Coronado Eagle, Volume 5, Number 10, 9 March 1994 — Olympic Mythology [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Olympic Mythology

Danuta Soderman

When the Olympic flame finally died out, there was a visible, penetrable silence and sadness that swept over the crowded stadium, the announcers, and me at home. I had become addicted to this nightly venue of good cheer and human drama. Veteran newsman, Charles Kuralt, in his down-to-earth-way, eulogized the Olympics in Norway with the question, "How can a place so unfamiliar to us, feel so much like home?" What other country actually counts its trees? Where else does it feel warm at 12 degrees? The last time I saw snowflakes that twinkled was on a five and dime Christmas card with glued-on sparkles. In Lillihammer snowflakes really do sparkle! And when was the last time you saw

people with rosy cheeks? I'm talking about men, women and children—every one of those flag-waving Norwegian patriots looked downright cherubic. Speaking of angels, these people actually cheered for athletes other than their own nationals. They loved it when American Dan Jansen won the 1,000 meters in skating. They sang, "Bring Back My Bonnie To Me" when Bonnie Blair came out to win her umpteenth gold medal. To make matters even more unconventional, the King of Norway almost apologized for winning more medals than any other country, saying as host of the games, they feared appearing impolite to their guests. What inspires such "Olympic fever?" There seems to exist a fever within us all; a burning human need for tradition that delivers perspective, continuity and significance to our lives. Little in our world give us these things in one supreme package. For many, religion has met that need or meaning and relevance, providing ceremonies that lend weight and substance to important events in our lives, creating a way to understand our spiritual heritage. But for others, religion has failed to give them 21st Century relevance. They find meaning in the rituals of the gangs, spiritual transcendence in drugs, and ethics in jailhouses. Many more of us just drift along, numbed by our social deterioration, leading quiet lives without passion. But something special happened during the Olympics. For sixteen pie-

cious days the entire world invested in a shared experience. We participated together in a miniseries of real-life dramas that required the best of the human spirit We saw athletes challenged, not as much by each other, as by all the odds life threw at them: war, injury, death, failure. Against the backdrop of the human condition, they came to compete. They were winners. And they were just like us. Like many nurturing mythologies, the "Spirit of the Olympics" gave us ceremonies with structure, providing us with a clear beginning and an end. The opening ceremony began with the "Parade of Nations," each country represented by its flag and bevy of proud athletes. The closing ceremony brought us together, not as nationals but nation-less, not as separate, but united, not different, but the same. We were given a sense of continuity: the hand-off of the Olympic flag to Japan told us where we would be in four years. We were even instructed in the timeless story of good and evil with the symbolic play between the good Trolls and the Bad Trolls cxi the stadium floor. The Olympics was a festival of fellowship, a global mythology, a celebration of youth, health, sportsmanship and nature. We felt, as mythologist Joseph Campbell says, "the rapture of being alive." Perhaps we can see the future for our tiny planet in these games, where snowflakes sparkle and the whole world can feel "so much like home" in the mythology of Olympic fever.