In our inaugural podcast episode, Bill Plotkin joins us to discuss his new book The Journey of Soul Initiation: A Field Guide for Visionaries, Evolutionaries, and Revolutionaries. We talk about the root source of cultural decay and ecological and biological degradation, the relationship between human development and cultural change, soul as a fundamentally ecological concept, and the map of the Descent to Soul outlined in his new book (the five phases of the Descent are: Preparation, Dissolution, Soul Encounter, Metamorphosis, and Enactment).  Bill Plotkin is also the author of Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche, Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World, and Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche. He is founder of southwest Colorado's Animas Valley Institute and can be found online at www.animas.org.