Southwestern College Santa Fe, NM
Sometimes an opportunity appears and without even knowing all the details a big YES from the heart arises. This is what happened when I first became aware of the Visionary Practice and Regenerative Leadership (VPRL) PhD program at Southwestern College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Although I had researched various PhD programs on and off over the years, when I first learned of VPRL I was not planning to go back to school. However, I know when a YES like this beckons, I must follow and explore where it leads. And so, my three-year journey into becoming a Doctor of Philosophy as a full-time student began this last September 2024.
The term began with a week-long Residency in New Mexico. This introductory gathering provided an immersive experience for the new cohort to connect and begin our PhD program together. Our in-person time built a strong foundation about what to expect from the program and how we would begin to nurture the vision seed we brought with us.
The Residency invited us into many beautiful, introspective, and rich visionary experiences. While I do not have a favorite, there is one that stands out as it was profound and visually impactful. On the last day at Ghost Ranch (the retreat center where we were staying), we were given directions to wander in the wild on a solo walk.
During the Residency, an aspect of my vision seed I had been pondering and talking about was deep time. As I wandered along a moving stream, I marveled at the ancientness of the cliffs that surrounded the creek. I contemplated the mud that was now coating my shoes as it was once those cliffs. My heart and mind full of deep time, I came upon a naked mud-covered boy, maybe three years old, splashing in the creek. Covered in the mud that was once the cliffs, I saw him as the ancient earth walking anew. For me, in that moment, he represented the past, present, and future all at once. This precious moment as well as the whole Residency was a gift to my soul.
Ghost Ranch Cliffs & Stream, Photograph by Zahra Indigo Rønlov (2024)
Following the Residency, I enrolled in two doctoral classes for the ten-week term: Embodied Cosmology as well as Phenomenology of Visionary Practice and the Call to Serve. Both were designed to bring students into a greater awareness of ourselves within the context of our lives as we developed the vision seed that will become the basis of our field work and dissertation. The VPRL Faculty provided a learning environment that invited students into a deep consideration of ourselves, our journeys, our vision seeds, and our places in the world. It was remarkable how the content of the two classes dovetailed beautifully into what I was moving through each week.
Early in the Phenomenology class, we were assigned to create a collage to represent our archetypal identity. In retrospect after the term, it is interesting to consider the various pictures I chose at the beginning. The imagery takes on new, multiple, and deeper significance with all I have experienced along the way, with all I have seen, heard, felt, sensed, said, read and thought about, and with all I have witnessed.
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Archetypal Collage, Digital Image by Zahra Indigo Rønlov (2024)
Owning my sovereignty, I step into the unknown only being what I can be in this precious presence. I am a portal of becoming continually arriving again and again…
Admittedly, and perhaps wonderfully, I am less clear about the focus of my vision seed now than I was when I came into the program. The beauty is that the process I have been engaged in these last few months has done exactly what it is supposed to do. It has opened me more deeply into the nature my vision seed, to achieve greater understanding of my calling and to get into the very heart of it. In one of the books we were assigned, Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life, Gregg Levoy (1997) offered, “The purpose of calls is to summon adherents aways from the daily grinds to a new level of awareness, into a sacred frame of mind, into communion with that which is bigger than themselves” (p. 2). My task is to live life—the daily grind—while simultaneously gaining new levels of awareness, insight, awakening, and service as I continue along this journey of life.
I know now more than ever that following the initial YES I felt when I first learned of VPRL was perfectly aligned with my continued growth personally, professionally, and spiritually. For this I am grateful.
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Do you have a calling? The Visionary Practice and Regenerative Leadership PhD program is ready to guide and support you! Applications are now being accepted for Cohort Four beginning September 2025. You are invited to explore more about this PhD program HERE. (https://www.swc.edu/visionary-practice-and-regenerative-leadership-phd/)
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