Here are some Plotkin notes to start some conversation. I have at least skimmed all of his books. I read Soulcraft and Nature and the Human Soul. I am currently working on Wild Mind (will do Journey of Soul Initiation next), but there is a lot of overlap with all of them.
The main idea with Plotkin is that there is "adult development" meaning development does not stop when we reach physically mature adulthood. He defines mature adults as ones that have a deep sense of meaning and purpose that is tied to nature in some way. Or to put it another way, for us to realize that we are not separate from nature. He uses a circle for development that also represents nature's cardinal directions (N, S, E, W), the daily rhythms of the sun and moon, and the yearly cycles of the seasons. He has an entire human life mapped out on this circle as well characterizing 8 stages of development. We start in the East as children and then move clockwise around the circle to adolescence in the South to "Adulthood" in the West and then elderhood in the North. A human life completes the circle in the North East. A majority of his work focuses on moving people from late-adolescence to adulthood in the Southwest and Western part of this diagram.
All of his books refer to this diagram, but it is more developed in his later books. Soulcraft, his first book, focuses on techniques to move past Stage 4 into Stage 5. The goal, if there is one, would be to eventually get to something like the following few passages:
The gift you carry for others is not an attempt to save the world but to fully belong to it. It's not possible to save the world by trying to save it. You need to find what is genuinely yours to offer the world before you can make it a better place. Discovering your unique gift to bring to your community is your greatest opportunity and challenge. The offering of that gift — your true self — is the most you can do to love and serve the world. And it is all the world needs."
Plotkin, Bill. Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche (p. 13).
SOUL INITIATION: EMBRACING YOUR
ONE WILD AND PRECIOUS LIFE “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” the poet Mary Oliver asks.1 Soul initiation is the moment an answer wholly claims you. In that moment, you fully accept, deep in your bones, what Viktor Frankl calls your “own specific mission in life.” The answer takes the form of an image, an image burned into your soul before birth, an image in the presence of which your heart first opened, as Albert Camus put it. This image, this symbol, is the gods' way of sending you off to life with a destiny and a task, with a template of how to be in this lifetime. This image identifies the essence of your soul powers — your core abilities, knowledge, or values. It shows you the nature of the gift you were born to bring into the world. Before becoming conscious of this image, you might have an inchoate sense of your soul powers, but this will not support you in embodying your soul as effectively as the conscious recovery and embrace of your soul image. Once you have identified your soul powers, you must learn how to embody those powers within your specific culture, time, and place. Determining an effective form of embodiment and learning the necessary skills are more the ego's tasks than the soul's. The form of embodiment is the delivery system for your soul powers. The delivery system may be art, architecture, raising children, psychotherapy, gardening, teaching, politics, healing, poetry, or dance. The soul, however, is not deeply concerned with the nature of the delivery system, it just wants to know its true gift is being embodied beautifully and delivered effectively.
Plotkin, Bill. Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche (p. 306).
Here is a digital glossary of the terms with links between them:ecological niche (eco-niche):
A person or thing’s unique place, role, or function in a particular ecosystem.
I refer to this sometimes as our psycho-ecological niche. By adding the “psycho,” I am highlighting that our human niche in the [more-than-human world](https://www.animas.org/glossary-to-lang ... than-human world) has an intrinsic psychological dimension. Our eco-niche is not just a matter of where we fit in the food chain. More important is what we bring to the evolution of the anima mundi, the soul of the world, the way we’re able to enhance and enrich the relational net made up of and shared by all living things. A distinguishing characteristic of our human eco-niche is something psychological or noetic: our particular mode of consciousness, namely our conscious self-awareness.
https://www.animas.org/glossary-to-lang ... ul-canyon/
His terminology is used specifically for his system so some common meanings of words have specific (and sometimes different) meanings in his writings. Remember this before being dismissive (as I was in the past).