Inside of the Episode:
We have made the creative process into a rootless whitepaper, a motherless child. We have made the creative process into a discursive scan for commas and form. We have forgotten the serpent’s wisdom, the ecstatic breath, and the spine’s electric currents. And it’s time to remember that the role of vision is not an ego project or a standard of glass-ceilinged business, but, rather, a dowsing rod and a seer’s canvas for discerning what is needed in culture.
In this episode of the Inner Circle podcast, host Daje Aloh delves into a core framework of Storywork Studio, the "Map of Visionary Praxis," a framework that weaves together elements of cyclical seasons, archetypes, and vision processes to support the maturation of creative visions.
Timestamps:
0:11 Unlocking creative potential through the Framework for Visionary Praxis™.
14:19 Embracing the cyclical patterns of nature over linear Western models.
18:03 Embracing nonlinear growth through practice and self-responsibility.
21:26 Visionary Praxis: from dreamers to weavers of creation.
23:33 Embodying Visionary Praxis through seasons, archetypes, and processes.
47:40 Exploring Visionary Archetypes and their role in creative processes.
54:44 Visionary Praxis for soul growth and vision development.
Links + Resources
Recommended Reading: Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche by Bill Plotkin
Reading to Go Even Deeper: The Four Shields: The Initiatory Seasons of Human Nature by Steven Foster and Meredith Little
An Awesome Addition to Your List: The Four-Fold Way by Angeles Arrien
The waitlist for the Vision Society is now open. Join the waitlist here to receive 30% off when registration officially opens.
The Futurewriting Collective membership is now open. Join now to lock instant forever-access to both the membership *and* our foundational course.
Show Notes to Read Along With:
The visionary process can be fickle. It is not linear. It is not clean. It is not always clear. It is more umbilical than bullet point. It is thick with hair, and breath, and noise. And if you’re sensitive to the whistle of leaves and the movements of the stars, you’re often not only in conversation with your strategy, but also the emergence–the ebbs, and breaths, and folds, and tucks–of the living essence of the body of your work.
How do we track the visionary process in a way that makes sense to the body?
In a way that doesn’t leave us backtracking from years of following the dominant culture’s “right way”, the “clean way”, and all of its wayward “best practices’?. How do we track the visionary process in a way that doesn’t take us out of the very same bodies that breed our bloody, wild, and wind-kissed innovations?
To be honest, we have lost our way.
We have made the creative process into a rootless whitepaper, a motherless child. We have made the creative process into a discursive scan for commas and form. We have forgotten the serpent’s wisdom, the ecstatic breath, and the spine’s electric currents. And it’s time to reminder that the role of vision is not an ego project or a standard of glass-ceilinged business, but, rather, a dowsing rod and a seer’s canvas for discerning what is needed in culture.
Vision Development is one root reaching miles through the land to whisper to another root that there is something that needs to be created. Vision Development is the mother’s breath and the Earth’s piercing lightening dance. Vision Development is a child’s name, a seed germinated, and the way you want the Sun to cook you a little bit in early Spring. Vision Development is what happens when we see our cultural project from the inward eye. It is underworld medicine. It is mythic remedy. It is the watering of flowers from your salted face.
Your vision is more than an idea. It is a prayer whispered from some corner of some culture and caught by you, an underworld traveller, who has learned to see in the dark.
We have lost our way. We have forgotten how to see, how to listen, and how to turn on the instinctual nature. We have forgotten how to teach each other that the creative voice lives in the heart. We have forgotten how to remember. How to seer. How to direction. We have forgotten that the work of building something from some imaginal idea is a form of magic, wizardry, and witchcraft. We have forgotten how to harness a frequency. How to catch a dream. How to corral a whisp of color, texture, poetry, and flavor and anchor it to the page.
We have forgotten that Vision Development is a seer’s quest.
We have forgotten that the kinds of maps we need are subterranean, mythic, and animate in nature.
We have forgotten that the Earth offers us everything we need. A compass called deep structure. The archetypal lay of the land. Seasons. The scent of wet dirt and cracked open seeds that go beyond the metaphor and offer themselves up to us as map points, parts of a legend.
We have forgotten our senses need to be honed with every bit of training and conviction as we offer to our minds and our intellect.
We have left the ego part of us, our will to create, out on the edge of the village as an infant child crying full-chested looking for guidance, looking to be fed.
We need to remember. We need to remember. We need to remember.
And that is what this map is for.
This is a map of Visionary Praxis.
What does this map mean?
Praxis is practice. Praxis is practice. Praxis is practice.
Because of all that we have forgotten about the Visionary Process, we have a culture of people who want to automagically build a “successful business” but have no relationship with praxis: The practice of building vision. The practice of being seen. The practice of writing futures. The practice of failing. The practice of succeeding. The practice of sharing voice. The practice of mythopoiesis and polypoiesis. The practice of developing something. The practice of courage.
Because of all that we have forgotten, people fold on the first try. They leave when a social media post gets 2 likes. They want to tuck their egos inside of a dishcloth when the first project isn’t what the audience wants to buy.
And it’s here that praxis becomes about more than just having a seasonal map for business.
