by Keggie Carew
Then Headscarf says, ‘I need a connection. I need to do this together.’
Her whole body tips forward. She keels into the constellating area. The Zone. The facilitator hurriedly appoints her ‘Ideology’. Ideology stands in front of Civilisation (who was originally Colonialism) and glares. After a bout of glaring she moves to stand behind Nature. The next time I look, Ideology is giving Nature a neck rub.
‘What has been happening for you?’ the facilitator asks Civilisation.
‘My arm started swaying,’ he says. ‘What has been happening for you?’ the facilitator asks The Secret. The Secret tells us she didn’t want to be looked at. Didn’t want to be scrutinised.
Hmm.
We break for lunch. My friend has disappeared to the loo so I gravitate to the woman who lived in The Wilderness. I want to hear about eating berries, watching bears, swimming in icy rivers.
‘Where were you, when you lived in the wilderness?’ I ask.
‘In France,’ Wilderness tells me. With her boyfriend, who was a terrible man, and a horse, and a donkey, and two dogs, a cat. And probably a whole village, but I didn’t like to ask. The garden outside the conference room has a bench under some trees. I take my apple outside. As I look up I see the remnants of a dead bird dangling from a branch. Another branch has snagged a sandwich wrapper. When I look back inside, everyone is beginning to sit down. I see my friend and hurry in, but there is no time to talk because we are having another debrief, and then, oh good, we will be constellating again.
Headscarf tells us how moved she was by the previous session.
A dark-haired woman in a long skirt says, ‘I felt the power in the Tragedy of Time’.
The person next to her is nodding: ‘I want to know something but I don’t know what it is.’
I lose my ability to concentrate on the lulling voice of the facilitator as I am distracted by looking at everyone’s socks, because everyone has taken their shoes off, and I am quite surprised at how many of their socks are odd. Then The Writer! is up, out of his seat, almost charging around the room, back, forth. He confirms his cast, The Boy, The Mother, The Father, The Grandfather, The Grandchildren, but now he needs a Grandmother. Yes! My friend!
Reluctantly she is beckoned from her seat. The Grandmother is blind . . . luckily. My friend stands stiffly in the circle with the other chosen, her cheeks pinking. I put my head back down to my notebook because I am trying to keep a nasty little smile off my face.
‘We need Nature,’ the facilitator coos, looking around for Nature. The Writer! beckons Nature to come forth again.
‘We need Story, to represent all stories. The storyteller from the wise Inuit tribe,’ the facilitator says.
And so Inuit is chosen – at last, the woman with the shut eyes and outstretched arms with veins rising to the surface, who needed to be here to address what was happening to the planet, who earlier had thought she’d been chosen as The Boy. She stands at the centre, tall, thin and rather lovely, with clear skin and long elegant fingers. The Grandchildren move towards her. They stand powerfully, expressively. But Inuit is already deep-breathing. Her arms begin to rise as if pulling the air into her. Now she is swaying. The swaying is getting stronger and stronger. Inuit is jiggling, the jiggling is getting stronger, more violent; she is now in a massive frenzy of movement. Nature begins to bend over like a snapped tree. The Boy, our main protagonist, who this story is about, is looking troubled. I look at my watch, we’ve only just come back from lunch. Nature is falling over. Do I sense some competition with Inuit? Nature, having fallen, lies broken for a moment. But not for long. Now she is crawling around the floor. There’s a moan! It’s Inuit. Inuit is now juddering and moaning. Grandmother’s cheeks are reddening and she is getting stiffer and stiffer. Still juddering and jiggling and moaning, Inuit is now sweating, a snail-trail of shiny perspiration beginning to glisten above her lip. I can’t see very well because the two Grandchildren are standing in my way. They hold hands. I have to lean round them to see Inuit, whose arms are leaping out, her fingers coiling in and out like a flamenco dancer’s. The wooden floor is vibrating with her juddering. Nature has crawled over. She is beneath Inuit, looking up. Nature’s hand is actually crawling up Inuit’s skirt! I nearly burst out laughing. I roll my lips over tight.
The facilitator moves in, tells Inuit, ‘We let you go.’
