Yin & Yang -
The Ecstatic Dance of Polarity
by Sheri Winston
We live in world rich with polarities, full of complementary forces and opposite energies. We experience light and dark, sun and moon, summer’s bright heat and winter’s brisk coolness. Neither is right nor wrong, none better or worse. They each are what they are and they are different. Life is full of opposites or complementary energies, properties, attributes. Each can have its own positives and shortcomings. Both are beautiful and we want and need both in our world, a dynamic harmonic homeostasis, for without the shadow, how would we appreciate the glory of flame? Without the dark, we have no definition of light. The sun and the moon both bring illumination, and yet, one is warm and brings golden molten energy, the other is a cool and shifting shape that pulls us into a tidal dance and reminds us that we are in a fluid web within and without.
We each have both kinds of energy within us, the hot fire of the sun, and the cool fluidity of the moon. The Taoists call the steady, hot, solar force, Yang. The watery, cool, moving, lunar force is Yin. We also can think of the qualities that Yang embodies as being masculine and those that embody Yin as being feminine. We each have both aspects within us. Masculine and feminine, yin and yang, estrogen and testosterone, fire and water, sun and moon, we each contain them all.
Yin and Yang
The qualities associated with Yang energy are those of initiation, focus, direction, of actively doing. Yang energy penetrates, inserts, puts forth.Yin energy is about receptivity, of wide opening, of multi-tasking, big vision and integration. Yin also holds within it the seeds of transformation, of the magic of gestation and ultimately of birth or rebirth, of showering forth abundance, in the form of love, of gushing amrita, of a child, or any newborn and ecstatic form of creation. Yin opens, receives the gift, transforms it and makes magic manifest, birthing it forth.
We each have both types of energy within us, but not necessarily in equal proportions. Most people have a core or central aspect that is stronger and a secondary, complementary one, which balances and leavens our central aspect.
For most men, their core energy is Yang while most women have a central Yin flow. A small number of men and women are the opposite and these men have a yin core and these women have a yang core. There are probably about 5 or 10 % of folks who are evenly balanced and have yin and yang in equal amounts. A very tiny number of people, probably less then 1%, seem to be utterly neutral and as such are completely asexual. All of this is normal!
However, most of us have a central or core energy that clearly manifests in our sexual expression and attracts us to those with opposite polarity. For it is polarity, the attraction of the two ends of the magnets, the pull of the positive and negative pole, that is the dynamic interplay of Yin and Yang.
Polarity happens within our selves, first. Everything always starts with our relationship with our self! And then our sexual polarity shines out and creates the exhilarating dance of attraction and mating and fun that fuels our desire to connect and to merge, the wish to enter or be filled, to play in the fields of erotic delight and ecstasy.
Ideally our primary core aspect is complemented and balanced by our secondary aspect. A major part of our dysfunctional cultural model of gender is attributable to the flaw of not understanding the importance of the complementary energy to moderate, leaven and enhance the core one. We each need both energies harmoniously flowing within us to be fully evolved, mature and conscious loving beings.
Yang energy is hot, fast and fiery. It starts in the masculine sexual center, the crotch, explaining the rapidity of the common male or any primarily Yang person, to become quickly and easily aroused. It’s like a fire in dry tinder, quick to ignite, and if not husbanded carefully, quick to consume and burn out.
Yang energy is about penetrating, about putting something out into the world. When it is complemented by healthy and well-developed Yin energy, it becomes a process of manifesting appropriate and attuned giving, about giving your partner exactly what they want, exactly how and when they want it, about penetrating your partner with love, about using your direction and focus to put out into the world your gift, your service. Sexually, it’s about your lover bringing you his lust, manifested in his beautiful hard cock or her probing fingers, when you desperately want it.
Yin energy’s core aspect is about opening and receiving. Yin flows like water and is diffuse and moves slowly. It starts outside ourselves and must move inward, and can sooner or later coalesce in the sexual center. It’s like a pot of cool water that must come to a boil.
