Chasing Space, Finding Self

Chasing Space, Finding Self

Oct 3, 2025 | Love, Presence, Space as Metaphor, Transformation, Truth

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At the end of our lives, what will we think about? Will we remember those ‘important’ projects at work that diverted our attention from our children as they struggled to get our attention? Or will we remember what it felt like when our kids were old enough to no longer have time for us either?

Chasing Space

I saw a reel on social media the other day that tore me up, as the main message was that the majority of what we focus on in our daily lives is not only forgettable but damaging. Is the fact that AI exists and can perform half the tasks I do every day exciting, or does it underscore the futility of my own existence?

What am I chasing? What are any of us chasing? Do any of us even know? The more I chase this idea I have in my head as to what constitutes the ‘better life,’ the farther I am from this better life and, in fact, myself.

I once had someone refer to me as a ‘PR guy,’ as if the whole of my existence could be encapsulated in that term. That characterization made me ill then, and it makes me upset today.

This is the best I can do? I’m a PR guy? This is my contribution to the world? To write marketing pieces about products or services that may or may not be that worthwhile or great, but I am paid to tell a story, and so I spin someone else’s ideas into a 350-word structure that is as forgettable as it is forced?

What am I doing? I am chasing space.

Finding Space

Now, I am the space doctor, armed with a doctorate and an abstract concept that I peddle through various digital marketing channels to people I think I know enough or I would not put proverbial pen to paper, right?

What do I know? How do I know it? Where did I acquire my knowledge?

I took the academic pathway, too afraid to state an opinion and most certainly too uncertain to take a stand on anything. Perhaps that is my white privilege. I am unsure.

With the onset of fall, I feel myself more reflective, perhaps bitter that summer went too fast. Perhaps I am bitter, however, at my choices in life that I diverted my attention not just from my kids when they were 8 and wanted to play catch with daddy but from the journey into myself, which is the ultimate unknown.

Everywhere we turn today, someone has an answer to something or to a question we eventually believe we must have asked at some point. Yeah, I want to know the 5 secrets to develop great content. Sure, I want to create viral reels that people remember for a whole ten seconds before scrolling somewhere else.

Where has the time gone? How on earth am I on the other side of 50 years? This is impossible. All I ever wanted out of life was to live forever. Is that too much to ask?

Changing Space

When I talk about space, it is not an abstraction. Space is historical, and it invites an inquiry into the past and the lives that preceded our own. Space is literal in that we have bodies that move, dance, play, cry, and laugh. Space is metaphorical only in the sense that there is nothing that it can not not be, and so where does that leave us?

Like the Robinsons in that wild 60’s TV show, we are lost in space, spinning on a rock that circles a sun inside a galaxy that circles other galaxies in a universe so large that it takes 13.5 billion years to cross it if we were to travel 186,000 miles per second. That is not 55 miles per hour or 10,000 miles a minute, but 186,000 miles per second for 13.5 billion years.

At the end of our lives, what will we think about? However you and I answer that question, let’s agree to start thinking about that now instead of later…

About Spaciology

Spaciology is not abstract theory; rather, it is a practice you can feel.

  • Inside: Pause, breathe, notice.
  • Outside: Design rooms, rituals, and agendas that slow the spin and invite care.
  • Between us: Make dialogue a place where different truths can live together long enough to teach something.

Ultimately, leadership is the art of making space for what’s important (for everyone) and letting that clarity shape the next step. When we change the spaces from which we lead, our strategies change with them.

Spaciology Learning Commons

Want to go further? Join the Spaciology Learning Commons.

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The Meaning of Freedom

The Meaning of Freedom

Aug 3, 2025 | Leadership, Presence, Time, Transformation, Truth

Freedom, NH Town Hall

This past weekend, I had occasion to visit Freedom, NH for their Old Home Week Celebration—an experience that changed my perspective on what it means to be human.

Yes, this sounds dramatic, but transformation of perspective is not a process that abstractly happens in a person’s head. Rather, it is an embodied experience that can be significantly enhanced in the presence of others.

Certainly, I have had my fair share of enlightening experiences in academic settings. I have cried after reading some academic literature, and I have felt my entire body tingle when people consciously bring their complete selves to dialogues.

