Thanks Vinay for sharing this, that's a great learning for me :)
Kind regards
Hania Gorski, M.Psych.*, *Melbourne
ph. (+61) 400 225 357
www.wholerelationships.com
www.constellationseries.wordpress.com
*The world, I’ve come to think, is like the surface of a frozen lake. We
walk along, we slip, we try to keep our balance and not to fall. One day,
there’s a crack, and so we learn that underneath us — is an unimaginable
depth. *James Joyce
On 31 August 2014 19:49, Steve Vinay Gunther spirited@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[ConstellationTalk] <ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi folks
I have just finished a workshop in Hiroshima. I wanted to share with you
some of the experience.
Beforehand, I paid the necessary visit to the Peace Museum. Every detail
of the history and background, the actuality of ground zero, and the
aftermath was there. I read every single line, looked at every single
picture, every exhibit. Many emotions going through me. It was essential to
bear witness to something absolutely intolerable. Mans’ inhumanity. The
museum didn’t mince words about the Japanese responsibility for the
destructiveness of military expansionism, the forced labour of Koreans and
other brought to work in munitions factories. It also laid out plainly,
without any unnecessary drama, the role of the US. I didn’t really fully
get it before. But dropping the bomb was absolutely unnecessary. Japan was
already engaged in negotiations to surrender. The US did not reveal the
threat of the bomb, which in itself could have completely changed
everything. They just dropped it. They needed to justify the billions of
dollars spent. And even more cynically (if its possible), is that they
wanted to mark the territory, like a dog against a lampost, so the Soviets
wouldnt have designs on Japan. So they created mass suffering, just for
this purpose; and also, for a kind of evil scientific interest in ‘what
would happen’. For years after the war the Americans operated facilities
where they would regularly examine victims of the blast, suffering
radiation sickness, but not treat them. Examine but not treat - that seems
as bad as Mengele to me.
Then the workshop; on the second day, a woman brought the issue of ‘sorry
for being me’
Her setup of the constellation was very strange. I have never seen
anything like it. The mother and father were next to each other, facing the
same direction. Then her brother was on one side, and she was on the other,
a little further away, facing in, so it looked like a U-shape, with lots of
space. Like a quadrangle.
Her grandmother was affected by the Nagasaki bomb, and died some years
later of cancer. She had shards of glass in her body, from the blast.
So I got the client to add all the grandparents. They were also arranged
in this odd manner. I commented it looked like spectators lining the
streets, with the mother and father facing forward.
It seemed clear the mother and father were facing the war, so I put a rep
for war at the front. Now it was a rectangle. It was still very odd - so
much space.
Then I remembered the pictures from the museum, of what the city looked
like after the atomic blast. Completely cleared. Nothing left. Just a big
space. This space reminded me of that space - like a hole in the middle of
everything.
So next, I placed victims on the ground in that space. The mother wanted
to join the victims, and lay down. The grandmother turned away. The client
wanted to move to the position where war was, so I put war into the middle
of the atomic blast space.
Now the client became aware of her choice - to be sorry for being alive,
and identify with her mother and the victims, to turn away as her
grandmother had done - because it was too much to hold. Or to be in the
leadership position, and bear witness to the pain and suffering and horror,
and hold onto herself. A rep for life stood behind her, and supported her.
I have tears as I write this, and of course, everyone present was deeply
moved. There were many people at the workshop who were local to Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, and who had therefore family connections to what occurred.
I appreciate so deeply this work, the capacity to broach these huge social
issues, in a way which can bring healing. And for the people who come,
willing to open up their stories, willing to do the healing work.
Vinay
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