Sprooiiinnng!!! He’s 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 Dan’s 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 Kelley’s famous old comic strip --- would
say: “We has met the enemy and he is us!”
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_ ;
(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_ ;
(http://www.ulsamer.com/pages/deutsch7.html)
What is really going on when [an adult] looks up like a little child to a “
miracle worker,” 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
