A good friend of mine is reading Plotkin’s, The Journey of Soul Initiation: A Field Guide for Visionaries, Evolutionaries, and Revolutionaries. He wants to read it concurrently so we can talk about it and writes: “ It is possible that with your Jungian, dream and shamanic (and vision questing) background, that Plotkin's 45 years of depth psychology, wilderness vision "fasts" and 8-fold schemata of soul initiation will inspire our continuing interaction into Joanna Macy’s The Great Turning as the "more-than-human" community is embraced.”
I wrote back: Maybe. It's interesting. What's happening as I get older and less interested in teaching (explaining) things is, I have come to trust what I know but I am also aware that there is a lot that what I know doesn't explain. So I have different templates that I superimpose onto whatever reality I am trying to orient to at any given time.
There is the Jungian template, and there is what I call the "shamanic template", and there is the Dreamtime template, even the Native American template. There is also the metaphoric or poetic template, (seeing reality through a metaphorical lens). Without these templates I can get caught up in language or ideas and that flattens reality. There is also a futuristic or futurist template which allows me to engage in conspiracy theories and prognostication, mostly for fun and mental stimulation.
Not having read Plotkin’s book yet, I would guess that he is doing something similar with his 8-fold schemata. He is introducing a template. I will have to see if it adds something to or is compatible with my own "schemata" or templates or if it feels superimposed.
A good example of what I am talking about is, in reading Shakti Woman: The New Female Shamanism by Vicki Noble, nothing that Vicki Noble says is "indigestible" or revolutionary but it resonates. It is compatible within, and pushes the bounds of, what I already know, relative to the shamanic template. When we read Lawlor’s Voices of the First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal Dreamtime, I found that it didn't fit any of my templates, but introduced a new template, the Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime template. It is always very exciting when I find myself exploring a new template that opens new doors. Sometimes something might happen in my life which is best understood by looking at it via the Aboriginal Dreamtime template. So that is how my mind works in navigating different realities.
(Article changed on Oct 07, 2026 at 10:06 AM EDT)
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