FOUNDATIONS OF PETER'S WORK

The Eco-Soulcentric Developmental Wheel - A Model of Human Development

Bill Plotkin's book, Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World, presents his ground-breaking model of human development. The model is both ecocentric and soulcentric - that is, a nature-based model that fully honors the deeply imaginative potentials of the human psyche.

This developmental model describes eight life stages arrayed around a nature-based circle. Each stage has a nature-oriented dimension and a culture-oriented dimension, and developmental tasks associated with each dimension. The stages and their associated tasks provide guidelines to help you determine where the focus of your current life stage might be, as well as the tasks that need attention.

"This eight-stage model shows us how we can take root in a childhood of innocence and wonder; sprout into an adolescence of creative fire and mystery-probing adventures; blossom into an authentic adulthood of cultural artistry and visionary leadership; and finally ripen into a seed-scattering elderhood of wisdom, grace, and the holistic tending of what cultural ecologist David Abram calls the more-than-human world." (Nature and the Human Soul, p. 5)

For more information about Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World: see the website link,
http://www.animas.org/books/nature-and-the-human-soul/.

The Way It Is

There's a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn't change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can't get lost.
Tragedies happen; People get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time's unfolding.
You don't ever let go of the thread.

- WILLIAM STAFFORD