Rethinking Transformation: More Than a Hero’s Tale

Rethinking Transformation: More Than a Hero’s Tale

Jul 20, 2025 | Leadership, Space as Metaphor, Transformation, Truth

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For generations, the hero’s journey has shaped how we imagine change. Its arc—departure, ordeal, return—offers a compelling story of individual transformation. What if this is just one story among many? What if, instead of a lone hero, we focused on the spaces between us, the stories that overlap, the fields we co-create?

The Space as Metaphor Charter emerges from this very question. Drawing on Indigenous knowledge systems, Ubuntu, Taoism, Buddhism, and ecopsychology, this charter challenges the dominance of the hero’s journey and its focus on linear, individual achievement. Instead, it lays the groundwork for Space as Metaphor itself, an open-source conceptual framework for transformation—one that is collective, process-oriented, and ethically charged (Levey, 2024; Nicolescu, 2002).

Space as Home: Co-Mingling the Internal and External In education, business, and therapy, we’re often taught to separate “internal” and “external” spaces: the mind versus the room, the self versus the system. Space as Metaphor, however, asks us to see these not as opposites, but as co-mingled—each shaping and being shaped by the other.
How I feel inside colors how I experience a meeting; the design of a classroom or curriculum helps to shape my sense of self.
There is no clear boundary. Space is always relational, always in flux (Levey, 2024). What if every space—classroom, boardroom, counseling office, or quiet corner of your mind—could feel like home? This is not a home defined by walls or outcomes, but by a sense of belonging, story, and possibility. The charter invites us to treat all spaces as living homes, full of personal and collective stories, beliefs, and histories. It asks us to pause, reflect, and challenge our assumptions as plans emerge and unfold, creating “thick” experiences that invite deeper awareness.

Deconstructing the Charter: Articles as Invitations
The Space as Metaphor Charter is not a set of rules, but a series of living invitations:

Space Honors Complexity
Space is never empty. It is layered, storied, and interconnected. To honor space is to resist easy answers and make room for what is not yet known (Morin, 2008).

Space Holds Story
Every space is full of stories—personal, collective, organizational, ancestral. The charter asks us to listen for the stories that are present and those that are missing (Levey, 2024).

Space is Historical and Indigenous
Space carries memory. It is shaped by history, power, and culture. To make space is to honor the land, the ancestors, and the wisdom that came before (Massey, 2005).

Space Welcomes Uncertainty
Uncertainty is not a problem to solve, but a condition for emergence. The charter invites us to pause, reflect, and let new possibilities arise (Nicolescu, 2002).

Space Holds Trauma and Healing
Space can wound, but it can also heal. By holding space for grief, restoration, and transformation, we honor the full spectrum of human experience (Naess, 2005).

Space is Chaos and Home
Space can unsettle and shelter. It can be a site of rupture and a place of reorientation. “Home” is not a fixed address, but a process of making room for ourselves and each other (Levey, 2024).

Space is Methodology
Space is not just a metaphor, but an ethical and epistemological guide. It shapes how we learn, relate, and transform—together (Nicolescu, 2002).

Honoring Multiple Ways of Knowing: Process Over Output
At the heart of the charter is a radical ethic: honoring process over output. This is a direct inheritance from Indigenous ways of knowing, which value the journey, the relationship, and the ongoingness of inquiry. The charter resists urgency, binary thinking, and the need for consensus. It asks us to trust in emergence, to invite missing voices, and to act in ways that increase—not limit—the number of choices.

Space as Education
Imagine classrooms where silence is honored, stories are welcomed, and learning is a shared journey—not a race to the finish line. Here, “home” is a space of belonging, not just achievement.

Space as Leadership & Organization
What if organizations were designed to listen, adapt, and make room for emergence? Leadership becomes less about control, more about holding space for complexity and transformation.

Space as Counseling & Healing
Healing is not about fixing, but about “being-with.” Space is held as sacred and relational, supporting deep listening and restoration.

Space as Community & Dialogue
Dialogue is not about consensus, but about making room for multiple truths, discomfort, and the unknown.

