Design Principles
for Soulcrafting
Soulcrafting
Windows of Knowing
Ritual & Ceremony
Deep Imagination
Design Principle:
Soulcrafting
When we talk about soul, we are referring to the unique and particular way that each and every one of us loves the world - and all beings within it.
It is the image at the heart of us, the poem of us. Which is to say it is the very particular flavour of our unique ways of being in relationship with all beings within the wider web of Life - within which we are embedded.
Soulcrafting refers to the practices that support us to receive and live as our unique soul image, flavour, gifts and powers - and to serve and love the world in this very particular way.
Your Unique Soul Purpose
Our unique soul purpose is the embodiment of this image or poem or way of loving in the world, in the way the world most longs for us to participate. Said in another way, it is what you were born into this lifetime to be and do, so as to be most in service to all beings - in sacred and reciprocal relationship with the whole earth community. This is very different to the way many others use the term purpose or even soul purpose.
The term Soulcraft refers to the myriad ways (practices, approaches, ways of being and relating) that support us to re-member our very particular place in the web of Life which we could call our psycho-ecological niche. Engaging in these practices supports Life to craft our ego selves such that we become able to live as the particular soul purpose we have been given in this lifetime. This soulcrafting of our egos happens through experiences that challenge us (our current ego state) and lead to an expansion of our consciousness - that is, an expansion of what we are consciously aware of.
Soulcraft is an ongoing conversation, song and dance with Mystery/God/the Creator/the Tao/Creatrix/Life. Having received Mystery’s beckoning call, soulcraft practices, for example, grief-tending, dream work, deep imagery journeys, shadow work and core-to-sacred wound alchemy, support us to dive deep down into the underworld to harvest and alchemise the rich treasures that this mysterious domain of the unknown has to offer us.
Expanding beyond power-over consciousness
This alchemy of ego by soul is needed for the deep cultural transformation our world is longing for through us. It opens up our perception of experience to the felt senses of emotionality, smelling, touching, tasting and deep imagination - ways of knowing beyond the strategic mind that are essential to the process of composting our power-over paradigm into relational cultures. Through the process of dancing in and with the unknown we begin to go beyond predict and control by strengthening our psychic muscles to be with the emergent edge of life and to ask the question: What is Earth up to?
Soulcraft practices inherently evoke inner-led change at the threshold of; the inner and the outer; the human and other than human, and activate composting of power-over culture from the inside-out. They support us to more fully and consciously become who we uniquely are within the wider web of Life. They open up our senses to the ways we must authentically respond to what is happening in the world as a manifestation of our very particular way of loving the world. This is what the world is longing for through each and every one of us.
Soulcraft is a term coined by Bill Plotkin, founder of Animas Valley Institute and whose extraordinary first book is of this name. In order to grow this soul-embodied way of being in the world, Bill suggests three main categories of soulcrafting practices:
- Practices for leaving home /becoming an emotionally healthy adult
- Pathways to soul encounter (when our soul reveals its very particular mythic flavour to us)
- Cultivating a soulful relationship with life
Take a deeper dive into this in Bill's book Soulcraft: crossing into the mysteries of nature and psyche. And check out terminology from Animas at their website.
Want to explore soulcrafting practices?
These three categories of soulcrafting practice are foundational to all programs, events and mentoring we offer. Check out our Offerings section and sign up to our newsletter here to be the first to hear about our latest offerings.
For further reading: Soulcraft
“Perhaps the most potent expressions of diversity
GENEEN MARIE HAUGEN
are far deeper than skin
and emerge when an individual
has sunk roots into their unique niche
in the unfolding dream of the Earth.”
Design Principle:
Windows of Knowing
Sensing, imagining, feeling and thinking (SIFTing)
Top-down thinking and rational cognition tend to be the most valued ways of knowing in Western culture. Inner practices draw on the interrelationship between all our ways of knowing and intuiting - thinking, feeling, sensing and imagining. As we practice opening each of the windows, we develop our awareness of how we know what we know, and the influence that different ways of knowing have on our actions, narratives and beliefs.
Decolonising our ways of knowing
This is how we move away from the 'predict and control' tendency of the strategic mind, and towards supporting the emergence of what Life wants through us.
The dominant narratives that have colonised our past, present and future are grounded in this top-down disembodied rational thinking that is void of; the intimacy of our felt senses; the emotional flow of our hearts; and the creative potential of our deep and vast imaginations. Doing the work that allows us to use all our senses and windows of knowing enhances our capacity then to challenge these dominant narratives - enabling us to eco-awaken and imagine the potential for transformative change.
For example the thought-based belief that ‘there is no alternative’ to neo-liberal capitalism shuts down our capacity to imagine regenerative and more life-affirming cultures. Or, the belief that “that humans are a problem” further creates a culture of shame, self-hate and violence. When we are in relation with all our ways of knowing and intuiting we can begin to access deep imagination - that which emanates from beyond the individual self/ego and human centered consciousness, and which connects us with an intelligence and wisdom commensurate with the scale of crises we now face. In the wise words of Arundhati Roy:
"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day I can hear her breathing"
This is the voice in us that can ask the question: What is Earth up to now? And has the capacity to deeply listen for the answer that arises from below our day world consciousness and strategic mind, from the part of us in communication with all beings of Earth Community from our place of belonging within the web of life.
The practice of ‘four windows of knowing’ originates in the work of Stephen Gaellegos and Diane Timberlake, and is deeply integrated within our approach to change and how each of us shows up in our Starter Culture work.
