The Journey of Soul Initiation

1. The Journey of Soul Initiation is a Path to True Adulthood

I believe the root cause of the dire crises and challenges of our time…is a widespread failure in individual human development.

Developmental Breakdown. The core issue underlying today's environmental and cultural crises is a failure in human maturation. Many individuals remain "troubled guests" on Earth, disconnected from their inner selves and the natural world.

Reclaiming the Journey. The journey of soul initiation, a psychospiritual undertaking that connects us to both the Earth community and our deepest humanity, has been lost. Revitalizing this journey is essential for individual and collective transformation.

True Adulthood. This journey leads to true Adulthood, characterized by knowing one's unique place in the web of life and creatively occupying that niche as a life-enhancing gift. True Adults are visionary leaders and evolutionary artisans, vital for a healthy, mature culture.

2. The Descent to Soul is a Five-Phased Transformative Process

This is a field guide to an ecstatic and hazardous odyssey that most of the world has forgotten…an essential spiritual adventure.

A Lost Odyssey. The Descent to Soul is a spiritual adventure, largely forgotten in the contemporary world, that offers a path to wholeness and wildness. It involves a journey into the depths of the psyche and a reconnection with the Earth.

Five Phases. The Descent consists of five distinct phases:

• Preparation: Building the necessary foundations for the journey.
• Dissolution: Dismantling the old self and worldview.
• Soul Encounter: Experiencing a revelation of one's unique mythopoetic identity.
• Metamorphosis: Reshaping the Ego in alignment with Soul.
• Enactment: Embodying one's vision as a gift to the world.

A Generative Seed. The Descent to Soul is not merely a personal journey but a "psychospiritual bomb" placed at the heart of a destructive civilization. It is a generative seed for future Earth societies that are both life-sustaining and life-enhancing.

3. Preparation is Key: Foundations for a Successful Descent

The crucial preparation is to attend to the foundations of human development…the cultivation of several dimensions of our innate human wholeness.

Beyond Conventional Development. The Preparation phase involves more than typical self-help or therapy. It requires cultivating dimensions of human wholeness often neglected in contemporary society.

Developmental Stages. The journey of soul initiation requires reaching a specific developmental stage, the Cocoon, which is rarely attained in contemporary society. This stage is characterized by a shift from egocentrism to ecocentrism and a longing for intimate encounters with the mysteries of nature and psyche.

Eco-Awakening. A key element of preparation is Eco-awakening, the conscious and embodied experience of one's innate membership in the Earth community. This involves attending to the nature-oriented tasks of childhood, such as cultivating innocence, present-centeredness, relationality, and nature connection.

4. Dissolution: Embracing the Necessary Dismemberment of Self

With this phase, you step across an existential threshold and enter a ritual space of liminality, a kind of identity indeterminateness.

The End of the Old Story. Dissolution is the phase of the Descent where the initiate experiences the dismemberment of their former identity, the disintegration of their worldview, and the end of their familiar life story. It is a process of unconditional disintegration.

Stepping into Liminality. This phase involves entering a state of suspension, where the initiate is no longer an active agent trying to solve anything. The goal is to be dissolved by Mystery, cooperating with the process but not forcing it.

Challenges and Rewards. Dissolution is challenging and may last for months or years. However, it is a necessary step for encountering Soul and undergoing true transformation.

5. Soul Encounter: Discovering Your Unique Mythopoetic Identity

Soul, for me, is an ecological concept, not a psychological one nor a spiritual or religious one…by Soul I mean a person or thing’s unique ecological niche in the Earth community.

Ecological Niche. Soul is defined as a person's unique ecological niche in the Earth community. This niche is not a social or vocational role but a deeper connection to the natural world.

Mythopoetic Identity. Because knowledge of our place in the greater web of life is precultural and prelinguistic, our unique place in the world can only be identified, described, understood, or experienced in conventional cultural terms; it can’t be equated with an everyday social or vocational role or identity.

The Role of Mystery. The discovery of our eco-niche is not a matter of strategic planning but a revelation from Mystery. It is a glimpse of a pattern or image that metaphorically characterizes our niche, a poem, a myth, or a dream.

6. Metamorphosis: Reshaping the Ego in Service to Soul

To become an initiated Adult, the Ego needs much more than a vision, a cognitive revelation, or a blueprint for a mature human. The Ego needs to be reshaped, reconfigured, metamorphosed.

From Tomb to Womb. Metamorphosis is the phase where the dismembered Adolescent Ego is re-membered into its Adult form. The chrysalis shifts from being a tomb to a womb.

Shape-Shifting. This re-memberment takes place as a result of efforts to embody one's mythopoetic identity, cultivating relationships with people, other-than-humans, and communities as that person.

Practices for Shape-Shifting. Metamorphosis does not require acts of service but involves practices that support and intensify the refashioning of the Ego. This shape-shifting can occur even without cooperation, or in the face of active resistance.

7. Enactment: Embodying Your Vision as a Gift to the World

With the metaphor-image of Soul Canyon in mind, we could say that a Descent to Soul ends with an ascent from the depths, but in a certain sense we never really leave the Canyon.

The Giveaway. Enactment is the phase where you learn to embody your mythopoetic identity in acts of service to your community. It's when you activate your giveaway, performing your vision for your people to see.

Continuous Deepening. As you embody your mythopoetic identity for others, you receive feedback that allows you to continuously deepen and develop your soul-infused conversation with the world.

Never Really Leaving. A Descent to Soul ends with an ascent from the depths, but in a certain sense, we never really leave the Canyon. Our everyday lives become expressions of those depths.

8. The Importance of Community and Guidance on the Journey

The primary obstacle is insufficient psychospiritual preparation, which, in turn, is the result of living in communities entirely unaware of the existence of Soul Canyon.

The Need for Support. Most people need support with both the preparation for and the journey itself. In a healthy society, this support takes the form of initiation processes and practices conserved and overseen by Adults and Elders.

The Scarcity of True Adults. The scarcity of true Adults is the explanation for why there are so few real Elders. The passage from psychological Adolescence to true Adulthood has become so challenging and so rarely traversed.

Reclaiming the Journey. To meaningfully address our current cultural and environmental collapses, the most essential initiative is to reclaim, redesign, and revitalize practices for the journey of soul initiation.

9. The Ecological Definition of Soul: Reconnecting with the Earth

Foundationally, Soul, for me, is an ecological concept, not a psychological one nor a spiritual or religious one.

Unique Ecological Niche. Soul is defined as a person or thing's unique ecological niche in the Earth community. All creatures have Souls, not just humans.

Human Soul. The individual human Soul is the particular ecological niche a person is born to occupy, whether or not that niche is ever consciously discovered or embodied.

Missing Link. Soul, understood as unique eco-niche, is precisely what connects our human psyche to ecology. It is an identity much deeper than our personality, social-vocational role, or political or religious affiliations.

10. The Role of Death and Mortality in Soul Initiation

I have believed we are transformed and matured by living with a consciousness of death.

Death as Teacher. Living with a consciousness of death transforms and matures us. When we ask what matters most in the light of our mortality, life becomes simpler, our values clearer.

Gifts of Mortality. Our greatest gifts to the world are engendered by the reality of mortality. What will you offer the world if your life itself and the way you live it are the only meaningful and lasting gifts you can give?

The Tomb and the Womb. At the start of the journey of soul initiation, it's the tomb and its ending we encounter first, not the womb and its promise. A Cocoon Weaver must portray the tomb as alluring – or at least necessary.

Last updated: March 6, 2025