Space as Metaphor
An Open-Source Conceptual FrameworkSpace as Metaphor
Space as Metaphor is an open-source conceptual framework that invites a fundamental shift in how we understand knowledge, being, and value. Rather than treating space as emptiness, this orientation sees space as a living field—capable of holding complexity, inviting emergence, and transforming both individuals and systems.
Rooted in diverse traditions—including ecopsychology, consciousness studies, organizational development, leadership theory, Taoism, Buddhism, Ubuntu, depth psychology, Indigenous wisdom, and moral philosophy—it offers both lens and practice.
Offered freely and without proprietary restriction, Space as Metaphor is intended to be teachable, malleable, and adaptable across disciplines—from education and organizational development to counseling, leadership, community dialogue, and more.
Part of the broader philosophy, Spaciology, this framework emerged from a deep inquiry into transformation, identity, and ecological crisis—a journey that began with a doctoral dissertation and continues through collaborative praxis. As it evolves, its insights and tools will be shared openly, reinforcing its core ethic: inquiry, care, and co-creation belong to everyone.
Why Space?
Space is not neutral. It is not emptiness. It is an active presence—an internal and external field that shapes and is shaped by how we know, relate, and experience ourselves and the world.
Space is both personal and collective. It lives in our nervous systems and in our classrooms. It is shaped by trauma and by ritual. It holds silence, tension, beauty, conflict, breath—and it is always relational—between self and system, body and world, possibility and limit (Levey, 2024).
When we treat space as metaphor, we move from asking What is the solution? to asking What does this space need? What is arising here? This is a shift away from reductionist, output-driven frameworks and toward an ethic of presence, emergence, and care.
How Space as Metaphor Applies Across Fields
Education
Traditional education often focuses on filling minds and measuring outcomes. Space as metaphor invites educators to become facilitators of presence. It encourages creating learning environments that breathe—where silence is honored, bodies are present, and multiple ways of knowing (including Indigenous, intuitive, and affective) are welcome (Levey, 2024; Nicolescu, 2002).
Leadership & Organizational Culture
Leaders often operate under pressure to control, produce, and resolve. But what if leadership became about holding space for emergence? Space as metaphor invites organizational cultures that listen, adapt, and make room for the unknown—where complexity is not a liability, but a form of intelligence (Morin, 2008).
Counseling, Therapy, and Healing
In healing professions, space is already intuitive—but not always explicit. When space is held as sacred and relational, healing becomes less about fixing and more about being-with. This shift supports trauma-informed care, ecological grief work, and deep listening practices grounded in presence (Levey, 2024; Naess, 2005).
Community Dialogue & Social Change
In polarized times, the metaphor of space helps us gather differently. It resists urgency and binary thinking, allowing for non-consensus-based dialogue where discomfort and contradiction can be metabolized. This spatial approach aligns with Indigenous and Ubuntu traditions of ethical listening and shared becoming (Massey, 2005).
Creative Practice & Design
Artists and designers have long understood the power of space—negative space, pause, openness. But in this framework, space becomes an ethical material. Design can become a site of healing, inclusion, and invitation—resisting over-definition and allowing for emergence, ambiguity, and accessibility.
Space as Ethic
Drawing from Heinz von Foerster’s ethical imperative—“Act always so as to increase the number of choices” (2003)—space becomes a way to act ethically. Instead of fixing, we listen. Instead of solving, we inquire. We create conditions for emergence rather than enforcing outcomes.
Space teaches us that:
- Presence is a form of resistance.
- Listening is a method.
- What is not said matters.
- Futures open in the in-between.
Space is not metaphor as decoration. Space is metaphor as method, moral orientation, and mode of transformation.
References
Levey, R. (2024). Embodying transdisciplinarity: An alternate narrative framework to the hero’s journey as a tool for transformation (Doctoral dissertation, California Institute of Integral Studies). ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.
Massey, D. (2005). For space. Sage Publications.
Morin, E. (2008). On complexity (R. Postel, Trans.). Hampton Press. (Original work published 1990)
Naess, A. (2005). Self-realization: An ecological approach to being in the world. In A. Drengson & H. Glasser (Eds.), The selected works of Arne Naess (Vol. 10, pp. 81–109). Springer.
Nicolescu, B. (2002). Manifesto of transdisciplinarity (K. Claire Voss, Trans.). State University of New York Press.
von Foerster, H. (2003). Understanding understanding: Essays on cybernetics and cognition. Springer.
Dialogue as Practice:
Making Space Real
At the heart of Space as Metaphor is dialogue—not as debate or performance, but as a way of being with others. In a world driven by urgency and outcomes, dialogue slows us down. It creates the space to listen, reflect, and be changed by what we hear.
This framework treats dialogue as more than a communication tool—it is a way to practice ethics, explore meaning, and uncover what really matters. Whether between individuals, within teams, or across communities, dialogue is a method that can surface unspoken values, encounter difference with care, and make sense of complexity in internal and external spaces.
In practical terms, this means:
- Creating environments where people can speak without rushing to agreement
- Welcoming silence and uncertainty as part of the process
- Letting go of needing to be right and instead being present
- Asking questions not to control, but to invite emergence
Dialogue, in this way, is a form of relational spaciousness—a space where new insights, relationships, and possibilities can take root. It grounds the open-source nature of the Space as Metaphor framework: accessible, adaptive, and available to anyone willing to show up with curiosity and care.
Manifesto
We begin in space
Before the word, before the map, before the self—there is space.
Not absence. Not emptiness.
But a living field, pulsing with the potential to become.
Space is metaphor and participant
Space does not describe our thoughts. Space thinks with us.
Space holds complexity
In space, we do not control the process. We attend to space as it unfolds.
Space is ethical
To make space is to make room for the Other.
To become space is to surrender the fantasy of mastery.
Space is not neutral
All space is storied. All space is power-laden.
To decolonize space is to de-imperialize imagination.
Space calls us to praxis
What becomes possible when we do not rush to fill the silence?
What does the space between us say?
This manifesto is a doorway
It is not fixed. It is not complete. It is an invitation to space.
Charter
Article 1: Space Honors Complexity
We affirm that space is not void, but layered. It resists reduction and invites deep interconnection.
Article 2: Space Holds Story
We commit to creating and protecting space for multiple, coexisting narratives to unfold.
Article 3: Space is Historical and Indigenous
We recognize space as carrying memory and commit to honoring its cultural, ancestral, and Indigenous dimensions.
Article 4: Space Welcomes Uncertainty
We accept uncertainty as a condition for emergence and growth, not a failure of knowing.
Article 5: Space Holds Trauma and Healing
We approach space as a container for grief and a field for restoration—personally and collectively.
Article 6: Space is Chaos and Home
We hold space for rupture, disorientation, and reorientation. Space can unsettle and shelter.
Article 7: Space is Methodology
We use space as an ethical and epistemological guide. It shapes how we learn, relate, and transform together.
This charter is a living document
We offer it not as dogma, but as a compass—open to revision, grounded in care, and alive with possibility.
Sign the Charter
Use Cases
Space as Metaphor Videos
Use & Attribution
Space as Metaphor is offered for open use and shared application across many contexts. While the framework itself is not meant to be modified, you are welcome to apply it in your own work and practice.
If you do, please credit the source:
Based on Space as Metaphor by Rev. Dr. Robert Levey
Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
For support in applying the framework to your work—or to share what emerges—feel free to reach out to me at robert@exponentialsquared.com.