Hi Thomas!
Liked your post and your insight into the God/Guru dynamics are spot on--
and have seen what you described. What's more, I was at the Congress and I
felt that Hunter was indeed saying that in some significant way the work
hasn't quite done it for him and that he is looking beyond to the spiritual
dimension. I found that a wonderful contemplation because it raises several
tempering questions and cautions:
* Putting our own work in the right place, rather than inflating its
importance
* Approaching with caution the karmic aspects of intervening in family
systems
* Understanding that the family system nests within a greater reality
At the same time, I also felt (so to speak) the "dark" side to his comments,
and wondered whether for him the search for the divine, for a better Dad was
still continuing-- and had not been quenched by constellation work-- and
also whether, despite all protestations to the contrary, transferential
dynamics with Bert, were playing a part. Was Hunter playing out the role of
refusenik son, son trying to emancipate himself from an overly whatever
father etc etc...? He's entitled-- Bert is neither his Dad nor the
personification of the divine.
But the real question for me remains-- since so much religion and spiritual
faith -- gets appropriated as the fill-in for parental deficits --- gets
inflated-- becomes the grist for inclusion/exclusion dramas-- what remains?
I've found some peace in Dietrich Klinghardt's articulation that it lies
beyond, in silence, as a direct personal experience-- and this also
reconnects me to the ancestral Jewish sensibility that the name that is the
real name is not to be spoken.
Also thanks for Pogo citation-- love Pogo-- where is Pogo now?
Also am doing some exploration in dramatization and we would correspond
separately on this...
Alison
On 1/2/06 8:04 PM, TomBuoyed@xxxxxxx at TomBuoyed@xxxxxxx wrote:
Sprooiiinnng!!! He¹s back! The jack-in-the-box from Los Angeles! (I just
love that image of me you provided, Alison). But have no fear, for Fast
Eddie Z will be back here next weekend to resume his training and keep
Thomas off the streets and even off the back alleys of CT!
Happy New Year everyone!
I'm actually busy writing a play about an [American] Civil War figure killed
in battle and running fairly productive constellations with Annalea for the
characters in the play and their relationship to me as playwright as well as
their own family constellations. What a round robin. I stand in for
characters that I have created for this play, but they are also real people
in history, with real entanglements.
Yet there is the eerie experience of representing actual people who in turn
are representing me as author. I feel somewhat like the Chinese emperor who
dreamed of being a butterfly, but then wondered if he was really a butterfly
dreaming he was an emperor.
Quite a new dimension to systemic work, not to mention a way to channel my
innate Irish mascot mischief making away from CT and into more productive
channels (pun intended). On that note, I'd very much like to hear from
anyone out there who has already done such constellation field work in
theater or film or TV.
I see from Dan¹s recent postings that the Hellinger camp has been jousting
with the Steiner camp. Not to worry. These Steinerites are much better at
shooting themselves in the foot than shooting others. I should know since
I've gone from true believer to maverick to heretic to outcast and now to
tired old man Prodigal Son during my 30 years of involvement with
anthroposophy --- including my sporadic experience as a Waldorf teacher at
schools in New York and Los Angeles.
As Pogo the Possum --- in Walt Kelley¹s famous old comic strip --- would
say: ³We has met the enemy and he is us!²
So I would like to make a contribution to the CT list on the subject of
Steiner, Hellinger and religious spiritual longings by translating a passage
of Berthold Ulsamer, from an article he has online at
http://www.ulsamer.com/pages/deutsch7.html
(Berthold gave me permission to translate the whole article, but for now,
I'm just translating the part where he reports a constellation done with a
family of devout anthroposophists.)
The entire article is in part about the longing for spiritual experience as
a way of resolving family problems. Its title is a nice play on words in
German, which I have attempted to render a bit clumsily in two English
versions. Preferences? Or your own renderings?
(Er-)Lösung durch Familien-Stellen?
Salvation or Solution through Family Constellations?
Redemption or Resolution through Family Constellations?
If you scroll down about 1/3 of the way, you will find the original German
excerpt that I translated.http://www.ulsamer.com/pages/deutsch7.html
What is really going on when [an adult] looks up like a little child to a
³miracle worker,² guru, or messianic figure? Such behavior can provide us
with important insights in family constellations. I remember a
constellation, when an entire family all looked in a single direction where
nobody stood. All of them were thoroughly committed Anthroposophists. So
Rudolf Steiner [the founder of anthroposophy] was represented in this family
and he became the focal point, the center, to whom every family member
looked. Their total attention streamed out to him.
But things really changed when the representative for the paternal
grandfather was brought in. Previously hidden tensions suddenly manifested.
These tensions had been concealed by the collective attention for Steiner
and covered up, as it were, by the grandfather being disconnected from the
family.
The same principle is also observable in very religious families, which are
absolutely dedicated to God. In such a family constellation, it is a
courageous step to select someone to be a representative for God and thus
give God a place in the family. As a rule, the representative of God will
feel inner peace and love. However, things are different with the family
members who face God. They are expectant, discontent and annoyed.
Then, if the father is represented, it becomes immediately apparent, how
God, as a projection figure, is forced to bear the brunt of the tensions,
the unfulfilled wishes, whatever is unspoken and of course, the [family]
secrets. Suddenly, it is obvious that most of these feelings concern persons
in the family. But instead of the family clarifying and resolving their
relationships, all their expectations, all their pain and all their
disappointments are shifted onto God.
Thus a [adult] child does actually stand there, a child whose image of God
is superimposed over the image of his or her father and thus distorted.
However, if the client begins to confront the father, even argue with him,
then part of the ambiguity in the perception of God clarifies. Then God once
again has his place in the family, but now his place is a bit more authentic
and unblemished. God is more noticeable as a genuine presence.
Thomas
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