the next book i just finnished reading is called the tears of the ancestors by daan van kampenhout.
he works with shammanism, jewish roots and what is called family- constellations. this book is about
moving from more individual work into the area of the tribal soul group. this would be working with
ancestors or healthy ones, with the dynamics of whatever situations happened in the reality. in this book he is working with big topics like the jewish holocaust.

see below for the wikipedia write up of constellation work for theraputic resolution.

so basically he is invited to somewhere, and perhaps a topic choosen. but individuals bring up their own family issues also. so perhaps my parents or grandparents were either nazis or jews, either way the historical events affected the family individuals traumatically. in this book he mentions a wheel of the soul, and soul levels. child, adult, elder, and death in the four directions starting in east.
then also soul levels, family soul group, tribal soul group,individual soul, and universal soul, going around starting in east.in the introduction he says shammanism, constellations and juadiaism... all three recognize the exhistance fo of the different souls, or different layers of the same soul., all three realize that noting exhists in a vacum, and that healing requires a community effort.

in his work he listens to the participants issues, or general common ones in the group and deceides upon a systematic form that could be used. individuals are choosen to represent differing persons in the story, and placed in the form. music and singing, drumming maybe used, however the people actually
channelling the people they represent giving an expression to things not resolved in the original life.

for some reason this aproach attracts me because i think its applicable in many ways to all of the historical traumas of us all. each tribe, country, people... have them, both as victims and as perpetrators.

in this book he goes thru his work working all over europe, and in israel, and even south africa.
however in my family history, i have wounded knee, the minnesota massacure, and well the largest public hanging in the usa. another point is that he is utilizing also older ancestors in the constilations to support those in trauma. this can be the older german gods, the jewish ancestors, even sarah of abraham....

in the beginning he writes this...i was leading a seminar somewhere in germany, and in my dreams at night i found myself in a small eastern european jewish shtel atleast 100 years ago or more. a young man had died and, as was the tradition, the people of that small settlement came together and brought him to his grave. in this dream i was a rabbi, saying the traditional prayers at the burial, after praying before we picked up the coffin, i spoke to those who where gatheredaround. i told the peopple that i was going to teach them a simple song, and asked them to let their tears flow.becaused we needed to cry. not only did we need to mourn for our own personal loss, but we needed to cry for the losses of our ancestors,too. the uncried tears of those who lived before us didn t magically disappear, but those tears were living in our own bodies.....

the family constillation idea is simplest explained say if my issues source is in my life time. ild choose someone to represtnt me in the womb, at birth, 6 mo., 3 years, 6, .... then they all stand in a line. he goes to the first and asks how co feels. and then if alls ok continues up the line. when the person is having a hard time, he asks whats needed... and tries to give what that person needed then. another person is placed there to support them, maybe a friend... or person given opportunity to say something they couldnt then....

my feeling is that this system, and i didnt even try to explain how it can be set up for issues dealing with say the holocaust, and working with the collective soul goups..., could be done in many kinds of groups. the whole african continent was colonised, ive talked with a few about this issue, and the whole black population in america that is cut from their roots by the whole history not even knowing their particualar ancestry.

now as we address our particualar ancestral traumas we make bridges back, but also strengthening our own personal experiences of being. and of course those ancestors that are healthy wanting to share and dance, sing, be joy with us.

well, this seems to be about where i am now.. digesting the book, and hopefully going to reread it... to get a better understanding of the more complicated constillations he is using here. forinstance, a whole group of nazis, a group of the german speaking collective, a group of the victims, a group of the ancient gods, all in one constillation.

hm, im not sure why im not finnishing this topic quickly. seems im going the long way around maybe.

from wikepedia..
The Systemic Constellation process is a trans-generational, phenomenological, therapeutic intervention with roots in family systems therapy (Psychodrama of Jacob Moreno, Virginia Satir, Iván Böszörményi-Nagy), existential-phenomenology (Brentano, Husserl, Heidegger), and the ancestor reverence of the South African Zulus. The Systemic Constellation process is sanctioned by family therapy associations in Europe and is being integrated by thousands of licensed practitioners worldwide. The work is also beginning to become known in the United States.

