Marnie (not her real name) contacted me because she’d had four miscarriages in the last 8 years. Between the second and the third, she and her husband had a beautiful healthy daughter, and now they were hoping for another child.

Energetically, the experience of parenting is solidified at the moment of conception, and the energetic contract between souls —mother, father, child, (and siblings if there are any)— may begin even before that. No matter how tiny the physical body of the incoming soul, their death is spiritually significant.

Marnie wanted to find peace with the miscarriages, and to clear the family field of any blockages they may have created. She and her husband wanted a clean, clear, welcoming space into which to invite another child.

Systemic family constellations teach us that all family members need to be included on the family map. When each member is allowed a place, and energetically occupies that place (in relation to the rest of the family), the collective family soul settles, and energy can flow smoothly.

Intuitively, when Marnie talked about the babies she’d miscarried, she said that part of the issue was that she “didn’t know how to hold them.” Translation: they didn’t have a place on the family map, and the flow of energy in the system felt out of balance.

Together, Marnie and I designed a ritual that she and her husband would carry out. It involved finding a beautiful bowl and 6 smooth stones. The stones would represent Marnie, her husband, and all their children, born and unborn. There were many other details, and some of them Marnie needed to design with her husband, but the intention of the ritual was to honour and claim each member of the family, whether they were in a living body or not. Each soul would have a place.

By the end of our conversation, Marnie said she felt a kind of lightness and ease that she hadn’t felt before about these miscarriages. The experiences were getting the respect they deserved, and so they could energetically “relax” and just be what they are, nothing more, nothing less. The field could settle.

(Many thanks to “Marnie” and the other folks who allow me to share their stories with you.)