Xenia Marie Ross Viray: Following an Uncharted Path
Some people defy easy description, and Xenia Marie Ross Viray of Myths of Creation is one of them. A gifted writer, intuitive, and self-titled Imagination Healer, she's spent over a decade building a body of work at the intersection of creativity, spirituality, science and meaning-making. Through her business and practice - Myths of Creation - she guides sensitive, multi-passionate creatives, mystics, seekers - and everything in between- in understanding their gifts and trusting the uncharted paths that are uniquely theirs. With no roadmaps or rulebooks Xenia has a deep commitment to helping people show up in their most authentic, strange, luminous shape and helping find the magic in it all.
Having done sessions with Xenia myself, been mentored by her in a multi-week experience, and taken numerous workshops inside the creative laboratory that is Myths of Creation, I praise with the highest respect, honor and awe, her incredible ability to see you, give words to energy and place your experience. She does this all with fun, curiosity and compassion, and has been a huge inspiration for the way she exists in the world and shares her gifts.
Xenia is also someone we know well on this side of Sacred Hive. She’s a friend, collaborator and a a past client who’s brand we had the privilege of developing at a pivotal moment in her growth. You can explore how we translated the depth of her world into a visual language in her case study.
In this interview, Xenia walks us through the pivots, leaps of faith, and hard-won wisdom behind a decade of following her own uncharted path. Xenia is truly one-of-a-kind and her work is just as singular. Her world is only expanding and I hope you get an opportunity to invite yourself into it. We hope you enjoy this interview with one of our favorite minds.
Xenia, welcome! Excited to chat with you. How would you describe what you do + who you work with/ideal audience?
My work is a lot like my namesake - Xenia, which means kindness to strangers, because they may be the divine in disguise. I have a passion and gift for seeing people's creative gifts through Human Design, astrology, and claircognizant channeling. I help sensitive creatives understand how to express their gifts and help bring their creative visions to life.
I am a passionate connector of ideas, worlds, and schools of thought that are separated by normative culture. My greatest art is creating containers of cross-pollination that offer much-needed space for authenticity, emotion, expansion, and wonder - all in service to activating my clients' magic and agency. No title described what I do, so I created one: Imagination Healer. All of my work endeavors to normalize telling the truth about the experience of being human.
How did you get here/what led you to this work?
I probably have one of the most non-linear paths of anyone I know.
When I was a teenager, I either wanted to be a writer or a scientist, and deciding between the two plagued me for years. I chose to study multidisciplinary writing in college and arrived in New York two weeks before 9/11. It feels important to mention that, because I consistently find myself at the locus point of world-changing occurrences like this.
I graduated three years before the financial crash of 2008, so I became an adult in a very unstable environment. I gravitated towards early internet companies and small neighborhood businesses, often run in a very DIY way by a married couple or a few friends.
Maybe this will give you a sense of my non-traditional path: I worked transcribing Houdini's letters for a book about Houdini's involvement in the CIA, was hired by a company that streamed music to hotels before streaming services existed, and worked at one of the most respected and first online fashion magazines in New York before people knew what an online magazine was. I have always been early; most of the jobs I got hired to do had no operations manual because I was the first one to do them.
After watching other people run their own businesses, it became apparent to me that entrepreneurial people are mostly making it up as they go along. This demystification of what it means to "own a business" encouraged me to strike out on my own.
In New York, I kept being offered jobs in fashion, despite having zero education in that area; I just used pure instinct. That was a teaching in itself. One thing led to another, and I opened a brick-and-mortar store in 2015 called Myths of Creation. A year into running my clothing business, I had a reality-shifting psychic reading and soon adapted the shop to include astrology readings, workshops for empaths, and all kinds of experimental things at the intersection of spirituality and creativity.
I closed my brick-and-mortar business in December of 2019, just before lockdown. The timing in my life has always been surreal. I used that downtime to sink further into studying Human Design and to develop my own body of work to support creative, multipassionate, and enterprising folks. Around this time, I stopped chasing after things and learned that following what I love always leads me to where I am meant to be. I started experimenting with offerings to help people think for themselves and to take creative risks, and open their minds to what is possible, and I've been doing this ever since.
What gifts or skills did you realize you possessed that uniquely positioned you to do this kind of work?
I have always been deeply empathic and intuitive. I grew up with constantly-changing configurations of extended family in a mostly white neighborhood as a Filipino immigrant. Having a different culture at home and at school really helped me understand how made-up and negotiable norms are early on in life. So I learned to meet many people where they are, and how to discern what is going on on an emotional level at a very young age.
I could see early on that cultural context and meaning are fluid. That belonging means different things to different people. This made me more comfortable living outside an easily explained identity or career.