A Constellation can serve as an illuminating adjunct process within a conventional course of psychotherapy. While it is rooted in the psychotherapeutic tradition, the method is distinguished from conventional psychotherapy in that, 1) the client hardly speaks; 2) its primary aim is to identify and release deep patterns embedded within the family system, not to explore or process narrative, cognitive or emotional content.

The Constellation process was refined by the German-born Bert Hellinger (b. 1925).

The procedure described below represents a typical format.

Procedure of Systemic Constellations
A group of participants (10-30), led by a trained facilitator, sit in a circle. One participant (client or seeker) is selected to work on a personal issue. The others either serve as “representatives” or actively contribute by observing with concentration.

The facilitator asks, “What is your issue?” The issue may be extreme: “Two years ago my husband and child were killed in an accident. I’m trying to learn how to live with that.” It may appear to be more commonplace, such as a college student who reports, “I’m 21 years old and have been diagnosed with clinical depression.”

The facilitator asks for information about the family of origin looking for traumatic events from the past that may have systemic resonance. Such events include premature deaths, including aborted children, murders, suicide, and casualties of war, members of the family system who were denied their right to belong, such as a disabled child who was institutionalized, a baby given up for adoption, a disappeared father, or a homosexual or apostate who was banished from the family. The client does not present narrative or commentary.

Next, the facilitator asks the client to select group members to represent members of the family system. Typically, these will be the client’s immediate family or the issue itself. In the first case cited above, the facilitator began with the client and her deceased husband and child; in the second case, the client and a representative for depression.

The client stands behind each representative, placing her hands on the representative’s shoulders and moves them into place. Once the representatives are in position, the client sits and observes. The representatives stand with their arms at their sides without moving or talking. They are not role playing. For several minutes the scene is one of stillness and silence. The facilitator observes and waits.

The representatives tune into the resonance of the family field. The facilitator may inquire of each representative, “How are you feeling?” Sometimes the representatives are placid and without emotion. Other times they report strong emotions or physical effects. The reports are subjective and contain some aspect of personal projection. However, the intermixing of subjective personal projections with field resonance does not contaminate the process as a whole.

Often, what emerges is that someone in the current family is unconsciously identified with a deceased family member from a previous generation. If this connection is to an excluded person, or one who had a difficult fate, the living family member can be drawn to repeat this fate or compensate for what occurred in the past.

The facilitator slowly works with this three-dimensional portrait of the family. First, the hidden systemic dynamic comes into clear view. In the case of the young woman with depression, the hidden dynamic was the client’s invisible loyalty to the grief of her deceased grandmother.

Next, the facilitator seeks a healing resolution. In the case above, the representatives for the client and grandmother faced a third representative who symbolized the object of the grandmother’s undying grief. When the client perceived the effect her loyalty to grief had on her beloved grandmother she felt a profound release. The representatives feel relieved when the excluded person is acknowledged, restored to their rightful place in the system, and respected for the fate they endured.

Once a resolution comes to light, the client stands in her place in the constellation. The final step is for the facilitator to suggest one or two healing sentences to be spoken aloud or inwardly. In this case, the healing sentence was for the representative of the grandmother to say to the client, “Go live!”.

Afterwards, there is no processing by the facilitator. Clients who are in an ongoing course of psychotherapy can integrate these insights with their therapists.

There is a wealth of anecdotal and case study reports that over time the new image of the family system - with belonging, balance and order restored - gradually melts the archaic image that supported the entanglement (Cohen 2005; Franke 2003; Lynch & Tucker 2005; Payne 2005) . Rigorous research is needed to test objectively the longitudinal outcomes of client’s experiences with this method.