Connection
It seems that the zing of touch, of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam, the metaphor of electricity, of current flowing between, of telephone plugged in, of spark jumping ... that this is what characterises 'connection' for us. We think of connection made in an instant and of the energy, the thrill that accompanies that connection. Any life, any relationship begins with the sudden and urgent magic of connection made. Any insight or revelation begins with the magic of the penny dropping as some new connection is made between ideas, events or experiences. And, indeed, when I first reach out and touch the other (mother, child, lover, horse, snake, trembling baby owl or lichened bark of a beech tree) there is a surge of something more or less like excitement. But the Latin roots of the noun are a reminder of something else, something behind or underneath that urgent magic. Where context is a weaving together, and nexus is a binding -- connection is a binding together: a weaving and interweaving, an interlacing of self and other and surroundings, a rethreading of myself into the tapestry of things where it's no longer possible to see where one ends and the other begins. This interweaving sense of connection is very different from the zing/touch idea of connection. It seems to involve some sense of spreading out, widening, melting. So that the business of connection is no longer done in an instant but is a long-term practice of networking, relating, supporting, attuning to others, bring consideration and compassion and awareness of context - and this is true in a business or in a domestic context; it is true when we are innovating, creating, imagining and making playful connections anywhere. So connection is something more like one of these images revealed by photographer Jennifer Williams than the instant captured (top right) by Michelangelo's Creation. Credits and references:
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