Inuit gasps then says, ‘There’s a . . . a . . . a . . . a story . . . crawling up my leg.’
That is exactly what she says. By now I know I must have an otherworldly look on my face. The facilitator looks down at Nature. ‘We let you go.’
Inuit says, ‘I’m going blank. I’m zoning out. I can’t help . . . I can’t help . . . I started . . . started . . .’ she begins to swallow hard.
‘Dying,’ interjects the facilitator, nodding in a sympathetic way.
Inuit begins to slowly sink. Civilisation’s arms begin to stretch out. And, oh no, Headscarf, who this time has managed to remain in her seat, is crying silently.
‘I think something amazing has happened here,’ the facilitator says.
‘I think so too,’ says The Writer!
I think so too.
At the end of the afternoon we go around the circle; each person is required to say something. A shy man begins to stumble over what is expected of him. The facilitator comes to the rescue by suggesting that he just wants to say thank you to The Writer! The shy man complies. It continues round the room.
‘What has happened here today has been a powerful journey.’
‘I feel overwhelmed with gratitude. Thank you for the generosity of the project.’
‘I feel touched by a deep power outside of my body.’
Headscarf is too overcome with emotion to speak. She shakes her head as little tears trickle out. This seems to have become a Feeling Contest. A sprint to the soul. Who can outdo whom.
‘It feels like looking into the broken heart of the world,’ someone says.
Top that! Someone does: ‘What came out demonstrated that this was a real situation. I have done constellations with stories that did not resonate, they turned into very interesting intellectual exercises. But you can tell the stories that have some balls to them!’ Laughter. ‘Oh dear, a rather masculine metaphor. But this is one of those. This has huge resonance. This was a litmus test for your story. And your story seems to have passed!’ Supportive group murmur.
My ears are popping. What story? What is the story? Where is the story? So far the story is invisible. Maybe this was The Secret. Maybe the story does not exist. It is a ludic puzzle or a Borgesian trick. Or maybe the story only reveals itself to the initiated. Maybe the words I was reading on the story cards were empty, while for the others the words on the story cards were pulsating and full of colour and, and . . . er, story. Maybe the story can only be revealed to a real prince, not frogs like me. Maybe real princes (oh dear, rather a masculine metaphor) know who they are, that their kiss will wake the princess, that their feet will fit the shoe, that they will wear the cloak of many colours. That must be it. Or maybe this is a great fat Emperor of a story with no clothes. I cough my thanks out as quickly as I can. We listen to some beautiful music. Headscarf is crying again – for the World. Then the facilitator tells us, looking meaningfully at Inuit, that tomorrow we will start at ten a.m., but to be careful when we leave because, after a highly charged experience like this, we might get run over.
I decide not to mention anything to my friend as we walk together to the tube; she is far nicer than me, not cynical at all, she is kind and supportive and trusting. And these were people she respected. She was excited by this project. She needed the work.
‘What did you think?’ she asks.
My eyes widen in a crazed kind of way. ‘What did you think?’ I ask her.
‘I didn’t feel what they said they were feeling,’ she says in a baffled voice.
I hold my breath for a moment. Then tell her exactly what I think. Soon we are lost in hysterical schoolg
irl laughter, about the juddering woman, and the moaning, and the falling on the knees. All the tension of the day pours away in a reckless rush.
‘I am feeling my soul untied so that I can fly and feel the story enter the room,’ I squawk.
‘Powerful energies of the spirit engulf . . .’ she chokes.
‘It’s . . . It’s . . . It’s crawling up my leg,’ I explode.
‘And it’s a . . . a . . . a STORY!’
We go on and on. Exhausting ourselves. Until the tube pulls into Bank, where we go our separate ways. I keep bursting into spontaneous laughter on the walk from Liverpool Street Station all the way home.
The next morning I arrive a little late, and sit across the room from my friend in one of the two remaining seats. I make a mental note not to catch her eye. I look around the room, then it dawns on me that the one empty seat is Inuit’s. The woman who was juddering and moaning. Maybe she did get run over? I look around again. No, Inuit is not here.
