My 65th birthday is this week. I am happy to report that my health is good, my life is filled with love and my skills are finely tuned. Dare I say as I turn 65, I am definitely a magician, maybe now even evolving into a wizard.
My entire adult life has been devoted to searching for the keys to stopping hatred and violence. I was born just 10 years after the Holocaust to a Jewish father who had been a US Army soldier during the war. While deeply loving, my father suffered from PTSD like many veterans. He was a community leader for Jewish Holocaust survivors and joined in the fight for civil rights and economic equality. But as a father, he was subject to fits of rage and violence. My mother was the daughter of a disabled World War I veteran, who was both religiously devote and emotionally abusive. In the space between them, I grew my desire to become a peacemaker.
As an adult, I learned the tools of conflict resolution and violence prevention. I obtained two master’s degrees and a PhD. I studied, traveled and practiced the art and science of peacemaking. This included living in Germany and Palestine to explore of depths of hatred towards Jews, helping found the City of Cambridge Peace Commission, constructing the Leverett Peace Pagoda and leading the Boston chapter of Children of War.
From this, it became crystal clear that the peacemaker’s toolkit was missing its most important tool. I didn’t know what this tool was, but I set out to find it, which I did in Germany in 2000, when I met Bert Hellinger and his Systemic Family Constellations. For the past 20 years, I have refined my craft of facilitating Constellations, the last 8 of those with my partner, Emily Blefeld.
After thousands of Constellations, 10 cycles of our Seeing with Your Heart Immersion and Advanced programs, and leading trainings and workshops in 18 countries throughout the world, I have arrived at a solid understanding of the sources and remedies for the violence that infects our hearts.
Take a good look at yourself?
Who do you see in the photo?
What is your first emotion?
Whose side are you standing on?
Who are you?
On the surface, this photo is a young woman confronting a line of armed riot police. At a deeper level, this is a picture of you. You are the strength and courage of the feminine staying strong in the face of male power, vulnerable, undefended, pleading for them to disarm. You are strength and courage of the masculine, armed for battle, righteous in his cause, shielded, unfeeling, uncertain whether to crack her skull or nurse from her breast. This is your country, your family, your relationships, your parent’s marriage, your divorce, your children.
As much as we want to project a “me against them” narrative to identify with one and reject the other, the reality is that all of us have the consciousness of the innocent and the guilty within us. It’s a biological fact that we are the compilation of the previous 12 generations of women and men who conceived our ancestors. We are certain to find all we despise and reject, and all we embrace and celebrate coded in our DNA.
In a few weeks, I am offering a new 3-month class for 25 brave journeyers who are ready for a deep dive to learn how the shadow of malevolence and the light of love together create human experience. The class experience is offered in two parts: group Zoom video gatherings and private sessions. In the private sessions, you and I will set up your personal Constellations to identify and release hidden entanglements and free up forward movement towards any big life intention or desired outcome. On the group calls, we will all come together to learn about human life on the mythological, historical and cultural levels. These classes will feature collective Constellations where the field will be our teacher.
On the occasion of this milestone birthday, I want to reflect a bit more about my journey. My early childhood in New York City was a combination of excitement, wonder and dread. The City was the most elaborate and fun playground imaginable. From the majesty of Lincoln Center and the Empire State Building to impenetrable sorrow carved into the faces of people living in Harlem and collapsed on city sidewalks, New York was everything to dream of and everything to fear.
I rode the subway to the New Lincoln School in Harlem starting at age 10 through high school. In the school assemblies we sang the anthems of the Civil Rights movement and learned about social injustice and the horrors of the Vietnam War. It was inspiring and challenging to be heralded as the generation that would bring the ideals of peace and racial equality to reality. Outside the school building, Harlem was afflicted by poverty, addiction and violence. I felt it all, and it excited me and terrified me.
The worldview of my childhood was secular humanism, based on a scientific understanding of humans and their place in the universe. I was raised to know that science had shown that our minds were produced by our brains; the universe was composed of matter and energy interacting according the laws of physics and chemistry.
Underneath this understanding, I was tormented by the prospect of death. I dreaded the unforeseen instant ending from a Nazi bullet as much as the excruciating anguish of surviving decades of misery. When my “mind” told “me” that I would at some unknown moment cease to exist, my body filled with despair and unbearable anxiety.
It took me decades of life experiences and study to confirm that the flows of energy and matter that carry me are conscious and purposeful. It’s not random motion. My life has been directed by an invisible hand that guided me to learn about the origins and impacts of nuclear weapons, work where the A-Bomb was invented and walk to Bethlehem on Christmas Eve with the Priest who blessed the squadron that bombed Hiroshima.
On this journey, I learned that Newton was as much of a magician as a scientist, nuclear weapons are alchemy stripped of its feminine aspect, the US government plans its wars decades in advance and Angels of god and Jesus really do perform miracles. These experiences have inspired my interest in myth, magic, and mystery and despite the teachings of my youth, supported me to hone my talents for telepathy, mediumship and channeling.
