The essence of Olympics to me somehow was lost, I am not sure if it was because of the games or because of my own state of being.
Then I started watching the opening ceremony for the Paralympics games and I felt the Essence of the Universe coming together to watch and celebrate athletes competing and winning and winning. There seems to be no losers in these games.
You might wonder what are the Paralympics? According to Wikipedia: “The Paralympic Games is the world’s second largest major international multi-sport event, involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities, including mobility disabilities, amputations, blindness, and cerebral palsy.” The games started in as a small gathering of British war veterans in 1948, and today there are more than 4300 athletes competing.
At the opening ceremony last night there were moe than 62,000 paying customers. The games were inaugurated by the Queen and with special appearance by the Great Professor Stephen Hawking. He is known as one of the greatest minds alive. Hawking has a motor neurone disease related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and is now almost completely paralysed and communicates through a speech generating device. The professor reminds us that we are all different, but it is our spirit which helps us rise above. Watch short video of his talk at the opening and the Big Bang.
As I sat amazed watching the opening of the games I continue to realize the real importance of our essence. The truth of celebrating life, the limitations that our being and our soul are able to overcome. As my dear friend and poet Hamdah Khalfan Al Mansouri who has been born with disability and has spent her life mobilized in a wheel chair once told me “The people who made it on the moon, they did not go on their feet, they went with their minds.” Read the wonderful article written by producer and writer Hana Makki as she interviewed Hamdah for Tempo Magazine; “Against All Odds: One Woman’s Inspirational Story”.
I celebrate the beauty of people coming together in flight. The lack of fear, the lack of saying something is not possible. After all, it is not with our bodies that we dream to fly, it is with our minds, and with our minds we fly and fly.
There are no boundaries when we are able to go beyond matter. Our bodies, our homes, will no longer limit us, we will only look with our inner vision and that is when we will become part of the solar system and realize our being as a mere particle in time and space. A shining particle whose every breath touches all those around.
I am sitting now watching the ceremony; interesting that at the center of the celebrations as part of the ceremony there was a dervish dancer with a skirt on, that had flames at the bottom of the rim. Incredible how this seems to be the games for the soul and not the body. The real beings of people’s beings shine as I watch. There is a man dancing to the voice of a beautiful singer. The last thing one would think of was this man dancing with no legs, dancing on his hands. And then he is taken up with a mechanism, he starts to fly, using his arms as wings to fly. For the first time in my life, i can see how a person can fly with no wings, and walk with no legs and leave foot prints with no feet.
At the center of the entire ceremony there is a giant book, a giant telescope, many giant apples being tossed around, and of course it is the notion of Gravity, Sir Issac Newton, how is it that we can just let ordinary things go, it is the ordinary that indeed is the extraordinary. The same gravity that Professor Hawkins tells us can take us into the Black Hole.
I am immersed in the beauty of this incredible spectacle as 62000 people bite into an apple together. As we take a bite into our daily lives, let us be grateful for all the blessings of life, let us realize that the limitations we place upon ourselves are only dictated by our minds and souls.
Let us enjoy this beautiful sport of mind over body and souls connected to change attitudes and lives. As the show comes to an end, the great wise teacher tells Miranda, the young adventurer to break the glass ceiling. Each day let you and I to remind each other to break the glass ceiling and let our light touch lives. The torch has been lit long ago, all we have to do is to keep it alive.
You might also like to read other posts honoring Parents of Special Needs Children
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