Colette Obrien

Whether we know it or not, we’re all connected to one another, and to every other atom in the universe. 

The unique thing about our human connection is that as a species we have a particuar quality of connection; as do baboons to one another, reptiles, quarks and any other species. 

We relate more to our own than to another only because our experience and conditioning is the same.

When the magician, Merlin was teaching the young Arthur to become king, he gave him the experience of being a fish, a bird, and other species he was related to, but was not.  This unique perspective transcends the hubris of human arrogance and builds compassion for all life. 

How very much our world needs to see this way, to feel this way; outside the limits of our own skin where life is sacred, profound and precious.

One of the beautiful things that came out of the 60’s experiment with consciousness was just such an expanded awareness.  Whether the shift was brought about through drugs, meditation, or any other practice that broke down the walls of our Box, the result was a generation more open, more compassionate, more forgiving than the one that came before. Not everyone who had that experience remembers it today, but human consciousness made a slight shift toward awareness beyond our own species.

The result of that shift can be seen in many areas of life today; humanitarian, ecological, protection of other species, physical health through diet,  exercise and some form of spiritual practice;  basically in a more compassionate approach to living with all other life, and to the health of the planet itself.

When we know we’re connected we care for that which is outside the boundaries of our own skin.  When we don’t know we don’t care. More on care, compassion, empathy, for the rest of this week.

Webster defines repulsion as;  to drive back, or the mutual action by which bodies tend to repel each other.

The first nano-second after the big bang, that first combustible kiss, matter repulsed in all directions, creating the universe as we see it today; separate suns, moons, galaxies, etc. all floating together in a soup of onemess-or as it’s popularly termed “Oneness”

Opposite of Attraction, repulsion is the energy of individuation.  Though repulsion can manifest as dislike, hate, and any other of a long list of negative adjectives the mind applies to what one does not want to be associated with, it is at root, a movement that separates objects. 

How much kinder it would be, if in our my need to distinguish ourselves as separate entities, we could simply create space between us rather than have to apply hurtful names to the other, and or, physically force them away.

Every unkind act is grounded in the need to individuate, yet that drive can better be accomplished by consciously knowing self from other rather than making the other wrong so that we can be right.

The yoke is not more right than the white. It is merely different, and that difference is essential depending on what one is cooking.  

When the sun began to shine it had gotten hold of itself; it individuated.  The difficulty about this concept for humans is that our egos get confused between the need to distinguish ourselves, and that we’re not the only ones who need to do so. As an old sage once said, “You’re the only one but you’re not the only one who’s the only one.”

As love is the force of attraction that connects life, repulsion is it’s counterpoint, separating matter into distinct entities that can then experience one another. 

The Ancient Maya story of creation speaks of the a time when everything was one.  All was black and from out the dark one golden eye appeared and then another; the male and the female creators could see each other for the first time and they were so delighted they decided to keep dividing and dividing until the world was as we know it today.

It’s still all one but the one has been separated into the many; one beach many grains of sand, one ocean many drops of water, one universe, many galaxies . . .

Because love is defined by Webster as; a deep and tender feeling of affection for another, and continues for a long paragraph only to describe the same thing over and over, it is no wonder we’re confused.

Many cultures have several different words for the kinds of love; intimate/sexual love, love of parents, love of children, love of siblings, love of animals, love of objects, love of ideas, love of country, etc..In English there is only one and it is woefuly inadequate.  Webster would have us believe that all kinds of love are a FEELING.  

One usually has a feeling asociated with the experience of loving, but is that what love is? What if we looked at it as a verb; not as a feeling, nor limit it to the kinds of love there are?  As a verb it connects.  What kills love is disconnection; the executioner.

As a verb, love is the action of connecting two or more objects–of any kind. We are seldom, if ever, aware of the fact that every atom in the universe is connected to every other, and that applies to everything in existence. It is, we are, ALL ONE.  And since love is connection, how is it possible to kill love?

Fundamentally we cannot, but what we can do is break the conscious bond.  The unconscious bond is there all the time no matter what we do, but as humans with choice–with consciousness–we can choose to make a connection to an other that is beyond the fundamental law of the universe. 

Most of us wish to do that.  Most of us love to love and to love in all the ways love can be experienced. We enjoy caring, of having an object matter to us, and of mattering to another. 

1. The first and fastest way to kill love is to care more for the feeling than for the object we’re connecting to; self centeredness or basic narcissism.

2. Another useful tool is to strangle it by gripping the object tightly; fear of loss, another form of narcissism.

3. Then there is the tried and true ax of jealousy and possessiveness; need I repeat–narcissism.

4. Neglect works well; self-obsorption.                                                       

Love’s executioner is one’s self.  Like an ax, self-centeredness in its myriad forms separates one from the love object and breaks the conscious bond.  Love is dead.