Olympians of the Heart

Like millions of others around the planet, I am following the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. I enjoy the spirit of competition, of the athletes giving their all to ski jump the farthest, luge and sleigh the fastest,
be the most extreme half pipe ‘cruisers’, triple and axel jump on the ice,
curl the most accurate, ski the most wild and win by .002 seconds, puck it out on the ice in heroic hockey battles.
I always did like sports and the ‘drivenness’ behind it – the spirit of competition. Just let me play ping pong and it awakes from one second to the next.

And – there is something one sided about it all.
It actually is a mirror of our world. We, as species and in the cultures we created around the world put our lot on one of the two primary aspects of life – the Yang Aspect.
Ancient Chinese philosophers and mystics described life unfolding between two poles, the YIN and the YANG, or, as it is translated often, the Masculine………!!!! Just noticed something.
Instinctively I just wanted to start with the Masculine, yet the Chinese mention Yin first and then Yang.
Was this an accident ? I actually sense that this was a so called ‘Freudian slip', meaning it reveals something of the subconscious. In my subconscious, the Masculine comes first and then the Feminine.
And, I feel in our culture the same is true – and this is probably one of the greatest tragedies of our time.
The Yang aspect is great and absolutely natural. Our 5 year old son has it inbuilt, he competes with me, we both love it. It is in our genes. Scientist tell us, that survival of the fittest allowed our species to become the crown of the creation.
Our economic system is based on the same values that we are celebrating at the Olympics – companies compete, we are doing bits for contracts, shareholders expect the most profit, the highest return.
On a global scale, countries compete, as they have done for millenniums, for power, and now more and more for resources, the ‘fuel’ of the power.
Our culture is very Yang oriented. And with the spreading of our western values, we export this Yang oriented vision of life around the globe.

Yet, the Taoist say, for life to truly flourish, it needs both poles, Yang, the Masculine, and Yin, the Feminine principle.
Here is where my title for this blog “Olympians of the Heart” came from.
In the midst of the Olympics a student of mine laid dying and then died last Saturday. Neelama was able to support him and his wife and wrote a wonderful article about it that touched my heart because it described the YIN qualities of life, the love they shared, how she cared for him, how the process of dying and letting go was unfolding.
Both of them were Olympians, Olympians of the Heart.
As a planet we need Olympians of the Heart – to survive.
It is not either-or, Yang or Yin, it is Yang AND Yin. Most people don’t even know how much we are consumed with a Yang oriented life.
Yang is doing – Yin is being. Yang is active. Yin is still, quite, resting, waiting, allowing, receiving, taking in. Yin is fall and winter, letting go and dying. Yin is love, the most tender ‘substance’, ‘energy’, ‘presence’.
Yin are the tears that the female Canadian skater wept at the end of her performance 2 days after her Mom suddenly died. Yin is grieving.
Yin is surrender – not defeat. To truly let go and surrender is the greatest challenge. Yang conquers, Yin allows. Yin is GRACE.
Yang is the Fire consuming, just as we consume the resources of our planet greedily and selfishly in the worship of our consumer society.
Yin is the water, steadily, patiently, consistently and slowly creating the Grand Canyon of the Colorado river – over 1000000s of years.
Yang is short term and Yin is looking at issues with the next generations in mind and heart.
Both women and men have fallen under the spell of the striving and exciting Yang principle. Our system thrives with it, actually worships it.
We are all to different degrees being pulled into, being manipulated into the system of our Yang oriented culture and put your innermost feminine values and ways of being on the back burner and join the race.
The values of the HEART, of the Yin are so so so needed.

Catastrophes bring it out in us humans, as Haiti temporarily did. Imagine 100, 200 years ago, if this earthquake would have happened in Haiti, most countries wouldn’t have given a dime, so there has been enhancement.

As I looked for an image for this blog I came across the logo for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio AND the olympic rings were completed with a heart.