Every human situation involves a tension between order and Chaos. Freud wrote of the Id and the Ego, where the Ego’s role is to organize order and edit the chaotic Id. In relationships between people, in organizational situations and in society, the movement between order and chaos is expressed by quiet periods and periods of crisis.
During quiet periods, everything is mostly “okay”, things are in a good enough order. Whereas in periods of crisis, a chaotic situation breaks out where order is called upon to reorganize. Crisis and chaos are always just around the corner, or under the surface, the individual, the organization and society try to avoid them as much as possible.
This is how it looks in archetypal fiction: In the beginning there was chaos which is neither male nor female and at the same time both male and female. It is accepted that the archetype of chaos is referred to as belonging to the feminine. Order is created out of this chaos, and it is accepted that the architype of order belongs to the masculine. This is the primary hierarchy: Chaos is the source and Order is the outcome. These are the two primary archetypes.
This can be seen in every human situation, in the process in which an infant comes out of the womb and then grows to adulthood, a relationship starts from falling in love which brings the system into chaos on so many levels, and if it survives it gains an order, a business in order to expand into an organization has to create new orders every time chaos threatens to destroy it. Each situation moves from something chaotic to something organized.
Order cannot exist without chaos; it is born out chaos. Chaos is the mother and order is born from within it. Both exist in everything and in every situation – it is a primary hierarchy. The secondary hierarchy exists when order and chaos act like husband and wife and complete each other even while there is tension between them. These are two opposites who complete each other. Chaos moves between Creativity and destruction, and order moves between flow and stagnation.
In the search for the right organization, the appropriate order, it is helpful to give space to chaos. Without a process of chaos, we will only obtain a partial picture that does not include all of the potential possibilities of a given situation, and of a new order than can reorganize itself from within. In the absence of chaos, we will not see the multi-dimensional system from which the new order, the right reorganization, is born. In its absence, the solution will remain partial and influenced by the previous order.
With the Constellation process, we can enable chaos to obtain expression in a contained manner. That is to say, for a moment we relinquish what we know – we are led by the movement, by emotion, sensations and feelings, that represent the field of the issue at hand, and we are faithful to occurrences, elements and knowledge that wish to obtain expression through representation.
At first, this situation creates chaos, illogical occurrences. The facilitator and the client are asked to take interest in the occurrences without having to make sense of them. When working in a group, the representatives usually enjoy this part of the process. Only after a while does the new order become clear – the order that is born out of the chaos.
When we identify this order, there is a feeling of comfort, of rest and peacefulness among most or all of the representatives. At this stage, the logic behind the new order becomes clear and easier to make sense of. Sometimes, it takes a longer time for the understanding to be available.
The new order might not be found in every instance, but the externalization of the elements and the problematic dynamics of the Constellation will begin a movement in what was previously fixed in a pathological way. In most cases, one can see the movement continuing in reality, outside the Constellation space, until a new order is found that is usually good enough for all elements and for the issue presenter.
Every order or structure has a limited period in which it is good enough. At the end of this period, chaos will start surfacing usually as tension or crisis, and then we find through a process of chaos what new order unfolds.
In other words:
Mr Order and Madam Chaos
With order there is peace
with chaos creativity
with order there’s rest
with chaos there’s pleasure
with order one can breathe
with chaos – experience
with order there is past and there’s future
with chaos an ongoing present
Mr Order and Madam Chaos are on a voyage
and from time to time they meet and they dance
the dance of creation
the dance of woman and man
But then, there are times that…
Mr Order forgets creativity
Madam Chaos forgets to rest and to breath
Mr Order gets stuck in the past
Madam Chaos can’t see future and feels lost
they forget of each other
they dance on their own
he with himself and she with no one else
it is lonely, they get bored…
man and woman – on their own
how long will they last?
After some time, again they meet
they look at each
other, they greet
a memory moves vaguely
they see what they are
they see what they’re not
there is tension
they come closer not remembering
how to engage and what are the steps
they stumble they bump
embarrassed, confused… smiling abashed
And then… a slight breeze in the air
a breath of wind moves, touching their skin
they remember, confidence comes
the dance gains momentum
they’re together at last
And they dance, and they dance
the dance of creation
the dance of woman and man
Yishai Gaster