“You are the dream of all your ancestors”
- Bert Hellinger
While setting up the field and the path leading up to the 2021 NASC Conference, Lighthouse of The Soul: Illuminating the Wisdom of The Ancestors, we engage our senses and are drawn to music and art, to words and no-words, to poetry, dance and film and all expressions of our human-ness that spring from our Souls. In calling out to our ancestors, and calling them in, what better way is there to invoke all their blessings?
This is a way for us to not only connect with our Ancestors, but also with the sacred container of the conference and with each other. We will post here and via email weekly to illuminate and walk this path together to the conference. Please continue to scroll down to see all published emails so far. Thank you for being present and holding this sacred space with us.
This is a way for us to not only connect with our Ancestors, but also with the sacred container of the conference and with each other. We will post here and via email weekly to illuminate and walk this path together to the conference. Please continue to scroll down to see all published emails so far. Thank you for being present and holding this sacred space with us.
For the rest of the presenters, please see our Presenter page.
July 2021
Meet More of Your Speakers & their Topics
~ The Collective Field ~
Sarah Rehfuss Bastian
Cultivating a Mindful Connection with the Field Do you find it hard to access “the field” when you’re in representation or struggle to navigate the various dimensions while facilitating? Are you ever flooded with energy during a constellation and then exhausted afterward? Do you have concerns about containing the size and force of “the field” as a facilitator? If so, join me for this workshop to discover energetic pathways and concrete tools to connect with the field in a way that supports your body while still maintaining a relationship with your ancestors. ... Constellations occur in the liminal space between ordinary reality and the world of the ancestors. This is a space of enormous creative potentiality! ...During this workshop, you will Explore your individual relationship to liminal space where constellations occur. Learn methods to open and close energetic space with respect and acknowledgment. Discover techniques to strengthen your physical space, body and energetic containers. Determine ways to encourage a more co-creative partnership with the ancestors. Both facilitators and representatives of constellation have the ability to travel these worlds and restore place, order and balance--essentially co-creating with the ancestors a new and empowering story to be passed to future generations. Through constellation, exploration, and discussion you’ll connect with “the field” and the ancestors in a way that supports both representatives and facilitators. |
Zaquie Meredith
Feeling and Reading the Field of Family Constellations Zaquie is a Transformational Specialist and a pioneer in Family Constellations. She was awarded a degree in sociology from the University of Sao Paulo and has been certified as a healer in holistic medicine by the Barbara Brennan School of Healing (4 year study).She is one of the main pioneers for Family Constellation therapy in Brazil and is a member of both Hellinger Science and the ISCA (International Systemic Constellations Association). Moreover, she was a co-founder of the Brazilian Association of Systemic Constellations. Notably, she has trained with Bert Hellinger (the leading authority in Family Constellations) in both Mexico and Brazil, and has completed research for the well-renowned Rupert Sheldrake. |
Judy Wallace
Illuminating Key Elements for Collective/Societal Constellations. to then Shine our Soul Lights Through a Constellation Experience This workshop will include soulful ways to sense/know/see what is at work in the larger collective field that is calling for attention, to be seen, acknowledged, and be shifted into a more lighted expression for humanity and our planet at this time. Participants will consider several elements that I have found to be key building blocks. While knowing that in preparation and during the constellation, the field is constantly revealing more that’s the fun, the challenge, and the healing opportunity. In circle we inquire into our current world. What themes/questions are active as we gather? Participants will be guided in a practice to deeply sense to see what arises. To discern if there a historical/ancestral context that is meaningful to constellate? Or would an inquiry into how things are currently manifesting collectively be most meaningful? With the client as the larger social system, how might a facilitator make representation choices that would be in service to the larger whole? If Power is the theme, what might one choose to be represented? What is essential and has potency or invokes curiosity? And amplifies the possibility for more to show up during the constellation? What various forms might representation take and why? Given the unpredictability of what will be collectively active in November 2020, just following the US Presidential election, global political and societal shifts, demonstrations and conflicts, likely further amplified by Climate Change given these possibly chaotic circumstances, the theme most prominent with arise and show itself by the time we gather and we will constellate that together. We conclude with a closing circle where participants give voice to what is still present for them, surprised them, brought new awareness, impacted them personally, and beyond. Harvesting can be quite fertile, even essential, and informs future follow-on constellations. |
Anne Sexton Bryan
Returning Home: Constellations to Connect Our African Ancestral Wisdom We turn our hearts in a new direction, beyond what we usually consider to be the source of our collective ancestral wisdom. Our humanity's beginnings in Africa offer us a unique point to connect through constellation work. My intention is to offer an experiential constellation workshop to reconnect to this deep ancestral wisdom. I believe we can source support and guidance to strengthen and heal our foundation as constellators and healers to carry back into our lives and world work. We will hope to draw forth not just wisdom but also a new healed energy of peace, wholeness, oneness, and joy. Why is this important now? Our deep human ancestry is African. Our beginnings have been genetically proven through our DNA that our homo sapien ancestors originated in East Africa... |
