Nature & The Human Soul Online – January, 2025
January 22 - February 27, 2025
With Gene Dilworth, M.A. and Kent Dobson
Anchored in traditional four-directions wisdom, contemporary depth and archetypal psychologies, and twenty-five years of nature-based soul guiding, the Soulcentric Developmental Wheel (SDW) is a new ecopsychology of human development and cultural transformation. It’s 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 — 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 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 Animas participant familiar with the 4-directions-based map of the Self and the sub-personalities — used on many of our programs — please note that the SDW is something quite different and complementary.)
During this intensive, we employ talks (with handouts), conversation and story telling, and experiential exercises on the land as we explore the SDW and its applications to education, parenting, rites of passage, psychotherapy, personal growth, and cultural change. You’ll discover how to use the SDW to clarify your own next steps of soul-infused development and learn a set of principles and practices by which you can align yourself with the lifelong journey of growing whole.
This online offering will meet a total of 21 hours. One hour of mentoring is also included for each participant.
Seven 3-hour sessions will take place via Zoom during the following dates and times:
1- Wednesday, January 22: 9:00 am -12:00 pm MST
2- Thursday, January 23: 9:00 am -12:00 pm MST
3- Thursday, January 30: 9:00 am -12:00 pm MST
4- Thursday, February 6: 9:00 am -12:00 pm MST
5- Thursday, February 13: 9:00 am -12:00 pm MST
6- Thursday, February 20: 9:00 am -12:00 pm MST
7- Thursday, February 27: 9:00 am -12:00 pm MST
Guides
Gene Dilworth is dedicated to the project of rewilding the human spirit as an essential dimension of being fully human in these times. By nurturing meaningful relationships with the more-than-human world and facilitating deep inquiry into the mysterious depths of one’s true nature, he supports individuals to discover, re-member and live from the center of their soul-rooted sense of belonging to the world. Gene has been guiding groups and individuals in transformative nature-based experiences since 1986. He has taught ecopsychology and environmental studies at the university level, and has served as an academic administrator and other leadership roles in a…
Learn more about Gene Dilworth, M.A.
Kent Dobson is a defender of the ancient and hidden ways of relating to the ordinary mysteries of being alive. He’s committed to helping others listen to the poetry of their own way of being and the potentialities latent in the contours of the heart. He’s fascinated by the ways myth and symbol arise spontaneously from the psyche in wildly personal ways and in recognizable patterns that cross time and culture. He’s a student of the evolving conversation around the sacred masculine and the sacred feminine. He was lucky enough to grow up in the woods of Virginia, among the hills and streams, as the son…
Learn more about Kent Dobson