very serious instructions for how to attend constellations

for tending to your anxiously-styled parts:

Take your piece, place, and peace…and run!

But first, show up a little bit late!

Flip your hair a little flagrantly!

Get all that you need in one fell swoop!

Selfishly!

Make no friends!

Be distant and discreet!

Hide in the bathroom on the breaks!

Say “thanks everybody!” in the middle of running out with your shoes barely on your feet!

for tending to your avoidantly-styled parts:

Show up early!

Ask if you can help move the furniture!

Maybe a little myofascial release for the host and facilitator, even!

Whatever serves everybody!

Hope to represent everyone’s very mean and bad mom and dad…an unresourced ancestor even!

At break time, make everyone a cup of mint-infused tea and make sure they get a couple cookies each!

Say “I’m just happy to be here with you people, not here for anything in particular, really!”

Practice completing courageously in front of everyone by repping the dead again and again.

Coordinate the Avoidant Collective’s giving flowers to failure praxis!

Ask who wants to go to dinner after and say that you’ll coordinate the appetizers, with pleasure!

How my Grandma Martha holds me

My Grandma Martha holds onto me from right behind.

Her arms wrapped around me.

Me. Me just as I am. Just as I am.

She follows me. As I dance around.

First she just sways right there right there behind me

And then she dances with me.

She dances with me. From right behind me.

She’s been trying to get in there for some time right behind me.

“I want to hold you with nourishment and nurturance, my sweet wild Mattie dear!”

It’s the holding I’ve been missing! I do declare!

She doesn’t leave me when it matters.

When does it matter?

It matters when I’m doing well.

It matters when I am succeeding.

It matters to me to be held when I am doing well.

She knows success intimately.

So she isn’t intimidated by my success.

She birthed six children, you see!

She created a garden, home and big family.

She was taking care of all of her kids, husband and mother at the same time!

May the embodiment of her success flow down to us all more freely!

Especially to her great-great grand daughters!

She’s right there with me, holding me in all of my and life’s complexity.

all the complexity.

Success is the face of my father’s mother.

I’m looking forward to our reconciliation.

I’m not sure when it’s going to happen but I know it’s going to happen.

Probably right here on the crust but if not, in the mycelial or the ethers for sure.

And I’m grinning ear to ear just thinking about it right here and right now.

The mere notion let my belly digest something right here and right now.

You see, I never stopped holding you dear.

I can’t help it. It’s what my emergently-abled brother taught me! I die if I don’t use what he gave me.

I have enough to include those who gave me much to set me free from chunks of empiric fuckery.

Those who saw more of me before I did.

Those who accompanied me just one step towards living more in the real awful wonder of it all.

Oh, I so look forward to it with much grace and gratitude.

I miss your beauty. And your brilliance. And your raw instinctual intelligence.

I’m curious but what I imagine is that we’ll both say,

“It’s good to see you.”

We’ll likely pretty quickly move into self-mockery and mutual musery, lifting out from some of the goop, ick and misery.

I feel my jaw dropping down now with all that you’ve learned in my absence, through the wins and the losses. Through the successes and failures. Through the empowerments and humblings. Through the sun and the lightning.

I can’t wait till I can say, “it wasn’t till you left that I realized how you were always right most everything…!”

I can’t wait till I can playfully say right to your big gorgeous face, “You’re welcome, I’m glad you realize I watered you in that!”

You’re so worldly now, putting yourself right out there right now!

Tears well with appreciation.

And then

And then things must get sober.

A feeling felt of the hurt

and the pain

and the loss

and the potential squandered.

A frown appears from both our trembling lips.

We think for a minute maybe it could’ve been different.

Then, we, with a big simultaneously surrendered sigh let out one of those, “It is what it is.”

At least now

At least now we can bring one another forward with us a bit more, even from a great parallel distance. And center even just 1% more that which we got and a teeny bit less that which what we lost.

And as we reseed what we sowed before with a scattering instead of a planting, a juicier compost allows a wider wellspring of loving remembrance…

…to take fold.

intelligence is relative

In Family and Systemic Constellations workshops, we employ the field of our collective intelligence. We each bring our own type of intelligence. As we are held in this field together, we become present to what is elementally true for us. We see a 3D representation of the images we hold inside. We give gentle loving awareness and curiosity to what feels stuck or confusing.

We might feel unsure about a relationship or our work. We might not know where to go next with a project or a decision. We might need to acknowledge our resources as we venture into the scary unknown. Maybe our connection to love and life got interrupted somewhere and we need others to bear witness with us to what happened. Maybe we’re wanting to build our capacity to hold steady.

We give the parts of complex systems space to breathe and loosen. We slow down with spacious stillness to acknowledge what is and more fully grieve what and who is gone.

And then, we find some movement and integration.

When our new movements gain some momentum, the microcosmic spirals of reconciliation grow into new modes of being and relating. These create a field of emergence where we can step into more truth, authenticity and agency.

