Meet the founders
Robert Rowland Smith
Co-Founder
Dr Robert Rowland Smith is a philosopher, writer, and a major figure in Constellations in the UK. His work sits at the intersection of thought and lived experience, bringing together rigorous philosophical inquiry with deep, transformative practice.
A former Prize Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, Robert has spent his career exploring the structures that shape human life, from identity and relationships to power, meaning, and the hidden dynamics that move beneath the surface. As an author, his books have been translated into multiple languages and engage wide audiences with philosophical ideas that feel both accessible and urgent.
Alongside his writing, Robert has been facilitating Constellations since 2007, working internationally with individuals, groups, and organisations. His approach draws on philosophy to illuminate the unseen patterns that influence behaviour, enabling people to move beyond inherited limitations and into greater clarity and freedom.
Whether through books, live events, or Constellations work, his practice is driven by a single question: what does it mean to live more truthfully?
At Hotel Philosophy, Robert’s work forms the intellectual and experiential core, offering a space where insight is not just something you understand, but something you encounter.
Miriam O'Connor
Co-Founder
Miri O’Connor is a creator, facilitator, and systems-oriented experience designer working at the intersection of ritual, storytelling, and inner transformation.
Her work is driven by a fascination with how people make meaning, through ancestry, landscape, relationships, and the quiet patterns that shape a life from beneath the surface. Drawing on influences as varied as systemic constellations, myth, folk practice, and lived experience, she creates spaces that invite reflection, connection, and subtle but lasting change.
Miri is the founder of Rootlight Rituals, a body of work centred around lunar-aligned herbal teas and ceremonies, including her original Selenodynamic™ method, where each blend is created in rhythm with the phases of the moon. She is also the co-creator of Simple Truths®, a 200-card reflective deck designed to help people untangle the hidden dynamics in their relationships with others and with life itself.
Alongside her product-based work, Miri facilitates one-to-one and group experiences, from intimate readings to shared rituals, where insight is not delivered but discovered. Her approach is both grounded and intuitive, bridging the esoteric and the everyday in a way that feels accessible without losing depth.
At Hotel Philosophy, Miri shapes the experiential world, translating philosophical ideas into lived encounters. Her work asks not just what we think, but how we live, and how we might begin, gently, to live differently.
