Constellation work involves the reconciliation of what has been separated, as pathway to peace for the soul. It is clear that different countries, politics, and religions form mental fields of conscience that operate via the inclusions and exclusions that a particular conscience dictates. It is also clear that there are consequences from every act of inclusion or exclusion in the knowing field. We know that the Orders of Love are important here and laws of priority are paramount. We have experienced that the knowing field exists and that mental fields exist wherever there is a group. In this article I would like to take a closer look at these fields via a metaphysical perspective that relates to the personal contribution of all Family Constellation workers.
What happens for us as a facilitator and a client in all these fields? How do we contribute to them and how are we affected by them and by each other? How do we act and what motivates our actions? The effects of genetic, psychic, early patterning and conditioning can clearly be seen. It is also possible to navigate our way to reconciliation with good psychotherapeutic training and various interpersonal skills and abilities. It is here we attempt to rectify or restore that which has been distorted or forgotten.
For some of us those restorative and rectifying processes employ a ‘mental’ approach, focusing on
systemic strategies for addressing identified needs and assessing what specific changes are required. Aims and objectives are drawn up for presenting systemic understanding to a world of academics and affecting a marketplace which is often unreceptive and resistant to change.
Family Constellations are marketed as something new and perhaps revolutionary. In an attempt to gain respect for the work and maybe enter the medical arena, specific indications and contra-indications for the work may be outlined.
This approach is outward-focused, using the masculine principle in order to differentiate, and give focus to the work. Weighing and comparing are important here and so is expanding one’s territory. Achieving control over one’s dominion and being absorbed in issues of success or failure also play a part; so, do dominance, heroism, and conquering. These are all archetypal representations of characteristics and behaviors that belong to the masculine principle of life. The Intellect is acute, even cutting when it needs to be. It has great potential for destruction of the old and recreation of the new, for a co-existence in the outer world of matter and simultaneously relating it to the internal world. There is a need to define in order to take action based on those definitions. The energy is assertive and strong and pushes along the linear and horizontal lifelines of survival and self-preservation, mapping and setting the boundaries of the world of Family Constellation work, preparing an outer ‘house’ or ‘haven’, a ‘position’ or ‘posture’ that our individual conscience can relate to and choose to be involved in. This masculine energy creates a ‘form’ to help facilitate the ‘formless’. Structures, maps, and guidelines offer protection for the work and preserve its inner sacredness. It ‘hunts’ for new ways for the work to adapt to old and new environments.
All of this is the work of the masculine, the left brain of being human. There is a very different energy for approaching the same mental fields of constellation work. Operating with
this kind of energy means entering the ‘mental field’ of conscience with a deep and hidden personal magnetism and yet with the same intention to rectify and restore what has been distorted or forgotten and the same longing for change, improved outcomes, respect and recognition for the work. However, the energy may appear passive,
all-encompassing, directionless, motionless, and unfocused.
This is the way of the heart – illogical, imaginative, romantic, mythical, and even sometimes religious, seeking beauty through grace and love. Using the power of receptivity contained in the womb-like nature of the feminine, the primary focus is nature itself, supporting the hidden pathways of the soul’s environment and honoring the sacred space necessary for movement to happen. Family Constellations are recognized not as something new, but as something ancient; ‘origin’ takes precedence over ‘originality’. Love and magnetism breathe life into primordial metaphysical blueprints that are dying from lack of inner nourishment. Nurturing is the prime motivation. The magnetic movements of giving and taking and of receiving and reaching, create oceanic oscillations in these mental fields that can only be felt and seen as light in the eyes and beings of all who participate. The focus is on the inner world, with co-existence also in both fields in order to relate the inner to the outer. There is little interest in defining, but rather in identifying what is, via the intuition and allowing action to happen by itself. Such energy is ‘magnetic’ and moves backwards and forwards with giving and taking. It creates the momentum necessary for a movement of the soul to happen.
This is the work of the feminine and the right brain of being human.
Integration of both Principles Energy dynamics within the current ‘mental fields’ of Family Constellations can be directly related to the male and female principles of left and right brain hemispheres. The male energy has efficiency and direction, the female, grace and love. For any work involving transformation of human energy states, both are needed. The momentum of the feminine provides the intensity required to take the ‘quantum leap’ into transcendence. The male energy gives the direction and strength to support movements of the spirit- mind beyond conscience. Without the coming together of left and right brain and the inclusion of both male
and female, all of us remain only half a human being. All divisions, separations, and fragmentations of being, internal or external, can be traced to this one deep understanding – that deep down we all long to be a whole human being with a balance between logic and love, between intellect and intuition.
