Constellations - the language of relationship systems

Last week it was brought home to me just how important constellations are as the language of relationship systems (relationship system = an interdependent group with common purpose or identity). A group of relatively new ORSC practitioners was meeting on Skype, coming from a variety of dimensions of our world – working in the cities and the townships, in companies and the public sector.

It was the night before our local government elections. As each person checked in, it emerged that every single one had been using constellations in their work around the country.

Information Constellations are an ORSC adaptation of the work done by Bert Hellinger and Virginia Satir. They offer an opportunity for all members of a relationship system to "vote with their feet" on an issue,  creating a snapshot of the system at that moment

Here are some of the voices:

• “With a community group working with stress and change, we used a constellation at the end of the day to help them check on their alignment.”
• “We are going to Kimberley soon and we will definitely use constellations”
• “In our diversity work, we found that constellations work really well for emotive topics, where people are scared to say the wrong thing in words. Simply moving to express themselves is deeply empowering.”

So much of our work is about seeing, feeling and hearing the system and revealing it to itself. And so much of what our country needs is for all voices to be heard. Yet we often lack a common language. Sometimes the power dynamics leave people feeling unsafe to say what they really want to say.

What touched us all on the call last week was how the relatively light, open style of ORSC informal constellations creates space for the delicate and vulnerable process of all people expressing themselves and being heard. And how it enriches our democracy to have more ways to be heard than only the (albeit precious) ballot box.