The element connecting at first glance appears rather mundane and basic. We almost imagine it as putting little blocks or pieces together. Our blocks may be organizations or departments or people of one kind or another. It seems all we need to do is build the channel or dotted lines so information and resources flow between the parts.
This is one type of connecting, but it is the most material and dense. If we think about connecting this way, we will tend to focus on the material channels between one part and another—the economic, legal, and operational dotted lines. These often seem to us to be the most real and important because we can see and touch them to a greater extent. But these material parts of a connection are actually the least stable.
You may have noticed that when things begin, they generally form at subtle levels first. There is a space within us where we begin to perceive something. We feel it as an energetic potential, a dream, a resonance or calling or invitation. At this point we may not even be able to describe it. With a little more time we add more thought and definition. We build out the mental form like a matrix or pattern. Then we infuse the thing with emotion and passion. And, ultimately, we begin to build it out as a physical thing.
When things fall apart they usually do so in the same order unless there is some physical act of destruction that wipes it out. More often the deterioration begins at higher levels of purpose or intent, loss of vision, or breakdown in emotional bonds. Then finally there is a physical break. The person quits the job, files for divorce, severs the alliance, etc.
Here’s the core insight: If a connection is only built physically (like two organizations hastily put together in the same legal structure) but not more subtly, it will fall apart over and over. If it is built subtly it will fall together over and over as the parts come into deeper relationship.
There are myriad ways we can build out the physical forms. If the deep bond is solid at the subtle levels of purpose and vision, there will be a fluidity and resilience and stability. In fact, the connection will be impossible to truly break because the organizing coherence is in tact at the highest and most subtle level. That which is connected subtly will always try and come into relationship materially. That which is disconnected subtly will always move out of relationship materially.
As we often observe in alchemy, what is least dense is most real with the element connecting.