If we can aspire to this integration, we become anchored to the ‘origin’ of the work we all love and are involved in. The teachings are sacred and ancient and existed before Hellinger was able to give form to them. Our work is to preserve this sacred gift which has surfaced at a time of great chaos – a chaos that is facilitating the disruption of paternalism and a male- dominated collective conscience. A new male energy is emerging out of this chaos and is moving to unite with the feminine aspect both within and without and to serve the feminine. We need to be careful that our masculine energy does not get lost in dominance and the wish to conquer which can so easily destroy the feminine.
We also need the feminine within to take a stand in the present to integrate this strength given by the masculine.
The future of family constellation work and indeed the planet will depend on our inner collective attitudes to these current changes. The main goal of this work is to bring consciousness and attention to the restoration of balance within us. This requires a loving co- operation of all opposing polarities everywhere; however, they manifest.
Embracing the Creative Future As we can see history has set precedence for the possibility of holistic and transformative perception. A few scientists and mystics have studied the inner and outer evolutionary polarities of being human. They are celebrating the light on the horizon of holistic understanding and perception as a pathway to a creative future. The shared insights of scientists and mystics alike begin the process of melting and merging into a single-pointed vision for humanity as a whole, as one, as a unity of consciousness. They are looking via two eyes towards a third eye of reality.
For myself, recent experiences and soul movements have led me to observe the following about perception as a whole.
The left eye is the feminine eye that connects to the right side of the brain. Its governing tendencies include:
- Romance
- Idealism
- Effects
- Subjectivity
- Metaphysics
- Innocence
- Victimization
- Receptivity
The right eye is the masculine eye that connects to the left side of the brain. Its governing tendencies include:
- Rationality
- Concepts
- Science
- Causality
- Objectivity
- The Physical
- Guilt
- Perpetration
- Creativity
- Protection
All differences and blind love that result in conflict are, in my view, a consequence of one-eyed perception. Growing awareness about ‘how’ we perceive, and from which polarity we are looking, is immensely helpful when attempting to let go of any prejudiced perception we may have. Each governing tendency of one-eyed sight takes root in past history and in morphogenetic fields of evolution. However, beyond biological and psychological evolution of the body/mind, awareness, and consciousness work to dissolve identifications that prevent holistic perception.
Looking in the present with two eyes requires an open, relaxed, and receptive training that involves meditation which can lead to the development of psychic insight or the awakening of the ‘third eye’. This third reality sees beyond duality and begins to bring together all that has been separated. It creates a channel of understanding that is able to reconcile and integrate all perceived opposites. Ideally this type of looking is necessary to perceive soul movement in the knowing field of Family Constellation work, and of course in life in general.
However, such looking comes at a great cost to the observer. The witness has to confront and transform the three main veils of the past that prevent present perception. These illusory
Veils manifest in fear, pain and anger, culminate in various forms of hatred, and take their life from roots in the past and the two-dimensional world of opposites. Ironically the freewill movements to engage totally in one-eyed perception with awareness, is the only means to grow the awareness needed to transform opposition into sameness. This can see us floundering away in a dark sea of resistance among waves of anger, pain, fear, and hatred until we are able to grasp what has been separated and bring it back into the light of the present.
Soul movement is the movement in the field from darkness (past history) to light (love in the present); that includes letting go of all of our (one-eyed) ideas of love. Morphogenetic fields are bound together by the past that plays out in the conscience of all in the form of guilt and innocence. I suspect that every attempt to maintain a position of guilt or innocence is secondary to a primary intention that avoids paying the price that looking with two eyes commands: taking responsibility for personal anger, pain, fear, and hatred.
This prompts me to ask: Is one-eyed vision the only thing that prevents the soul from moving towards love? Is looking beyond belonging, beyond guilt and innocence and beyond the past, our only choice of action in the present? The difficulty is that we can’t look beyond any of it whilst still participating in it! One thing is for sure, it is not love that transfers the past into the present: it is pain, fear, anger, and hatred. Each of us has an opportunity to harness these energies for transformation every moment of the day.