Since I was very little, I was endlessly curious and experimental. Whenever I learned something in one subject, I wanted to know how that translated or connected to real-life experience. What I observed was that most of what I learned in school wasn't actually usable or actionable in real life. This helped me hone my ability to see the world through my own eyes, instead of conceptualizing intelligence as rote memorization.
I was also always very good at learning systems and spotting patterns. When I combine this love of synthesis with my sensitivity, adaptability, and a preference for originality, it makes me suited to take unknown paths, which in turn, equipped me to be an astute guide for people creating in an unknown world.
“No title described what I do, so I created one: Imagination Healer. All of my work endeavors to normalize telling the truth about the experience of being human.”
XENIA MARIE ROSS VIRAYWhen did you know you wanted to chart your own path?
I also had these fairy godparents in New York that I met through a babysitting gig. A freelance makeup artist and a photographer/videographer. They founded their own fashion magazine and instilled in me that if you love what you do, the money will come.
After that point, I was offered a stable but boring job at a very large, well-known public television station and another job at a chaotic music styling company that turned out to be very sketchy. I took the riskier job, and while it didn't pay off financially, it helped me withstand risk and taught me that I am more interested in having autonomy and creative agency than in having stability.
The final thing that cemented my decision to open my own brick-and-mortar shop was when a friend of mine who had a vintage store told me that she believed that if she could own a store, anyone could. Her transparency and grace encouraged me to believe I could do my own thing.
Lastly, throughout the tumultuous part of my career, I consistently realized that I am innately a very dedicated and hardworking person. I get that from my mom. And at some point, I realized if you're going to work that hard, and take that much risk, it just makes sense to build your own thing.
What's the biggest thing you learned from your entrepreneurial/business journey?
Fundamentally, I think what we are best at is usually one side of a coin. On the other side of that coin is what we struggle with or what we need help with. One of the biggest things we can learn is to accept help.
The other thing is that it is so important to know why you do what you do; otherwise, it is easy to get distracted by the allure of what other people are doing and stray from your own path.
The last thing is that we need to constantly remember that our business is meant to serve who we are as a whole person. It is so easy to internalize the idea that we are what we produce. This idea permeates everything. But if we can't be a good boss to ourselves, what is the point?
Oh, last thing, if I have one piece of advice: Collaborate! Second piece of advice, it's important to do some things on your own.
What are you currently learning on this journey or what new things are you facing?
Right now, I feel deeply that it is time to transform my business in structural ways that really take me out of my comfort zone. I have gotten so much done through DIY'ing, self-teachin,g and just working hard. But the next be expansion is asking me how to create a business that holds and supports me so I can take very good care of myself. A deeper creative project is calling, but it's asking for a different scale of time, a longer period of incubation, and a bigger foundation of support.
I am learning to trust I can hold something much bigger than I thought I could. The thought of slowing down and deepening the work instead of just making more is quite an adjustment. (Is this a manifesting generator thing?)
What is your creative process when it comes to creating your programs and workshops?
My process of creation is psychic in nature. An idea comes into my field like a little spark, and I relate to it as if it's my own thought, but often life will show me synchronicity after synchronicity, and ask me to trust life's little clues.
After the intuitive part drops in as an idea, a concept, or a container, I start to understand its structure. But the first thing I usually get is a name.
The second way I sculpt my offerings is based on what my clients are showing me, a theme, need, or pattern that feels fun for me to engineer a solution or playground to resolve or learn about.
I am very iterative, and trust the process will be equal parts magic and structural crafting.
What inspires you? What informs your work or nurtures your creative spark?
I am inspired by so many things. Science inspires me. What my friends make inspires me. I love music and fashion, and I love to read and research. I am mostly inspired, though, by human nature, its gifts, vulnerabilities, paradoxes, and mysteries. I could talk to one person for hours; falling into their world feels like traveling to a faraway land. I am amazed that each one of us is such a universe unto ourselves. It feels like such a gift to walk among such diverse imaginations.
I am also inspired by children, animals, plants, and people creating genius things. I am inspired by my dad's humor and my mom's incredible empathy, and I am constantly in awe of how much I don't know and how much there is left for me to uncover in the world.
“Creativity is neither something to force at will, nor is it some sporadic evasive thing. It’s always there, but we have to create the right conditions for it to emerge.”
Throughout your life, you have worked in many roles at the edge of cultural shifts - Myths of Creation, included. Now successfully running a 10-year-old business, how did you navigate staying committed to your vision, even when what you were creating may not have been part of the predominant culture or digestible to the marketplace? What allows for this deeper trust in what you're building?
