Soulcraft™**

 

Soulcraft is a set of nature-based practices developed by Bill Plotkin, founder of the Animas Valley Institute, in collaboration with other Animas guides. These practices are designed to facilitate our own unique experience of soul encounter. Our soul is our true and authentic self, those qualities that most deeply define and express who we are and the unique gift that we were born to bring to the world. It is often hidden beneath the layers of our personality, and the roles and functions of our daily life. It is the longing behind the questions about what we are really meant to be and do in our life.

 

Because hidden, the soul can be elusive. Though it frequently attempts to get our attention the patterns of our life often prevent us from hearing soul’s whisperings, and even its shouting. The soul can feel dangerous to our accustomed way of being because it might ask us to make significant life changes. Soulcraft is not for the faint of heart or those wishing to maintain the status quo.

 

Soulcraft practices are user friendly processes that facilitate the shift in consciousness necessary to access the deep imagination, the language of soul. This creates the conditions for an increased openness to encounters with soul. Through soul encounter we gather images, symbols, and stories that have numinous and mysterious qualities that cannot be fully understood but which are felt as "true" at a level below rational thinking. This gathering ultimately leads to a recognition of our larger soul story – the story we are meant to live and through which we are called to give of our gifts to the world.

 

Some of the soulcraft practices that I use in my work are:

	Soulcentric Dreamwork
	Deep imagery or active imagination
	Self-designed ceremony
	Journal work
	Vision questing
	Council Work
	Trance Drumming and rhythms
	Talking across the species boundaries
	Apprehending and responding to signs and omens in nature
	Wandering on the land with various soulcentric tasks
	Story telling

 

**"Soulcraft" is a registered trademark of William B. Plotkin

 

See the Animas Valley Institute’s website for links to Bill Plotkin’s books the programs offered by the institute: http://www.animas.org