June 2021
Meet Some of Your Speakers & their Topics
~ Love ~
Rev. Katherine Revoir
What's Love Got to Do With It? Using Constellations to Recognize and Release Patterns that Screw up Relationships ...It’s not evident that we don’t have the relational skills we’ve tried so hard to attain. It’s often because we, as young humans, have made unconscious vows (or contracts) to cut off parts of ourselves in order to belong, be accepted, or to simply survive in an environment where emotional needs are not being met by our primary caregivers. What’s love got to do with it? Everything, as we make these vows with the goal of loving and/or being loved. Our self-sabotaging patterns are the price we pay to cut ourselves off from our authentic experience. I will offer a process that adds to Sarah Peyton’s keynote about sacred contracts. |
Dan Cohen and Emily Blefeld
Seeing with Your Heart Constellations for Love and Relationships Do you wish to open your heart to sensual, sacred, and soulful love and free yourself from the patterns that destroy intimate, fulfilling relationships? Or are you a facilitator, practitioner, or therapist who is interested in learning quick, simple exercises to support your clients with achieving breakthroughs in seemingly insoluble conflicts or disturbing dynamics that undermine close relationships? Join Dan Cohen and Emily Blefeld to see with your heart what the body, mind, and soul remember and awaken greater passion, pleasure and shared purpose in love relationships. |
Elise Bish
Embodied Desire: A Systemic Exploration of Sexual Liberation As a Desire Catalyst, Elise combines family constellations, embodiment practices, and conscious sexual skill-building to support people in cultivating an inspired relationship to their desire. Her work stems from a range of modalities that centralize the wisdom of the body and its capacity to perceive, feel, and express. |
John Cheney and Cilla Utne
5 Elements Constellations: Turn on Your Love Light 5 Elements Constellations are focused on the somatic regulatory system. The goal of this form of Constellations is to bring energetic/emotional balance to an individual (this may include family of origin healing legacies, diurnal interruptions, and trauma of all kinds. The idea of "turning on your love light" is when we witness a release in the constellation we see that love light in the eyes of our fellow constellators. The workshop will start with talking about tacid knowing that we have elementally. I will mention that Fire is related to the heart. |
Emily Blefeld
The Empowered Empath and Sage Soul You didn't arrive on this Earth, in this time, to shrink away from the embers of your deepest truths, to dim your light, or doubt your soul. This life is your invitation. This human body is your portal. The Field is your compass. And this birth family system - even if extremely painful - is the training ground for your soul's evolution. This workshop is calling all alchemists and healers who are fiery cauldrons, kicking out stars, but criticized for their bright, bold, blazing heat - empowered empaths who see, know, feel, hear, and heal the unspoken truths of the living and unresolved suffering of the dead, yet struggle with small talk, self-care, commitment, and feeling emotionally hijacked - witches and shamans who magically wield a new way, but muffle their voice and resist visibility in terror of being found out. |
May 2021
Liminal
close your eyes
is it just me or does it feel like we are in a bardo of sorts feeling our way through this time outside time reaching out for what is real watching old scaffolding crumble sifting through debris to find something that still holds meaning looking to the skies the sun, the moon, the stars to remind us that we know the way through |
is it just me
or does this feel like that in between stage between slumber and waking one foot in both worlds not quite sure where our place is this exquisitely painful bowl of longing are we holding our collective breath afraid to trust what's next can we look to Spring and the promise of Summer for lessons in how to sprout and grow new life open your eyes |
Vivienne Lucksom
September
|
The Field is FallowThe Field
will lie fallow for a while in stillness Vivienne Lucksom |
August
Returning to Radical Relationship
August Week 3
On Buying and Selling- Kahlil Gibran
And a merchant said, Speak to us of Buying and Selling.
And he answered and said:
To you the earth yields her fruit,
and you shall not want if you but know how to fill your hands.
It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth
that you shall find abundance and be satisfied.
Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice,
it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.
When in the market place you toilers of the sea and fields
and vineyards meet the weavers and the potters
and the gatherers of spices,
Invoke then the master spirit of the earth, to come into your midst
and sanctify the scales and the reckoning
that weighs value against value.
And suffer not the barren-handed to take part in your transactions,
who would sell their words for your labour.
To such men you should say,
“Come with us to the field,
or go with our brothers to the sea and cast your net;
For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to you even as to us.”
And if there come the singers and the dancers and the flute players,
—buy of their gifts also.
For they too are gatherers of fruit and frankincense,
and that which they bring, though fashioned of dreams,
is raiment and food for your soul.
And before you leave the market place,
see that no one has gone his way with empty hands.
For the master spirit of the earth shall not sleep peacefully
upon the wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied.
And he answered and said:
To you the earth yields her fruit,
and you shall not want if you but know how to fill your hands.
It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth
that you shall find abundance and be satisfied.
Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice,
it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.
When in the market place you toilers of the sea and fields
and vineyards meet the weavers and the potters
and the gatherers of spices,
Invoke then the master spirit of the earth, to come into your midst
and sanctify the scales and the reckoning
that weighs value against value.
