One of the strong medicines in the healing method of Family Constellations is the valuation of acceptance of all that has happened in our lives, over the practice of forgiveness of another. Before I came to this work I had more understanding of forgiveness than of acceptance, both at the cosmic level through the sacrament of confession in the Catholic Church and the forgiveness of sins, and through my socialization which impressed upon me the necessity to do what it takes to eventually forgive another who has hurt me. When younger, I felt that the compulsion to bestow forgiveness came from a place of superiority, and the vague sense that I would prevail as a better person than the bully who insulted me if I didn’t hold a grudge against him. I would rise above his unworthy level. It’s clear to me now there was a twisted sense of revenge...

I found this compelling image while looking around on google images for something that reflects my feelings about this day. Symbols such as flags are receptacles for the feelings, values and images we choose to put into them. They are shorthand, representing something else that's larger, something that it would take more time and effort to appreciate with fullness and depth. As citizens of the US we value speed and efficiency, access and convenience. Generations younger than myself have grown up enjoying the ease of sending messages to someone to whom they are electronically connected in a second. To read about and appreciate the history of a nation as complex, troubled and aspirational as the USA becomes more difficult as a thin, terrible cloud of unknowing in the form of tweets and electronic residue settles on the outer folds of our collective cerebrum. On this day I make time and...

I recently traveled with Kelly Lyn, Wilma Pollard, and Amy Jackson to Montgomery, Alabama for the opening of the Equal Justice Initiative's National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the first site in the United States dedicated to remembering the thousands of African-Americans killed by lynching between 1877-1950, and all those terrorized by the practice. As we see in our healing work, those who are lost from the family without proper grieving and honoring leave an influence on the descendants. Sometimes a descendant unknowingly takes on symptoms of illness or depression as an unconscious attempt to restore the one who was suddenly or traumatically taken back into the family's awareness, even several generations later. In any system, balance and harmony is disrupted until all elements are given their place. A family system is no different. This trauma is held by all of us collectively in the U.S. on the systemic level, and as citizens we have an obligation to raise our awareness of how the unresolved energies of slavery, racism and lynching affect us all and keep us entangled in history. Regardless of your family's participation in slavery, or when your ancestors migrated to the U.S., you share the same responsibility...

A constellation can be a safe way to open a window into the deeper energies that make up the ongoing streams of your family’s story. Setting up and working through some of the layers of a constellation allows you to observe and explore, with trained guidance and from a little distance, some of the sticky and confusing threads in which you have been suspended in your family life since your soul agreed to incarnate into your unique circumstances here on Earth. The word ‘constellation’ signifies that you are one of many members of a family system that is part of a much larger lineage of many generations. By expanding the lens and looking at more of the picture, you may come to see hidden connections that channel much larger forces that have been directing the system without your knowing. After working with hundreds of clients we have seen in most cases that a simple historical fact like: -my father has an older brother that died just a few weeks after birth; -my grandfather died of a heart attack at age 45; -my mother’s youngest sister was sent away to live with other family members because it would be safer...

My sun sign is in Cancer, which has given me a sensitive attunement to the energies of family and community. In this lifetime, the positive expression of group cohesion, creative expression and serving a community first budded for me when I began playing music in rock and roll bands in Detroit, and bloomed in a much fuller way when the music of West African drumming found me in the spring of 1992 at a dance class with the Uhuru Dancers in Decatur, Georgia. The exchange of joy and celebration between drummers and dancers set my life on a completely new and energized path that I still walk today. It wasn’t until later, when I began to study the drumming in depth, that I learned how to be informed by the ancestral lineage through which the music, culture and history passes over centuries. Thank you Brother Yusef, Stone, Mohamed Diaby, and dozens of other teachers for including me. I’m also aligned with the ideals of equality, freedom and opportunity embodied in the ideals of the U.S. Constitution, and understand the responsibilities we all have as citizens to hold those in power accountable to manifesting those ideals to the best of...

KELLY: “The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists, who are dedicated to justice, peace, and brotherhood. The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific, and religious freedom have always been nonconformists. In any cause that concerns the progress of mankind, put your faith in the nonconformist!” -Martin Luther King, Jr., civil-rights leader (15 Jan 1929-1968) CHUCK: "We are coworkers with God, trying to bring about the kingdom of brotherly love and peace. If He sees fit to use us, we must accept His will, knowing that all things work together for good for those who love the Lord. From this belief, I gain consolation and the faith to continue. I believe very strongly that a person must dedicate himself to what he believes. When you decide to give yourself to a great cause, you must arrive at the point where no sacrifice is too great. This is the first demand that is made of us in our great struggle for civil rights." Mrs. Coretta Scott King, quoted in New Lady Magazine, 1966 Write up of Constellation for Healing Gun Violence - Monday Jan 18, 2016 King Day Attending: Chuck, Kelly, Rose, Barbara, Lea, Colleen, Lisa We began with the quotes above, and then followed our agenda. We acknowledged all the other cities across US who were participating (more-or-less) simultaneously. We also reminded everyone of the potentially intense nature of the energies we would be invoking, and we were trusting them with their own responsibility...

Regardless of the stories you carry about your family- what happened in the family history, how you feel you were recognized, treated and supported in your likes and dislikes as well as your talents and longings, and how you feel currently about the state of the relationships you have with all your family members- there is a simple practice that can help shift the way you carry your family in your heart, and bring you peace and resolution. It is the recognition that of all your gifts, the greatest you were ever given was life, and to acknowledge this gift with a bow. You are the literal product of the lives of your parents and all your ancestors. Through their struggles and successes, through their traumas and delights, through all their experiences, life flowed through them and came to you. They lived so...

“Let no one... persuade you to cure the head, until he has first given you his soul to be cured by the charm. For this is the great error of our day in the treatment of the human body, that physicians separate the soul from the body.” -The Dialogues of Plato: Charmides One of the higher perspectives on illness or dis-ease holds that any disturbance in physical, emotional or spiritual health brings a gift of awareness hidden within it. For example, a fall that leads to a sprained wrist may lead to a sudden change in a person's lifestyle and a slowing down of activities. Sometimes such an unexpected yet necessary reassessment of priorities reminds us of the value of space and reflection in our lives, and of the benefit from filling our soul with what it needs, rather than filling our calendar with appointments. Medical intuitive...