Returning to Membership in Earth Community: Systemic Constellations with Nature

Francesca Mason Boring, Kenneth Edwin Sloan

Stream of Experience Productions, Jul 31, 2013 - Nature

An anthology from 14 contributors about using systemic constellations to help people experience the nature in them and around them. includes 48 color photos.

About the author

Francesca Mason Boring is an international facilitator and teacher of Systems Constellation, including: Family Systems Constellation, Nature Constellation, Community Constellation, Organizational Constellation and Constellation as Ceremony. Author, and contributing writer to several books her most recently published: Connecting to Our Ancestral Past: Healing through Family Constellation, Ceremony & Ritual (North Atlantic Books, 2012) is a pragmatic, spiritual journey that introduces a variety of specific rituals and conversations in connection with Constellations work, an experiential process that explores one's history and powerful events of the past to understand and resolve problems of the present. A range of voices from around the world--leaders in the fields of systems constellations, theoretical physics, and tribal traditions--contribute to this exploration of aboriginal perspectives that will benefit facilitators of Constellations work, therapists, and human beings trying to walk with open eyes and hearts. Francesca writes for, and serves on the Advisory Board for The Knowing Field, the International Systems Constellation Journal published in England. John Cheney. I was born in 1961 in South Weymouth, Massachusetts, USA. I had an interest in music from a young age and received my B.A. in music at the University of Colorado. A life-long study of improvisational music has deeply influenced my facilitating of Systemic Constellations. Zita Cox (MBACP: BA hons; Dip Counseling; Dip.H; Msc.) is an experienced facilitator of Constellations. Her interests expanded in the 1990's to include eco-psychology. Training in family systems constellations with Albrecht Mahr in 2000. This combination led Zita to extend and pioneer the application of the constellation technique to issues relating to the environment. Zita has worked for 24 years as an integrative counselor, psychotherapist and supervisor both in private practice and in the National Health Service. Zita has worked as coach and consultant for managers in both the corporate and voluntary sectors and facilitated environmental constellations for individuals, organizations, environmental campaigners, Lawyers and as a Team Development and research and educational tool. Zita's first degree is in Philosophy; Zita has facilitated environmental constellations in Europe, California, and New Zealand. She has presented environmental constellations workshops at over twenty conferences for many different Professions. She has written an article on Environmental Constellations, 'A Different Kind of Field Trip', published in 'The Knowing Field' January 2007. She did a research paper into Bystanding and Intervention in extreme situations, contributed as a chapter in 'Balancing Acts: Studies in Counseling Training' edited by Hazel Johns (Routledge 1998). Andreas Demmel. I was born in the summer of 1984 in Rosenheim am Inn in Bavaria, Germany. My grandparents on both sides were farmers. Our families had been been rooted in the Bavarian land and had worked that land for countless generations so my ancestral memory was already filled with a strong relation to the earth. In Bavaria it was normal to dominate other beings and then to consume parts ("products") of their reproductive processes (eggs/milk) or even the beings themselves (meat). It was normal to suppress trans-generational traumas from the wars that included domination over the Jews and other peoples and groups. It was also normal to talk about spirituality without talking about the joy of sexuality. I have lived in Berlin since August of 2011. I experience Berlin as a big melting pot, a large laboratory, where many people - professionals, researchers and magicians - who have explored the issues around global change meet together. I am one of those who have come to Berlin to participate in this. Together we combine our insights to create a field in which everyone immersed and engaged in this topic profits from the nourishing effects of the various approaches and insights. Daan van Kampenhout, born 1963, studied with teachers from various cultures. His most important shamanic teachers were of the Lakota, Southern Ute and Sami. Daan's shamanic teachings have been developed over 20 years of teaching experience in many different countries and cultures, and are based on the wheel of the four directions and the guidance that comes through dreams. He is the author of seven books about shamanism and his work has been translated into ten languages. Chrisjan (drs. C.J.M.) Leermakers, M.Sc. I was born in a village in the south of Holland. My father was a veterinarian. I often went to the farms with him to help cure the animals. I went to the Gymnasium and after that I studied Physical Geography at the University of Amsterdam and worked for many years in nature and environmental protects in the Netherlands, among others at the tourist board (ANWB) and the national nature management agency (Staatsbosbeheer). Currently (2013) I'm working at the national organization for water and highways (Rijkswaterstaat). From about 1995 I changed my direction and began taking courses in inner child therapy, emotional bodywork, NLP, geomancy, intuitive training and family and organization constellation facilitating. Over the last 10 years I have a practice as a Constellation Facilitator, Therapist, and Coach. I play in a jazz-band in Amsterdam as a saxophonist and I'm the father of a son and a daughter. Beth Murray, CCH is a certified classical homeopath for both humans and animals. