RE: [ConstellationTalk] Digest Number 440
- From: "sheila saunders" <peacefulcentre@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 04 Sep 2005 03:45:41 +0000
Tom,
I trust you know of the Intensive coming up in Santa Barbara after the Portland Conference. It is modeled after the Intensive which has been offered in Germany for the last 5 years. Here is the link. http://www.essentialsolutions.info/constellation_intensive.htm
Bert said for years at his workshops here, "This is my last workshop in the US." Who knows which invitation will appeal to him in the future. He goes where he feels he is most needed; he knows that the work has many facilitators here, and also, that there is not the interest here that there is elsewhere.
He also never initiated the following that built up over time around him personally. It happened in the absence of self promotion. He had planned to retire and was asked to allow some observers in to one of his "last" workshops and there came several hundred. He was also asked around the same time, to put his ideas in writing by Gunthard Weber and altho he resisted this at first, he eventually agreed. Essentially, the rest is history. He did not retire after all, and what happened next shaped and informed him as he pursued his own inquiry into that which the "knowing field" brought to light.
My wish is that we as a group commit to addressing these issues and the people we discuss (each other and those who are not participating in the forum), with respect, humility and compassion.
Welcome to the group, Tom! all the best to you in your work, sheila
Sheila Saunders, RN, MFT
Systemic Family Solutions
sheila@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.systemicfamilysolutions.com
Great Smokies Medical Center of Asheville
1312 Patton Ave. Asheville, NC. 28806
828-273-5015
> Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2005 22:54:50 -0000
> From: "tmasthenes13" <TomBuoyed@xxxxxxx>
>Subject: Constellations for New Orleans?
>
>John, Dan, and Diane:
>
>Thank you for your warm and heart-felt responses to my questions
>about Bert. I will respond to each of your insights in more detail
>later, but for now the situation in New Orleans seems to demand an
>even greater response from Hellinger-folk.
>
>We do family constellations, structural constellations with abstract
>elements represented and thus personified, and there is the whole
>field of organizationl constellations.
>
>Has anyone thought of doing a constellation for the catastrophe in
>New Orleans? If so, how would one go about
it? Or would such an
>undertaking be a heretical breach of the Orders of Love?
>
>Again from my limited reading of Uncle Bert, I would imagine that his
>response would be to let them be --- that for the sake of their human
>dignity and greatness, they are strong enough to carry the fate that
>has befallen them, and that we outsiders would simply be interfering
>with their fate/karma/destiny by doing anything to help them, even
>doing a constellation for them.
>
>I glean this from the interview that Bertold Ulsamer posted back on
>June 2, 2003, where Bert speaks about the ski-resort cable-train
>accident in Kaprun, Austria that killed 170 people back in November
>2000. (Search for Post #82 in the Message Index).
>
>Now EggBert rightfully and righteously socks it to those shrinks,
>counselors
and priests sent in to minister to the relatives of the
>suddenly deceased, who have selfish or Narcissistic motivations:
>
>"But some of the outsiders who go to the victims to comfort them do
>it for themselves; they're relieving themselves instead of helping
>others."
>
>(What a great image, as I pun across the translation to picture these
>self-absorbed helpers pissing on the victims. (For modesty sake, I
>only picture the male micturators.)
>
>However, what about the therapeutic outsiders who are motivated by
>the suffering of the victims? Are they then to do nothing because
>they would interfere with the dignity and "greatness" of the grieving
>relatives?
>
>What the hell is greatness anyway (besides an iffy translation from
>the German word Größe, which also refers to shoe size)? I
mean here
>we sit & shrivel in a post-apocalyptic, post-post-modern epoch of
>hyper-self-consciousness, yes, in the throes of Narcissistic
>Personality Disorder, but still, some of these quaint ideas of Bert --
> as well as Bert himself --- (God love the Wunder-Kraut and all that;
>I'm not Knock-wursting him by any means)---are just soooo 20th
>century!!!
>
>Where is the confidence in our 3rd millennium AMERICAN experience in
>which cynicism grows so great that it turns on itself and self-
>destructs like the trusty auto-phagic Ouroboros? (not to mention the
>cassette tape on "Mission Impossible" exploding in Peter Graves'
>phone booth after 15 seconds.)
>
>Look, all I'm saying is Bert is right; but we Americans in 2005 are
>even righter! (There are Anglo-germanic linguistic reasons why
this
>is so; more on that another time.)
>
>Lest I keep digressing, let us get back to my original question: what
>can we constellators do, if anything, about the situation in New
>Orleans?