And suffer not the barren-handed to take part in your transactions,
who would sell their words for your labour.
To such men you should say,
“Come with us to the field,
or go with our brothers to the sea and cast your net;
For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to you even as to us.”
And if there come the singers and the dancers and the flute players,
—buy of their gifts also.
For they too are gatherers of fruit and frankincense,
and that which they bring, though fashioned of dreams,
is raiment and food for your soul.
And before you leave the market place,
see that no one has gone his way with empty hands.
For the master spirit of the earth shall not sleep peacefully
upon the wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied.
August Week 2
Meet Keynote Speaker, Joe Nunziata
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Joe Nunziata is a best-selling author, business consultant, professional speaker and life coach. His keynote theme will be Spiritual Selling: How to Use the Attractor Sales System to Create Success in Your Business and Life. He has been delivering his life-changing message at events and seminars since 1992. His enlightening programs are a unique blend of spirituality, psychology, philosophy and the power of internal energy.
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August Week 1
"...be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart
and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms
and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.
Do not now seek the answers,
which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it,
live along some distant day into the answer."
- Rainer Maria Rilke
and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms
and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.
Do not now seek the answers,
which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it,
live along some distant day into the answer."
- Rainer Maria Rilke
On Work - Kahlil Gibran
Then a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work.
And he answered, saying:
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart
the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent,
when all else sings together in unison?
Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when the dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.
But if you in your pain call birth an affliction
and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow,
then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow
shall wash away that which is written.
You have been told also that life is darkness,
and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself,
and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart,
even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection,
even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy,
even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, “He who works in marble,
and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man,
is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.”
But I say, not in sleep but in the overwakefulness of noontide,
that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks
than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind
into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste,
it is better that you should leave your work
and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference,
you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes,
your grudge distills a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing,
you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
And he answered, saying:
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart
the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent,
when all else sings together in unison?
Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when the dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.
But if you in your pain call birth an affliction
and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow,
then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow
shall wash away that which is written.
You have been told also that life is darkness,
and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself,
and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart,
even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection,
even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy,
even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, “He who works in marble,
and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man,
is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.”
But I say, not in sleep but in the overwakefulness of noontide,
that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks
than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind
into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste,
it is better that you should leave your work
and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference,
you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes,
your grudge distills a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing,
you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
July
Agreeing to It All
July Week 5
Heart Sutra
July Week 4
Elena Veselago is a leading Russian constellations facilitator, leader and organizer of the Russian professional constellation community. Her keynote theme will be Teen Suicide: Combining Russian and American experience.
Having started her study of constellations directly with Bert Hellinger, Elena then continued her education with the most important international constellations masters. She studied with 28 masters from Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Australia, and other countries, including professionals who offer shamanic training. Elena is a regular presenter at international professional conferences in Europe, the USA, and Australia. She is also an organizer of the largest constellations conference in Russia, “The Open Field.” Combining deep sensitivity to the knowing field, good knowledge of systemic laws, and access to great resources of both humanity and nature, Elena created her own style of doing constellations, as well as developed a correspondent vocabulary of definitions along with techniques that serve their integration. PLEASE SELECT TO SEE AN INTERVIEW WITH ELENA |
July Week 3
It is Well with My Soul
It Is Well with My Soul
- Spoken Word by Lloyd Newell
Life can be so unpredictable—joys and sorrows, beautiful blessings and distressing difficulties can come unexpectedly. Our life’s dreams and plans can change in an instant. We all know this to be true. So how can we find peace amid such turbulence?Horatio Spafford knew something about life’s unexpected challenges. He was a successful attorney and real estate investor who lost a fortune in the great Chicago fire of 1871. Around the same time, his beloved four-year-old son died of scarlet fever.
Thinking a vacation would do his family some good, he sent his wife and four daughters on a ship to England, planning to join them after he finished some pressing business at home. However, while crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the ship was involved in a terrible collision and sunk. More than 200 people lost their lives, including all four of Horatio Spafford’s precious daughters. His wife, Anna, survived the tragedy. Upon arriving in England, she sent a telegram to her husband that began: “Saved alone. What shall I do?”
Horatio immediately set sail for England. At one point during his voyage, the captain of the ship, aware of the tragedy that had struck the Spafford family, summoned Horatio to tell him that they were now passing over the spot where the shipwreck had occurred (1).
As Horatio thought about his daughters, words of comfort and hope filled his heart and mind. He wrote them down, and they have since become a well-beloved hymn:
When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll--
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to know
It is well, it is well with my soul (2).
Perhaps we cannot always say that everything is well in all aspects of our lives. There will always be storms to face, and sometimes there will be tragedies. But with faith in a loving God and with trust in His divine help, we can confidently say, “It is well, it is well with my soul.”
1. See Randy Petersen, Be Still My Soul: The Inspiring Stories behind 175 of the Most-Loved Hymns (1973), 153.
2. “It Is Well with My Soul,” reproduction of original manuscript, spaffordhymn.com.
