Cenote angels

Women purifying their souls in unconscious world Cenote, sacred spring of Mexico

Cenote 'sacred spring' in the Mayan language. They are formed when underground limestone caves fill with water and the ground caves in, and there are thousands of cenotes in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.

When I went to Cenote for the first time, I cried their beauties, transparent water and plants shines and there sacred energies purified my soul. I felt really blessed and like I found the garden of Eden.

Since I born and raised up in Tokyo Japan, I felt like myself disconnected to the cosmic. And asking myself everyday 'Why am I exist?'

Living in the city and surrounded by buildings without nature make people lost their sensitivity of invisible world. Under rationalism, only consciousness is considered justice. Human beings maintain their sense of self by maintaining a balance between their conscious and unconscious minds. However, in Japan's current society, this unconscious world is too neglected and suppressed as much as possible to prevent it from surfacing.

As a result, many people get depressed and suicide is the leading cause of death for people aged 10 to 39 in Japan. And this number of suicides gets higher every year.

Carl Gustav Jung stated that there are four layers of human consciousness: the first is consciousness, then the personal unconscious, then the cultural unconscious, and finally the universal unconscious. The universal unconscious is not acquired individually, but is innate and universal to humanity in general.

I feel like to access this deepest layer is the key to purify our social problems. Because when we reach this layer, people can feel the feeling of connect to cosmic and remind that we are all part of the earth and we all human, nature are all connected. Like cenotes are all connected underground and purified, people can be purified each others and this planet.

Hayao Kawai, a leading expert on clinical psychology in Japan analyzed that William Shakespeare used the forest as a metaphor for the characters' unconscious world in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Puck, a fairy who freely moves between the conscious and unconscious worlds, balances the world by playing pranks on the characters in the forest.

Through my photography project , the cenotes are metaphor of unconscious world and the models are role of Puck to make world back to rhythm of cosmic.

I asked many cultural background women who live near cenotes as model. When we swim deeper of the world of unconsciousness , no matter religions, races and sex doesn't matter and wish their safe and happiness, because we are all different but we are all one.

There can be no individual happiness until the world as a whole becomes happy. Ego consciousness changes from the individual to the collective social universe.

Through this project, I hope the photos become visual medicine and people recall the energy to live by feeling the beauty and preciousness of life like cenotes told me.