Sex and Money
As happened in different other iterations of Women Moving the Edge a systemic constellation emerged in the afternoon. It came out of a merging of the two lines of conversations that had been going on since we started. One the one hand the conversation on what a new economic system could look like, and all that is related to that. Many of us live and work on the edge of the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ system, with the implication of having some real money for some of the work we do and creating a lot of value and meaning in other projects, but with no reward or payment in the common currency. On the other hand we have been talking a lot of being in the fullness of who we are as women, our passion, our sensitivity, our wildness. How is this all related? Is there a relation?
When we started sensing into it something happened in my body, some kind of anxiety related with the question at hand, realizing how much war, murder etc was related with money and the bigger economic system. The energy became dense in the room while I shared it… but others stayed clear and called me/us out of our belief in the shadow!!! Recalling ‘the koan of the shadow’ I soon got out of it and could focus on ‘restoration of the sacred’, be it in a money system or in relationship with the feminine. It teached us that neither fear nor shadow are real, but that this topic has a lot of depth and we have to realize that fully!
The question we came up with that would drive the constellation was something like: If the Collective She comes alive what is the new economic system? We didn’t capture the constellation real time, but here is – more or less – the conversation we had afterwards. The ‘names’ are the elements in the constellation that people represented in the constellation. This is kind of long, but I don’t want to leave something out…
Holding Space (HS): On a personal level, I could have been the Sacred Feminine (SF), but Judy took it. I felt powerful at the end, sitting in the chair. (The chair represented the new project of restoring the Earth that seemed somehow needed in the whole constellation to align the energies of the different players. At the end HS plopped herself in the chair, representing the wild, sensual feminine energy, which brought a lot of aliveness for all elements in the constellation!) HS and SF need each other; we could have done it together: Sisters in the Sacred Feminine.
Sacred Feminine (SF): As you sat in the chair, as the seductrice, I came aware that there was no one in the constellation that I wanted to seduce! Really hard… I don’t want to be in intimacy, only when Current Value System looked at me… I felt pretty powerless in the constellation. When I was asked to say: “I will hold that project (of restoring the Earth).” I first was holding back, but yet, it drew me. When later HS sat there in the chair, I was ready.
HS: The seductrice and the HS, this partnership is the powerful force that can move the system. I embraced Greed and the whole thing. I wanted to say: Come on! Let’s co-create! That’s fun.
Current Value System (CVS): When you sat there – like the Royal Pose of the Buddha – personal I loved it.
As CVS I was yearning all the time: Where is she?!!! There was intense relief when I had an alley (SF came along). Then Greed came along, and I had a hard time not to get angry. I want to be, I want to learn from the SF! That was very nice to me. CVS and the People need more to do together.
Terra (as both the Earth and one of the new complementary currencies called Terra): Interesting; there was something missing. The People were not representing the question; SF didn’t look like to be involved with it… but we didn’t have the lush, wild woman!! I had the idea: the answer is missing! There was total relief when you sat down in the chair! Now she has shown up. When are women going to show up and say: We can play a new game! The spark, the alchemy will come from women totally showing up!
Greed: Personally I had a question in high school: What made it go wrong? The answer was greed! I wanted now to try to feel what it took to release that. It happened when CVS had put her arm around me. Someone would need to guide that greed energy to go to a healthier place. Like you would speak to a 5-year old. The SF felt like in a foreign country to me.
Something shifted when I got directions from the facilitator. I am not sure I wanted to grow up, I would like to have attention for the little 5-year old that is wanting and wanting and wanting… but there is relief in having limits…
How can I apply this to my world? Seeing the 5-year old in the bankers??
At the end (HS in the chair), that was a very grown up experience, meeting you as a full woman, but I was still a child. I needed a lot of holding to grow up. If I felt nourished I wouldn’t need all this stuff, replacing what is missing. That feels true.
SF: My inclination from the beginning was to give love to Greed, a human need that was unfulfilled. All my colleagues were not fully trusting you… I didn’t do it, I wasn’t listening to myself at all! The shadow is not real, until we say it is bad and we can’t trust it!
Money: I didn’t go with all my impulses, thinking: I can’t do that as money! I wanted to go with the Sacred feminine to Greed. I wanted to say: There is nothing wrong with her (=Greed); it is a Sacred Longing!!!! When you said: “If you could hold me and nourish, it brought me to … (explanation of the development of the limbic system and how it is related to the development of empathy)… it is just that critical part in development, that hungry place for nourishment! It shows up in adults, but it are young children. I think of the differences when my son has an emotion I can hold it, he can just have these expressions and he doesn’t need to hold it in his body, as we had to do.
People: I resonate with this. I choose to represent People because I feel like the people should protest, and they don’t! I went with that impulse and tried to integrate it with the feminine etc; I wanted to push that, but it didn’t work. At the end I wanted more connection with the Sacred Feminine, but it felt right that they where the bigger system. Being with Greed felt right, we can hold them. Maybe I could have played a more nurturing role…
CVS: ‘living as child in an adult body’… the holding space we have been talking about, is holding space with love. We don’t name it like that. Unconditional love… bottom line is the love and the space!
