HOW DID I PUT TOGETHER THE EARTH BASED TRUE PURPOSE PROGRAM?

Someone asked me how I came to put together the program I’m doing after Sukkot about discovering your true earth based Jewish purpose.  Here is how I responded to the person.

My interest in earth based Judaism dates from my adolescence.  I was raised in a Labor Zionist youth movement and my imagination was captured by the writings of A.D. Gordon, who believed in the redemption of the Jewish soul.  I ecoawakened, to use Plotkin’s term from Journey to Soul Initiation, in Israel.  I sat on the top of the grain silo and I knew, I knew I belonged to the land.  I write more about this here.  https://earthbasedjudaism.org/philosophical-reflections/my-journey-of-soul-initiation-part-1

I wandered as a spiritual seeker for a long time, knowing that my path involved the land and involved Judaism in some way.  I acquired a mythopoetic identity (in a hotel ballroom of all places during a transformational workshop), though I didn’t know that term yet, having never heard of Bill Plotkin.  I was “Dances with the rhythms of the earth.”  But I had no mentors and no examples of anyone living who had put together Judaism and a connection to the land—particularly to the Continental climate (think East Coast of United States) in which I felt at home. Wendell Berry’s great, but he’s not a Jew and my background is too dissimilar from his to simply imitate his life.

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of developmental theories. I first heard about Plotkin in 2011 when I was doing a class and someone mentioned him in an offhanded way.  Reading Nature and the Human Soul, my first book by him, absolutely blew my mind.  I spent many, many hours, reading, taking notes, assessing my own history in light of the concepts presented in the book. His work is by far the most interesting approach to human development I’ve ever encountered and one that really captures the idea that to become fully human means to take our place amidst what Abram calls the more than human world.

I took a seminar through Animas [Bill Plotkin’s organization] on Wild Mind just after the book came out (2015 or 2016?) and then did a vision fast co led by a former Animas Guide in 2017 where I became clear that I was committed to facilitating earth based Jewish adults. But I had a series of other commitments to complete and wasn’t sure yet how to do that—I needed to climb out of the soul canyon by undergoing what Plokin calls metamorphosis and enactment.

The rhythms of the earth are both seasonal and also flow through us as we live our lives growing from kids to supposed adults to even elders (I’m 66 and mostly retired).  So I’ve been asking myself in a more focused way how do I put together my commitment to the Jewish people and my commitment to the more than human world.  Plotkin provides a great map and we also have a built in rhythm of the year within Judaism which is tied to the Mediterranean ecosystem.  And I thought, let’s marry those together.

So I’ve worked on this project for a while; the powerpoints you will see are a fourth draft and I’ve worked on all the questions I ask. 

OK, so I hope I both answered your question and that I’ve haven’t gone on for too long.

Jared