Visionary Praxis is about maturing the entrepreneur, their process, and their voice. Visionary Praxis is about turning Dreamers into Initiates. Magicians into Weavers. Visionary Praxis is about learning how to not know and learning how to listen. Visionary Praxis is about becoming an apprentice to your own path, your own unfolding, and the callings that tug you toward vision.
The Anatomy of the Map
There are three different dimensions to the map: the seasons, the archetypes, and the process. Each dimension offers a different layer of Visionary Praxis. Each dimension is a tool, an archetypal embodiment, and an invitation.
And to be clear → It takes time to embody this map.
The embodiment (getting it into your soul and bones) of this map is less about memorizing what to do with it and more about surfacing how each of the dimensions are already living within you.
How to Use this Map
The Seasons are for orienting to the cyclical stages of development that your vision moves through. Each season offers specific rituals, initiations, and invitations to help you bring your actions into harmony with your natural cycles of change, initiation, creativity, and expansion.
The Archetypes are for supporting embodiment and maturation into Visionary Leadership. They represent the different roles you step into at various stages of your vision’s development. They offer guidance, perspective, and tools for navigating each phase of creation.
The Process provides a step-by-step framework for moving your vision forward externally (Vision Midwifery) and internally (Futurewriting, Storywork, and Soulcraft). It is about helping you to clarify your vision and create what you see.
Dimension One: The Seasons
The Seasons represent the cyclical nature of birth, death, growth, and creation. Much like the natural world, visionary work unfolds in phases–each phase bringing its own gifts, challenges, and invitations.
Understanding the Seasons of Visionary Praxis helps you know where you are in the cycle of your creative process and how to calibrate your creative efforts accordingly. The seasons provide a rhythmic map that honors, the ebbs and flows, change and initiations, death and rebirth cycles of the creative process
Here is a cursory overview:
Spring → The Season of Spirit, Infancy, Beginnings, and Visioning
The Season of the East
The season of Spring is fresh, expansive, and full of possibility. It is a time of rebirth, awakening, initiation, new beginnings, and the birth of ideas.
The Invitation of Spring → To plant seeds for your vision, to connect with your creative inspiration, and to explore the unknown and unseen. This is the season for beginning, for imagining, for setting intentions, and diving into the unknown like the archetypal Fool diving off ledge into the waters.
Summer → The Season of Soil, Adolescence, Growth, and Action
The Season of the South
The season of Summer is bodyfull, productive, active, and grounded in the good sweat and effort. This is the time for pulling the visionary process into your body. It is for nourishing, building, and working with your vision through practice, training, and development.
The Invitation of the Summer → To take wildly inspired and delicious action. To allow yourself to fuck up and try things you have never done before. Create your body of work, commit to it. Craft from a place of radical, inherent belonging. Focus on practical steps that bring your vision into form. Summer is about nurturing momentum, strengthening your embodiment, and nurturing that kind of humility (of the earthness) that supports you to ooze with balanced, connected, and rooted confidence.
Autumn → The Season Soul, Adulthood, Mythopoiesis, Reflection, Attunement, and Refinement
The Season of the West
The season of Autumn is a time of getting clear on your voice. It’s a time for putting your insights into song, for weaving with your shadow, and getting to know the Muse Beloved–the wildish, magnetic, embodied, sensuous part of your nature and creative process. This season is introspective, contemplative, and is moved by the love of art, beauty, and wisdom.
The Invitation of Autumn → To harvest what’s been created, reflect on what you learned, and let go of what no longer serves the vision you’re crafting. This is a time for adjustment, consolidation, deepening, dialing in, and sharing.
Winter → The Season of Society, Eldership, Responsibility and Rest
The Season of the North
The season of Winter is about nurturing responsibility, honoring your role in the ecosystem, and imparting wisdom to those who are new in the journey. It is about preparing for death, downtime, and stillness. This is a season rooted in restoration and regeneration. This is a time for remembering, imparting, and recharging. It’s for connecting with your deeper wisdom and allowing space for sharing wisdom, teaching, and lessons learned.
The Invitation of Winter → To pause, to rest, and to give yourself the gift of silence and renewal. Winter is about trusting the unknown, staying present to what is bubbling beneath the surface, and allowing time for new insights to emerge.
Dimension Two: The Archetypes
The Visionary Archetypes are for supporting embodiment and maturation into Visionary Leadership. They represent the different roles you step into at various stages of your vision’s development. These archetypes are dynamic and fluid, reflecting the internal shifts and growth you experience as you move through the seasons of your vision and embody the Futurewriting Process. Each archetype has its own qualities, gifts, challenges and initiations.
Think of the archetypes as companions or guides—they offer perspective, insight, and tools for support you to navigate the Vision Development Process with clarity, confidence, and creative will.
The Dreamer → The Wild-Hearted Creative, the Visionary, and the Seer
The Dreamer is the imaginative creative who sees beyond what is—they see the future potential of what could be, even when it feels distant or impossible. The Dreamer is inspired by possibility and new ideas, helping you to imagine a world that aligns with your highest ideals.
