Roots and Branches: Race and Ethnicity in Family Constellations

Join us for Roots and Branches

A three-day in-person intensive for Global Majority participants. March 19 to 21, 2027, in San Lorenzo, California.

Over three days, we will use Systemic Constellations to explore how personal experience, family history, collective trauma, racism, migration, and survival move across generations and show up in our lives now.

Roots and Branches is a Global Majority affinity space, co-led by Sarah Peyton and Roxy Manning. The weekend combines large group constellations, structured small group practice, and teaching that brings together Sarah’s integration of constellation work, Interpersonal Neurobiology, and trauma-sensitive practice with Roxy’s work as a clinical psychologist and antiracism educator on how racism and white supremacy culture live in our bodies, families, and relationships.

A gift from the estate of our beloved friend Marc Scruggs covers the cost of producing this year’s intensive. What participants contribute goes into a seed fund for the next Global Majority Constellations cohort. Participants arrange and pay for their own travel, lodging, and meals.

What to Expect

Each morning begins with a structured small group exercise, anchored in that day’s theme. Large group constellations give us the opportunity to work deeply with what individual seekers bring, while everyone else participates through witnessing and representing.

Eight large group seeker constellations happen across the weekend.

Each day has a different focus.

Day One: Individual and Racial Trauma

We begin with experiences from our own lives, including moments connected with racism and white supremacy culture that may still feel unresolved in memory, in the body, or in our relationships. Constellation work gives us another way to explore what happened, what was interrupted, and what is still asking for attention.

Day Two: Family and Historical Trauma

On Saturday we widen the lens to family and collective history. We may work with the transgenerational impact of enslavement, oppression, lynching, the Chinese Exclusion Act, Japanese internment, immigration policy and current displacement, economic injustice, and other forces that have shaped Global Majority families across generations.

We will explore how white supremacy culture enters family systems, and how history continues to shape belonging, safety, identity, and possibility. Intersectionality is woven throughout.

Day Three: Relationships

Every collective trauma can become personal trauma, and personal trauma shows up in our closest relationships. On Sunday we turn toward the patterns we repeat in intimate relationships, families, friendships, and workplaces, along with questions of shared power, emotional labor, and finding our voice. The work of the first two days opens into the question of how we want to be with one another now.

How Seeker Constellations Are Chosen

Seekers are chosen by lottery. We do not reserve or sell guaranteed seeker spots. Everyone who wants to bring a constellation enters the same lottery.

Representing in other people’s constellations is a central part of the weekend, and we want you to know that before you apply. If you have questions, concerns, or limits around representing, please talk with us before or during the intensive.

White Presence in the Work

Sarah is a white-identified facilitator, which means whiteness is already present in this Global Majority affinity space. We name that directly on Day One, and we keep room for that conversation across the weekend.

We are also bringing two white representatives into the constellation work this year. One is available to represent overt, intentional white supremacy. The other is available to represent well-meaning whiteness, complicity, and the harm that happens alongside good intentions. Both of these experiences live in the bodies and family histories of Global Majority people, and sometimes both need to have their own representative in the constellation.

Here is what their presence looks like across the weekend. The two representatives are in the constellation room and present during breaks. They step away during meals. If you want to spend time with them then, you are welcome to join them for off-site meals.

For Experienced Constellation Practitioners

Some participants come primarily for their own learning and healing. Others have significant experience with constellations and are developing a facilitation practice of their own.

For participants with that experience, we hold optional facilitator development time on Friday and Saturday evenings, from 7:00 to 8:30pm. This time is for facilitator questions, reflection, and learning. There may also be opportunities for experienced participants to facilitate with Sarah and Roxy available for support.

The exact shape depends on who enrolls and what experience people bring. If this interests you, please tell us on the application.

Who This Intensive Is For

This weekend is for people who identify as part of the Global Majority. We have found that a space centered on Global Majority people supports forms of vulnerability, exploration, and connection that become much harder when participants are also navigating the presence and needs of white participants.

If you identify as Global Majority and are perceived as white or have significant access to white privilege, we ask you to consider carefully whether this is the right affinity space for you. Roxy has written more about this complexity in Explorations on Community for Global Majority Participants When Choosing Affinity Groups.

All three days are required. We are not offering one-day or two-day options. The work develops across the weekend, and the shared container depends on people being present for all of it.

Schedule and Location

March 19 to 21, 2027 | San Lorenzo, California

The intensive takes place in a private home and is non-residential.

• Friday: Core program 9:00am to 5:30pm, with a break for lunch. Dinner break 5:30 to 7:00pm. Optional facilitator development 7:00 to 8:30pm.
• Saturday: Same structure.
• Sunday: 9:00am to 4:00pm, including an hour for lunch, closing at 4:00pm.

Participants arrange their own travel and lodging, and we are glad to share suggestions for nearby places to stay.

Meals are on your own. The kitchen, refrigerator, and microwave are available during the day for storing and warming up food. We ask that no one cook, so the stove will not be in use.

Access and the space

The intensive is held in a private home. Here is what to expect, so you can decide what you need.

• Three steps to enter the house, and two more steps down to the room where we meet.
• One accessible bathroom, and a second bathroom that is not accessible.
• Street parking.
• We keep the space scent-free. Please come without perfume, cologne, scented lotion, or scented hair products. Scents, and lavender in particular, can affect Sarah’s voice, and some participants also react strongly to scents. Here is a helpful guide to going scent-free made available by East Bay Meditation Center.
• A quieter side room is available as a low-sensory, low-interaction space. It is not silent: people may be eating just outside, planes fly over the neighborhood, and on warm days a fan may need to run. We recommend bringing noise-reducing headphones if you plan to use it.
• We are unlikely to have a quiet, private place for taking calls or meetings during the intensive.