Yin has the essential quality of opening or closing, being amenable to receiving or tightly furled in protection. When Yin is balanced, leavened and fortified by healthy well-developed yang, then it becomes about active reception, the ability to choose who and what you open for, to actively take it in, to suck it in with relish, a snake ingesting pleasurable prey. When yin is unbalanced, it becomes weakness, the unresisting victim. People who stay in abusive intimate relationships, suffer from unleavened yin. They can open when love is present, and close when the violence is perpetrated upon them. But they don’t leave, because they have no access to their yang energy, the ability to focus, to move, to use their power of protection and direction, to get up and go.
When Yang energy is unmitigated by leavening yin, it manifests as the rapist, those who penetrate without regard to how they are received. It is aggressive and abusive. It runs rampant and overpowers others, seeing them merely as objects, not beings. It becomes corporate rapacity as they ruin our earth and dominate all life with greed and disregard.
Deep Yin & Deep Yang
When we learn to tap deeply into our core energy, while dancing with our complimentary one, we unleash our full sexual potential.Yin beings long to open, to flower, to bloom. We can only allow ourselves to open, as true opening cannot be forced, only coaxed, invited, enticed, or allowed to occur. If I don’t feel safe, I cannot open. I can’t make my pussy open, I can encourage it, allow it, facilitate it, but, I can’t force it to bloom. Nor can I force my heart to open, or make my love occur. I can create an intention of being loving; I can choose to act in loving and generous ways. I can speak my authentic truth to offer the opportunity of true intimacy to others, but I cannot rule my heart, it will ultimately love where it will. I can be at choice about whether I allow it to open or hold it tightly closed.
Deep Yang
Deep core yang loves to do, to work, to serve. Yang wants to penetrate the world with action, to put out its gifts and to insert its influence. Yang initiates, directs and focuses. Yang is also the energy inside the Guardian and the Warrior that protects and defends that which is vulnerable and defenseless.
Your Core Energy
Which core energy are you? Ask yourself, do I like to offer or to pursue? Would I prefer to be held or to be holding? Do I want my lover to ravish me, like a wild male alpha wolf or am I the bitch in heat, sending out my hot scented invitation? Do I like to yangly initiate or yinly invite? Remember, we’re all both, so the question isn’t about do I ever do these things. In fact, sometimes you must do it all, but what do you prefer to do, what are you happiest doing most of the time?We all need both aspects; we must to be able to call on the full range of a wide spectrum of skills and abilities, at will, as appropriate. Our communities, our world, needs such balance, such respect for all aspects of yin and yang in order to evolve as we now need to for survival and to learn how to truly thrive as humans.
Unbalanced energy is at the root of much confusion, violence, and unhappiness. Among other problems caused by our cultural disregard for the feminine force and our historical bias toward unmitigated yang energy, is a tremendous amount of sexual and relationship breakdown. Sexual dysfunction both leads to and is a result of other forms of personal and cultural dysfunction that could be characterized as an imbalance of the two polarities of the life force. Aggression is a mischanneling of this vital force, which ideally flows into sexual life energy, creativity, and service. When the power of the sexual life force is blocked it will erupt into internal aggression, such as depression or self-sabotage or external aggression, such as rape, war and institutionalized violence. Yang energy, unbalanced is the rapacious perpetrator of violence and of power over others. This unfortunate pattern is prevalent in our and many other current cultures.
The Dance of Maturity and Balance
As we grow and mature and develop, usually we become adept at manifesting both sides of ourselves, as appropriate to the moment’s needs. As I write, I need to call on my Yang ability to focus. Later, when I receive my lovers kiss on my neck, I want to move into my ability to open to the pleasure and receive his love. Ideally we are always in the process, the practice of fully developing our gifts, maturing both aspects of our selves, learning to use all of our abilities and energies in an integrated dance, both in the sacred sex temple or bedroom, as well as in all our relationships be they in our offices, institutions or communities.