Thinking a vacation would do his family some good, he sent his wife and four daughters on a ship to England, planning to join them after he finished some pressing business at home. However, while crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the ship was involved in a terrible collision and sunk. More than 200 people lost their lives, including all four of Horatio Spafford’s precious daughters. His wife, Anna, survived the tragedy. Upon arriving in England, she sent a telegram to her husband that began: “Saved alone. What shall I do?”
Horatio immediately set sail for England. At one point during his voyage, the captain of the ship, aware of the tragedy that had struck the Spafford family, summoned Horatio to tell him that they were now passing over the spot where the shipwreck had occurred (1).
As Horatio thought about his daughters, words of comfort and hope filled his heart and mind. He wrote them down, and they have since become a well-beloved hymn:
When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll--
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to know
It is well, it is well with my soul (2).
Perhaps we cannot always say that everything is well in all aspects of our lives. There will always be storms to face, and sometimes there will be tragedies. But with faith in a loving God and with trust in His divine help, we can confidently say, “It is well, it is well with my soul.”
1. See Randy Petersen, Be Still My Soul: The Inspiring Stories behind 175 of the Most-Loved Hymns (1973), 153.
2. “It Is Well with My Soul,” reproduction of original manuscript, spaffordhymn.com.
July Week 2
On The Death Of The Beloved
John O’Donohue
Though we need to weep your loss,
You dwell in that safe place in our hearts, Where no storm or night or pain can reach you. Your love was like the dawn Brightening over our lives Awakening beneath the dark A further adventure of colour. The sound of your voice Found for us A new music That brightened everything. Whatever you enfolded in your gaze Quickened in the joy of its being; You placed smiles like flowers On the altar of the heart. Your mind always sparkled With wonder at things. Though your days here were brief, Your spirit was live, awake, complete. We look towards each other no longer From the old distance of our names; Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath, As close to us as we are to ourselves. |
Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face, Smiling back at us from within everything To which we bring our best refinement. Let us not look for you only in memory, Where we would grow lonely without you. You would want us to find you in presence, Beside us when beauty brightens, When kindness glows And music echoes eternal tones. When orchids brighten the earth, Darkest winter has turned to spring; May this dark grief flower with hope In every heart that loves you. May you continue to inspire us: To enter each day with a generous heart. To serve the call of courage and love Until we see your beautiful face again In that land where there is no more separation, Where all tears will be wiped from our mind, And where we will never lose you again. |
July Week 1
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Agreeing To It All
Tragedy Loss Grief... How do we move From our Fate to our Faith? Maybe by Agreeing to it all? |
June
The Ties that Bind and Bond Us
June Week 5
For Someone Awakening to the Trauma of His or Her Past
John O'Donohue
To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings
For everything under the sun there is a time.
This is the season of your awkward harvesting,
When the pain takes you where you would rather not go,
Through the white curtain of yesterdays to a place
You had forgotten you knew from the inside out;
And a time when that bitter tree was planted
That has grown always invisibly beside you
And whose branches your awakened hands
Now long to disentangle from your heart.
You are coming to see how your looking often darkened
When you should have felt safe enough to fall toward love,
How deep down your eyes were always owned by something
That faced them through a dark fester of thorns
Converting whoever came into a further figure of the wrong;
You could only see what touched you as already torn.
Now the act of seeing begins your work of mourning.
And your memory is ready to show you everything,
Having waited all these years for you to return and know.
Only you know where the casket of pain is interred.
You will have to scrape through all the layers of covering
And according to your readiness, everything will open.
May you be blessed with a wise and compassionate guide
Who can accompany you through the fear and grief
Until your heart has wept its way to your true self.
As your tears fall over that wounded place,
May they wash away your hurt and free your heart.
May your forgiveness still the hunger of the wound
So that for the first time you can walk away from that place,
Reunited with your banished heart, now healed and freed,
And feel the clear, free air bless your new face.”
This is the season of your awkward harvesting,
When the pain takes you where you would rather not go,
Through the white curtain of yesterdays to a place
You had forgotten you knew from the inside out;
And a time when that bitter tree was planted
That has grown always invisibly beside you
And whose branches your awakened hands
Now long to disentangle from your heart.
You are coming to see how your looking often darkened
When you should have felt safe enough to fall toward love,
How deep down your eyes were always owned by something
That faced them through a dark fester of thorns
Converting whoever came into a further figure of the wrong;
You could only see what touched you as already torn.
Now the act of seeing begins your work of mourning.
And your memory is ready to show you everything,
Having waited all these years for you to return and know.
Only you know where the casket of pain is interred.
You will have to scrape through all the layers of covering
And according to your readiness, everything will open.
May you be blessed with a wise and compassionate guide
Who can accompany you through the fear and grief
Until your heart has wept its way to your true self.
As your tears fall over that wounded place,
May they wash away your hurt and free your heart.
May your forgiveness still the hunger of the wound
So that for the first time you can walk away from that place,
Reunited with your banished heart, now healed and freed,
And feel the clear, free air bless your new face.”
