Lena Måndotter

Lena Måndotter has included many of her poems in her live-acts and performances. She has given many poetry readings both in Scandinavia and Europe; for example at El Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. Her literary work has also been published in anthologies, magazines, on cds.

Lena Måndotter

2024 BOOK RELEASE! THE SONG OF THE SOUL

Wednesday 2 October at 17.30 – 21.30. ”The Song of the Soul – The Transpersonal Dimension of Sound and Psyche”. Book-release Lena Måndotter (Zürich Lecture Series/Chiron Publications), lecture, concert and dinner at Zunfthaus zur Schmiden in Zürich Switzerland.
The concert includes Lena’s own compositions, interpretations of Leonard Cohen and Federico Garcia Lorca and hymns from the world.
Vocals: Lena Måndotter. Guitar: Pierre Engström.

Thursday 3 October at 10.00 – 15.30. Zürich Lecture Series: ”Sound and Psyche” and ”The Singing Instinct. At Foyer St Anton, Zürich Switzerland.
For more information and registration see this link
https://isapzurich.com/en/special-events/zurich-lecture-series-as2024/

ABOUT THE BOOK THE SONG OF THE SOUL At the core we are all vibrations, musical compositions in motion, and that is why we resonate in communion with the world of music. The human voice is the only instrument that sounds from within, and our singing voice is deeply connected to heart and soul. In the timbre and tonal nuances of the voice we can perceive subtle soul messages – way beyond words. The sound of the voice mirrors the movements in the depths of psyche, and this touches us profoundly. To liberate the voice is to liberate psyche. To free the sound is to free the soul. Singing requires deep listening, instinctual attention, pure vocal presence, and the song is a musical alchemical vessel for psychospiritual transformation. Music is a magical magnet, a sacred gift from the Muses, so that our songs may sound the mana of the Mysterion. Lena Måndotter’s lifelong voyage with soul and song can inspire us all to reclaim our instinctual singing voice. C G Jung wrote that “music should be an essential part of every analysis.” This book shows why and is a testament to the healing power of song. As an author, she writes in the same visionary spirit as writers like Henry Corbin and Marie – Louise von Franz.

ABOUT THE BOOK THE SONG OF THE SOUL

At the core we are all vibrations, musical compositions in motion, and that is why we resonate in communion with the world of music. The human voice is the only instrument that sounds from within, and our singing voice is deeply connected to heart and soul. In the timbre and tonal nuances of the voice we can perceive subtle soul messages – way beyond words. The sound of the voice mirrors the movements in the depths of psyche, and this touches us profoundly.

To liberate the voice is to liberate psyche. To free the sound is to free the soul. Singing requires deep listening, instinctual attention, pure vocal presence, and the song is a musical alchemical vessel for psychospiritual transformation. Music is a magical magnet, a sacred gift from the Muses, so that our songs may sound the mana of the Mysterion.

Lena Måndotter’s lifelong voyage with soul and song can inspire us all to reclaim our instinctual singing voice. C G Jung wrote that “music should be an essential part of every analysis.” This book shows why and is a testament to the healing power of song. As an author, she writes in the same visionary spirit as writers like Henry Corbin and Marie – Louise von Franz.

Song of the soul

QUOTE FROM THE FOREWORD BY DR MURRAY STEIN (AUTHOR OF JUNG’S MAP OF THE SOUL) Lena Måndotter offers readers a richly rewarding reflection on the archetypal nature of song and singer. Her words are based securely on her experience as a singer, song-writer, song-therapist and Jungian psychoanalyst. She knows whereof she speaks, from the depths of her being. This work is the harvest of fruit from years of service in the precincts of Orpheus. As I read the text, I can hear her uplifting voice sound across the fields and valleys of her beloved Greece. She is bringing into the world of song her psychological knowledge of the soul. She chants the soul alive like the great poets before her. Reading the book resembles listening to a song that is being well performed in concert. One must stay with the rhythms and attune the mind to the harmonies, even as one catches the words and meanings. Reading becomes an experience of meditation, of listening for the psyche’s response to the words on the page. My recommendation is to take these pages in slowly, and not too many at one sitting. Deep reading is called for here, not because the ideas are especially complex or difficult, but because a resonance between word and feeling needs to get set up and vibrate. It’s more like reading poetry than prose. The latter can be skimmed, the former must be slowly savored.

QUOTE FROM THE FOREWORD BY DR MURRAY STEIN (AUTHOR OF JUNG’S MAP OF THE SOUL)

Lena Måndotter offers readers a richly rewarding reflection on the archetypal nature of song and singer. Her words are based securely on her experience as a singer, song-writer, song-therapist and Jungian psychoanalyst. She knows whereof she speaks, from the depths of her being. This work is the harvest of fruit from years of service in the precincts of Orpheus. As I read the text, I can hear her uplifting voice sound across the fields and valleys of her beloved Greece. She is bringing into the world of song her psychological knowledge of the soul. She chants the soul alive like the great poets before her.

