the starting place of a Constellation. The Client presents facts and their conscious understanding of an issue.
2.Physical—Naming and placing Representatives (participants who stand in to represent family members) within the Constellation. Seeing, hearing, noticing bodily responses to the Family Energy Field begins here.
3.Emotional—Feelings arise in relation to the Representatives in the Constellation. Deeper emotional reactions happen when Representatives come into closer proximity to each other within the Family Energy Field.
4.Spiritual—The Veil of Forgetting momentarily lifts, allowing Soul recognition to happen as knowing and remembering. The essence of the Soul’s experience and understanding of this lifetime is illuminated.
A Constellation begins with the facts and story as it is understood at the Mental Level of Consciousness. As we move towards Soul Consciousness, the process progresses from verbal and engaged to more stillness. In Emotional and Spiritual Consciousness, most information is transmitted between the Client and the Representatives in quiet. When we reach the Spirit level, the Soul peers out from a deeply conscious internal space within our being. Since thoughts and feelings blur over time, the Constellation Approach helps us to clear and align the Levels of Consciousness. Like overlapping lenses, if one is out of true focus, we can’t see clearly into the next level.
Often, our tears are the glass cleaner. They act to wipe away the smudge of hurt we still hold in our Emotional Consciousness. By clearing and wiping away our old—and sometimes ancient—feelings, we are able to reach the higher emotional states of appreciation, love, and devotion that exist in the depths of our Soul. As the lenses clear, we can perceive our Soul nature. From this Level of Consciousness, we can view the other(s) without the distortions of judgment or emotional pain. During a Constellation, a completely different view and perception of our life situations and relationships becomes possible. We simply travel into the depths of our consciousness to reach the Soul. Change and healing can then begin at the level of personal consciousness, ripple into family consciousness, and eventually affect the collective consciousness of humanity.
The Four Levels of Consciousness
This diagram shows the transition from the Physical to the Spiritual Level of Consciousness.
Human Nature—Soul Nature
This diagram shows the shift from Human Nature to Soul Nature through the Levels of Consciousness and the Vesica Pisces.
A Constellation Journeyer
Peter — An Unexpected Awareness
In my Family Lineage, one Universal Theme was my father’s “handicap.” That was the language of the time, his time, and my time growing up as his son. My father contracted polio when he was six months old. The shadow of his physical limitations hung over all aspects of our family life like an ever-present companion in our household. As a boy I felt the loss of not having a father who could throw a ball or teach me how to ride a bicycle. In a Constellation, following the strand of physical disease, I was able to unravel and reach into the deeper levels of the Threads of Consciousness that come from having Edward Henry Faust as my father.
In my Constellation, standing across from Representatives for my father and for the “handicap” of polio, I instantly became aware of the judgments I held for my father. Acknowledging that I had seen him as somehow less than a father brought waves of shame that dropped me to my knees. I saw before me the two-halved man: One side under-developed, skin loose, small muscles, bones visible, the effects of a body ravaged by polio; the other side a normal, strong man’s body. Half was not good enough to get a good-paying job in those days, or to throw a ball with his son. I had judged my father the way the world saw him, as less-than, not good enough, as not man enough.
The memories, images, and feelings that moved though the levels of my awareness eventually brought me into a space where I could see beyond his physical body. The process of acknowledging my father, for who he was, not the way I wished he had been, led me into the realm of acceptance. This process of accepting my father helped me to release the judgments and shame, and allow me to finally see him for the teachings he had given me through his handicap.
I remembered his extreme patience and his methodical way of explaining and teaching me things that he could not physically do himself. I remembered how together we could accomplish what he couldn’t do alone. I saw how he passed on to me his love of reading, writing, and learning. Most of all, I received fully in that brief moment what he had taught me about dignity.
Present before me was no longer the handicapped father I had as a child. Here stood a Soul that chose to learn difficult lessons through his body. I instantly understood, by being in silence and looking deeply into the eyes of the Representative for my father’s Spirit, that he chose to experience shame and transform it into dignity. My father had lived every day of his life since infancy with his handicap. Out of that life he had developed a type of pride and dignity that can only be learned through an aversion. In that moment the internal image I held of my father was completely transformed. I no longer pitied or felt sorry for him. Instead, I felt the most amazing feelings of pride and gratitude towards Edward Henry Faust for being my father. I wept with appreciation for him. I knew deep in my Soul that I had agreed to be his son and he to be my father in this lifetime.
6Peter C, Rogers, Ultimate Truth, Book 1 (Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2009), 38
Chapter 4
The Constellation Approach
I see my roots in my father, my mother, my grandfathers, my grandmothers and all my ancestors. I know I am only the continuation of this ancestral lineage.
—Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Buddhist monk
Our particular view of our family is often limited by our understanding—colored by personal judgments, projections, and misconceived perceptions. The Constellation Approach allows us to expand our perception of life as a whole, rather than remain fixated on isolated incidents of wounding and pain. By viewing family situations with a wider lens, we can gain insights into root causes of issues, like why certain family members are shut out or not spoken of, as well as how and why behavioral patterns repeat, often unconsciously, from one generation to the next.
Our greatest joy as founders and teachers of The Constellation Approach is to facilitate Constellations. Each of us also facilitates Constellations for individuals by using figurines (to be explained in Parts II and V). These latter exercises are powerful tools of self-exploration, but they are not a substitute for working with a trained TCA Facilitator, attending a live seminar, or participating in our Immersion Program. With figurines, one must engage in active imagination and be open to receiving insights on one’s own. But working with a trained Facilitator or attending a live Constellation allows you to be guided carefully through the Constellation process. The benefits of being part of a Constellation made up of live Representatives can only be experienced directly. Nonetheless, we invite you to take the journey with us using figurines, while hoping that one day soon you will participate in a live Constellation.
In the pages that follow, we explain how a live Constellation works—from the various roles participants play and the practices involved in each Constellation, to the four Phases of a Constellation and how they align with the Levels of Consciousness discussed earlier. This will prepare you to cross the threshold and begin your journey.