June Week 4
PINNED FOR SAFETY
Andrea Arbit
Please follow this link to Andrea's thesis:
Flower Symbolism as Female Sexual Metaphor
Flower Symbolism as Female Sexual Metaphor
I Want to Be Clear - This Was Not A Rape
I want to be clear
this was not a rape I was fifteen or sixteen maybe seventeen I do not remember Those years were taken from me erased to protect parts of me that were too broken to repair If only I had trusted the voice that said NO If only I had screamed my rage like Kali If only I had cut you into strips of shame and hung you on the balcony for the world to see Instead I was mute suffocated in a sarcophagus with a silent scream locked up for so many years |
My body screaming
a no entry sign abandoning itself to pleasure and touch I swallowed the family secret and only longed for justice How could they abandon you? You were their son You were her brother Why did they abandon me? Who was I? Why was I chosen? Who am I? What will I choose now? Vivienne Lucksom
This came through while attending The Constellation Approach™ Immersion Program March 2020 |
Healing from
Female Reproductive and Sexual Trauma
with Brigitte Sztab
Female Reproductive and Sexual Trauma
with Brigitte Sztab
|
Join us as Brigitte discusses her pre-conference presentation, Healing from Female Reproductive and Sexual Trauma, and her workshop, From Passion to Profession.
Brigitte is a full-time facilitator, offering weekend workshops, introductory evenings and trainings throughout the US and internationally, and long-distance sessions on the internet. She is dedicated to sharing the work wherever it is needed. |
June Week 3
June Week 2
Seven WeeksWas seven weeks a Lifetime?
For all practical purposes it was a late period seven weeks late thirty three weeks too early to see the light of day was seven weeks a lifetime, though? seven short weeks of a life could i have named you? could i have blamed you? should i have shamed me? too late for questions but never too late for love. Vivienne Lucksom |
SHAKTI EYES OPEN
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June Week 1
KORE
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May
May We All Find Resilience
May Week 5
Becoming the Phoenix
An excerpt from the Book of the Dead,
it describes the changes we go through and how difficult it can be.
it describes the changes we go through and how difficult it can be.
May Week 4
Dissolving Unconscious Contracts with our Family Line
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Join Sarah Peyton as she shares about her keynote presentation entitled Dissolving Unconscious Contracts with our Family Line. Through her presentation and work, Sarah integrates constellations, brain science, and the use of resonant language to heal trauma with exquisite and warm gentleness. |
IF
Joni Mitchell
If
by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: |
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son! |
May Week 3
A Brave and Startling Truth
Maya Angelou
The Radical Act of Inclusion
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The Radical Act of Inclusion
Join Krista Jarrard as she shares about her pre-conference presentation entitled The Radical Act of Inclusion. Through her presentation Krista reveals her heart-centered, embodied approach to working with trauma through her practice of Inclusion. |
May Week 2
Giving and Receiving
Sarah Shepley
www.sarahshepley.com
www.sarahshepley.com
The Words Under the Words
Naomi Shihab Nye
for Sitti Khadra, north of Jerusalem
My grandmother’s hands recognize grapes,
the damp shine of a goat’s new skin. When I was sick they followed me, I woke from the long fever to find them covering my head like cool prayers. My grandmother’s days are made of bread, a round pat-pat and the slow baking. She waits by the oven watching a strange car circle the streets. Maybe it holds her son, lost to America. More often, tourists, who kneel and weep at mysterious shrines. She knows how often mail arrives, how rarely there is a letter. When one comes, she announces it, a miracle, listening to it read again and again in the dim evening light. |
My grandmother’s voice says nothing can surprise her.
Take her the shotgun wound and the crippled baby. She knows the spaces we travel through, the messages we cannot send—our voices are short and would get lost on the journey. Farewell to the husband’s coat, the ones she has loved and nourished, who fly from her like seeds into a deep sky. They will plant themselves. We will all die. My grandmother’s eyes say Allah is everywhere, even in death. When she talks of the orchard and the new olive press, when she tells the stories of Joha and his foolish wisdoms, He is her first thought, what she really thinks of is His name. “Answer, if you hear the words under the words-- otherwise it is just a world with a lot of rough edges, difficult to get through, and our pockets full of stones.” |
Naomi Shihab Nye, “The Words Under the Words” from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Portland, Oregon: Far Corner Books, 1995). Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Reprinted with the permission of the author. Source: Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Far Corner Books, 1995)
May Week 1
Resilient
Rising Appalachia
Rising Appalachia
I am resilient
I trust the movement I negate the chaos Uplift the negative I'll show up at the table Again and again and again I'll close my mouth and learn to listen These times are poignant The winds have shifted It's all we can do To stay uplifted Pipelines through backyards Wolves howling out front Yeah I got my crew but truth is what I want Realigned and on point Power to the peaceful, prayers to the waters Women at the center All vessels open to give and receive Let's see this system brought down to its knees I'm made of thunder, I'm made of lightning I'm made of dirt, yeah Made of the fine things My father taught me That I'm a speck of dust and this world Was made for me so let's go and try our luck |
I've got my roots down down down down down down deep
I've got my roots down down down down down down deep I've got my roots down down down deep I've got my roots down down down deep So what are we doing here What has been done What are you gonna do about it When the world comes undone My voice feels tiny And I'm sure so does yours Put us all together we'll make a mighty roar I am resilient I trust the movement I negate the chaos Uplift the negative I'll show up at the table again and again and again I'll close my mouth and learn to listen... Songwriters: Leah Elizabeth Smith / Chloe Anne Smith |
April
Creating a Container for Compassion
May we all hold Corona with Karuna,
which is the Sanskrit word for compassion.
