In this book, I shoot Cenotes and women who swim there, expressing the story of integrating the unconscious shadow within the ego and achieving wholeness of mind. Cenote means “sacred spring” in the Mayan language. They are formed when underground limestone caves fill with water and the ground caves in. There are thousands of cenotes in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.

Cenote’s mystical energies are gifts from the mother earth, where we can recall our unconscious. There are issue that Japanese’s high depression rate and commit suicide. It’s leading cause of death for people aged 10 to 39 in Japan. And this number of suicides gets higher every year. 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.

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. To access this deepest layer is the key to purify our social problems. Because when we reach this layer, people can recall 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 cenote are all connected underground and purified, people can be purified each others and this planet.

Through this project, I hope the photos will effect as visual healing and people recall the energy to live by feeling the beauty and preciousness of life like cenote told me.