Uh Oh

Starting today we will be treated to three months of boot camp in the mine-laden field of connection through communication. Lesson one will be the slap in the face as soon as we get off the bus, i.e., in order to get with the program, we must first be punished for NOT having connected well already. "How does it feel to be disconnected, you feckless piece of chopped liver?" "Not good, Drill Sergeant, SIR!" Fall in. The last time I had a lesson in connection was in 1989, the year that the love of my life left me for a younger woman, I went bankrupt, my sister died, and the 7.1 Loma Prieta Earthquake epicenter occurred a mile from my house. You'll excuse me if I'm a touch paranoid on the subject of connection; I learned, God knows, but the lesson was brutal.

Here's what I know so far about connection:

1. It's the whole reason for living.
   
2. A life well-lived depends not on what you do, but on whom you know, and it applies on every level, from the most money-grubbing and mundane in service of our baser desires, to the quest for intimacy, to pure enlightened compassion.
   
3. The order of connection is: with Self first (save yourself, love yourself, use the dropped-down oxygen mask yourself before offering it to that squirming screaming child in your lap); then with Other (lovers, children, friends, etc.); and only then with God. (I wonder if the order is set up like that because the only way to God is to love self and then love the other? If you take the cut-through, over the hedges and cyclone fences, across Mr. Dobbeck's lawn, it isn't real? Food for thought. As if I didn't have enough already.)
   
4. Connection begins and continues through the Heart chakra; connection at other chakras is not True Connection, it is merely a matter of convenience or the resolution of karma. (One must not confuse karma with connection -- the drive to reconcile karma may SEEM like connection, as in, "This is my soulmate, I'm just SURE of it!", but that's the drug of karma resolution. True Connection is compassionate, not impassioned.) Obsession is one example of connection NOT at the heart.
   
5. Connection is what you get when you love.
6. Love is what you get when you connect.

The lesson plan for our first session is:

We cannot connect by intention or by design. That's why manipulation doesn't work: you KNOW there's an agenda at work here and it ain't yours.

We can only connect with love:

1. Love beyond recollection (that must be the forgiveness thing);
2. Love beyond vision (I don't quite understand that one);
3. Love beyond judgment (judgment is almost the opposite of love, certainly it blocks connection);
4. Love beyond quality (love is not good or bad or tainted or pure, it just is);
5. Love beyond condition (well, YES -- mother love is an example of that, I suppose);
6. Love beyond expectation (expectation is massively troublesome, always); and
7. Love beyond reciprocation (I think I get THAT one, after all these years -- if you only love hoping for reciprocation, you really are screwed).

If we're going to start at the beginning, then we must work out (1) how to love beyond recollection. Do you think that means overriding past slights and injuries? Giving up waiting for gratitude for past gifts? Is there more to it? (God knows there is ALWAYS more to it....)

That's about all I can come up with by intellectualizing, and the intellectual process is merely scratching away at the front gate; rarely does it give one any headway in an emotional or spiritual problem.

I sure could use some help here, my friends. Anybody have any ideas?