2. The Risk-Taker → The Multi-Passionate, the Explorer, the Initiate
The Risk-Taker is the one who takes action and is willing to step into the unknown with courage. This archetype is about choosing to trust the path in front of you, taking risks, and learning how to trust the creative process. The Risk-Taker is here to get out of their comfort zone. They are learning to accept that uncertainty is part of the visionary process.
3. The Magician → The Focused Alchemist, the Apprentice, the Newly Focused CEO
The Magician embodies the transformative power of the process. They are about learning, mastery, and shaping the raw materials of the vision into something refined. The Magician applies their skills, wisdom, and understanding of the inner and outer world to integrate and refine the vision.
4. The Weaver → The Spirit-Led Founder, the Leader, the Connector, the Visionary of the Whole
The Weaver represents the integration and synthesis of the entire vision. They hold the big picture, connect all parts of the process, and bring the various threads of the vision together into wholeness. This archetype is about leadership, collaboration, and stewarding a vision that is grounded and growing with heart.
Each of these archetypes serves a critical role in the Visionary Praxis process, and their influence corresponds with the natural cycles of death / rebirth, initiation, and the seasons.
The Dreamer Archetype corresponds with the energy of Spring, the season of new beginnings, visioning, planting seeds, and the direction of the East.
The Risk-Taker Archetype corresponds with the energy of Summer, the season of embodiment, remembrance, ancestors, action, momentum, and the direction of the South.
The Magician Archetype corresponds with the energy of Autumn, the season of alchemy, reflection, attunement, deep refinement, transformation, and the direction of the West.
The Weaver Archetype corresponds with the energy of Winter, the season of integration, rest, understanding your role in the greater ecosystem, weaving all parts of the vision into a connected whole, and the direction of the North.
Dimension Three: The Process
The first layer of The Vision Midwifery Process, outlines the foundational aspects of creating a vision that links the path of personal development with practical business development and forward motion. The second layer, the The Futurewriting Process, adds the depth and spiritual / emotional transformation required to bring that vision into embodied reality through examining the stories we live, shape, and create.
Here’s how you can weave these two layers together within the Visionary Praxis framework:
Layer 1: The Vision Midwifery Process
The Visionary Midwifery Process is a strategic framework for entrepreneurs designed to help you move through the initial phases of building your vision—from inception to recurring revenue and the initial phases of team growth.
Note → We teach this framework inside of The Vision Society, our small business incubator for entrepreneurs wanting to hone their skills in sales, marketing, and product development. You can learn more here.
This layer of the map breaks down the key components that make up a small business that has the bones to be regenerative, allowing you to work toward profitability (expanding your margins of money, time, and creativity) while staying attuned and uncompromising with your soul’s calling and path.
Medicine
What is your medicine? This is your core offering and mythopoiesis—it’s what you and only you are uniquely positioned to bring into the world. It is your soul’s work and the medicine you provide to your community. This phase is about discovering and defining your gifts and how they align with your organizational role and purpose.
Modality
How will you offer your medicine? This is the mode of delivery for your work. Whether it’s through teaching, guiding, designing, building, or other formats, your modality is how you serve others and express your mythocultural role.
Methodology
What is the process behind your work? This is the step-by-step system you use to help your clients or community move from where they are to where they want to be. It’s your proven method for transformation, your theory of change.
Model
What is the structure of your business? This is your business model, which includes your pricing, offerings, product testing and build, and the systems that support the exchange of your energy (time, money, service) with others. This phase of Visionary Praxis about creating a scalable model that allows your vision to expand without compromising your capacity or integrity.
Message
How do you communicate your vision? This is your messaging—the way you speak to your audience, how you share the essence of your work, and how you connect with the people you serve. Your message is what happens when you combine medicine and methodology. It communicates the value you provide.
Momentum
How do you keep your vision moving forward? This is your momentum—the energy and lifeforce that propels your vision into the kind of vision, action, and rest cycles that continue flourish and grow as inteded. Momentum is about taking care of the systems inside of your body, your team ecosystem, and your organization that allows for cashflow to be consistent and for operations to liberate flow. consistent It’s about care for the flow of energy that allows you meet obstacles, navigate challenges, and maintain the the presence necessary to move your vision from concept to reality.
Layer 2: The Futurewriting Process
While the Vision Midwifery Process focuses on the external landscape of Visionary Praxis, The Futurewriting Process focuses on the internal landscape—the stories you carry inside of you and the transformative process of evolving the stories that are no longer useful to who you are becoming and what you are creating.
The Futurewriting Process supports you to actively write the future you desire by exploring (and working with) the stories you are (east), the stories you become (south), the stories you tell (west), and the stories you create (north).
The Stories We Are
The origins of your story—the stories of your birth, your ancestry, your original mythic construct, and the medicine that you carry.
The Stories We Become
The realm of becoming—where you do the inner gardening work required to nurture the growth of your desires, transforming old stories that no longer serve you and step into the new story.
The Stories We Tell
The place where you live out the new story, articulating the wisdom and lessons you’ve learned.
The Stories We Create
This phase is about creating the future, bringing your vision into form.
