

The mitochondria are crucial organelles, not only for energy regulation but also for intracellular signaling and regulation of apoptosis. Now here's the really fascinating part: all of your mitochondria come from your mother! Even the most masculine among us contain within each of their cells these organelles that are so vitally important for our life energy. Human mitochondrial DNA is single stranded, arranged in a ring just like bacteria.

Mitochondria have become the key source of energy within our bodies they are, after all, where oxidative phosphorylation takes place in the electron transport chains, allowing us to make ATP molecules from glucose. In the 1970s, University of Massachusetts biologist Lynn Margulis explicated the process of endosymbiosis, in which mitochondria evolved from bacteria and became incorporated, 1.5 billion years ago, within anaerobic bacteria-allowing them to survive in an oxygen-rich environment. Along this line of thought, all males have some feminine aspects and all females have some masculine aspects. Here's the interesting part: There is nothing that is absolutely yin or absolutely yang each is relative to the other, and everything contains components of both! As shown in the yin-yang symbol (Figure), there is always a seed of yin within yang and vice versa. Yin problems tend to be ones of deficiency and usually involve the interior, while yang problems tend to be ones of excess and generally involve the exterior.

Yin is cold and wet, yang is hot and dry. In traditional Chinese medicine, practiced for thousands of years, all things-both substances as well as processes-have yin and yang qualities. I suspect many of you are wondering about this title: What exactly is this article about? Many of you might not have known that you do indeed have a divine feminine aspect, which should be respected and nurtured.
