Blood runs where it belongs

‘Oh, we thought you stopped working, Jan Jacob. And we see you are still active. So we’re a bit confused. Please explain!’

This or similar messages reached me and us several times during the past year. It appears that some people thought I stopped all my systemic activities after the shareposium April 1 and 2 2023.

To stop working means I stopped organizing. And I realized that facilitating constellations, being with groups, exploring new systemic principles, that is not work for me.

It’s life itself.

I even do not feel distinction anymore between work and being free, on vacation, weekend or however one calls this. When I’m making hay in my meadow I need to be as concentrated as facilitating a constellation. It’s simply all about life.

Bert Hellinger wrote already a long time ago how strange it is to think in terms of work and vacation. On one of our walks, after he stopped being in seminars, I asked him: ‘Bert, how is it not to work anymore?’ He answered with his special smile: ‘Actually, I’m always working’. Now I start to understand what he meant.

Maybe it would be worthwhile to re-define ‘work’.

For me, for you, for us, for our cultures. If we use the concept of ‘work’, we also create, without naming this, something like ‘not-work’. This would mean we create a polarity.

How meaningful and helpful is this polarity? Where, in history did this polarity emerge? To what was it an answer?

In my case the word ‘work’ and so the polarity, the opposing movements of ‘work’ and ‘not-work’ have a tendency to dissolve at all.

Organizing, or more precise my sense of responsibility when I organize, that is what stressed me, gave me nightmares or other demons at five AM. This way of organizing is what I don’t do anymore. With the result that the stress is gone and my creativity started to flow even stronger then before. A new book about transition is almost ready. There’s a lot of space to look at what’s happening in the world through a systemic lens, trying to understand what’s happening and sensing what would be meaningful to do.

As long as I can satisfy my curiosity, I’ll continue with activities that some people might call ‘work’.

Which activities? Paragliding, orchestrating construction projects, haymaking our meadow in order to support insects and biodiversity, facilitating systemic workshops and programs preferably with Dees and organized by Marloes in Transitionstudio or by others who invite us, writing blogs and books.

Curiosity keeps me alive and moving forward.

And more, curiosity is changing me, my patterns are shifting, how I meet other people is shifting, my fears are shifting, my appreciations are shifting.

With lots of dedication and love involved. Love for the world, love for nature, love for other human beings.

Where does yóur blood belong?

Let’s see where this all brings us and where we might meet again….

~Jan Jacob

Foto credits: Photographer for Emana