You can only stay committed to a vision if you let yourself and the vision change. I live multiple creative lifetimes every year. I try new things and am honest with myself about when something is too hard or when I am exhausting myself.
Maybe it's an Aries thing, but the allure of trying something new really lights me up.
The thing is, I started as an affordable clothing store, which became a place for spiritual exploration, which became a Human Design reading and Reiki business, which became an online workshop business, which then morphed into something totally crafted from my imagination.
I have never been all that digestible. Even as a shop, I was a strange shop, haha. The best thing you can do for yourself and others is to show up in your authentic, strange shape. When you do, people can find you. When you don't, you will lose inspiration and attract people who aren't right for you.
One thing (of many) that inspires me so much about you and what you've created with Myths of Creation is how you've found such a unique business model for your work that's so creative and a true reflection of your gifts and talents. Did that form organically for you as you experimented with offerings in your business?
The thing about my business model is that it's backwards. I start with what my heart wants to say on a daily basis. Most people call this content, but to me, it is a window into who I am. And after I practice sharing consistently over a long enough period of time, a body of work emerges with clear themes, along with a community that is interested in that work.
From there, I create a structure to house the ideas and experiences that feel exciting, fresh, or life-giving. I keep tweaking the structure to gather information on what I like best, what serves people most, and what makes the right amount of money to resource me to be a healthy creative person who can keep experimenting.
I do not study other people's business structures, per se, but I have certainly been inspired by the businesses I am a patron of. I use empathy, imagination, and instinct to design containers I would want to be a part of. I ask myself, what would I want to learn? How would I want to learn it?How do you personally measure success in your business and creative work?
Fulfilling work is collaborative work and work with clear learnings. We can’t always control how things will perform, but if we set things up in the right way, we can ensure that, regardless of the outcome, we learn something that will help us for future projects (at the very least). Exceeding revenue and ROAS goals are very nice to have.
Because you host so many workshops, programs, and other educational experiences at the intersection of creativity, mysticism, science, mythology, and authentic meaning-making, how do you know when something feels like an offering you want to package and share with others?
When I have an idea for an offering, I try to let it simmer for a least a few weeks and see what the universe wants to offer me as a clue.
80 percent of the time, people will start to ask me for the thing I am thinking of making or I'll see it everywhere across my reality algorithm. The best is when I stumble across a big piece of the puzzle while I am already facilitating the container, which happens all the time.
If anything, I err on the side of packaging and sharing ideas more than I do keeping them to myself, because I have so much enthusiasm and so many ideas I am in a love affair with.
I see my evolution being about paring back and taking some of those ideas into my own personal practice in the future to see what happens.
I have to ask...because I don't know how you do it... But, how do you produce so much writing and marketing content as a solo business owner? And it's not just light writing - you are always sharing something very thought-provoking and explorative. You have your Substack, Instagram, Newsletter and you seem to be able to consistently output on those marketing channels all as one person.
Lol. First of all, thank you! I don't even know how healthy it is to create this much, but the truth is, I have so much electrical energy running through me that I find a need to discharge it into the world for my own sake, and I love seeing what echoes back.
Writing is and will always be my first love. I learn what I know as I write or speak it. (I have the 20th Gate in Human Design or Gene Key, and this is a feature of that).
I will say, part of what gives me so much stamina, is that I never think about marketing. I always think about expression. And even when I know I am sitting down to market something, I just open my heart and let whatever wants to flow come through. I think this makes the writing practice more of an adventure than a task.
Personally, I'm learning that the systems you create to support you and your business on the backend are what allow you to actually expand what you give and receive. Having grown your community so much in the last year, what systems do you have in place that support you and your work?
You know, I am still working on honing my systems in the backend of my business. I work with a part-time assistant, Anastassia, which helps me recalibrate the priorities every week. Having a moment to do that is so key.
This is probably an unhelpful answer, but one thing that is important is to not have too many systems. I have tried to systematize my writing and Instagram and newsletter countless times. My energy doesn't need it and it ends up being a waste of time when I do that!
On the other hand, we have very specific, repeatable systems for all of our containers that are designed to make life easier for everyone. Things like community agreements, scholarship applications, calendar links, and reminders. It sounds like a little thing, but being clear with people helps them relax, and relaxed people are open to learning, sharing, and changing.
I know you're also a writer. Outside of being a business owner, how do you make space for doing creative work that is outside of serving your business?
To be fair and transparent, I have been very focused on building my business since 2022, and a lot of my creativity was going into freelance work until I moved on from all my contract work and started solely working on Myths of Creation.
