What was your original face before your parents were born.
This is a Buddhist teaching known as a koan, not meant to be answered but intended as a tool to expand awareness beyond the limitations of physical reality.
Who are you? Do you know yourself? Enough that you can see your face before your parents were born? Or do you only know your face as the product of your parents?
In Family Constellations, we focus on finding our rightful place in the family. It is here we receive our life—and with it, the love and strength of our ancestors.
We work within the systemic family system. Yet what this koan proposes is that we are more than that.
It points to our essence. Have you ever experienced yourself as energy—not restricted by form?
When facilitating a Constellation, I become aware of each representative’s position, the stories held within them, their traumas, joys, and longings. But more importantly, I become aware of what’s missing: someone forgotten, someone erased, someone who disappeared without a trace but is still felt.
We are working in an energetic field—sometimes called the Knowing Field. I prefer to call it the Informational Field. Everything that happens leaves an imprint. And it’s through our presence—when we surrender our form—that our true nature allows the information to come through.
Horses are naturally like this. They are the field. That’s why in Horse Constellations they know who is missing. They feel loss, they sense disruption, and they support reconnection—just as they do within their herd.
This is what separates Family Constellation from traditional therapy.
We are the child of our parents—and we are the face before our parents were born. We are nothing, and we are everything.
When my horse Silver passed in 2019, he was 35 years old. He was my first horse, and the reason I do what I do—and live how I live.
When I adopted him in 2002, I was afraid I wouldn’t be a good horse owner. So I made a decision: I would become a horse person. And it changed everything.
I had a being I was responsible for—a partner who led me into a life I couldn’t have imagined.
Silver, a horse no one wanted, discarded repeatedly and narrowly escaping death, saw me as his savior. I was the doorway through which he left behind a life of being unwanted and stepped into his true nature. Through his gifts, he helped me realize mine.
A glimpse of Silver’s quiet power—present, aware, and full of mystery, as we danced together.
When he died, even though I was prepared, it was devastating. I wrote a song for him called "Fly High"—about his spirit soaring, freed from the body that had become so stiff and painful.
The day after his passing, I finished my morning chores and walked into the yurt. There was a small bird perched high on a beam. The yurt was sealed. There was no way it could have gotten in.
The bird didn’t panic. It wasn’t frightened. It played with me. Eventually, it let me guide it outside.
A few hours later, I returned—and the bird was there again. High in the dome of the yurt. The same bird. The same mystery.
And I knew. It was Silver.
His presence was unmistakable. That playful, knowing energy. He had returned, not as a body, but as essence—embodied.
Silver had a way of connecting with everyone—especially children. He never stopped giving.
Which brings me full circle to the koan: What was your original face before your parents were born?
This way of listening—through presence, through the field, beyond words—is what I teach.
If you feel called, the Foundations of Family Constellation course begins August 30.
More details here.