The exact address goes out one month before the intensive, along with the welcome packet. If you have access needs we have not covered here, please tell us on the application or write to Ale, and we will work it out with you.

Pay It Forward Contributions

Producing this intensive costs approximately $14,000, and Marc Scruggs’ estate gift covers that in full. What you contribute goes into a seed fund for the next Global Majority Constellations cohort, so that this work continues past this one gathering.

Choose the level that fits your situation:

• $600. A higher contribution, supporting future access and scholarships.
• $475. Mid-range contribution.
• $350. Base contribution.

If the base contribution of $350 is not accessible to you, please choose the scholarship option on the application. The scholarship questions are part of the same form, so you only fill out one form. We are committed to keeping this space accessible. If you apply by November 22, we will share the contribution we can offer with your invitation on November 28, so that you know where you stand before the deposit is due.

How to apply

Places are limited, and we anticipate a cohort of 15 to 25 people. Applying is a request for a place, not a guarantee. There are three steps:

1. Apply by November 22, 2026 for first consideration. Everyone uses the same application, including people asking for a scholarship or reduced contribution.
2. Hear from us by November 28. We will let you know whether we can offer you a place. If you asked for a scholarship, we will also share the contribution we can offer.
3. Confirm your place by December 10, 2026, using the link in your invitation, with a $100 deposit or your full contribution. If we have not received your deposit by then, we may offer your place to someone else.

Deposit and refunds

Your $100 deposit is applied toward your contribution. The balance is due by February 1, 2027. If you are able to pay in full when you confirm your place, that helps us plan, and we appreciate it.

• If you cancel on or before February 19, 2027, we refund what you have paid, less a $50 administrative fee.
• If you cancel after February 19, we are able to refund your contribution only if someone else takes your place.
• If we cancel the intensive, we refund everything you have paid.

Your Facilitators

Sarah Peyton and Roxy Manning are long-time collaborators, friends, and co-authors of The Antiracist Heart. They have facilitated Global Majority constellation intensives together before.

A Special Follow-Up Session with Francesca Mason Boring

Saturday, March 27, 2027 | 9:00am to 12:00pm Pacific | Online

One week after the intensive, we gather online with Francesca Mason Boring for a three-hour session on what it means to be a Global Majority facilitator in a constellation field that remains largely white. The session includes conversation, reflection, and an experiential constellation.

This session is included for everyone who participates in the March 19 to 21 intensive.

The session is also open to the wider community. Contributions from community participants go toward the seed fund for future Global Majority Constellations Intensives.

Sliding scale for community participants:

• $150. Higher contribution, supporting the seed fund and access for others.
• $100. Mid-range contribution.
• $65. Base contribution.

No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

About This Offering: In Honor of Marc Scruggs

From Roxy

I met Marc Scruggs in 2005, around the time I began diving into Nonviolent Communication. We were students together in the year-long Leadership Program.

Marc was endlessly curious. He asked real questions and listened to the answers with his whole body. When you were talking with him, he gave you the sense that there was time for the conversation you were having. He showed up because he believed that showing up mattered.

Marc became a committed participant in the Nonviolent Leadership for Social Justice workshops I led, and he attended two of the Global Majority Constellations intensives that Sarah and I facilitated. I can still picture him on the teal couch in my living room, steady and present, doing his own work alongside everyone else.

He was drawn to Howard Thurman’s vision of Beloved Community. That commitment showed up in the ways he built connection across difference, supported equality, worked against harassment and discrimination, and invested in work that helped people heal.

Marc often supported people without announcing what he was doing. Sometimes you learned later that he had helped make something possible. He believed that good work in the world should be resourced, and that a gift to one person could reach people the giver might never meet.

Constellation work connects us to the ancestors whose lives influenced us. We learn how to honor their experience while liberating ourselves from the burdens we are carrying for them. Marc knew the weight of carrying the burden of the generations who came before us. I know he will be there with us, a beloved ancestor watching our load get lighter because of the help he gave.

From Sarah

I didn’t know Marc Scruggs when he came to my first constellations offering in California, about 15 years ago, but I had heard many people saying that they loved him, and how much he had contributed to them, and how he had held them with exquisite and perfect care. So I was honored to have him at the workshop. His presence was a contribution. It was as if he dwelled in love with great intention, continually teaching me something about possibility and hope, and also gentleness. My world had even more sharp edges in it then than it does now (it has been softened in part by his existence in my life) and he surprised me out of my own sharpness into thoughtfulness.

Over the years he came to my constellation offerings when I came to California, especially to two of the Global Majority constellations that Roxy Manning and I created and offered, and so when he passed on and left me (and so many others!) a little money to make something sweet happen for the world, I thought of using the funds to create another such offering, one where we would get to remember him, and honor him, and do something that he loved that would also give to others.

I was so lucky to know him and I’m grateful to carry a sense of him with me now that he is gone. I hope you will join us to enjoy something that he enjoyed, too.

Help Make the Next Intensive Possible

Marc’s gift covers this year. Participant contributions become seed money for a future cohort, and people who are not attending can contribute too.

You may be a white-identified person who values a Global Majority healing space and wants to support it from outside that space. You may be a Global Majority person who cannot attend this year and wants to help make another intensive possible. You may have known Marc and want to add to what his estate gift started.

The seed fund supports facilitator stipends, facilitator travel, organizing and on-site support, materials, venue and production costs, and accessibility support for Global Majority participants.

Questions about contributing or other ways to support this work can go to Alejandra Delgado at alejandra@roxannemanning.com.