My Pura Vida:

Last weekend while attending a workshop given by Elizabeth Jenkins we learned about how to identify the male and female nature spirits that influence us. The male spirits Apus, are typically mountains and the Ayllus, or female spirits are often water bodies. While reading Jenkin's second book Journey to Q'eros, I had a strong sense that participating in the Hatun Karpay would be an experience that my dear friend from Bolivia would be interested in. The next day I read an email message I received from Shir Goldberg, the photographer of the Andes meets Amazon photo that has captivated me. I had asked Shir where he had taken the photo. It turns out that the place, Villa Tunari, Bolivia is located just 150km from where my friend lives. The Apus of the Andes and the Ayllus of the Amazon are clearly calling me home. I await my return to South America this summer with great anticipation!

A project I have been working on for my Cosmological Powers class is a presentation to describe in Bill Plotkin's words, 'the specific physical location in the physical natural world where one most belongs. This is the place where one finds their true self.' This image named Amazon meets Andes by Shir Goldberg describes that place for me.

Upon finishing Plotkin's book Soulcraft last weekend, I realized that some of his words (and those of my professor Brian Swimme) may be helpful to others, so I went through the exercise of distilling some of the key points in the book below.

Solitudo is Latin for nature. In true solitude you remember yourself as part of everything - part of nature, part of the universe.
Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry propose in their book 'The Universe Story' that everybody and everything has not only a unique place in the world, but they are a unique place.
Your soul is both of you and of the world. Your soul corresponds to a niche, a distinctive place in nature, like a vibrant space of shimmering potential waiting to be discovered, claimed and occupied.
Shamanistic traditions emphasize the discovery and embodiment of our unique soul.
The upperworld is the home of the spirit, the underworld is the home of the soul, and the middleworld is the home of our human personalities and bodies.
The journey into the soul has three stages:
- Severance (temporary or permanent) from your current role in the community or at work, and most especially in your way of understanding yourself
- Initiation into the life of your soul or for those who have completed their first initiation, a deepening into the soul path
- Incorporation into a new role, a new place in your community
In the preparation for the descent into the underworld you will turn your back on conventional society for a while. You will relinquish the temptation to conform or seek acceptance from others. You will have to go it on your own.
It involves both a surrender of your beliefs about how you are supposed to be and how the world is supposed to work, and then a surrender to your deepest and wildest passions.
Opening to your sacred wound (karmic or childhood trauma) allows you to genuinely fall in love with your authentic self.
One example of this path to the soul is the reclaiming of one's primary membership in the universe and the embodiment of the sacred feminine (Pachamama - mother earth - mother universe -sacred feminine.)
To proceed toward wholeness and manifest the promise only you can bring to the world, you must investigate your shadow self. It contains values and perspectives needed to round out your conscious personality.
The positive qualities of our shadow are projected onto others. Think about what would happen if you assimilated the qualities of the 'Other' that you like or dislike.
Keys to your soul's powers are uncovered by becoming conscious of disowned or projected qualities and accepting them as a part of one's self.
Before the soul initiation, the ego feels a genuine and inconsolable lonliness and longing. It really needs to be completed by something. The problem is that the 'completion' will never take place through a romantic relationship with another. It is only the soul, the divine lover, that fully completes the ego and allows it to feel fittingly partnered. The Magical Other fantasy, so deeply rooted in our Western psyches, does not die easily. After grieving the loss of the Magical Other fantasy, one is able to experience their self as whole already, fully eligible to be in love with the world either alone or partnered.
In soulcentric partnership there is no anticipated result (e.g. monagamy, cohabitation, marriage, children, economic, or professional advancement) as being preferable to any other.
The coniunctio is the term for the union of sacred opposites in the alchemical texts. One pair of phychic opposites is the ego and the complimentary gender representative within the self. Their union within the self constitutes the inner sacred marriage. Thus, the integration of the feminine and masculine is one aspect of becoming whole or 'One.'
Once you have identified your soul powers, you must learn how to embody these soul powers within your specific culture, time and place.
Soul initiation is the moment you commit to yourself to embodying the specific desires of your soul as revealed in one or more soul encounters. After your initiation, life cannot and never will be the same.
The ego's soul gift to society is also a gift to the more than human world because it supports the human community in maintaining a balanced relationship with the rest of nature.
If you choose the soul, remember that your first encounter provides only your opening sentence of a new conversation between you and the world. You must speak your vision into the world, not knowing how it will respond.
Integrating the experience of the soul is a huge challenge. Despite their love for you, your friends and family are likely to resist your life alterations because your changes will force unwanted changes on them. ('Release yourself from the burden of pleasing them.' - Brain Swimme)
In reference to the cosmological power of emergence, 'Expect opposition and embrace the discomfort. Know that you can learn from it and move more deeply into your creative unfolding. Embrace the assumption that you live in an ocean of creativity and you are going to consciously participate in the power of its emergence.' (Brian Swimme)