Compassion has us feeling held and embraced.
In these times of uncertainty and fear,
may we hold ourselves, each other, our communities
and the world with Karuna.
which is the Sanskrit word for compassion.
Compassion has us feeling held and embraced.
In these times of uncertainty and fear,
may we hold ourselves, each other, our communities
and the world with Karuna.
April Week 5
Love will Find a Way
Love will Find a Way, Michael Franti & Spearhead
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Compassion comes from our deep love
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April Week 4
Kindness
Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever. Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. |
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive.Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say It is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend. |
Meet Pre-Conference Presenter, Diana Claire Douglas
Humanity Finding Our Place in the Flow of Life:
A Collective Constellation
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Join Diana Claire Douglas as she shares about her pre-conference presentation entitled Humanity Finding Our Place in the Flow of Life: A Collective Constellation.
Through her presentation Diana asks: What if many of our present crises are because we are not in our right place and therefore cannot be in right relationship? Many Indigenous Peoples around the world tell stories about human beings as the youngest members of the earthly family. What will it take for humanity to know that we belong to the Earth not as dominators, but as lovers of the Earth and all her beings? |
April Week 3
Eagle Poem
Joy Harjo
To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon To one whole voice that is you. And know there is more That you can’t see, can’t hear; Can’t know except in moments Steadily growing, and in languages That aren’t always sound but other Circles of motion. Like eagle that Sunday morning Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky In wind, swept our hearts clean With sacred wings. |
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care And kindness in all things.Breathe in, knowing we are made of All this, and breathe, knowing We are truly blessed because we Were born, and die soon within a True circle of motion, Like eagle rounding out the morning Inside us. We pray that it will be done In beauty. In beauty. |
Joy Harjo, “Eagle Poem” from In Mad Love and War. Copyright © 1990 by Joy Harjo.
Reprinted with the permission of Wesleyan University Press,
www.wesleyan.edu/wespress.
Source: In Mad Love and War (Wesleyan University Press, 1990)
Reprinted with the permission of Wesleyan University Press,
www.wesleyan.edu/wespress.
Source: In Mad Love and War (Wesleyan University Press, 1990)
La Pieta
Michaelangelo
c. 1498-1500
c. 1498-1500
April Week 2
A Map to the Next World
Joy Harjo
for Desiray Kierra Chee
In the last days of the fourth world I wished to make a map for
those who would climb through the hole in the sky. My only tools were the desires of humans as they emerged from the killing fields, from the bedrooms and the kitchens. For the soul is a wanderer with many hands and feet. The map must be of sand and can’t be read by ordinary light. It must carry fire to the next tribal town, for renewal of spirit. In the legend are instructions on the language of the land, how it was we forgot to acknowledge the gift, as if we were not in it or of it. Take note of the proliferation of supermarkets and malls, the altars of money. They best describe the detour from grace. Keep track of the errors of our forgetfulness; the fog steals our children while we sleep. Flowers of rage spring up in the depression. Monsters are born there of nuclear anger. Trees of ashes wave good-bye to good-bye and the map appears to disappear. We no longer know the names of the birds here, how to speak to them by their personal names. Once we knew everything in this lush promise. What I am telling you is real and is printed in a warning on the map. Our forgetfulness stalks us, walks the earth behind us, leav- ing a trail of paper diapers, needles, and wasted blood. An imperfect map will have to do, little one. The place of entry is the sea of your mother’s blood, your father’s small death as he longs to know himself in another. |
There is no exit.
The map can be interpreted through the wall of the intestine—a spiral on the road of knowledge. You will travel through the membrane of death, smell cooking from the encampment where our relatives make a feast of fresh deer meat and corn soup, in the Milky Way. They have never left us; we abandoned them for science. And when you take your next breath as we enter the fifth world there will be no X, no guidebook with words you can carry. You will have to navigate by your mother’s voice, renew the song she is singing. Fresh courage glimmers from planets. And lights the map printed with the blood of history, a map you will have to know by your intention, by the language of suns. When you emerge note the tracks of the monster slayers where they entered the cities of artificial light and killed what was killing us. You will see red cliffs. They are the heart, contain the ladder. A white deer will greet you when the last human climbs from the destruction. Remember the hole of shame marking the act of abandoning our tribal grounds. We were never perfect. Yet, the journey we make together is perfect on this earth who was once a star and made the same mistakes as humans. We might make them again, she said. Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end. You must make your own map. |
"A Map to the Next World" from How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems:1975-2001 by Joy Harjo. Copyright © 2002 by Joy Harjo. Used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., www.wwnorton.com.
