Dear Chris and Tom,
the unprecedented flurry of reactions to the two posts of yours
has covered an enormous range of possible points of view, no need to add
to that except for endorsing the suggestions expressed by Paul Chung and
Anita Roy.
So why this one coming from me?
My name too was mentioned by you, Tom,
having written well over a year ago about
Bert Hellinger's emotional reaction to the rendition of
Ich hatt' einen Kameraden at his 81st birthday party,
you put me as the one who made the link for you.
What an awful pity you had to write all the preceding stuff you did,
perhaps not many managed to read right to the end
thus missing out on a clue towards understanding Bert.
I owe it to you, to know for the first time
during this German born life the lyrics of the song
and was taken by the words,
strongly reinforced by reading your translation.
The universality of Uhland's poem
-processing his personal connection with BOTH sides of one
particular conflict expressed as war-
touched me.
Written 200 years ago, when there was no
such an entity as Germany,
it cannot be sullied by any attempt
to hijack it for whatever purpose.
Now even more than I could then
do I feel with the emotions that surfaced in Bert
while listening to the melody (btw taken from a Swiss folk song).
His frequent quoting the ancient Greek wisdom:
"war is the father of all things" comes to mind.
The experience of comradeship beyond death
in the service of ones tribe stands for itself.
So many times do we witness during constellations
the powerful hold of dead comrades on the surviving ones,
so what is wrong with Bert honouring his,
perhaps thanking them for enabling him to survive
to give to all of us the gift he gave?
Max Dauskardt
Melbourne, Australia
max@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