The Knowing Field

I am seven years old. It’s just before I move houses for the first time. I am sitting cross-legged in the brown grass, at the edge of the forest, admiring the dainty snowdrops sprouting. My hands are getting dirty as I collect sticks and leaves to make a geometric pattern on the ground. I keep an eye on my brother. We’re at good distance for accompaniment, doing our own thing together. He’s concentrating carefully while tying nautical knots on the swing-set. I am listening to the birds polish the air with their chirps. Out here we’re free to follow our instincts, our natural movements. I hear the howl of winter’s wind traveling far unencumbered by summer’s leaves. I take my hat off and ponytail out to feel the cold air in my hair. I pull my bangs back to feel better the sun on my face. My pants are getting wet from the moist earth beneath me. Mom told me to wear snow pants but I was relieved when she let me not listen. I start to hum in resonance with all that I am witnessing. I am within myself and attuned to what’s without at once. My body rocks gently to praise to the breeze. I drop my head, mimicking the closest snowdrop, and smile smelling the earthy odor that tells me spring is coming.

My body, my primary partner

When I wake up in the morning, I greet my body first thing.

Recently, it has been saying, “Please rise slowly.”

I usually don’t listen.

“I’ve been slow long enough,” I proclaim.

My body, having reached its limits, got sick for three weeks. I spent the first 10 days mad at it, resisting submission.

“Surely, I’ve paid my dues now,” I arrogantly professed and demanded it work overtime to make up for lost time.

Next, I burnt my hand and broke my laptop.

“It’ll be worth it, this slowing down, I promise,” my body crooned.

“Fine, I’ll give you a couple hours to rest but after that, it’s right back to it!” Ignoring more messages and sensations, my nerve got pinched once again.

“You can’t hear me when you’re moving so fast, there’s more I want to tell you.”

“I’m at my wit’s end here, this debilitation is unprecedented!”

“You still don’t get it, do you? This molting is needed, there’s no getting around it, there’s only going through it.”

So I took a slow breath for the first time in a while. I sat wide with curiosity and wonder, realizing how I had been quite out of order.

“I guess I have been thinking quite unilaterally here.”

“Ya think?!”

We laughed together in a way bigger than the two of us and in an instant, an instinct rose from the depths when we said in unison,

“Just be more aware, you have impact on me!”

Learning Slow

There isn’t a fast track to things like

Craft

Wisdom

Embodiment

These do not have end points and they happen iteratively. Attempts to quicken these usually delay them.

On the slow track, deepening presence to meet the moment just as it is is the only “short cut.”

When we find surprise euphoric integration, it’s usually the long-time-coming together of many threads. To make it last, we often need to practice it. Practice the mindset or movement. Materialize the image at the speed our body.

We learn more from imperfect experience and relationship. We learn more from mistakes once we’ve sat with them, once we’ve courageously felt the self and other consequence. Once we’ve forgiven ourselves. We become more and more capacious to contribute once as we iteratively compost abuse and neglect.

When others hold steadfast a stance of respect and curiosity towards us, they activate our immune system. When someone trusts that we can manage our own lives, no matter what is going down, we find ourselves more able to meet the raw tenderness of our moments.

The gift of non-judgmental witness lets us have our own process, on our own time…which often quickens it.

In family constellations workshops, we practice slowing down, absorbing the healing power of stillness and silence and slow respectful movements. When we agree to a stance of collective curiosity, our experiences ripen into self-regard and wisdom. When people agree to our gifts, we become more intimate with our craft and contribution.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

You arrived the first weekend of the pandemic lockdown. When you ran under the chair, I, mirroring your movement, surrendered to the floor. You came right out and gave me a kiss. That was the first of your many sweet kisses. You turned a friend into a cat person with one of your kisses! Your final act was giving me a kiss. You, about to die, reassuring me.

You accompanied me through nine deaths of important people and many other losses in the almost four years we had together. In your willingness to stay near, you’d turn my repression into a rush of tears. You’d reach out your paw as you laid on my grief-laden chest telling me it was time to pause and let go. If your tenderness couldn’t break me, nothing could.

You had your own losses…including all of your teeth! Together, we rehabilitated-in-place, in one another’s gazes and warm embrace. We must have activated one another’s immune systems (despite our love of fried chicken, cheese and egg nog yogurt, even!). It’s fair to say that this apartment became the home I was courting for ages with your presence. You had diabetes, a heart murmur and many other issues but you were always taking things in stride with your tongue sticking out.

In my treasure trove of photos of adorable you, I am reminded again and again of your example of rest. I knew I was most on track, most in hallowed flow, the deeper you dozed in the mid-afternoon.

Of course I still look out to check on you when I come and go. When I fall asleep and rise awake. The air is so incredibly still now in our home, your anima oh so vibrant, encompassing and huge. It was hard even to put your litter box away because each part of your existence is significant to me. I want to eat from your bowl. I think I’ll use your brush tonight. Oh what a hole in my evening now without your ginger hair to groom after mine.

You, my warm and fuzzy wonder, took up a lot of space but you never asked for too much, only the right amount to reciprocate the twenty-four hour accompaniment you gave. Oh you made me laugh too. You were always posing dynamically, shamelessly begging for attention, helping me not take myself so seriously. I got a bigger desk just so there was room for all of you to lay across it. In the morning, you wouldn’t let me go back to bed if I was feeling down or listless, you meowed and then jumped up on the desk beckoning me to show up even during the peak hellscapes.

Your death is a pin straight through my heart. Through this grief there are parts of myself for better and worse that I cannot unknow.

Sgt Pepper (Sarge)