Today I participated in a small workshop held in a private home in Silverlake (Los Angeles) California. I was invited by the facilitators because I had joined their mailing list while attending retreats at their Zen Buddhist retreat space in the dessert near San Diego. As I arrived, I noticed a line of shoes on the porch and I removed my shoes. When I entered the living room through the slightly open front door I was greeted and offered a place to sit on a meditation pouf around the edge of an otherwise unfurnished living room of a duplex that appeared to be built in about the 1920s. The sun light was coming in through an arched pane glass window held shut with a small vintage brass knob at the front of the room, the light filtered in through a potted vine planted in a large pot that I could see had been recently watered. The pot was between two small round chairs from the same era as the house. There were no other furnishings in the room but a large square of blue painters tape held space in the center of the floor and about 10 of us were now seated just outside the taped off space leaning against the wall and seated on a cushion. Some had brought blankets to keep warm during the workshop and a few had a cup of tea they made in the kitchen while we gathered or their water bottle from home, I had left mine in the car.
Our hosts asked who had done this work before, several had not. I did not raise my hand because I have experienced family constellation work before but not with a group. I worked with a practitioner trained in Austria who used play mobile figures to stand in for my family members and she moved them about on a table intuitively to re-arrange the ancestral energy that was playing out in my life and my children’s lives. I remember it being very profound and having a positive effect on my life at that time, nearly a decade ago now. But I had heard that family constellation work is usually done in this manner with actual people standing in for another’s family – to help them work through any baggage or unhealthy patterns that may be playing out from their family lineage. I was open to this experience.
Our hosts now positioned in the front of the room in the small round chairs began to explain what we were about to embark upon together. A journey into a field of consciousness where any one of us could pick up on the subtle energy we were being asked to or would be asked to embody. And whatever we pick up or share or not share would be for us and also perhaps for another but the process they explained was more about being in our body. Not our mind. We were instructed not to think or create any stories but to let our bodies intuitively move. And to let any stories arising in our mind go. And to interpret the movement of another as a message for us. We did a few exercises to kick off the process. We each found a partner who we did not know. Easy for me, I knew no one. I was pared with a woman slightly older and shorter than me with short brown hair. We each took turns feeling each others intention for 2024 and then embodying what we received from the others intention silently. We moved how our bodies intuitively wanted to move and then if a word came through to us we whispered it in the others ear as a last offering and as a reminder for the their new year intention. This day was February 11th. One day after the lunar new year of the dragon.
My partner gestured in a way that I perceived as a lotus opening around her and above her crown chakra. It reminded me of the Woo Woo Wellness logo. Then she whispered, “you are loved”. A perfect sentiment for my year of the dragon. I then, in turn, embodied her intention. I felt my shoulders rolling and my body felt like it wanted to flow away. I took several steps back. I noticed there was more to be released on my left side and soninshooknout my left arm wondering if it was related to her feminine side. I felt intuitively that she needed to relax. And make space for that in her life. And so I whispered those words to her. And it seemed to resonate for her.
After a quick share around the room our hosts explained more. They said sometimes we carry into our lives and embody things that were not worked through by our ancestors. Sometimes those patterns can be passed down through many generations. 9 or 14, they speculated. And they continued, “we cannot change the future, we can only change the past” And they acknowledged this is not intuitive for most. We can give back the work that was unfinished for our ancestors to work with, they said. We do not have to carry it forward into the future. We can change our relationship with the past. We can change our stories about our relationships with the past and in this way we change the past too.
One by one several in the circle were guided and stepped into the field beyond the blue tape. Others volunteered to represent their matriarchal or patriarchal lineage. The one felt into what they were carrying from those lineages. Mother just behind on the left side and father on the right. In time the one turned and faced the one representing either their mother or father’s lineage and thanked them for being born and gave them back the trauma, patterns, abuse, neglect, secrets, behavior that they felt they were carrying. They bowed deeply in respect to the other and reaffirmed that they let go of that work, giving it back to where it belongs. They took another feel of their own body, sensing relief usually. They then spoke to the other parent if they felt so called and then returned to face the future and took a step forward less burdened.
In those vignettes much was spoken. Family lineages connected to racism and historical systemic wrongs of society were given back for the ancestors to work with. One in our group spoke the name Robert E Lee from his lineage. Others worked through parents who died too young, a teen pregnancy in her family lineage, a loss of creativity because of having to be the parent from birth, one spoke to her father through these exercises, that she never knew. I stood in for someone’s grand mother and moved about informed as I felt called in relationship to others in the field who were standing in for other family members. And somehow it all made sense to the one who was working through systemic pain and trauma. Energy was shifted.
In the end we had spent three hours together, We thanked our hosts, paid our nominal fees through Venmo and contemplated joining together again to do this work for ourselves and the collective soul of society, next month when this group meets again. As others began to rinse their tea cups in the kitchen I slipped out, stepped into my shoes and walked up the sidewalk toward my car taking note of the steep incline and iconic Los Angeles horizon line with palm trees reaching up into the sky from a hillside dotted in small multi level houses built close together. As I drove back to my childhood home, I stopped in Griffith Park to sit on the mountain and watch the skyline. I wondered if I would still be here when they gather again in March. I felt into the trees in this place and reminded them who I am.
