Constellations make sense intuitively when you see them in person, but are notoriously difficult to describe, since they work from a place beyond words.
Case in point: Oscar Westra van Holthe took it upon himself to ask ten constellation trainers, some who have been working in the field for decades, to explain constellations in their own words. Sure enough, he got ten different answers.
Alemka Dauskardt describes how one of the reasons constellations defies definition, is that to define constellations is to freeze them in time, and the work is constantly evolving. It is always in response to who is in a given circle, the place where a circle is being held, and what personal history each person brings.
Some of the things many of the definers named, is that constellations is above all a technique; that it works with the knowing field; and that it involves representatives standing for elements of a system, reporting what they experience based on our innate human capacity to be in resonance.
Many of these conversations took place at the annual ISCA conference. Their website also has a collection of how different people have described constellations. Even this collection is an expression of the impulse of this work to widen the tent, and demonstrate that “it all belongs.”