Terra: I was never fully activated. It was not needed?!? There was nothing in the constellation that was activating Terra; a potential untapped. Interesting, even when I was standing on a chair trying to get attention. The constellation was dealing with relations etc, but not paying attention to me. I stayed floating, not meaningful. I was like a piece of furniture.
Sometimes I was the currency, sometimes I was Earth. It was a dual consciousness, possible of healing the split. Neither of it was activated in the constellation.
The wild woman, not the Sacred Feminine, but the practical, seductive, juicy! If we connect juice to the Terra everybody would love it!
When wild, lush women doing real cool stuff, evoke this community, who wouldn’t want to be part of this tribe? Sexuality and sensuality are deeply connected with this; like a lover’s invitation to the Soul. The integration of wild and lush and spiritual and… spiritual ecstasy, existential ecstasy.
It reminds me of a quote: What will you do with this one wild life? Like someone is saying: Peace is sexy; make it alluring.
I put the bin in the constellation for the Cosmic Garbage. There was a heaviness in the constellation, and it was my invitation to just let it go! Throw the trash out! Then let’s get back to what we are doing.
People: (What would activate you more?) More of me. I was doing more people on my own. I was not sure how to do it, torn between fighting the old and going with the new.
(Did you feel lost? Confused?) Yeah, it was hard to keep a clear idea of things… lots of confusion… I wanted to get to a new way – not just the small concept – I didn’t see how to get there.
Money: Terra brought me the chair to rest. Terra being there was important. It allowed me to be what I was. I didn’t realize you (Terra) wanted attention, it looked like you were holding space.
Terra: For some time I was doing that. But at a certain point someone needed to notice me and activate me.
Money: At some point there was an impulse, not very strong. I wanted to reach out to Terra, but so much was going on… There is something about ‘the moment’…
(Why was it hard to look at Terra?) Part of it was ‘she was cool’, looked like ‘don’t you like me?’. I had the impulse to say: I am here for some time!
Participant: This whole movement of complementary currency can piss people of. We have to flag something about language, tone etc. ‘Old money meets new money’. A way to come in is at the side door and start a conversation.
Money: The credibility of complementary money has been studied. Unless the orange (Spiral Dynamics) can shift, credibility is not being granted. My first impulse was attraction!(Could it be an invitation to dialogue?) There was an openness, I didn’t need an invitation. But it moved too fast, I missed the opportunity. (How did it move too fast?)Terra was jumping of the chair, there was lots of fixing and making nice. There was no attention for Money and Terra.
CVS: It was not so much fixing for me, but looking for allies. Greed came along – I hoped to change it, to get Greed of my back.
There was some healing going on. Maybe Greed could be held in that, in the unconditional way. Maybe it is part of reality that there are a lot of emotions. I wanted People to make a lot of noice ‘We can’t take it any more!’… But there is responsibility everywhere. Money: We didn’t inquire into Greed, we jumped into blaming Greed.
Facilitator: There was not much adult consciousness in the constellation. Greed was obvious and I tried to bring her to the emotional position of a grown up – Let her say: sorry. The other elements still didn’t trust her and I was puzzled – why couldn’t they take the bowing for what it was (maybe too soon?!)
What I hear now in this conversation afterwards are a lot of impulses not acted upon and ideas that were not spoken. Why is that? What does it tell us about the system? As facilitator I see a system that is blocked and I try to see which stone to move so it can flow again. Try to move positions or let people say something to see if it brings flow.
My big question was: Who is taking initiative? Who is taking this on?
Greed: The instructions, to me it felt as: “Mam is upset!”, and I wanted love for the child greed.
Participant: A lot of things didn’t go ‘right’ and the learning is huge!
Participant: I honor the constellation – who didn’t show up, who doesn’t speak up… I deeply believe that – having worked with teenagers – we live in a teenage-at-risk-society! They have to be initiated; and can we love them? Saying: Let me help initiate you. That is all they are longing for.
Participant: Who do we think we are that ‘they’ need initiation?! It is what it is, and there is a longing in some of us to change something. I think it is simple.
Silence
Participant: How do we hold consciousness? It seems like Life has a new toy, Consciousness, and it doesn’t know what to do with it yet.
I’m present to the life stages from birth to… getting to an adult stage.. I am not sure that I can go there, responsibly. But I can hold the possibility and the potential. I (Money) did feel a real love. Just put some love in the system! Somewhere! There is also the urgency; when the love holds the call then it goes somewhere. It is very easy to see the call going without the love.
Participant: How to have that Call – in Love and grounded… Love says finally: No more!!! Kali energy rooted in unconditional love. We have yet to see the Feminine Principle to show up! It is not an a map yet, and all metaphors brake down.
It is quite clear that this constellation impacted us a lot. There was confusion, no one taking responsibility, everyone waiting for the others… just as we can see happening in real life in our world. The ‘jump’ from Holding Space to the active, seducing and attractive part of the feminine would work further in our time together, and even beyond.