Life Constellations: Smelling a Rose Without a Sign
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'You are walking in nature, and you see a beautiful and great smelling flower. How do you look at it? You are walking in nature, and you see a beautiful and great smelling flower with the sign ‘Rose’ in front of it. How are you looking at the flower? When do you have more and when do you have less?’
This paragraph from Bert Hellinger was quoted by Jan Jacob Stam in an article on the phenomenon of names, and the variety of names we use when we talk about “family constellations”.
Systemic, Organisational, Ancestral, Quantum, Societal, Community, Health, Akashic, Shamanic, Inner parts, and Holistic are some of the labels used to define the systemic and phenomenological approach that Hellinger called “family constellations”. Depending on the type of issue we want to explore, or the field where the issue originated and where we find the solution, we use one label or another. With those labels we try to define the context, and at the same time, says Jan Jacob, we might confine it. Using one name, I exclude what is not in that name.
We know that we belong simultaneously to so many systems, ethnicity, family, gender, workplaces, associations, neighbourhood, religion, and so on. A physical illness can originate in an entanglement with a family member. Anxiety and depression may be the consequence of migratory grief. The fields we belong to are interconnected and overlapping, and constellations help us see all these layers simultaneously.
'Sometimes we differentiate the field of family, the personal fulfillment and happiness in relationships, on one side, and the field of profession and workplace, on the other side, as if we could separate them. However, they follow the same laws of success and failure, the same laws of happiness and misfortune, the same laws and orders of life and love', observed Bert Hellinger.
The fields and layers we so carefully differentiate with labels are still permeable to life and love. Life infiltrates our personal, family, work and societal fields as she pleases, brushing aside our well categorised world.
So, on the one hand, we continue to classify our reality in little boxes. It helps us grasp that reality, feel safer and more in control. And yet, we know that life is larger than us and cannot be grasped. She will overflow all our rational boundaries like water can overflow the limits of a dam.
What if we could make those boundaries more permeable then, like a membrane that defines without limiting us? Like our Australian ocean baths, those beautiful pools built on the coast that are open enough to allow the waves to wash over and fill them on the high tide, whilst providing enough protection from dangerous rips and currents for one to enjoy the magnificence of the ocean in relative safety.
Labelling Family, Societal or Organisational constellations can help us communicate the field we feel more comfortable working with, and attract people who resonate with that field. This doesn't mean that we cannot be fully open to something bigger, and include the information that needs to be seen, regardless of the field it belongs to. Working beyond labels, without intention. Each facilitator bringing their best to support others in service of life.
Whatever name we call them, constellations are the practice of embracing life without filters, from a deep state of presence. Bypassing our minds. All constellations are life constellations. A wonderful opportunity to dare smelling the rose without a sign.
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