I have been brought to my 65th year for a purpose: I am here to learn, heal and teach. I trust what arrives in my awareness when I close my eyes, open my heart and feel my body. I have become a conduit for ancestors and spirit guides, like a cellphone tower transmitting signals from satellites to personal devices on Earth.
Best I can tell today, when our bodies stop breathing and start rotting, our minds convert to light energy and remain more or less intact. I know this because these disembodied minds have no difficulty communicating with me. They show me where they lived, whisper phrases and songs known only to their children, tell me their secret sorrows and recruit me to heal the heart of grief, suffering, or conflict in their descendants.
For the past two years, the Knowing Field of Constellations keeps pulling me back to the years between 1570-1670 when innocent wisdom was lost to the modern world. This is when slavery came to North America, science emerged, modern global corporations were born, magicians were corrupted, and witches were burned.
Four hundred years later, humanity is in crisis. The legacy of slavery, corporate greed, corruption and persecution has reached an end point. Society is divided by a violent argument, with one side determined to shore up the existing infrastructure by contracting towards the rigidity of authoritarianism, militarism and hatred, while the other branch is chaotically tearing at the structures of patriarchy, racism and wealth.
Out of this turmoil, an evolved worldview is gaining strength and clarity. It is sourced by spirit and grounded by the earth. Some of its features are:
- Consciousness exists within and beyond our brains.
- Death does not extinguish our personal consciousness.
- The most effective tool for achieving peace in our hearts, relationships and communities is to meaningfully engage with Earth, ancestors and spirit.
The way through is neither a retreat into fascism nor a descent into anarchy. The consciousness that exists outside our brains is teaching us humanity’s healing movement. We are rapidly evolving, personally and collectively. Diving deep into the trauma of human cruelty and suffering is big medicine. This work is not easy. It is the best tool I know for finding freedom, strength and clarity. If you want to make a meaningful contribution to healing the world, the first step is understanding and clearing your systemic family entanglements. If you don’t, they will undermine your best efforts. The next step is getting clear on why you are here and what you are meant to do. With that, you can fulfill your purpose and claim your freedom.
This 3-month program is calling…
* Adults in mature transition who know the best is still to come. If you are empty-nested, recently separated, newly coupled, widowed, exploring the waters of sexuality or non-binary gender, this is an accepting community that is for all of those, but not expressly about them
* Alchemists, social activists, shamans, entrepreneurs, healers, plant-journeyers and mystics. This is a place to open the fields of non-ordinary consciousness with co-minded travelers led by an masterful guide. We will dive deep into the darkness and rise high into the light, always open to mystery and certain to arrive safely home.
* Psychics in hiding. Admit it… you have had experiences with telepathy, mediumship, presentience or other psi phenomenon – so many that you can no longer brush them off to conform to scientific norms. You want to normalize your intuitive abilities and put them to use to make your life even more interesting, satisfying and fulfilling.
* Gen-Xers and Millennials who want the quick version of WTF is going on here on Earth. By 2030, the Boomers will have turned their mess over to you. It’s your time to become the inventors of humanity’s future.
If this is you, let’s meet in the field. We can’t do this alone; we need community here on Earth and our ancestral and soul lineages as our guides.
Weekly Online Group Gatherings for Training, Breakout Constellations and Collective Deep-Dives with Dan Cohen, PhD (Thursdays 3:00-5:00 PM Eastern Starting September 3, 2020)
All twelve group gatherings will include interactive training on the principles of Constellations and instructions for how to use the magic of the Knowing Field in everyday life. We will have breakout rooms where everyone can do their own piece of work and represent for others. Finally, in each gathering we will set up a full group Constellation and dive deep into collective themes that impact societal, culture, philosophical, political or environmental questions of the day.
2 Private Systemic Constellations
Your generational healing work with Dan Cohen will trace the deep roots of inherited trauma that interfere with your living as the fullest expression of your being. Whether you are breaking ground on the project of a lifetime, growing your business or refining your skills as a therapist, healer or facilitator, integrating real magic into life will be a big advantage in the post-pandemic economy. Your Constellations will show you how to align your life with the mysterious forces that guide human systems.
3 Seeing with Your Heart Workshops on Collective and Archetypal Themes
In these transformational workshops, Dan Cohen and Emily Blefeld will guide you through hidden pathways of the heart to access the depths of human existence and the most deeply embedded patterns rooted in the sorrows and suffering of past generations. In their unique process, you will gain an embodied connection with resources that will infuse life with magic, understanding and deeper feelings of ease, flow, love, and abundance. Each workshop will be customized to align with the collective and archetypal themes alive in the group.
If you are interested in learning more, I welcome you to schedule a Free Discovery Session with me to tune-in to your heart, challenges, vision, and intentions. Together we will identify some of the inherited patterns present and the pathways to create space for the possibility of the future calling you forward. We will answer any questions you have about the program and explore whether it is the right fit for you.
