What must a caterpillar do that it may one day fly?

Doug Van Houten

The singular dream that has been a perennial guide for Doug’s own guiding practice is one where humans thrive in a mutually enhancing relationship with Earth, know our cosmic origins, and see ourselves as integral and yet necessarily unique participants in the ongoingness of the universe. His lineage of teachers and inspirators includes: Bill Plotkin and the Animas Valley Institute, Joanna Macy, Matthew Fox, David Whyte, Mary Oliver and Brian Swimme to name a few. In co-creating wild, ceremonial and soulcentric spaces for human development, Doug draws upon the wisdom of deep imagery and dreams, somatic and embodied knowing, poetry and art-making, and many pan-cultural, soul furthering, nature-responsive practices. Doug’s true calling manifests in a devotion to supporting others to transform themselves toward wholeness and maturation as they descend into the mystic wellspring of their imaginations, drink deeply from soul’s source, drench in their own unique grief and gifts and return to outpour their particular powers in service to what Thomas Berry called, ”The Great Work” of our time. In addition to guiding and mentoring Doug expresses his own soul’s longing as a visual artist, a wily wanderer, an intuitive dream tracker, an occasional beekeeper, a heart-centered activist, an emerging yogi and cosmic dancer.

Doug is a senior guide for Animas Valley Institute (www.animas.org). 

TO LIVE A MORE SOUL ROOTED LIFE means to move beyond an out-dated psychological emphasis focused primarily on wounds and symptoms to seek out the more numinous gifts we all bear that lie trapped beneath the torment of old ideals, bounded by beliefs that no longer serve, relegated to shadows cast by fear, humiliation and shame. It is in nature-based settings that we do the retrieval work where encounters with astonishing beings and wild experiences mirror back to us more of our soul’s story, the one we carry with us our whole lives but may well have forgotten.

REACHING DOWN toward the depths of soul, we become consciously aware of the particular storied threads we must gather up in order to lovingly weave our gifts into being and make more visible our true natures. Learn vital nature- and arts-based practices designed to invite the kind of psycho-spiritual maturity that summons your deepest held wild-hearted passions found at the confluence of the sensuous body, the emotional heart, the reflective mind and the wild soul.