More than Pancakes

What I found beautiful about the celebration in Freedom this weekend was captured in their pancake breakfast this morning. I witnessed neighbors hugging, people smiling, folks donating resources and time to bring people together over plates of fruit, donuts, pancakes, eggs, and sausage.

I sat at a table with strangers and learned about a woman’s love of this town, where she lives, and how several events from this past week were to contribute to the education of kids. I overhead conversations and listened to the stories of people I may never see again.

What I most remember, however, was the smiles on people’s faces—people of all ages, brought together in a town hall that looked like something from a Normal Rockwell postcard. The event was free, but people were encouraged to bring food or cash to support the local food pantry. I brought cash.

Seeking Connection

As I sat and observed the people around me, I felt like I was part of something intimate and yet much larger than just me. I was witnessing humanity at its best.

Why did I drive 20 minutes for a breakfast I could have made for myself with my beautiful mountain views? For the same reason everyone else made their way to a small town hall on the eastern edges of New Hampshire on a gorgeous summer morning.

We wanted to connect, get roped into conversations with strangers, watch kids eat pancakes with their little fingers, and watch other people watch us watch them and smile.

Creating Space for New Friends

There is so much ugliness in this world, and there always has been. There is so much beauty in this world, too, and we do not need to look far to find it.

We cannot systematically address the ills of this world, but we can break bread—or pancakes—with our neighbors.

I do not know if the people at this breakfast were Republicans or Democrats. I did not speak with anyone about their political views.

I drank coffee and ate too many pancakes, and I smiled at strangers who often smiled at me first. In today’s experience, Space as Metaphor was more than a metaphor. It existed in a town hall in Freedom, NH, and the only way I discovered it is because I was there.

Sharing Space

Space as Metaphor is not an invitation to abstraction. It is an invitation to share our lives with others and move beyond the conventional labels invented by men who do not know you or me.

When we define one another with simplistic words, we reduce one another to caricatures. It is both sad and painful because we are much more than any single word can possibly fathom.

So what is the meaning of Freedom? I am not entirely sure, except I am certain it is a shared experience, one made much more memorable over pancakes and laughter.

Ultimately, the meaning exists in my heart, and I have strangers in a small town in NH whom I can thank for this humble reminder. We are human beings and we belong to one another—and that is the true meaning of Freedom.

About Spaciology

Spaciology is not abstract theory; rather, it is a practice you can feel.

  • Inside: Pause, breathe, notice.
  • Outside: Design rooms, rituals, and agendas that slow the spin and invite care.
  • Between us: Make dialogue a place where different truths can live together long enough to teach something.

Ultimately, leadership is the art of making space for what’s important (for everyone) and letting that clarity shape the next step. When we change the spaces from which we lead, our strategies change with them.

Spaciology Learning Commons

Want to go further? Join the Spaciology Learning Commons.

  • Free membership gives you access to community conversations and introductory resources.
  • Paid membership opens full access to courses, live sessions, and the complete Field Guide.
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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.

About Spaciology

Spaciology is not abstract theory; rather, it is a practice you can feel.

  • Inside: Pause, breathe, notice.
  • Outside: Design rooms, rituals, and agendas that slow the spin and invite care.
  • Between us: Make dialogue a place where different truths can live together long enough to teach something.

Ultimately, leadership is the art of making space for what’s important (for everyone) and letting that clarity shape the next step. When we change the spaces from which we lead, our strategies change with them.

Spaciology Learning Commons

Want to go further? Join the Spaciology Learning Commons.

  • Free membership gives you access to community conversations and introductory resources.
  • Paid membership opens full access to courses, live sessions, and the complete Field Guide.
Explore The Commons

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Space as Praxis: Making Room for What Matters

Space as Praxis: Making Room for What Matters

Jun 6, 2025 | Leadership, Space as Metaphor, Transformation, Truth

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Space begins within—and when we pause and resist the reflex to respond, fix, or judge, we create the conditions for clarity. This is not a passive space but a form of active receptivity.

“Stillness is not stagnation. It is what allows the unseen to surface.”