The Ethical Imperative: Keeping the Question Open
What if we endeavored to make every space feel like home? Where is this space? For whom? What does “home” mean, and for whom?

The charter refuses to answer these questions for you. Instead, it invites you to ask them—again and again. In doing so, it embodies Heinz von Foerster’s ethical imperative: act always to increase the number of choices.

By not closing the question, we keep the space open, alive, and full of possibility.

Enter the Space
Space as Metaphor is not about finding the right answer. Rather, it is about making room for more questions, more stories, more ways of being at home in the world.

The Space as Metaphor Charter is your invitation to join this living process—wherever you are, whoever you are, and whoever you are becoming.

Sign the Charter
References Allison, S. T., & Goethals, G. R. (2016). Heroic leadership: An influence taxonomy of 100 exceptional individuals. Routledge. Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. Harper & Row. Campbell, J. (2008). The hero with a thousand faces. New World Library. Chen, X. (2017). The ecological crisis and the Western worldview. Journal of Environmental Studies. Jung, C. G. (2010). The archetypes and the collective unconscious. Princeton University Press. Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants. Milkweed Editions. Krishnamurti, J. (1991). Meeting life: Writings and talks on finding your path without retreating from society. HarperOne. 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. Macy, J., & Johnstone, C. (2012). Active hope: How to face the mess we’re in without going crazy. New World Library. Massey, D. (2005). For space. Sage Publications. Mezirow, J. (1978). Perspective transformation. Adult Education Quarterly, 28(2), 100–110. Morin, E. (2008). On complexity (R. Postel, Trans.). Hampton Press. (Original work published 1990) Morin, E. (2014). Complexity and contradiction in the Western worldview. Complexity Journal. 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. Nisbett, R. E., et al. (2001). Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108(2), 291–310. Scharmer, O. (2007). Theory U: Leading from the future as it emerges. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Senge, P. M. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. Doubleday. Simpson, L. (2011). Dancing on our turtle’s back: Stories of Nishnaabeg re-creation, resurgence, and a new emergence. Arbeiter Ring Publishing. Stein, K. (1984). Toni Morrison’s Sula: A black woman’s epic. Black American Literature Forum, 18(4), 146–150. von Foerster, H. (2003). Understanding understanding: Essays on cybernetics and cognition. Springer. von Foerster, H. (2018). The ethical imperative: Essays on the co-evolution of man and machine. Stanford University Press. Wheatley, M. J. (1992). Leadership and the new science: Discovering order in a chaotic world. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Yunkaporta, T. (2021). Sand talk: How Indigenous thinking can save the world. HarperOne.

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Space as Metaphor: Beyond Output-Oriented Paradigms (Part II)

Space as Metaphor: Beyond Output-Oriented Paradigms (Part II)

Jul 12, 2024 | Space as Metaphor, Strategy, Time, Transformation, Truth

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Strategic plans are particularly excellent examples of a process with questionable results, especially if stakeholder collaboration is desired (Tiwari & Winters, 2017). The logic behind strategic plans, however, is indicative of the Western paradigm’s contradictory view of the individual as of primary significance, yet also replaceable.

The Western worldview rests on the Cartesian assumption that the mind is more important than the body. Though subtle, this assumption supports the ability of many Westerners to engage in disjunctive thinking (Morin, 2014) in order to break down complex problems into proverbial bottom lines that can be mapped through pure reason alone.

Strategic plans are particularly excellent examples of a process with questionable results, especially if stakeholder collaboration is desired (Tiwari & Winters, 2017). The logic behind strategic plans, however, is indicative of the Western paradigm’s contradictory view of the individual as of primary significance, yet also replaceable. The Western worldview rests on the Cartesian assumption that the mind is more important than the body. Though subtle, this assumption supports the ability of many Westerners to engage in disjunctive thinking (Morin, 2014) in order to break down complex problems into proverbial bottom lines that can be mapped through pure reason alone.

