Nature & the Human Soul: An Experiential Training in the Soulcentric Developmental Wheel Online – January, 2025

Applications are currently being reviewed as they are received. This program will be closed to new applications on December 4, 2025.

Important note: This is a training program designed for people in our Soulcraft Apprenticeship and Initiation Program (SAIP) but is also open to those with both a professional and personal interest in the Soulcentric Developmental Wheel. This program is not a good choice for people primarily seeking an experiential introduction to the work of Animas. 

For those who are seeking an experiential introduction to the Soulcentric Developmental Wheel and for those called to support full-spectrum human development in the first three stages of life – such as for those in our Wild Mind Training Program –  we invite you to register for our Online Nature and the Human Soul Intensive.

For those seeking guidance on their Journey of Soul Initiation, we invite you to enroll in any of our programs listed here: https://www.animas.org/great-place-to-start/

Anchored in traditional cross-cultural four-directions wisdom, contemporary depth and archetypal psychologies, and forty years of nature-based soul guiding, the Soulcentric Developmental Wheel (SDW) is a new ecopsychology of human development and cultural transformation. As presented in Bill Plotkin’s book, Nature and the Human Soul, the SDW is a blueprint showing how richly we can grow and mature when soul and nature are embraced as our wisest and most trustworthy guides. It includes an integrated set of developmental guidelines that can help every human mature into an adulthood of visionary leadership — a stage of life that has become rare but is precisely what we need in this century if we are to create a just, compassionate, and sustainable world.

A life-span model of development from infancy through authentic elderhood, the SDW presents eight distinct stages of life and shows how these stages are almost always independent of chronological age, biological development, cognitive ability, or social role. Rather, the movement from one stage to the next comes about through progress with the psychological and spiritual tasks that are specific to each stage. The SDW presents an achievable vision of a contemporary way of life that holds soul-discovery and genuine contribution to the more-than-human community as its most central features and goals.

(If you are a previous or current Animas participant or trainee familiar with the 4-directions-based map of the Self and the sub-personalities — utilized on many of our programs — please note that the SDW is something quite different although complementary: a developmental model of life stages in contrast to a structural model of the elements of the human psyche.)

Although a training, this program is anchored in experiential exercises as well as lectures and discussions. Our learning formats will include talks (with handouts), conversation and storytelling, and experiential exercises on the land as we explore the SDW and its applications to full-spectrum human development, nature-based soul initiation guiding, and cultural regeneration. 

You’ll discover how to use the SDW to support and guide others as well as to clarify your own next steps of soul-infused personal development. You will learn a set of principles and practices by which contemporary people can once again align themselves with the lifelong journey of growing whole.