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and has a private practice for people and sees animals at several veterinary clinics there. She pioneered a program that provides homeopathy to zoo animals. She is also a poet; many of her books play with the capacity of language to represent the natural world and animal experience. Sneh Victoria Schnabel. Internationally known constellation facilitator, trainer and conference speaker. Faculty member of the annual International Training Intensive in Bernried, Germany. Co-creator and creative director of three conferences on constellation work and spirituality. Creator and director of the School of The Path Less Traveled. Published article: Chaos-Constellations in The Knowing Field magazine, and others. Co-author of the German constellation book: Derselbe Wind Läßt Viele Drachen Steigen. She holds a B.A. in Art and Art History, and has seven years experience teaching and counseling in high school. She co-directed and acted in an experimental theater, and did three years pro-bono work counseling in prison. During the 1980s, she spent time in India, three years in Italy and one year in the United States--training in breath-awareness and other therapies. During her stay in Italy, she lived and worked in a meditation and therapy center in the hills of Tuscany. In 1993, she met Bert Hellinger, with whom she learned constellation work. Her current work interests include rituals, "coyote medicine", and chaos constellations. She enjoys organic gardening, gathering wild herbs, creating wall paintings, and watching movies with her American husband--who is also the organizer of her work, and with whom she lives in Freiburg, Germany. Susan Schlosser has her roots in the Kettle Moraine and Great Lakes region of Wisconsin. Her fundamental and essential relationship with the Earth was formed upon that land and has sustained her through all the varying streams that have made up her life. After achieving her Bachelors Degree in Nursing she worked in the Intensive Care and Coronary Care Units, was an in-home Hospice nurse and ran an award winning Wellness Program. She went on to complete a Masters Degree in Applied Behavioral Science and Counseling. Her work has been influenced by Hakomi, the Enneagram and The Work of Byron Katie, and profoundly impacted by her ten year study and consequent integration and facilitation of Constellation Work. Her deep desire to facilitate the opening of our hearts to ourselves, each other and our Beloved Planet is woven through her perspective and has motivated her life choices and direction. She has a profound respect for our holistic nature and the importance of integrating all aspects of our being to achieve a high level of health, vitality, enjoyment and loving connection with All That Is. She has been in private practice for 19 years in Ashland, Oregon working with individuals, couples, families and relationships of all kinds, indoors and out. It is through this work that all the tributaries and experiences of her life are woven together. Taking her work into the Wilds of Nature is a fulfilling confluence of her passions. She lives in deep gratitude to her Relations, Ancestors and Teachers of all forms. Berchthold Wasser is the married father of two daughters. For over twenty years he has been the owner and head of a small engineering office in Thun, Switzerland. Since finishing his studies as a forestry engineer at the ETH in Zürich, the forest has been his most important field of interest, especially protection of the forests of the European Alps. I grew up on a farm at the border of a stream close to the forest and enjoyed lots of freedom there. Nature has influenced me and my life directly and effortlessly. Studying forestry engineering was yet another step towards nature for me. And indeed, this career choice has enabled me to work in and for the forest for three decades. In my work I have developed a lot of interesting projects and solved challenging issues for forest owners in several Swiss cantons and especially for the Swiss federal environment agency ("Bundesamt für Umwelt") in Bern. The consulting service for forest rangers and administration is still my main work today. During my studies, I realized that we are able to answer a lot of questions using the traditional analytic scientific approach. However, in practice I have found that a strictly rational analytic approach often contributes more to the problem than provides solutions because the "objectivity" disconnects what essentially belongs together. This realization led me to search for ways that bring things together versus separate them. My work with Nature Constellations is a direct result of that search.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Returning to Membership in Earth Community: Systemic Constellations with Nature
• Editors: Francesca Mason Boring, Kenneth Edwin Sloan
• Contributors: John Cheney, Zita Cox, Andreas Demmel, Peter De Vries, Sara Fancy, Daan van Kampenhout, Kirsten Love Lauzon, Chrisjan Leermakers, Beth Murray, Sneh Victoria Schnabel, Susan Schlosser, Berchthold Wasser
• Publisher: Stream of Experience Productions, 2013
• ISBN: 0982607768, 9780982607763
• Subjects: Nature / General; Psychology / General