There is indeed vital information in our bodies, however, and even in the silence in our physical movements:

The silence is not merely golden; it is replete with meanings. Those meanings in turn testify to a corporeal semiotics, a movement-anchored corporeal semiotics that resounds within us. It resounds within the volume of our being an animate form of life, in all the so-called “systems” that functionally describe us—our respiratory, circulatory, and digestive systems, for example—some of which we can and do at times directly experience. (Sheets-Johnstone, 2019, p. 37)

There can be no substitute for what we experience in our bodies—and without our bodies, there is no mind. However, our minds also create our bodies, which are cultural representations of how we view our very selves. Indeed, the implication from this study is not that the hero’s journey has no use at all. Nearly 5,000 years of history demonstrate its ubiquity, but its relevance as a mode of transformation is misplaced in a world in desperate need for humans to remember they are part of a collective whole.

Perhaps our ability to share (external and internal) space is predicated on the extent to which we are able to be free of ourselves in order to become ourselves. Imagined without time, space as metaphor enables us to participate in creating, making, cleaning, growing, shrinking, shifting, expanding, and reconfiguring the metaphorical and literal spaces within, outside, and between us.

Whereas many of our discussions as a species revolve around borders and boundaries, space as metaphor removes the implied directionality of such conceptualizations, which inadvertently exacerbate the perceived divide that separates humans from self, one another, Earth, and cosmos. Space as metaphor is empty, yet full of potential, enabling individuals with diverse viewpoints to participate—and be heard—in collective space, a place in which there is still room for the occasional hero.

References
Morin, E. (2014). Complex thinking for a complex world—About reductionism, disjunction and systemism. Systema: Connecting Matter, Life, Culture and Technology, 2(1), 14–22.

Sheets-Johnstone, M. (2019). The silence of movement: A beginning empirical-phenomenological exposition of the powers of a corporeal semiotics. The American Journal of Semiotics, 35(1/2), 33–54. https://doi.org/10.5840/ajs20196550

Tiwari, R., & Winters, J. (2017). The death of strategic plan: Questioning the role of strategic plan in self-initiated projects relying on stakeholder collaboration. International Planning Studies, 22(2), 161–171. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563475.2016.1220288

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Space as Metaphor: Beyond Output-Oriented Paradigms (Part I)

Space as Metaphor: Beyond Output-Oriented Paradigms (Part I)

Jul 12, 2024 | Space as Metaphor, Strategy, Time, Transformation, Truth

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In various fields (counseling, education, business, and leadership, etc.), transformation and change are often framed as part of a metaphorical hero’s journey. Patients, students, and employees are handed a list of goals and outcomes, and then a proverbial journey is mapped out regarding how to get there. This sort of logic generally informs not only business and productivity but also approaches to (and belief in what constitutes) knowledge in general.

In the Western world, there is an emphasis on considerations related to knowledge production and acquisition to the detriment of those related to ontology (Dei, 2000). Defined simply, ontology relates to the nature of reality, existence, and/or truth. This bias is a seminal cog in the Western wheel of life (and business) without which it would no longer easily spin. From an Indigenous perspective, ontological considerations are crucial and reflect a worldview in which everything is necessarily related to everything else.

The ways in which we ontologically express our humanity, then, are paramount, as they connect us with not just our culture and world today but also our ancestors, history, and the cosmos. For Indigenous cultures, embodiment is a way of knowing (Dall’Alba & Barnacle, 2007)—and to some extent, systems theory and the complexity paradigm validate this position, although it is not explicit.

The Western approach, however, often privileges the artifacts of knowledge as opposed to the ways in which we express and share our humanity. In European American contexts, this emphasis on knowledge acquisition and production lends itself to an output-oriented framework. 

What if the process, or the ways, in which we come to know and express ourselves, was the goal or outcome? What if treatment, learning, and strategic plans were no longer exclusively oriented around the needs and desires of the individual or organization?

In part II, these rhetorical questions are explored.

References
Dall’Alba, G., & Barnacle, R. (2007). An ontological turn for higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 32(6), 679–691. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070701685130

Dei, G. J. S. (2000). Rethinking the role of Indigenous knowledges in the academy. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 4(2), 111–132. https://doi.org/10.1080/136031100284849

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