>
>At least one of our forum members here, Stefan Bajon, a stalwart
>member of the repre- and facile-to-be community here in Los Angeles,
>is a native of the Big Easy, and still has family members there now.
>
>May we grasp for the cosmic and invoke the Greater Soul in a
>constellation for New Orleans, or do we just piddle around with the
>lesser soul trappings we're used to appropriating for our own
>families and organizations, however wonderful they are?
>
>Maybe the "greatness" Bert talks about is to be found not in leaving
>these people to their fate, but in ratcheting up our own more
global
>Greater Soul consciousness so we can find our Greater Soul connection
>with these people in New Orleans. (After all, "atonement" can be
>punnily hyphenated to read: "at-one-ment.")
>
>So, what's "sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose." Therefore,
>if Bert and his Constellators are going to invoke the biologically
>restricted morphogenetic field concept of Rupert Sheldrake, then why
>not invoke the unlimited and far GREATER SOURCE of Sheldrake's idea,
>which, among many, for example, is the quantum potential field of
>consciousness of David Bohm, famous for his idea of "implicate order"
>in the universe, where consciousness is primary, beyond space and
>time, where information travels with infinite speed and instead of a
>vacuum void of nothingness, there is the teeming infinite fullness
or
>pleroma in which all consciousness may be tapped by each and every
>ordinary human being.
>
>You see, to me, Sheldrake's concept is passable for characterizing
>the way the soul works, but it is restricted to the animal kingdom,
>and therefore minimalist and downright clunky for describing the
>subtle energies playing out in HUMAN constellations. Though we share
>many characeristics, I am much more than my bird or monkey bretheren.
>If you look at evolution PHENOMENOLOGICALLY, then animals evolved
>from us humans and not the other way around, so that I as primal
>HUMAN BEING am the friggin' ancestor of the birds and monkeys, not
>the other way around. Kapish?
>
>Why all this is important for New Orleans, is that I believe we are
>in doing constellations, actually artifically restricting
ourselves
>to the biological Under-Soul of the animal kingdom instead of
>reaching up for the GREATNESS of the Over-Soul of the human kingdom
>whose point of departure is the PARTICULAR/INDIVIDUAL human SPIRIT as
>it crosses the dimension of the UNIVERSAL/GENERAL human SOUL.
>
>Many individuals trapped in the fate of New Orleans are descending
>into a generalized animalistic state, a least common denominator of
>generic soul soup turning into a psychic cesspool. I need y'all to
>imagine constellation work (even healing reaching-out rituals?)that
>may throw them a spirit/soul life preserver to them.
>
>We're onto something like really conscious focussed prayer
>here. "Wherever two or more are gathered..."
>
>May I borrow from David Bohm and invoke the term, the "Implicate
>Order of
Love?"
>
>So what may we do about New Orleans from a constellating point of
>view? I'd love to hear from the lurkers on the list, as well as the
>regulars.
>
>Thomas (Aquinas, anyone?)
>
>
>
>
>________________________________________________________________________
>________________________________________________________________________
>
>Message: 3
> Date: Sat, 03 Sep 2005 00:18:55 -0000
> From: "tmasthenes13" <TomBuoyed@xxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: Transference [was: Constellations with Soul AND Spirit]
>
>Allison writes:
>
><< But my question is: Phenomenologically, in a methodology that
>claims to function apart from transference, what is showing up?
>
>Yes, guys, it¹s transference.
>
>So my second question is: Wouldn¹t
it be better to let this excluded
>therapeutic forebear into the field and see how it feels?
>
>And would doing that change our way of working? If so, how?
>
>How would owning our own transferential dynamic with Hellinger as
>part of our work on self change our relationship to Hellinger and to
>the teachings?
>
>How it would it change our relationship to fellow practitioners if we
>acknowledged that transferential dynamics occur in this community?>>
>___________________________
>
>Thomas writes:
>-------------
>
>Right on, Allison! Thank you so much for articulating the issue of
>transference. D'oh! Of course! Everybody's transferring on to Bert!
>
>Now in physics, we have Newton's 3rd Law of Motion that states "for
>every reaction, there is an equal and opposite
reaction."
>
>In psychotherapy, isn't the analogue equally true? That "for every
>client transference, we have an equal and opposite therapist counter-
>transference?"
>
>In fact, isn't it the denial of that omnipresent counter-transference
>that has been the reason psychotherapy has not really been able to be
>a healing force in our Western culture up to now? Now I really ask
>the question: "Quis custodet ipsos custodes?" especially in the
>therapist's office!
