Imaginal Case Studies
- *Visionary Scenarios Exploring the Potential of Relational Field Work Within Creative Industries*
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- These imaginal case studies are theoretical illustrations of how Relational Field Consulting and R&D Retreats might unfold with different types of creative projects. Like imaginal cells in a forming butterfly still in chrysalis stage, each scenario explores the collaborative possibilities that emerge when creative teams engage with Relational Field methodologies to address the deeper systemic patterns influencing their work.
Case Study 1: The Writers' Room Impasse
- In the writers' room, there's a fight between two characters that keeps not feeling real and cannot seem to find its way to a resolution. The writers know there's a deeper layer and call in a Relational Field Consultant who has already done an intake and sensing around the project.
- The two writers working on it are hitting an edge in their own maturation and relationship to power, and there are ancestry and class layers involved that they haven't known how to presence but feel like they keep affecting the power dynamics. It keeps getting funneled back into this moment of dialogue, but they don't know how to show the wider tapestry around it.
- We do a Warm Data Lab with them and the wider creative team to move through different relational contexts and start to illuminate the deeper material.
- *Key Elements: Systemic patterns affecting creative process, ancestry and class dynamics, collective exploration through Warm Data methodology*
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- Case Study 2: The Stuck Rehearsal
- A project has reached a stuck place during rehearsals as they're developing a new script, something they know is not touching the deeper layer. The director calls me as a consultant. I've already done an immersion with the writers, directors, and core actors, so we've touched the fields of the project and explored the wider collective layers through constellation work.
- Something is missing in this moment with a solitary actor. On the phone with the director, I suggest adding unnamed representatives for different elements that are tuned to the context that only the director and I know. The actor notices how things shift as each one is added and has a very clear response to the third one, which is representing homeland.
- The writer comes back in and together they craft a shift in the monologue to touch this deeper place. The representative steps out but that Relational Field is then acknowledged and present in the performance.
- *Key Elements: Distance constellation work, real-time creative problem-solving, integration of systemic awareness into performance*
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- Case Study 3: The Colonization Project
- A project is addressing colonization by creating a story that surfaces the psychology of white settlers who forced Indigenous children into boarding schools. The creative team is both Indigenous and white, as is the Relational Field Consulting team.
- We begin by establishing relationship to the fields of support. The radiant ancestors of the European lineage people are called in along with the resourced ancestors of the Indigenous people. We call in the specific places where the ancestors of the creative team come from, the wisdom of the nature beings that live there. There is a weaving of ritual and ceremony that helps everyone attune to this wider resourcing.
- Then we begin to identify the domination fields and their trace signatures so that they can be sensed as forces throughout the creation process. There is a gathering of those qualities, and skillful play with them through animist arts clowning practices. We sense for the places of existence and the erotic that have become contorted in both the perpetrators and the victims.
- We bring the creators through a variety of expressive arts processes to support the emergence of the stories that need to be witnessed. We do constellation work around specific questions or places of tension that need a wider capacity of witnessing to touch the relational core.
- The Relational Field Consulting team is on call throughout the project to support moments where domination fields are too big to be metabolized and processes need to be recalibrated, consulting with the actors as well and with others on the team who are handling publicity. They continue the collaboration across different kinds of ceremony so that both the Indigenous and the European lineage people are also rooted into wider webs of support throughout the project.
- The Consulting team also works with the creatives to develop an integration process for the audience that includes a physical ritual and a series of guided somatic practice recordings, then next steps for engaging in deeper processes around reparations.
- *Key Elements: Multi-lineage creative teams, domination field work, ongoing support throughout production, audience integration processes, reparations framework*
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- What These Scenarios Reveal
- These imaginal case studies demonstrate how Relational Field work:
- - Addresses creative blocks by revealing their systemic roots
- - Supports real-time problem-solving during production
- - Integrates ancestral and ecological wisdom into creative process
- - Transforms creative projects into cultural healing work
- - Provides ongoing support for complex, sensitive material
- - Creates integration processes that extend transformation to audiences
- - Honors multiple lineages and perspectives within creative teams
- Each scenario illustrates the potential for creative work to become a form of collective alchemy, processing cultural material and offering it back transformed.
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- Ready to Explore These Possibilities?
- If you recognize your creative work in these scenarios, or sense the potential for this depth of collaboration within your projects, let's explore how Relational Field methodologies might serve your specific creative vision.
- [Book Your Cosmology for Creators Call]
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- *Supporting visionary creators in seeding a lived aesthetic for the regeneration of culture.*
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- How does this feel as a foundation? I tried to present each scenario clearly while highlighting the key methodological elements, then synthesize what they reveal about the potential of this work.