dreamwork
• Deep Imagery Work with Animal Guides
• Talking Across the Species Boundaries
• The Way of Council
• Soul Tasks in Nature
• Self-Designed Ceremony
• Shadow Work
• Soul Poetry
• Sacred Wound Work
• Synchronicities: Working with Nature’s Signs and Omens
• Befriending the Dark
• Body Movement
• many others!

The weekend will be structured so that half the time is spent on Zoom and the other half you’ll be invited to wonder on the land near your home, so please make sure that you reserve the times we are not on Zoom to immerse yourself in the experiential Soulcraft practices.

Key information:

DATES:
19 – 21 February 2021

TIMES: London GMT
Friday 19th: 7 – 9pm
Saturday 20th: 2 – 5pm
Sunday 21st: 2 – 5pm

LOCATION:
Online via Zoom – A recording will be available to participants afterwards, and those in different time zones

FEE:
£130 – low income
£165 – regular fee
£200 – help someone else to attend fee

Wilderness Guides

Kate Joyner

Kate serves as a guide to the mysteries of Soul by facilitating the Underworld Journey to Soul, for Animas and through her own body of work. Our modern culture has banished and demonised the primordial power held within our Eros and it’s creative expression. Kate believes that our creative life force energy, once fully embodied, is the revolutionary force that will change the world. She is devoted to creating alchemical journey’s that catalyse the unfurling of the tender and powerful essence of each soul to come forth in service of re-imagining a culture rooted in true love and mythical wildness.

Doug Van Houten

Doug draws on the wisdom of the natural world, depth-psychology, eco-psychology, dreams, somatic knowing, poetry, and many pan-cultural, soul furthering practices that includes: The Way of Council, vision fasting, shadow work, symbolic artwork, trance dancing and conversations with the more than human world. Doug’s true calling in life is to support others as they uncover their own unique gifts and in so doing, transform their lives in service to what Thomas Berry called ”The Great Work” of our times. Doug is also an ardent beekeeper, a visual artist, a wily wanderer, a dream tracker, an emergent ceremonialist, a heart-centered activist, and a yoga instructor interested in new forms of somatic practice.

Upcoming Dates & Booking