This well-known question is often mistaken for a Zen koan, though it actually originated in Western philosophy. It echoes the work of George Berkeley, an 18th-century idealist who proposed that reality depends on perception.
Still, the inquiry carries the spirit of a koan—disrupting logic, inviting reflection, and pointing toward a deeper awareness of how perception shapes reality.
My personal reflection is this:
If no one is there to witness the tree’s fall, there is no sound—because sound requires an ear to hear it.
This reminds me of events in the family system that were ignored, denied, or erased.
Like:
– The baby who was conveniently aborted — the fall no one cared to mention.
– The whimpers of the old man as his last breath was stolen from him — the unheard murder, smoothed over as business as usual.
– The young daughter’s grief that was never allowed — the sound of sorrow held in the body for decades.
These are all trees that fell silently.
And yet their aftermath echoes through generations, emerging as depression, anxiety, illness, misfortune, and chronic tension—futile attempts to listen back to a sound that was never heard.
In the Constellation, it is through the informational field that we become the listener.
The ones who were silenced can now be heard. In doing so, their existence is acknowledged.
And the descendants are finally freed from the tension of embodying the grief or guilt that had nowhere else to go.
The silence is broken.
The system recalibrates.
And the fallen ones are welcomed back into the forest of belonging.
This reflection emerged after a Constellation Circle, where powerful ancestral stories revealed themselves through the field. Though the examples here are archetypal, they carry the essence of real movements witnessed in session.
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Learn More
If this resonates with you, I invite you to explore my 8-month online course, Learn the Foundations of Family Constellation, beginning this August.
It’s designed for those who feel called to this work—whether as a personal healing journey or as the first step toward guiding others.
Early bird ends July 12th