Through psychospiritual adventure, the adolescent comes to know what she was born to do, what gift she possesses to bring to the world, what sacred quality lives in her heart, and how she might arrive at her own unique way of loving and belonging.

Thomas refers to the latter perspective as “the time-developmental model.”13 His larger point is that our approach to the development of anything must now embrace both models — both circle and arc (in a sense, both feminine and masculine), which together describe a spiral progression through space and time.

Readers familiar with biologist Rupert Sheldrake's work might recognize that the Wheel is a description of the “morphic field” underlying human psychospiritual development.24 A morphic field is the underlying formative pattern of a self-organizing system, such as an oak, a bear, a human, an ecosystem, Earth, the Milky Way, or the universe. The

A third premise is that every human being has a unique and mystical relationship to the wild world, and that the conscious discovery and cultivation of that relationship is at the core of true adulthood. In contemporary society, we think of maturity simply in terms of hard work and practical responsibilities. I believe, in contrast, that true

the concept of personal powers, which divides into three categories — abilities, knowledge, and values — each of which enables us to do things we could not otherwise, which is what renders them personal powers.12 Our soul powers are the ones that enable us to take our ultimate place.

in the case of the human soul, a niche is highly differentiated both psychologically and ecologically. The human soul is a psycho-ecological niche, a niche whose essential features include the capacity for conscious self-awareness as well as social and ecological attributes. We humans occupy both a noosphere and an ecosphere. This is an essential

What's so great about being human? It might be this: The ability to know that we know gives us the ability to know ourselves, the ability to know that we exist and that we exist in an astonishing universe. It gives us the ability to fall in love with every thing and with eternity. If we are the only beings who know that we know, then we are the

What do the stages of modern human development look like when we grow, in each stage, with nature and soul as our primary guides? Twenty-five years in the making, this eight-stage model shows us how we can take root in a childhood of innocence and wonder; sprout into an adolescence of creative fire and mystery-probing adventures; blossom into an

Another useful way to speak of soul is as story. Psychologist Jean Houston, for example, speaks of the larger story each person is born to live. This larger story — much deeper than your prosaic personal history — expresses the ultimate meaning of your life, its true significance, in the same way a myth communicates truth or gnosis. To be living