>
>(I'm reminded of the book from a decade ago by James Hillman &
>Michael Ventura called _We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy
>And the World's Getting Worse_
>
>Here's an interesting excerpt & discussion about it
>http://www.personal.usyd.edu.au/~apert/hillman.html )
>
>
>So isn't the hidden
dynamic here among constellators not ***OUR***
>transference dynamics to Bert; but rather ***HIS*** counter-
>transference on to all of us?
>
>That's a much more elegant way to express what I was slashing around
>for in my previous post. I really don't care about Bert's personal
>life, but if his personal life is part and parcel of the very hidden
>counter-transference trip he's laying on me, then I have a right to
>know about it so that I can become conscious of those hidden dynamics
>and become a better facilitator, not to mention a Mensch!
>
>All righty then, has anyone ever dared to put up a constellation with
>Bert Hellinger himself represented? Maybe that's how we might
>proceed to deal with the transference---counter-transference issue.
>
>Burn me at the stake, Allison! Thank you! Nothing
like a juicy taboo
>to confront the College of Cardinals with. On with the Inquisition!
>And I like my heretics well-done, don't you?
>
>Thomas
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "tmasthenes13" <TomBuoyed@xxxxxxx>
> > To: <ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Sent: Friday, September 02, 2005 1:30 AM
> > Subject: [ConstellationTalk] Re: Constellations with Soul AND Spirit
> >
> >
> > > Barbara,
> > >
> > > Thanks for your reply. I actually have seen part of a video of Bert
> > > in Santa Barbara from a few years ago. It would be great to do a
> > > workshop with him but that means going over to France or Germany
> > > since I hear he no longer travels to the USA.
> > >
> > > But if you want more thought-provoking statements, I'll ask this one
> >
> as a proverb in Latin: "Quis custodet ipsos custodes?" ("Who will
> > > guard the guards themselves?") Explanation below.
> > >
> > > I appreciate what you say about taking any scuttlebut with many
> > > grains of salt; but there is a nagging question I have that concerns
> > > the attitude of separating out the personality of Bert from his work.
> > >
> > > What about Bert's own family system? Has he himself put himself
> > > through the same gauntlet of constellations that everyone else who
> > > becomes a facilitator must go though? And if so, does anyone know
> > > about the results?
> > >
> > > I can understand that such information would be used against him by
> > > his enemies, but on the other hand, facilitators not
knowing about it
> > > puts Bert in the superior position of a father, and in his case a
> > > Holy Father because of the ritualistic, shamanic, and Catholic
> > > aspects of his work and being. That's why I joke about him as Pope
> > > Bert, knowing that I can tell more truth in jest than in serious
> > > talk. Are we to hold his family system as sacrosanct because it is
> > > one of the secrets that children must not ask their parents about?
> > >
> > > I really feel that he has, for whatever reason, placed himself above
> > > the rest of us who are drawn so deeply to pursue and extend his work.
> > > I've recently read through both _Love's Hidden Symmetry_ and
> > > _Acknowledging What Is_. With every page, my soul does cartwheels and
> > >
raises a fist in the air and shouts YES! to the truth that I feel
> > > flows through every page in every answer to every question posed in
> > > those books.
> > >
> > > But then I wonder about the absolutism of his attitude, the
> > > infallible aura of his pronouncements, any my deep desire to believe
> > > such pronouncements. I have nothing against infallibility because the
> > > universe itself is infallible (at least the right-brain universe is,
> > > not the left). But we are all fallible in our perceptions and
> > > observations of that world and universe, and the fallibility is
> > > precisley in the realm of the mind soul where our ordinary left-brain
> > > intellectual consciousness must allow for its transcendence by the
> > >
emotions or what I like to term "heart-thinking" that goes beyond the
> > > ordinary logic of our intellects.
> > >
> > > My fear is that however sincere and well-intentioned he is,
> > > nonetheless Bert Hellinger has set himself up as a Father-God figure
> > > to all those who are drawn to pursue his work. As a Catholic and now
> > > a Hellingrite, I feel like there's two German Popes now.
> > >
> > > As I read so many of his pronouncements about God and spirituality,
> > > etc., I keep wondering how much of this is his own personal
> > > projecting which might be revealed as such if we knew about the
> > > dynamics of his own personal family systemic order.
> > >
> > > Quis custodet ipsos custodes?
> > >
> >
> Doubting Thomas
> > >
> > > (who doubts so much, he even doubts his own doubting.)> > >
> > >
> >
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