In practice, internal space could look like:

  1. Taking 5 minutes to breathe before a difficult decision,
  2. Journaling not to fix your thinking, but to see it,
  3. Asking “What is  here that I’m avoiding?” instead of “What should I do?”

Space makes reflection possible. Without it, we default to reaction. With it, we find presence (and ourselves).

External Space: Designing Environments That Reflect Intention

Our surroundings—physical spaces or organizational cultures—help shape our thoughts, feelings, and ability to relate to anything.

“The room you’re in speaks before you do.”

To apply space practically in the external realm:

  1. Declutter a workspace so it reflects the clarity you seek,
  2. Design meetings with planned moments of silence,
  3. Ask, “What kind of space would allow everyone here to feel seen (or heard)?”

External space is both literal and symbolic. When we shift external space(s) with intention, we communicate something powerful: you matter here.

Shared Space: The Art of Holding Together What We Cannot Solve Alone

Shared space is the realm of dialogue, collaboration, and community. It is what happens between us—not owned or controlled, but co-created.

“Shared space isn’t about agreement. It’s about making room for truths to sit side by side.”

To hold shared space in practice:

  1. Begin conversations by naming intentions rather than outcomes,
  2. Allow silence in dialogue—not everything needs a response,
  3. Model curiosity over certainty

Shared space requires a posture of mutual presence, not persuasion. It is what allows complexity to breathe and transformation to occur collectively.

The Ethics of Spaciousness

Creating space is an ethical act. In a culture of speed, certainty, and consumption, space feels inefficient. Inefficiency, however, is often where life actually happens.

“Making space means making room for others—not just their ideas, but their being.”

To practice ethical spaciousness:

  1. Resist urgency when it flattens complexity
  2. Invite voices that are usually missing
  3. Trust that emergence needs time, contradiction, and care

Key Considerations

Space is not emptiness; rather, it is the precondition for emergence.

  1. Internal space fosters awareness and emotional intelligence,
  2. External space shapes behavior and communicates values,
  3. Shared space enables trust, empathy, and collective transformation.

Creating space is not about doing less—it is about doing with more intention.

Closing Reflection

When we stop trying to fill every moment, fix every problem, or finalize every answer, we return to something more elemental: the quiet, expansive possibility of being (and becoming).

In a world aching for solutions, perhaps what is most needed is not more action—but more space…

About Spaciology

Spaciology is not abstract theory; rather, it is a practice you can feel.

  • Inside: Pause, breathe, notice.
  • Outside: Design rooms, rituals, and agendas that slow the spin and invite care.
  • Between us: Make dialogue a place where different truths can live together long enough to teach something.

Ultimately, leadership is the art of making space for what’s important (for everyone) and letting that clarity shape the next step. When we change the spaces from which we lead, our strategies change with them.

Spaciology Learning Commons

Want to go further? Join the Spaciology Learning Commons.

  • Free membership gives you access to community conversations and introductory resources.
  • Paid membership opens full access to courses, live sessions, and the complete Field Guide.
Explore The Commons

Stay in Touch

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Contact Me

Beyond the Hero’s Journey (Part III)

Beyond the Hero’s Journey (Part III)

Jul 27, 2024 | Leadership, Strategy, Time, Transformation, Truth

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To some extent, the hero’s journey reflects and perpetuates a colonizer mindset, leading to the subjugation of entire cultures. Simpson (2011) noted that the current generation of Indigenous people “has been repeatedly told that individually we are stupid, and that collectively our nations were and are devoid of higher thought” (p. 32).

Time and Cultural Perspectives
Moreover, the linear nature of time, often central to hero narratives, is not a given for many cultures (Yunkaporta, 2021). The traditional hero myth may also not resonate with people of color, including Black women. Stein (1984) cited Black author Toni Morrison as one example:

Unlike the stock epic tale, in which the hero, driven by inner compulsion to leave society in search of knowledge and power, undertakes a dangerous but successful journey and returns in triumph to transform a fallen world, Sula presents a tale of courage in the face of limitation and powerlessness, of self-knowledge wrested from loss and suffering, of social amelioration eked out of hatred and fear. (Stein, 1984, p. 146)

Postmodern Critiques and Western Thought
The limitations of the hero’s journey are more evident in a postmodern world. Schieffer and Lessem (2016) note that many myths no longer carry their initial power to interpret the world and the cosmos or provide us with guidance.

