I bow to my teacher, Suzi Tucker

As this glorious 18 months in Suzi Tucker's Art & Practice of Family Constellations sunsets, I reflect on the impact it has had on me...

There is a way in which I found my way…actually a clearing through the spidery threads of fog connected to my ancestral trauma lineages, and in this navigation, I discovered a new sense of freedom…

I first met Suzi Tucker when she was on the faculty of the Western Intensive in Ghost Ranch in March 2023. She described the first constellation as the first disorder…the stories, limitations, and rules for how we first learn belonging…they were transmuted from mother to embryo in the womb. I felt as if Suzi were speaking directly and only to me despite being in a room full of people. These two years had been probably the most tumultuous time for me personally. The sudden death of my father two months beforehand had thrown my three sisters and me into upheaval. The youngest daughter of four, I had lost my place and footing. On top of that, we were navigating a foreign world of hospice and caregiving for my blind, grieving 87 year old mother who turned her attention and her grief toward her children.

One of Suzi’s first assignments to our class was to write a letter for each of our parents. The instructions were simply to write and capture where we were in that very moment with our parents, then put it away. Unbeknownst to me, I found such deep comfort upon finding the letter seven months later after Mom had passed. All the worries and regret that I feared, I had unconsciously addressed them. In the end before her passing, I was able to love and accept my mother just as she was. Feeling seen, she left this earth in peace, allowing her children to turn to care for her descendants. Thank you, Suzi for such a beautiful gift.

Suzi provided such comforting words and support when Mom passed.

“We are connected more broadly, infinitely connected across…and under…and through. We are molecules and planets and flowers, existing without need within the life that lives inside our deaths — whether it came days or years or decades or minutes later. The very young and the very old laugh and dance together. The temporal journey of birth is a faraway wisp of narrative. That order, which has so much meaning in the time of your yesterday, has no form here…”

By Suzi Tucker

Photo taken at Pendle Hill, PA in April 2024

Now, as I look back at this 18-month tutelage with Suzi in the Art and Practice of Family Constellations, I am filled with such awe at her teachings of the Orders of Love. I love the accuracy captured in the course title because the journey has been witnessing repeatedly the application of the core principles of inclusion, belonging and grace as an ongoing life practice. Every person belongs…including the one screeching in anger or who seems possessed by foreign spirits. They are not asked to dial it down. Instead, her response is to stay with them…to hold on so tightly as if they had never been held before…welcoming them back from exile…embracing the wisdom and respect that they bring…that they deserved.

Suzi welcomes it all. When two enemies were at odds in a complex, polarizing war, she adds the line of mothers behind each of them, trusting the Knowing Field, trusting the shift once you move beyond the dyad.. She physically turns the mothers who are facing at each other, aligning them to face against the Force together so we see from a systemic lens who are the real victims. Suzi demonstrates this skillfully while also staying with herself, holding onto her own dignity, exemplifying a distant heart to be close enough to see you in your full dignity yet distant enough to have the freedom and clarity of a master facilitator who has breadth and width.

I started this journey mired in the complex spider webs of trauma that I inherited at birth — struggling as a daughter who had turned toward her mother — feeling alone to parent an adopted young adult who faces his own terrors. I leave this class positioned forward looking toward the future, feeling the backing of my ancestors and actively working side-by-side in partnership with my spouse to co-parent. In my old ways, I charged through despite the fog, constantly doing and performing. I leave with enough of a clearing that gives me several precious seconds to pause…to give myself some grace…to thank my splintered selves that allowed me to survive. In that little bit of clearing, I breathe and change my course slightly by one degree.

I end with her words welcoming my mother as she became an ancestor.

“The word “ancestry” belongs to the wellspring of your farewell. In “fact,” we exist all together in the before and after of the inhale and exhale. We are the whole … not one part, not the end, not a fragment.

You are the most beautiful and special of the “arrivals.” And you are also simply one among. Your memories, once so personal, have already unfolded into the memories of your companions and predecessors. Into the fabric of memory is woven the images of ancestors and descendants. Memory is key. It braids itself in and around imagination to create belief.

We believe, imagine, and remember that you are coming, have already arrived. We believe, imagine, and remember that our arms are open and waiting for you to fall into them.  We smile upon those who are left behind, who may feel bereft or cheated or undone. We love them whether or not they agree to our love. And we love you, dear Mother, without question … reservation … or words. Welcome.”

By Suzi Tucker