Source: How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems: 1975-2001 (W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 2002)
Source: How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems: 1975-2001 (W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 2002)
April Week 1
The Great Compassion Mantra
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Avalokiteshwara
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‘Enlightened compassion has a face,
in Buddhist art, and a Sanskrit name: Avalokiteshvara. This great cosmic being sits in meditation, with lowered eyelids, looking inward into mind and downward to witness the lamentations of the world.’ Kay Larson |
March
March is Movement
movement through the ages
movement across the lands
movement through history and her-story
movement via movements
movement across the lands
movement through history and her-story
movement via movements
March Week 4
Interview with Pre-Conference Presenter Tanja Meyburgh
Land Constellations: Immigration, Colonization and Relating to the Ancestors of the Soil
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Join Tanja Meyburgh as she shares about her pre-conference workshop entitled Land Constellations: Immigration, Colonization and Relating to the Ancestors.
Through her presentation, Tanja discusses how "in many sacred traditions the first thing we do when we arrive in a new place is to greet the Ancestors of the Soil. These are the people and the beings that lived and were buried there before we came - right back to the very first people. This relating lays the foundations for the work and relationships to unfold in a good way in the new place. How do we come into relationship with the Ancestors from the lands where we live and originate from? This experience will include community, constellation, ceremony and ritual." To learn more about Tanja and her conference workshops, please go to our Keynotes & Plenary Speakers/Pre-Conference Speakers page. |
We honor the land and peoples
of where we are gathering for the conference.
We listen with respect and reverence to their words.
of where we are gathering for the conference.
We listen with respect and reverence to their words.
Ute Wisdom, Language and Creation Story
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Larry Cesspooch shares his thoughts on the Ute Indian people today and shares Ute wisdom, including the Creation Story. He is a member of the Ute Indian Tribe, and he is a filmmaker and story teller. He's also a veteran who served in Vietnam.
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Ute Indian Prayer Trees
The definition of a Ute Indian Prayer Tree is, “a culturally modified tree.” What this means is that the Ute would take care to modify the tree by peeling its bark or bending it in places using hemp ropes created from Yucca plants or horse hair. The most common trees used by the Ute were ponderosa pines and Aspen.
According to John Wesley Anderson, author of Ute Indian Prayer Trees of the Pikes Peak Region, “All trees modified by the Ute were sacred and prayers to recognize the tree’s consent and permission in the modification were made along with gratitude to the Creator.” |
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March Week 3
Meet Keynote Speaker, Lisa Iversen
Interview with Keynote Speaker, Lisa IversenIn the Shadows of History: Influence of Collective Movements on Constellation Fields of Practice
Join Lisa Iversen as she shares about her keynote topic, In the Shadows of History: Influence of Collective Movements on Constellation Fields of Practice. Through her keynote she discusses how the constellation modality was introduced in the countries of North America in the context of all that had happened before its' arrival, including historical movements of immigration, colonialism, war, and slavery. She states, "Our time together is for guided individual and collective reflection on how these histories affect the practice and teaching of constellation work on this soil. Embodied meditation and ancestral prayers included." For more information about Lisa's keynote presentation and conference workshop, please see our Schedule & Speakers/Keynote & Plenary Speakers page. |
Lisa Iversen
In the Shadows of History: Influence of Collective Movements on Constellation Fields of Practice. |
Slave Driver ~ Songs of Our Native Daughters
"Songs of Our Native Daughters shines new light on African-American women’s stories of struggle, resistance, and hope.
"With unflinching, razor-sharp honesty, they confront sanitized views about America’s history of slavery, racism, and misogyny from a powerful, black female perspective. These songs call on the persistent spirits of the daughters, mothers, and grandmothers who have fought for justice – in large, public ways – only now being recognized, and in countless domestic ways that will most likely never be acknowledged."
https://folkways.si.edu/songs-of-our-native-daughters
"With unflinching, razor-sharp honesty, they confront sanitized views about America’s history of slavery, racism, and misogyny from a powerful, black female perspective. These songs call on the persistent spirits of the daughters, mothers, and grandmothers who have fought for justice – in large, public ways – only now being recognized, and in countless domestic ways that will most likely never be acknowledged."
https://folkways.si.edu/songs-of-our-native-daughters
March Week 2
From the Artist: "From the beginning I envisioned this panel as a path or a journey, from the bottom which is dark and difficult, to the top. It felt like a pilgrimage, meeting up with difficult aspects of my psyche: torment, anger, envy and jealousy, mental confusion, sadness, depression... then going on to meet some positive figures, the baby, the confident young girl, the insect people, the women tending and nurturing plants, and finally the ancestors at the top."
So reminiscent of all of our journeys and shown by the poem, Kinship. |
Kinship
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March Week 1
Where do We Come From? What are We? Where are We Going?
