What I've learned about transformation design thus far #73

Myth touches the deep patterns of human experience, stories so true to how things are that they recur across cultures and centuries.

Contemporary hospitality can carry mythic resonance without being theatrical or pretentious. The threshold crossing at arrival echoes the threshold crossings of myth. The ordeal at the journey’s center echoes every hero’s trial. The return home transformed, echoes every hero’s homecoming.

This charge need not be announced. The guest need not be told they are on a hero’s journey. It operates below consciousness, felt rather than thought. The experience simply feels significant, meaningful, connected to something larger. This feeling is myth working.

Some places carry mythic weight naturally. I visited Glastonbury first for the Festival three decades ago, but came back with my wife and kids for its resonance in 2024. A landscape so dramatic it feels archetypal. Climbing the Tor, visiting the Chalice Well and its gardens, dipping in the White Spring, while reading King Arthur to my kids as we went. This place does not need to create resonance; it has it big time.

Other places must cultivate it through design. The architecture that echoes sacred geometry. The consumer journey that follows ritual logic. The programming that touches universal themes. Resonance can be built if the builder understands what it is and how it functions.