By Elisa Novick
In November I will be presenting my workshop, Kinship Dynamics and the Flows of History, in Malaysia. As I was writing about it, I felt strongly to share with you some of what I’ve learned from working with people in sessions and workshops about generational healing. Readers of Planet Waves are already familiar with the effects of the relational patterns of cosmic forces on our lives and how they can play out in our families and nations and I’m sure will make a lot of “Aha!” connections with what I am presenting here.
Because I’ve been blessed to be able to combine family and systemic constellation work with spiritual awareness and an understanding of the necessities of karma, experience has taught me that healing on the systemic-historical level is essential for each of us — personally and for the larger patterns we are all part of.
When you look at another person, you see a single human being, yet that person is deeply interwoven into multiple larger patterns, a constellation of people who are each also interwoven with others and with what has taken place historically, rippling through time. We cannot have global health as long as the damage that has accumulated over millennia of familial and tribal strife is not brought to peace. Unresolved disturbance on any level can impact our lives and relationships for generations.
Once we begin to search for healing for ourselves and our world, the possible contexts multiply. Here are examples of contributing forces we can put on display:
- Family of origin and step-families, and all other members of the extended family, present and past generations
- Relationships with spouse and spouse’s family
- Friendship, tribe, business, organization, school, institution, legal system
- Political, religious, ethnic, economic, societal, ecological and global forces
- Emigration, famine, epidemics, war, slavery, persecution, abuse, crime, victim and persecutor roles
- Genetic, karmic and spiritual trajectories
- Art, music, architecture, era, geometric and astrological effects, energetic-spiritual realms and cosmic patterns
- Land, rocks, trees, animals, plants, water, weather, geography, directional forces
- Elementary principles: life force, death, illness, love, Light and Dark, color, sound, motherhood, fatherhood, psyche, Spirit