Gauguin
https://www.gauguin.org/where-do-we-come-from-what-are-we.jsp
Gauguin
https://www.gauguin.org/where-do-we-come-from-what-are-we.jsp
Ancestors
Jimmy Santiago Baca
It was a time when they were afraid of him.
My father, a bare man, a gypsy, a horse with broken knees no one would shoot. Then again, he was like the orange tree, and young women plucked from him sweet fruit. To meet him, you must be in the right place, even his sons and daughter, we wondered where was papa now and what was he doing. He held the mystique of travelers that pass your backyard and disappear into the trees. Then, when you follow, you find nothing, not a stir, not a twig displaced from its bough. And then he would appear one night. Half covered in shadows and half in light, his voice quiet, absorbing our unspoken thoughts. When his hands lay on the table at breakfast, they were hands that had not fixed our crumbling home, hands that had not taken us into them and the fingers did not gently rub along our lips. They were hands of a gypsy that filled our home with love and safety, for a moment; with all the shambles of boards and empty stomachs, they filled us because of the love in them. Beyond the ordinary love, beyond the coordinated life, beyond the sponging of broken hearts, came the untimely word, the fallen smile, the quiet tear, that made us grow up quick and romantic. |
Papa gave us something: when we paused from work,
my sister fourteen years old working the cotton fields, my brother and I running like deer, we would pause, because we had a papa no one could catch, who spoke when he spoke and bragged and drank, he bragged about us: he did not say we were smart, nor did he say we were strong and were going to be rich someday. He said we were good. He held us up to the world for it to see, three children that were good, who understood love in a quiet way, who owned nothing but calloused hands and true freedom, and that is how he made us: he offered us to the wind, to the mountains, to the skies of autumn and spring. He said, “Here are my children! Care for them!” And he left again, going somewhere like a child with a warrior’s heart, nothing could stop him. My grandmother would look at him for a long time, and then she would say nothing. She chose to remain silent, praying each night, guiding down like a root in the heart of earth, clutching sunlight and rains to her ancient breast. And I am the blossom of many nights. A threefold blossom: my sister is as she is, my brother is as he is, and I am as I am. Through sacred ceremony of living, daily living, arose three distinct hopes, three loves, out of the long felt nights and days of yesterday. |
Jimmy Santiago Baca, “Ancestor” from Immigrants in Our Own Land and Selected Early Poems. Copyright © 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1990 by Jimmy Santiago Baca. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing. Source: Immigrants in Our Own Land and Selected Early Poems (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1990)
February
Ancestral Blessings Week 1
My Prayer
"It is my intention to prepare the way as soulfully as I can.
To allow Spirit to guide my heart, my mind, my eyes and my ears,
my voice and all I am.
I would love to create a field of consciousness
that will surround us, hold us, embrace us,
trigger us, heal us
and prepare each of us
for our gathering of souls."
Vivienne Lucksom
"It is my intention to prepare the way as soulfully as I can.
To allow Spirit to guide my heart, my mind, my eyes and my ears,
my voice and all I am.
I would love to create a field of consciousness
that will surround us, hold us, embrace us,
trigger us, heal us
and prepare each of us
for our gathering of souls."
Vivienne Lucksom
Beannacht / Blessing
John O'Donohue
On the day when
The weight deadens On your shoulders And you stumble, May the clay dance to balance you. And when your eyes Freeze behind The grey window And the ghost of loss Gets in to you, May a flock of colours, Indigo, red, green And azure blue Come to awaken in you A meadow of delight. |
When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought And a stain of ocean Blackens beneath you, May there come across the waters A path of yellow moonlight To bring you safely home. May the nourishment of the earth be yours, May the clarity of light be yours, May the fluency of the ocean be yours, May the protection of the ancestors be yours. And so may a slow Wind work these words Of love around you, An invisible cloak To mind your life. |
Ancestral Blessings Week 2
“When we illuminate the road back to our ancestors, they have a way of reaching out,
of manifesting themselves...sometimes even physically.”
of manifesting themselves...sometimes even physically.”
Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina
Ancestral Blessings Week 3
There are many ways to connect with our ancestral blessings. Music and language are two of them. When you combine them both it is a powerful connecting force.
Listen and read below how Jeremy Dutcher, a classically-trained Canadian Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) and member of the Tobique First Nation, tenor, composer, musicologist, performer and activist keeps his ancestors' language alive.
Listen and read below how Jeremy Dutcher, a classically-trained Canadian Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) and member of the Tobique First Nation, tenor, composer, musicologist, performer and activist keeps his ancestors' language alive.
How Jeremy Dutcher Keeps His Ancestors’ Language Alive
Fewer than 10,000 Wolastoq people live in First Nations communities.
The twenty-seven-year-old sings their songs.
https://thewalrus.ca/how-jeremy-dutcher-keeps-his-ancestors-language-alive/
The twenty-seven-year-old sings their songs.
https://thewalrus.ca/how-jeremy-dutcher-keeps-his-ancestors-language-alive/