My personal and professional work are quite blended at the moment, aside from the channeled writing I do to listen to my own heart. I plan to shift this pattern in the coming year, and I look forward to creating a lot more for myself, especially handwritten writing, which has such a different quality to it, and music.
At what point in time do people tend to discover you and your universe?
People usually find me when they feel a big transition coming up in their life, either in their career or in their own spiritual curiosity. They also find me when they have a desire to put creative work out into the world and want someone to guide them.
You are so gifted at being able to see through others and into the heart of what they're experiencing, the gifts they hold and how they can utilize them, and what they're needing in their creative journeys. How did you develop your intuitive gifts, or what tools do you use to nurture this language with the unseen?
Thank you so much! Seeing people's creative gifts has always been innate to me. Maybe because I have a 6/2 Human Design profile or because I am a fire sign, I learn through instinct and practice. My intuition speaks to me most loudly when I am creating something or helping someone else to create, so most of that development has been through trial and error.
I am, however, someone who loves systems. I studied Human Design, Tropical astrology, and tarot with other teachers, but developed most of what I know through working with clients and offering readings. I think that certain systems activate our intuition. When I see someone's Human Design chart, it opens up my channels of knowing, and I am able to understand how to work with that person's unique energy. I also love how tarot helps us open our intuition, and work with tarot and bibliomancy quite often with my clients.
What would you say to those who identify as multi-dimensional creatives who are looking to find what they can offer the world by being who they are?
It is so important to understand that our creativity is natural, and our job is not so much to engineer it, but to create the conditions to support it. The other thing that feels important is that our passions, desires, interests, and dislikes teach us so much about how we can serve the world. When we get too caught up in our heads and or too attached to the cultural boxes and labels, we may force ourselves to do things that aren't necessary for our path. Start with what you actually enjoy and get energy from. Let the universe guide you so you're not just using brute mental force to make something happen.
Where do you see your work evolving in the future?
I have big dreams of starting a school in tandem with a media company. I would also love to write another book and to create some in-person experiences.
In working with so many people throughout the year through your workshops and programs, are there any patterns or themes you're noticing starting to emerge in the collective?
People are ready to break out of the molds that feel too small for them. The economy and culture are showing us that it is time to see the value in what makes us human and what makes us unique.
People are also sick of screens, noise, and escapism. They are disenchanted with the internet, and in a way, it is inspiring a lot of people to get out in the world and take more risks.
I also see a huge uprising of people who are multidisciplinary, creating their own lenses and languages rather than trying to silo their passions into different buckets. People are also more ready than ever to talk about esoteric topics that would have been considered too strange or out there even just a few years ago.
Any insights for us for 2026?
2026 is the year of the Magician and the Wheel of Fortune in tarot. It's about directing our will and agency while also adapting to circumstances that are outside our control.
The more you can blend honesty and gentleness, the more prepared you will be to make the subtle changes that have felt inaccessible in years past. We are all ready to unlock new timelines, new characters, and collective visions. We are realizing no one is coming to save us, and that when we take responsibility for our lives, we uplift the whole.
Rapid Fire!
SUN, MOON + RISING? Aries, Gemini, Aquarius
DEFINE YOUR CREATIVE SPIRIT IN 3 WORDS. Otherworldly, Compassionate, Harmonizing
CURRENTLY OBSESSED WITH… Learning about time, my nieces and nephews, soup season, learning about the heart, organizing my home library, DNA's mysteries, the properties of water, all the stars, and the sound of birds' wings fluttering nearby. Ana Mendieta. Coffee shops. Hilma Af Klint.
READING, LISTENING, WATCHING? Rereading Rainer Maria Rilke, relistening to The Breeders albums, the Mavis Staples cover of Kevin Morby's Beautiful Strangers, Let's Get Become Fungal, Mycelium Teachings, and the Arts by Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodriguez, and You Belong by Sebene Selassie. Oh, and Björk. Forever Björk. The Fiona Apple cover of Love More. The Sinead O'Connor cover of All Apologies.
ONE PHYSICAL OR DIGITAL TOOL YOU CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT? I am embarrassingly obsessed with Canva. I like to push it to do things it is not primarily designed for. I write longform on Instagram and create videos for Substack, lol.
IF YOU HAD ONE MESSAGE TO LEAVE BEHIND TO THE WORLD, WHAT WOULD IT BE?. It is a miracle we even exist.
WHEN, OR WHERE, DO YOU FEEL THE PRESENCE OF SPIRIT. I feel Spirit in the trees, in the sky, when I sit with a child, when someone makes me laugh, when I take in really good art, and when I sing aloud with other people. Looking at the sunlight reflecting in the water, reading poetry, and when I see people being themselves.