swanasa

: Life, Death, Life

You have outgrown this skin. It’s time to grow into something new. Stop trying to hold back what must go.

The cycle of life and death is a rhythm that arises from the depths of nature, from the most ancient layers of existence. This ebb and flow resides within us, and even the act of being born is both an end and a beginning. We experience similar waves of transformation when we shed or release conditioned parts of identity, when we resolve childhood wounds, when we finally accept that certain things are beyond our control, or when we let go of something or someone to whom we are emotionally attached. Our lives are interwoven with such cycles, which are not merely a series of endpoints, but rather the eternal process of transformation itself. In these processes passing away is not an end, but a gateway, a passage to deeper layers of ourselves. Every ending promises a new beginning, and every beginning is also a path leading toward the unknown, yet to discover. Darkness and challenges are just as necessary as light and comfort, and a new dimension of the world’s nature will unfold before you. By following the rhythm of life, death, and life, we can learn how to find our inner strength in all forms of transformation, and how to accept and celebrate our existence. Endpoints become starting points, and the inner journey—life.. death.. life—transforms into a single, infinite dance.

My sound journey unfolds within this rhythm as well, guiding the participant through the mystical currents of passing, through layers of inner experience, into a new, boundless space. Here we can rediscover ourselves and grow wings from our shapeless, dark roots to soar once again towards the sky.

This is my subjective journey, come along:

On the inner landscapes of transformation, alongside the archetypical totem-animal figures, I also call upon the sounds of nature’s primordial forms. They appear as guides and companions. They are not merely images or motifs, but the voices of forces rising from the deep layers of the collective unconscious. These ancient natural powers and archetypical images together shape the inner mythology through which transformation takes place. They do not teach with words, nor lead with maps, yet they know the way. They emerge like ancient memories from the depths of the soul, where collective imagination and the personal dream-world converge.

From the woven fabric of the physical plane of sound, the call of the wolf rises first. He is the guardian of our instincts, the embodiment of vigilance and endurance: he watches, protects, and stays with us through the darkness where our fears dwell. In totemism and many shamanic traditions, he is the companion of initiations – a teacher who knows the paths of the shadow-world and leads us when we no longer know where to go. Now he is the one who awakens and calls us onto the path, securing our journey toward a truer, deeper, more complete self. As we move deeper into this sounding landscape and the wolf’s voice begins to recede, the darkness also begins to dissolve. Immersion.The tension does not vanish but rearranges itself. As if fear itself were beginning to breathe. Now there are no more questions and no more answers – only presence remains. Thus we travel through ethereal spaces of sound, breathing together with our fears.

Then sorrow begins to arise within us, and within it, grief—grief that has at last found a place in our world. This is the Dark Night of The Soul. In alchemical terms, this stage is the nigredo—the phase of darkness and dissolution, when every former form dissolves.

Here, upon entering the realm of unknowing, the ego-consciousness surrenders its illusory dominion, finds no more footholds, and the structure of the self falls apart. At this point we no longer seek an escape; we remain present with what is, and thus the shadow ceases to be an adversary and becomes a companion.

In the stillness of sorrow, when all has quieted, like an ancient remembrance, the voice of the whale resounds—its call like a hidden gateway at the bottom of darkness.

She is the mother of the deep ocean, a feminine archetype who connects us to the materia prima. Her archetypical power calls us further into the most ancient waters of the soul—into the womb, the origin, the silence. She calls us into the realm of the deep waters, which is not merely a place but an inner state: the boundlessness that begins to whisper its own language—not in words, but in primordial impulses that awaken the memory of who we were before words.

The voice of the dolphin then flickers like a spark, seeking to remind us of the inevitability of transformation hidden in our descent—and of its playful nature.

For at the beginning, our mind resists, our thoughts race, our sense of self searches for something to hold on to. The walls of our carefully constructed personality begin to crack, and we already know that something is nearing its end. Yet we are not afraid. We continue on the path—guided by Carolina’s voice, the shamanic guide—and deep within we know: she is holding the space for us.

When the darkness reaches its fullness, when all seems lost, only then can everything turn into its opposite. Yet this does not happen through our will, but when the unconscious has completed its work. The “dark matter” has already been transmuted and has become capable of carrying the light. —In the deep, underwater roaring, bubbles slowly begin to appear, and into the suffocating density, lightness gradually flows.— This is not something new, but a transformation of our inner quality. Something stirs within us, and still almost imperceptibly, we gradually begin to rise. What had fallen apart, dissolved, and been lost, now slowly begins to reassemble. From the depths of the boundless waters, as we rise higher and higher, form begins to be born anew; out of the overwhelming noise, something familiar starts to be heard again, taking shape into a movement flowing in one direction—into The River.

The symbolism of the river is deeply embedded in the collective unconscious: it carries the next phase of transformation. This is the alchemists’ whiteness (albedo), the purified matter of the unconscious, the return to form, the soul emerging into a new order. The water no longer dissolves, but guides. It is not a realm of annihilation, but a directed flow. It does not question, it does not rush—it simply holds. Its motion is not mere movement forward, but the gesture of rebirth: what darkness has dissolved, the movement of the water now reshapes. According to Zen tradition, this is the “natural way”—when the individual once again aligns with the rhythm of the Tao, not through will, but through allowing. And as the current becomes ever more familiar, something within us also begins to recognize itself anew. The current takes on melody and the noise becomes music.

In this transfigured state, the swan arrives to us—the archetype of beauty and silence, the totem of unspoken knowledge, of intuitive wisdom: the bird of the soul’s albedo. Its whiteness carries not innocence, but the purity of consciousness that has passed through darkness. Seemingly motionless, it still moves—as the Tao moves within the unmoving. It is the one who mediates between depth and light, the inner and the outer: it does not teach, but reminds. And suddenly, we notice: we are well.

— links