Wisdom List of Ancient Maps for Growth
It’s been said that the more powerful our technology and progress, the more wisdom we need to match this newfound responsibility and power.
The Elevator: Curated inputs to elevate your business and expand your lifestyle.
It’s been said that the more powerful our technology and progress, the more wisdom we need to match this newfound responsibility and power.
Sadly, our logic-brain orientation culturally tends to dominate, using its power to dissect and prove rather than expand and allow.
Maps have been given to help us make sense of modernity, personality, purpose, and the roles we play. Consulting these has drastically deepened my sense of self-exploration, as it has provided a meaningful reference for helping guide others through their development as a coach, advisor and guide.
As such these maps provide supportive depth to career decisions, personal breakthrough, and life’s challenges.
Most people think of something like astrology as simply made up by charlatans, woo woo, and incoherent. Yet if we look deeper, we see that there function is more akin to religion’s stories and texts, that is, that it is mapping deeper truths, passed down for generations for use and support.
Maybe you are going through some type of work upheaval. Or you have questions about a relationship, or you wonder why you are experiencing some recurring dream (as dreams as well provide archetypal maps)?
We can turn to interpreters of these wisdom maps, or go directly to sources ourselves.
These wisdom traditions offer us all pathways of understanding that allow us to identify patterns, ways of being, and changes personally and collectively that might be occurring.
I have found many of these maps personally helpful, and it might be that you are still looking for your particular reference guide to living that will be useful in this specific moment you find yourself in.
For me, currently, Gene Keys has proved most helpful as a deeper contemplation. For you, maybe another.
As with all aspects of growth and support, you take what you need and discard (for now) what you do not. Where do you go to consult and seek wisdom?
Here are some of these maps you might use and explore…
The I Ching – Your Decision
The I Ching, or “Book of Changes,” is an ancient Chinese text dating back over 3,000 years, originally used as a divination and wisdom guide for rulers and scholars. At its core, it’s a system for exploring change and decision-making through 64 symbolic hexagrams: patterns of six broken or unbroken lines, that each represent a different situation, challenge, or state of transition.
You consult the I Ching by posing a question, then using coins or sticks to generate a hexagram, which you interpret in light of your situation. You gain wisdom through exploring possible pathways and outcomes that you can lean into as values and ways of being.
The I Ching or Book of Changes: A Guide to Life's Turning Points
Human Design – Your Energy
Human Design is a modern self-discovery system created in 1987 by Ra Uru Hu, blending ideas from astrology, the I Ching, the Kabbalah, the chakra system, and quantum physics.
You generate your “BodyGraph” using your birth date, time, and place, which shows your type (like Generator, Projector, Manifestor, or Reflector) which then gives you a strategy for interacting with the world.
This strategy helps you understand how to best act in the world, when your energy is “on” or how to make decisions. It is meant to be practical for how to live in according to your energy.
I’m a projector fwiw
Human Design: The Revolutionary System That Shows You Who You Came Here to Be
Gene Keys – Your Growth Path
The Gene Keys is like a personalized map for your inner world. It personalizes your unique growth journey based on your birth chart (and it was created by Richard Rudd in the 2000s). It guides you through very patient self-reflection unique to you. It charts your purpose, love, and prosperity.
There are 64 “Gene Keys” (reference to I Ching) each describing a theme of human experience.
Every key has three levels:
At the lowest is the Shadow (the challenge or pattern you get stuck in), Then there is a Gift (the positive potential hidden in that challenge),
And finally the Siddhi (the highest, most spiritual expression of that quality).
The reason they’re called Gene Keys is because they’re meant to subtly shift your genetic code; as you unlock new aspects of yourself along your life’s journey.
Gene keys is both slow (you’re meant to spend months on one area) and also is a longer conversation with yourself over time.
The Gene Keys: Embracing Your Higher Purpose
Tarot – Your Intuition
Tarot is a deck of 78 cards used as a tool for reflection, guidance, and storytelling. While its origins trace back to 15th-century Europe as a card game, over time it became a symbolic system for exploring life’s questions, drawing on archetypes, numerology, and imagery that speak to the subconscious.
The deck is split into two parts: the Major Arcana (22 cards representing big life themes and spiritual lessons, like The Fool or The Tower) and the Minor Arcana (56 cards that cover everyday situations, divided into four suits).
Each card holds layers of meaning, and how it’s interpreted depends on the question, its position in a spread, and the surrounding cards.
Because the symbols are rich and open-ended, Tarot works as much through intuition as through learned meanings, making every reading a unique blend of structure and personal insight.
You might use Tarot by asking, “What am I meant to focus on this month?” and drawing a card that suggests introspection, bold action, or letting go.
It’s not about predicting the future (as many might think) it’s more about giving you ways to see your situation.
Astrology – Your Timing
Astrology is the study of how the positions of the sun, moon, and planets at the moment you were born can reflect patterns in your personality, life path, and the cycles you go through. Its roots go back thousands of years to ancient Babylon, Egypt, and Greece.
Your personal chart, called a natal chart, is like a snapshot of the sky at your birth. It shows where each planet was, in which zodiac sign, and how they relate to one another. The Sun sign (what most people know) is just one part. the Moon sign, rising sign, and planetary placements add depth, describing everything from emotional needs to communication style to the types of challenges you’re likely to face.
People use astrology for self-understanding and timing. You might look to it to see why certain patterns keep repeating in relationships, to choose a good window to launch a project, or to better understand a personal turning point.
Astrology uses the sky itself and the movements of celestial beings as a symbolic map that can offer insight, perspective, and a sense of meaning to your life’s rhythms.
You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance
The Hero’s Journey – Your Adventure
The Hero’s Journey is a storytelling framework that describes the universal arc of transformation found in myths across history.
Joseph Campbell found that across all cultures, the stories of heroes follow a similar path: they leave the familiar, face challenges, and return transformed.
It usually begins with the Call to Adventure, where something disrupts ordinary life and invites the hero into the unknown.
Along the way, they meet mentors, allies, and enemies, face trials that test them, and often encounter a crisis or “dark night of the soul.”
Through these challenges, they gain new insight, skills, or self-awareness, and eventually return them to their home, while the hero is changed as a person.
The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work
Jungian Archetypes – Your Unconscious
Jungian Archetypes come from the work of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, who believed there are universal patterns and characters living in the human psyche. He called them our collective unconscious: archetypes show up in myths, dreams, stories, and our everyday behavior, acting like templates for how we think, feel, and act.
Some are familiar from stories: the Hero, the Mentor, the Trickster, the Lover, the Ruler, the Rebel…others show up in subtler ways.
It’s a way of spotting the deeper “characters” operating within you so you can work with them consciously, rather than being run by them unconsciously.
Taoism – Your Flow
Taoism is an ancient Chinese philosophy and spiritual tradition centered on living in harmony with the Tao, often translated as “the Way.”
The Tao is the natural flow of life. It is the underlying order of the universe that can’t be fully put into words but can be experienced and aligned with.
Practices like Tai Chi, Qigong, meditation, and observation of the natural world are all ways to feel and follow the Tao. People use Taoist wisdom as a guide for living more effortlessly. For example, instead of pushing through burnout to “win,” you might pause and adjust course, trusting that the right moment for action will come. It’s less about controlling life and more about participating in its unfolding with grace.
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P.S. If you find yourself too science oriented to ever benefit from the above, there’s a great book that might challenge your assumptions, describing spiritual experiences from some of our greatest scientists.
The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge
Have a great end to the week,
xx David