Want help accessing windows of knowing beyond the strategic mind?
Check out our programs, mentoring and Offerings section more generally - and sign up to our newsletter here to be the first to hear about our latest offerings you can.
Design Principle:
Ritual and Ceremony
In conversation with the Holy in the wild and the other-than-human
If you agree that going beyond these times of crises and collapse requires a de-centring of the human perspective and an expansion beyond 'predict and control' towards emergent strategising, then you will appreciate the vital need to cultivate a reciprocal conversation with the other than human world within our change-making efforts.
Speaking the universal language of ritual is how we radically participate in our belonging to Life and Earth community in more-than-human ways beyond our power-over paradigm. As Dagara elder, Malidome Some, reminds us in his book Ritual: Power, Healing and Community, ritual is the antidote to modernity’s addiction epidemic.
Wild reciprocity
At Starter Culture we do our best to ground all that we do in our reciprocal relationality with the other than humans and the Holy in the Wild. We listen to their voices for counsel and consent. Not necessarily about us, but about themselves and their perspective. In addition, our practices are based on animist ways of being - dream, deep imagination, ceremony and ritual, ancestral lineage healing, wandering without a goal in wildish places. Without this more-than-human wellspring, we would grow dry and become overwhelmed, disenchanted, despairing, disconnected and forgetful again of our interbeing with all of Life.
Through ritual and ceremony, we shift consciousness from the mundane and every day ‘to do’ list and strategic mind thinking, to the receptive, open, sacred consciousness that is capable of hearing the myriad and unique ways the other than human world is speaking with each other and back to us.
Engaging in ritual and ceremony is is to make visible that which is invisible. It is a symbolic expression of emotion and intention in relationship with the more than human web of Life: gratitude, the fulfilment of our longing, asking for support, ways of saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to Life, requests, offerings of beauty (speech, song, music, handmade crafts or art) are just some of the ways we might carry out ritual.
Healthy relationships require tending
We need to tend this relationship with the more than human Web of Life much as we do our relationships with humans. To know each other's ways and to deepen into relationship, we show up and listen, tending to the vulnerability that comes when we embrace our 'not knowing how to do this' and when we reveal to hawthorn, gorse, rook, moss, boulder, oak or dandelion, the truth of what is moving in our our tender and fiery hearts.
Ritual healing for these times
Ritual and ceremony are an essential ally to our wholing and healing work. Without this reciprocal relating with the more than human world it almost certainly feels too overwhelming to take care of the ever increasing needs and emotions of our wounded young parts - especially in these times of escalating crises and collapse.
Without the support that comes through this more than human relating, we go into some version of collapsed despair, thinking we are alone. It is this reciprocal relating with the other than human dimensions of Life that opens us up to the support of our wise and well ancestors who so long to be in relationship with us and to help heal the hungry ghosts fueling the current unravelling of civilisation trauma and the great costs this is bringing to the whole Earth community.
A ritual is a ceremony in which we call in spirit to come and be the driver, the overseer of our activities. The elements of ritual allow us to connect with the self, community, and the natural forces around us
Sobonfu Somé
Want support to integrate ritual and ceremony into your change-making?
Check out our programs, mentoring and Offerings section more generally - and sign up to our newsletter here to be the first to hear about our latest offerings you can.
Design Principle:
Deep Imagination
The imagination is often associated with either artists or the realm of fantasy or something we encourage in children but then grow out of. Perhaps we still recognise it as the place where our inner and outer worlds meet when we see animals in clouds or eyes in the knots of trees.
Imagine if ....
Together, we might access the imagination to create strategy, imagine the future of a project, or collaborate towards a shared vision. Collective imagination allows us to harness our creative capacity with and for the good of all; our community, the Earth or the world. Taking action to go beyond poverty, hunger, injustice and impacts of the climate crisis all need our collective imagination to address and alleviate. Imagine if ... has now become a common tool amongst change-agents seeking to expand beyond the world as we know it.
Fantastical realms
What we call fantasy is often a place of other worlds and beings, heroic journeys and dragons. Or it can be the escape from the day to day dullness or pain of late stage capitalism and the very real suffering that we all endure to wildly varying degrees.
All of these are fruitful and necessary aspects of our human capacity.
Co-creating with Earth
Meanwhile, an aspect of the imagination that is often not talked about or even commonly known, is the deep imagination. The realm of deep imagining invites us to access the deeper mythic strata of our being and to pass through a portal into the world where the essence of all things lives across space and time. Through the deep imagination we can join Earth in co-creation, dive back into dreams to experience them and their evolutionary intent again, encounter our own unique soul image or receive mythic visions from the soul of the world relating to our navigating of these current times of crises and collapse. Our co-creativity with Earth and the Web of Life is the deep imagination.
This gift supports us to be with the not-knowing of these times without having to know where we are headed or what the future will or should look like. Rather, we are supported to embody ontological shifts, that is, shifts at the level of being rather than doing, as the dreaming of Earth reveals itself to us as Deep Imagination and the new Myths our world is longing for through us.
Think like an eco-system; feel like a mountain
Our capacity to think like an ecosystem or feel like a mountain being mined, and imagine together another way forward is dependent upon our deep imaginal capacity. And, it is there that we are also able to gather up the gifts of our own soul and the particular way we might contribute to Earth’s flowering in a never-before-seen way.
Want support to open to the Deep Imagination?
Check out our in-person and online programs, our Earth-centric inner-led mentoring offer and our Offerings section more generally - and/or sign up to our newsletter here to be the first to hear about our latest offerings you can.
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