Now we’ve slept on it, we each must say something about our experience so far. Luckily I am almost the last. The man at the beginning, in a checked shirt, with grey hair, says he is disturbed by the loss of Inuit. The facilitator and The Writer!’s heads swivel round. They look left, right. They hadn’t noticed. They see for the first time – no, she is not here. Where is she? But wait, Wilderness has her phone number. Wilderness punches the keypad on her phone. We wait. No reply. Because her mobile is switched off. A ripple, like wind across a field of wheat, rustles through the group.
We forge ahead. Minus Inuit. Now we’ve slept on it we are overwhelmed, moved, deeply moved, bowled over, in awe, energised, astonished, transported; it was an honour, it was the birthing of something new. One man had a dream last night of blind children eating bread, to which a woman with red hair observes, ‘The earth is trying to tell us what the story is.’ Headscarf says she felt respect, and deep, deep gratitude. Then Butterfly Man says he is concerned about the story. The Writer! looks darkly out of his seat. Quickly on to the next person, who says it is like the constellation workshop she did last weekend (constellation junkie), and she is struck by the power of everyone and everything having a place and being seen in that place and, er, a very strong resonance. Myrrh says it is something big and vast and way beyond words. Then my friend confesses that she did not feel the emotions to the extent that the others seemed to have done. The Writer! fidgets in his seat. Next person. Who is in awe of people’s authenticity, and bowled over by how people showed that, er . . . really instantly. Me too.
Nature gives a long speech, her hair scraped back so tightly it looks as if there are claw marks round her head. ‘This is a deep-heart place, which feels very fragile and um, vulnerable but it seems important to find a voice for this place.’ She explains how historically she has always spoken from her mind, but now realises it’s safe to speak from this place, she touches her heart. ‘And it’s about every aspect of life,’ she says. ‘And when I was being Nature I really felt this difference when my heart expanded, and then it felt very suffocating and I actually felt my heart was suffocating. All last night, I was just trying to find it, trying to find my breath,’ she breathes in deeply, ‘the breath of life, and that is something, as well. Um, and just lastly to say, there is something about, um, the power of the collective and that voice, and the channelling, and the power of collective channelling. And the channelling feels really powerful, um, yeah.’
There are more revelations and soarings into the stratosphere, and delving into the deep layers of the psyche; someone describes the process as a sacred marriage.
Then, oh fuck, it’s my turn.
I hold my breath a moment, then say, ‘For me, the jury is still out.’ Silence. Then I say that I think some of the declarations of . . . er, feelings seem a bit . . . heavy. And, er, a bit premature. And taking courage from Butterfly Man, I add, ‘And I’m a bit, er, worried about the story . . .’
The Writer! stares coldly at me from across the room. Then jumps his eyes quickly to the next person. Who says she was bowled over by the power of yesterday. She reminds us she’s already described it as Fierce Love. ‘Yes, that’s the phrase still in my mind,’ she says, ‘Fierce Love.’
Then Wilderness rushes from the room with her phone pulsing.
Wilderness returns a few minutes later to tell us that Inuit felt fractured after yesterday, and that she had . . . blown apart. But Wilderness has persuaded her to return so we can heal her. The facilitator nods sympathetically. She knows we are all concerned, she says, but she has watched people fall apart and then come together again, in ways they are very glad of. The Writer! is particularly concerned! And moved by our comments. Although, he says, he found the critical voices very hard to hear. He loved whoever said it was a sacred marriage.
‘That was beautiful,’ a voice agrees.
And here we all are trying to find The Writer! his story, and The Writer! declares this is revelatory for him, and transformative. He is experiencing a fantastic liberation. He tells us his characters are becoming fuller and more rounded and more complex. Far from the cliché characters he had first written.
‘For instance, The Mother and The Father crying and looking for each other; that’s so deep and so much better. And the story is coming and coming. And then, someone said, “We haven’t discovered the secret,” and I went, “Shit!”’ Everyone dutifully laughs. ‘And then they changed it and said, “Or it hasn’t revealed itself”. It was wonderful you said that. You changed criticism into something affirmative.’
