Ready or Not

Notes from a Workshop with Bert Hellinger in 2002

“Ready or not, here I come” is the chant from a traditional children's game. And these were the words that came into my mind as I sat down in the cavernous auditorium in Washington, DC, waiting for the workshop to begin.

I had already heard that Bert's current work was causing some commotion not only among neophytes, but also among those who have followed it for some time. So, frankly, I was curious. What could rile even those already well acquainted with Bert's brand of controversy? As people slowly filed in with their notebooks and coffee, I wondered too about the expectations I was quietly harboring that might cause me to be disappointed or disturbed by his recent exploration. I was sure they were there, even if I couldn't at the moment locate them.

Ah, these expectations came into focus more quickly than I had anticipated. Of course, Bert never wasted time. I had seen scores of constellations, had worked hard to understand how they were anchored by certain insights into “the orders of love,” had grown accustomed to tracking the relationships between current symptoms and past deeds, had settled into the neutrality of destiny, had started to find a vocabulary to describe the work ... where was it all?

Those who sat next to Bert in this place at this time were facing a crossroads not only in their own growth but also in the evolution of the work itself. They were not necessarily going to be asked to select representatives for their family of origin or their current family. Perhaps they wouldn't even be asked to state an issue. Bert might have the client and another entity, say, a parent or a particular fate, face each other. Or he might sit silently, while the client moved through various stages with his or her partner, unimpeded by any apparent intervention. Simple (if not easy) statements might be left hanging in the air for a bit of forever. The “process,” it seemed, had gone underground, and what we were left with were the small, bold gestures that remain on the surface.

As I walked back to the hotel the first night, having become completely lost on what should have been a five-minute journey, the paintings of Robert Motherwell came to mind (perfect name, I laughed to myself). When I look at his paintings (or those of any of the abstract expressionists), I have the feeling that if I turned the painting over I would see the rest of the landscape, the teeming life forces that the canvas just can't contain in an image. What seeps through – the painting that is shown to the world -- is what the viewer can tolerate as the artist attempts to express something monumental. Somehow, this seemed relevant as I tried to find my way into the first day’s experience.

I returned the next morning the trusting skeptic. For the next two days, quick, almost-violent revelations …slow gentle unfoldings … generations desperate to break through … others still held by something more expedient than truth ... people roughly dismissed … others sweetly welcomed ... a tough guide, unapologetic.

As clients walked into and out of the space, they seemed undifferentiated on some level. Not that there wasn't poignance and dignity in each story, but that with the drama of the constellations no longer visible, it was more difficult to name the experience of witnessing the work, nearly impossible to delineate "steps."

As I watched, Motherwell came to mind again and again.

Perhaps as Bert moves deeper into his work (rather than away from it), he is, among many things, the artist. “Soul work,” as he calls what he is doing now, is the expression or revelation of something monumental. In the gesture, the sentence, the image, the seepage – whether beautiful or ugly – there is the reflection of a monumental force. Sometimes a single stroke on the canvas is what we can tolerate of the artist’s vision. The vision, of course, doesn't belong to the artist; he or she is a kind of channeler for the soul in all of its madness and grace. And rather than a grand title, "artist" is someone who is humble in a very deep sense, in constant awe of the canvas where what can be tolerated is seen, providing just a hint of what is beyond. The soul in all of its madness and grace.

In the game of "Hide and Seek," the seeker stands with eyes closed and waits, counting off the isolated seconds. After some time, he or she calls out: Ready or not, here I come.

© 2002 Suzi Tucker