Soulcraft Musings

Today, January 20, 2017, we inaugurate Soulcraft Musings, a new offering from Animas Valley Institute (see below). This is the same day America inaugurates a new president, a cultural upheaval currently mobilizing thousands of response teams worldwide. On this day we commence our humble project of Soulcraft Musings in support of the deepening, diversification, and flourishing of all life. At this time in the world, may we all inaugurate actions and projects that collectively give birth to a life-enhancing society.

The journey of descent to soul has largely been forgotten in mainstream culture, but there is nothing more essential in the world today. The experiential encounter with soul is the key element in the initiatory journey that culminates in true adulthood. And true adults — visionary artisans — are the generators of the most creative and effective actions in defense of all life and in the renaissance and evolution of generative human cultures.

The encounter with soul is not a weekend workshop but an unfolding journey over many months or years. Harvesting its fruit and feeding the world with its bounty plays out over the rest of one’s life. Every day holds opportunities for each of us to prepare for the journey to the underworld of soul, or, once we have embarked upon the journey, to take our next steps, or to gather its mystical treasures and hone them into practical shapes, or to fashion never-before-seen delivery systems for carrying these gifts to the Earth community.

We, at Animas Valley Institute, would like to gift you with this weekly email of trail markers (cairns) on the journey to soul. These Soulcraft Musings, although each only a couple minutes of reading, will be, we trust, valuable guidelines and support on your journey. Each includes references for further reading, study, and practice. And each features a resonant image and poem.

The central theme that ties together all the Musings is, of course, soul and the human encounter with soul. But even the original depth meaning of the word soul has been lost to the modern mind. What we at Animas mean when we speak or write about soul is not what you’ll find in contemporary religious, spiritual, philosophical, or psychological traditions or in everyday conversation. We’ll explore these and many other fundamentals and principles in Soulcraft Musings.

If you’re already on our list, you’ll receive an email with a Soulcraft Musing once a week. If you’re not on our list and would like to subscribe, please click here.

And please feel free to share Soulcraft Musings widely with friends, family, and colleagues.

In wildness and wonder,

Bill Plotkin

Founder

Animas Valley Institute

View Previous Musings

Friday, November 14, 2025

Across eras and places and people, this time of year is known for the veil being thin, for the connections between the visible and invisible realms being more palpable, for the honoring of those who have crossed over to be celebrated in community. This week’s selection aligns with all that the season invites into our awareness.

This particular poem makes vivid what the tender caring of our beloved elders might look like; how it is possible to heal, even after death. The poem shows us the slow process of transitioning into a new relationship, one where the whole village participates in making it possible for the elders to become blessed ancestors whispering their wisdom, where if the others feel their presence, they might just catch ‘whatever children need to know’.

The Elders

When by the fire at sundown the elders

No longer spoke, no longer

Shook their heads or reached for the food

Put down beside them, when their eyes stayed closed

Or open without blinking,

When they no longer saw or heard

What they were asked to understand, their children

Would cover them and let them lie

Close to the embers and would turn them over

Carefully and gently in the night

As they would have turned themselves

If they had been sleeping

And would let them rest there through the day

To be covered with leaves in rain,

To be dried by the sun

Like clothing newly washed in a spring,

And then would bring them to the fire again

At evening, to their accustomed places

As the warmth and light of the flames

Healed them, as the smoke healed them and the ashes

Smoothed across their faces, across their arms

And legs and over their whole bodies

Healed them slowly night after night and morning

And afternoon, till the bundles of their skin

Grew light around their bones, still lighter

Each time they were lifted

And carried through the forest to a new campfire,

Till even the youngest could lift them

Like those just born. Their eyes would be changed

To cowrie shells, to slits in a whiteness

Able to see more clearly into the sky

Even at night and far below the earth,

As far upstream as the source and as far

Downstream as the dark mouth of the Sepik River,

Till their spirits became large birds flying away,

Not into trees or into the clouds

But straight against the shoulder blades of their children

Where they would hold as tight against their spines

As if they had grown there, down-curved beaks

Firm along the tops of the living skulls

Of those grown children, where they would walk

And whisper whatever children need to know.

—David Wagoner

To read previous musings click here.