Introduction to Soulcraft™ with Doug Van Houten and Brian Stafford
October 28-30, 2022
3 Days of Soulcraft™ | Offered Live via Zoom
Program Description
Introduction to Soulcraft™
Soulcraft™ is for people seeking greater connection, depth, and clarity regarding life purpose and meaning.
THE SOULCRAFT INTENSIVE is an experiential plunge into the wild depths of the Psyche. Soulcraft™ is a synergistic set of nature-based skills and practices designed to evoke the life-shifting experience of soul encounter – the revelation of our unique mythopoetic identity. An identity expressed through symbol and metaphor, image and dream, archetype and myth; an identity embodied in a mysterious story that whispers to us in moments of expanded awareness and exquisite aliveness.
Your soul is your true self: those qualities that most deeply define and express who you are and the unique gift you were born to bring to the world, a world so much in need of the socially transforming contributions of initiated, actively engaged adults. To encounter the soul is to discover the mystical image you were born with, which reveals the path to your greatest personal fulfillment as well as the essence of your true service to society (wisdom traditions say these are one and the same). Soulcraft™ practices spring from modern depth psychology, the poetic tradition, and wilderness rites of passage to comprise a genuinely contemporary Western path to soul discovery and soul initiation.
This Introduction to Soulcraft is highly experiential even though offered online. We will weave practices offered in the online group space as well as explored in solitude in nature near where you reside. We share and deepen these experiences in our online small group clans and breakout groups. The result will be an online transformational and “in the wild” personal experience. By the end of this introduction, you will likely understand yourself and your place in the world from a more soul-oriented perspective, be further along on your journey to discover the gifts you were born to bring to the world, and have new skills to enrich your life and to more fully inhabit your greater place of belonging in the larger Earth community.
Soulcraft practices include:
- Soulcentric Dreamwork
- Deep Imagery Work
- Talking Across the Species Boundaries
- The Way of Council
- Soul Tasks in Nature
- The Nature-based Map of the Human Psyche
- Self-Designed Ceremony
- Shadow Work
- Soul Poetry
- Sacred Wound Work
- Synchronicities: Working with Nature’s Signs and Omens
- Befriending the Dark
- Body Movement
This weekend is structured so that our group sessions occur via Zoom. When not in a group session, the guides will invite you to wander on the land near your home or participate in journaling or other practices. Those wishing to participate fully should expect to reserve most if not all of the weekend for the other practices offered by the guides.
Recommended Reading: By Bill Plotkin: Soulcraft: Crossing Into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche and The Journey of Soul Initiation: A Field Guide for Visionaries, Evolutionaries and Revolutionaries.
Program Details
Dates:
October 28-30, 2022
- Friday, October 28: 7:00-9:00pm (PT)
- Saturday, October 29: 2:00-5:00pm (PT)
- Sunday, October 30: 2:00-5:00pm (PT)
Offered live via Zoom (program sessions will not be recorded; live participation required)
Registrations:
- $225 General Rate
- $175 Pacifica Alumni, Full Time Students, & Senior Rate
- $125 Pacifica Student Rate
About the Teachers
Brian Stafford, MD, MPH, is a guide to the wilderness of nature and soul. He was called out of academic medicine to serve as a guide to the depths and to serve as an agent of cultural awakening and transformation. He guides with humor, playfulness, compassion, discernment, and a deep remembering of the fullness of what each human life can, should, and was meant to be. A native of Colorado and the former holder of an endowed chair and professor of psychiatry and pediatrics, he is an avid outdoorsman, teacher, writer, mentor, partner, and parent. He guides individuals and groups in the Colorado River Basin as well Nosara, Costa Rica, to the place they most long and fear to go – the numinous depths of their soul. Brian currently makes his home in Ojai, California.
Doug Van Houten draws on the wisdom of the natural world, depth psychology, ecopsychology, dreams, somatic knowing, poetry, and many pan-cultural, soul furthering practices that includes: The Way of Council, vision fasting, shadow work, symbolic artwork, trance dancing and conversations with the more than human world. Doug’s true calling in life is to support others as they uncover their own unique gifts and in so doing, transform their lives in service to what Thomas Berry calls ”The Great Work” of our times. Doug is also an ardent beekeeper, a visual artist, a wily wanderer, a dream tracker, an emergent ceremonialist, a heart-centered activist, and a yogi interested in new forms of somatic practice.
General Information
Location
Hosted Online
Cancellations
Cancellations 14 days or more prior to the program start date receive a 100% refund of program registrations. After 14 days, up to 7 days prior to the program start date, a 50% refund is available. For cancellations made less than 7 days of program start date, no refund is available.
For additional information, including travel, cancellation policy, and disability services please visit our general information section.
Registration Details
October 28-30, 2022
- Number of Days: 3 Days
- Class Length: 2-3 Hours
- Dates: October 28-30, 2022
- Total Duration: 8 Hours