The woman in question leans forward. ‘It’s so clear the story exists, and you are just apprehending it in a rather mystical way. So you don’t have to worry. It’s so powerfully here.’
Then The Writer! tells us how amazed and astonished he was when Civilisation started to melt. ‘That was so powerful.’ He says he is also aware that he must remove blame.
‘We can’t have blame. Blaming one generation for all the problems in the world. If we fall into blame then the story can’t move on. This catastrophe we are trying to deal with; to, er, heal . . .’ he says.
I pitch in. ‘I’m not sure I agree with that,’ I say. Everyone turns round.
‘If blame is surfacing,’ I suggest, ‘then maybe that is the tension you need . . . or something like it . . . to move your story on. To create a tension, surely the conflict is necessary . . . to be resolved, or . . . or the story isn’t really a story.’
‘You sound just like a producer,’ he snaps.
‘But it’s true,’ I persevere, ‘or the story will be bland and dull.’
A thundercloud falls over his face.
The words dull and bland inflate like great balloons, filling the room, then reverberate into great whoopee-cushion words, polluting the atmosphere, infiltrating into every crevice. Bland and dull! Oh yes, I now have a part. I have cast myself. I am the three-headed, fork-tongued Hollywood-devil producer. My friend’s cheeks are two very bright pink cushions either side of her face.
The facilitator steps in. She doesn’t want this to turn into a multi conversation, she says, because we have the constellations to do.
‘I don’t think it is our job to worry about the story,’ she tells us. ‘Michelangelo’s David was waiting to be hacked out of the rock. The cost is a lot of grief. The situation . . . the story is catastrophic, and there is no cheap way to hold catastrophe. One day is a short time to finalise anything about the state of the world.’
The Writer! nods solemnly. So that is what we are doing. Finalising the state of the world. I really should have paid more attention to the blurb.
Then Inuit walks into the room. Inuit’s face is white, porcelain, gaunt. She has a beautiful face, but everything has been stripped away except pain and grief. She stands in front of us. Summoned back. A spectacle. Naked devastation. Everyone goes quiet. Tears begin to stream down her face. She stands rigid and tall. We wait. She is trying to say something.
‘I just need . . .’ She gulps in air. ‘I jus
t need . . .’ She looks around the room. ‘I just need . . .’ Her eyes open wide. ‘Love,’ she says.
I swallow; my saliva tastes like dead frogs. Did I hear that right? The moment is gone and I can hardly ask. The facilitator takes her by the hand and leads her into the centre of the room. She is a windsock apparently, and we must clothe the windsock. So The Dog and Nature are led in to hug her. They hug. We watch. Bloody hell.
Then we break for coffee. My friend looks a bit cross. She tells me that I was a bit . . . fierce, and that The Writer! is very sensitive to criticism. I say I wasn’t fierce, I was not criticising. Her face tells me she thinks I was. Everyone else is talking and bonding. Nobody will catch my eye. I go up to The Writer! and tell him that I am not a Hollywood producer.
‘You sounded just like one,’ he says. ‘What you said was exactly what all producers say.’
Headscarf is standing beside him looking concerned and deep. Her eyelids flutter. I will not look at her. I say I did not mean to sound like one, but that I was just trying to engage in the process, and er . . . I stumble over my words.
The Writer! tells me I no longer sound like the person I sounded like in the room. He spreads his arms out and says, ‘Let’s hug.’ His knee-length shirt unfurls. Gravity pulls my body in towards the chasm. Inescapably, I touch the silk. We hug. A terrible Judas hug. A stage air hug. A great lie hug. He turns immediately away. I hate myself. And now I hate him.
Ten minutes later we are back in the room, constellating. All the Ancestors are being chosen and lined up. Future ancestors and past ancestors face each other in a long line.
Right in front of me like a great wall. Almost everyone is needed. Not me. In spite of the hug, I am The Producer. The fault-finder. The unconvinced. The infiltrator. The impostor. I am the cynical person. They know.
The facilitator tells one of the Ancestors to say, I lost you but now you are back.
‘I lost you but now you are back,’ says the Ancestor.
I agree to this place, the facilitator directs another.