Soul Care
What is Soul Care?
"Soul care" and "cognitive permaculture" refer to a set of strategies and practices calibrated to fortify a person against wétiko (the machine mind virus) on the personal-individual level by strengthening their ecological intelligence and connectedness. It is somewhat like modern psychotherapy, but also very different, because it engages the entirety of a person and not just their mental/psychological state, which science has shown is in no way whatsoever separate or distinct from our biological, neurophysiological, biochemical, anatomical, spiritual, or social-relational dimensions of being.
How and Why Soul Care?
Wétiko operates on multiple scales of ecosystem: from the microcosmic to individual organisms to families to social systems to species. To effectively defend ourselves against it therefore requires addressing it on these various levels. There are unique ways in which wétiko will manifest in your individual life, and you must learn to detect and respond to these manifestations.
In some cases, this is a functionally individual task. Ultimately, however, we all must engage the support of others in our joint individual-collective efforts to purge wétiko from the species' psyche. This is vitally important, because if we try to go it alone, we will necessarily fail. This is simply because one of the central characteristics of the mind virus is the illusion that we are fundamentally independent, separate individuals acting according to an untethered will responsible to nobody but oneself. Such selfishness causes a person to view the rest of the world as a mere backdrop or stage for their own life, which is positioned as the main character in the play.
In other words, wétiko just is the phenomenon of individual isolation and separation; it is fragmentation manifest. Soul, in contrast, is a characteristically ecological-relational phenomenon. (Again, see the "About" page for a discussion of "soul" as a bio-ecological-relational concept, rather than a mystical, ethereal, or spiritual concept).
Thus, in soul care, we cultivate this soulful-ecological dimension of our existence precisely within and through the experience of working together to address the ways wétiko manifests uniquely in your life, your eco-niche in the world. I walk with you and you walk with me in this experience. This is heterarchical, rather than hierarchical. That is, we each maintain our sovereign authority as ultimate equals, rather than me taking a hierarchical position as the professional authority in relation to you as the non-expert client.
What Soul Care Is Not
- Soul care is not "spiritual development," it is not a path of "enlightenment," and it is not religious. I am not a guru, an ordained minister, or someone who has attained a supposedly special spiritual status or "ascendance." I am, however, someone with extensive experience wrestling wétiko, and precisely for this reason I remain tethered closely to Earth and I live embedded in the tangible tangle of messy human reality as a professional in ecological restoration and permaculture landscaping.
- Soul care is not theological, doctrinal, or dogmatic. Anyone, from any spiritual, religious, atheist, agnostic, or cultural tradition can practice soul care.