"Through the flesh the bone is showing..."

"... through the bone the marrow's showing" (The Kalevala).

”People were sitting around a fire, men on one side and women on the other side. I went inside, not as a human being but as a skeleton; I do not know by whom I was gnawed, I don’t know how it happened. When I had a closer look they did not appear to be human beings but skeletons that were clothed. There was a seven-sided anvil on the floor of the hut. I saw a woman with an appearance like she was made of fire. I saw a man holding a pair of tongs. There were seven holes in the woman’s body… ‘So this is the shaman origin’ said I.” (As told by Sereptie Djaruoskin, a Nenets wise man, of his initiation.)

Over the course of their history the peoples living in the north have become familiar not only with the harshness of the nature but with the state of death-like stupor which seems to take over the surroundings for the time of the year when the sun remains unseen. Though a body stripped of flesh is most often regarded as an image of life having ended, from the Jungian perspective the Inuit legend of Skeleton Woman (told by Mary Uukalat) is more than anything a story of birth and giving birth. What was hidden bursts out, from the darkness and the unknown emerges a new kind of life. Facing this inner essence is, despite of the frightfulness of the experience, more than inevitable: it is true to nature. So goes on creation, just like a serpent shedding his skin gives birth to himself, out of his own self.

One may find out that a transition which at first seemed to be moving outwards is actually but shifting to the very centre – when reaching the core. W. H. Hodgson wrote an excellent description of this in his novel The House on the Borderland, a vision of a dark sun.

“Verum, sine mendacio, certum et verissimum: Quod est inferius est sicud quot est superius, et quod est superius est sicud quo test inferius –“ In January 2009 news of a peculiar discovery made by Alexander Kashlinsky’s research team was published in New Scientist: an entire group of galaxy clusters is moving towards a point in the sector between the constellations of Centaurus and Vela. Because of the distance it is (for now) impossible to find out what might be the cause; in other words the reason lies beyond the limits of visible universe. One can only say that something draws an incredible amount of matter towards itself with a force greater than the mass in question.

It is undeniable that we cannot truly comprehend the phenomenon, but I still see a connection to what was taught to me by Master Huang Kang-Hui about Baguazhang. I was basically told that while practising hand techniques for example one is to put the focus on the hand as if it was doing the actual move in a real situation – thus becomes the training a conscious activity and activating instead of, although being merely just practising, meaningless mechanical motion.

Having come to realize that what does exist is based on what does not exist we enter the domain beyond particles, step into the zone of zero scale.

The call of Skeleton Woman – and Man – shows the way inward, not out. There is no route for escaping. Even if the diameter of a circle keeps growing infinitely, the circle itself will still be either large or small compared to any object relative. Core, on the other hand, remains as it is. Most people do pursuit whatever can be achieved in order to gain significance in the eyes of others; my goals lie beyond the limits of visible universe instead. No one shall ever even know what happens to me.

Initiation