Luminary: Bill Plotkin

Luminary: Bill Plotkin

Bill Plotkin is a depth psychologist, guide of wilderness rites, ecotherapist, author, and speaker. As the founder and president of Colorado’s Animas Valley Institute, he has, since 1981, led thousands of people through nature-based initiatory passages, including a contemporary, Western adaptation of the pan-cultural vision quest. Previously, he has been a research psychologist, professor of psychology, psychotherapist, rock musician, whitewater river guide, and mountain-bike racer. As a research psychologist in the 1970’s, he studied dreams and nonordinary states of consciousness achieved through meditation, biofeedback, and hypnosis. His doctorate in psychology is from the University of Colorado at Boulder. One day in 1979, while a psychology professor at SUNY-Albany, Bill made a solo winter ascent of an Adirondack mountain. On the summit, he experienced what Joseph Campbell called the “call to adventure,” a world-shifting moment that lead him to abandon academia in search of his true calling.

Bill is the author of Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World (2008), which introduces a visionary ecopsychology of human development that reveals how fully and creatively we can mature when soul and wild nature guide us. He is also author of Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche (2003), an experiential guide to the wilderness of the soul.

Animas Valley Institute’s mission is to help people become more fully human by uncovering the mysteries of their souls — their unique way of belonging and contributing to this world — and by deepening and broadening their intimacy with the wild Earth. AVI envisions a world in which inspired youth, true adults, and wise elders work together to create an eco-centric, just, and deeply imaginative society. This cultural transformation to a more fulfilling, compassionate, and equitable way of life has been called the Great Work of this century, the Great Turning toward a mutually enhancing partnership between humanity and the larger Earth community. AVI supports the Great Turning by assisting people to become visionary leaders and artisans of cultural change.

See upcoming Animas programs here.