In these complex times, a new hero must consider nature, humanity, and the more-than-human world in context. Analyzing complex phenomena out of context exemplifies disjunction, a conceptual pillar of Western thought. Morin (2014) defined disjunction as an investigatory principle whereby objects are divided into basic components without regard for their connections.

This thinking style is apparent in the Western focus on individual parts of nature (or humanity) over which control can be exercised. Westerners are not trained to think systemically, or use context, in their interpretations of the world.

Nisbett et al. (2001) note that “inferences rest in part on the practice of decontextualizing structure from content, the use of formal logic, and avoidance of contradiction” (p. 159). We cannot, however, avoid contradictions in today’s world, which calls into question the usefulness of the hero’s journey and its framing of problems in linear ways.

Besides its limitations for overcoming complex crises, the hero’s journey is inadequate given advances in our understanding of consciousness and its connection to transformation.

Rethinking Transformation and Consciousness
According to Mezirow (1978), transformation is a permanent change in an individual’s worldview.

However, the hero myth tends to reinforce a prior worldview and what is already suspected as truth. The boons of success referenced by Campbell (2008) could be seen as a false truth leading to a false self, especially when humans, particularly in the European-American world, separate their identities from the natural world (Canty, 2014).

This ability to separate one’s identity from the natural world is endemic to a larger European-American worldview. In popular mythology, the habitats, creatures, and processes of the natural world are ancillary characters in the story of humanity, as humans are unable (or unwilling) to see beyond their perspective.

Shorb (2012) suggested that humans harbor an innate need to affiliate with the natural world. Called biophilia, this need is “the genetic legacy that is a portal between the psychic landscape that inhabits us and the physical landscape that we inhabit” (p. 3). However, this may not be a portal through which the archetypal hero is inclined (or equipped) to walk.

In future files, I will explore alternatives to the hero’s journey as a metaphor for transformation.

 References

Canty, J. M. (2014). Walking between worlds: Holding multiple worldviews as a key for ecological transformation. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 33(1), 15–26, Article 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.24972/ijts.2014.33.1.15

Mezirow, J. (1978). Perspective transformation. Adult Education Quarterly, 28(2), 100–110. https://doi.org/10.1177/074171367802800202

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.

Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I., & Norenzayan, A. (2001). Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108(2), 291–310. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.108.2.291

Schieffer, A., & Lessem, R. (2016). Integral development: Realising the transformative potential of individuals, organisations and societies. Routledge.

Shorb, T. L. (2012, Summer). Exploring the twin landscapes of biophilic learning. Green Teacher, No. 96, 3–7. https://www.proquest.com/openview/dbeb7979afbe3b91f57e4601da9e3709/1.pdf?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=33544

Simpson, L. B. (2011). Dancing on our turtle’s back: Stories of Nishnaabeg re-creation, resurgence and a new emergence. Arbeiter Ring.

Stein, K. F. (1984, December). Toni Morrison’s Sula: A Black woman’s epic. Black American Literature Forum, 18(4), 146–150. https://doi.org/10.2307/2904289

Yunkaporta, T. (2021). Sand talk: How Indigenous thinking can save the world (Illustrated ed.). HarperOne.

About Spaciology

Spaciology is not abstract theory; rather, it is a practice you can feel.

  • Inside: Pause, breathe, notice.
  • Outside: Design rooms, rituals, and agendas that slow the spin and invite care.
  • Between us: Make dialogue a place where different truths can live together long enough to teach something.

Ultimately, leadership is the art of making space for what’s important (for everyone) and letting that clarity shape the next step. When we change the spaces from which we lead, our strategies change with them.

Spaciology Learning Commons

Want to go further? Join the Spaciology Learning Commons.

  • Free membership gives you access to community conversations and introductory resources.
  • Paid membership opens full access to courses, live sessions, and the complete Field Guide.
Explore The Commons

Stay in Touch

Work with Me
Contact Me