Reading the book resembles listening to a song that is being well performed in concert. One must stay with the rhythms and attune the mind to the harmonies, even as one catches the words and meanings. Reading becomes an experience of meditation, of listening for the psyche’s response to the words on the page. My recommendation is to take these pages in slowly, and not too many at one sitting. Deep reading is called for here, not because the ideas are especially complex or difficult, but because a resonance between word and feeling needs to get set up and vibrate. It’s more like reading poetry than prose. The latter can be skimmed, the former must be slowly savored.

Praise for Lena Måndotter’s THE SONG OF THE SOUL

Lena Måndotter’s Song of the Soul is characterized by the fact that, on the one hand, it is drawn from her personal experience as a singer, song- therapist and Jungian psychoanalyst and is thus touching and convincing, and that, on the other hand, it draws on a great deal of mythological amplification material and relevant literature, thus anchoring the subject in the larger whole of an archetypal reality and a scientific dialogue. The book is, as it were, a symphonic poem about sound and song as a numinous experience of the reality of the soul. The various mythological aspects that resonate in song are discussed in a broad arc. Hermes, Orpheus, the angels, the serpent. Music connects in both directions: upwards and downwards. Into the realm of the air and the spirit and into the realm of the earth and the underworld and the instincts.

Thanks to their transpersonal dimension, song and sound can lead us into a realm that can expand the ego trapped in its rational perspective and anchor it both in its instinctual level and in the open horizon of archetypal experience. This richly documented book, which is full of fascinating insight, allows the reader to recognize in musical serpentines the astonishing dimensions of depth, mystery and soul that are inherent in sound and song. It will be of great use to vocal therapists, music therapists and singers, but also to lovers of sound and psychoanalysts in general who like and are able to listen.

PAUL BRUTSCHE. Ph.D. Jungian psychoanalyst, training/supervising analyst at ISAPZURICH.
Author of Creativity: Patterns of Creative Imagination as Seen Through Art

Lena Måndotter’s Song of the Soul renews and deepens my vision of art healing. The ability of vocal expression to immediately access the range of emotion from the atavistic wilds, and the resulting fear of their power, to the most tender vibrations, and joyous play, requires the skill and care demonstrated in this book when working with others. The expressions are, in my experience, best released, and lovingly held, within the sacred spaces and world traditions presented here, all affirming Soul’s ability to heal itself with song.

SHAUN MCNIFF. Artist and University Professor Emeritus.
Author of Art as Medicine, Art Heals, Integrating the Arts in Therapy, Trust the Process: An Artist’s Guide to Letting Go and Imagination in Action: Secrets for Unleashing Creative Expression

Whiskey in hand. Seat laid back. Lectures done. Flying home, watching Willie Nelson in Honeysuckle Rose. Strangely, I hear other voices singing, old-time country voices I recognize as Hank Williams, Bob Wills, Roy Acuff, and others. I begin to cry, sob uncontrollably. Passengers concerned; stewardesses wanting to know if I want a doctor. Finally, I calmed down. Later, I told my parents about this. My dad said he knew what I was experiencing. During my first year, he would rock me in his arms, singing out loud to country music radio of the late 30’s: to cure his stuttering. It worked. Something I had never known about. As I read Lena Måndotter’s The Song of the Soul, my experience of those country voices came alive in ways they had not before; I knew what she meant by soulsong. Every page resonated with the myriad implications of my experience and brought forth not only the depth but the breadth of songs I had heard before I was one year old, before language, before conscious memory, and came back to me at 42 with sobs and tears.

Lena writes in words about something beyond the reach of words. But her experience in singing and song therapy made her words lyrical, and something came through. I found myself humming as I read–a new experience for me. As I read, the sense of mystery deepened. But Lena made it clear that soulsong as mystery was not to be subjected to the usual rational and linear tools of understanding. Mystery was a guide from the depths of the archetypal world. As Giles Quispel said, “Mystery is not to be solved, resolved, or dissolved. Mystery is to be embraced, loved, and out of that will come one’s deepest sense of life, meaning, and purpose.” This is the spirit and soul of Lena’s book throughout, an ever-deepening revelation of this deepest secret. Get this book and let it sing to you and prompt soulsong from your depths. This is the gift of this book and of Lena’s immersion in the mystery of soulsong.

RUSSELL A LOCKHART. Ph.D. Jungian psychoanalyst.
Author of Psyche Speaks – a Jungian Approach to Self and World and Words as Eggs – Psyche in Language and Clinic and Dreams, Bones & the Future.

In this extensive study Lena Måndotter explores the archetypal aspects of the singing voice as the inner instrument that connects the soul and the heart. As a long-time inhabitant of Greece, she is at home with the country’s myths and teases out Hermes’ and the Serpent’s capacity to connect with song. The book beautifully explores the direct expression of emotions carried by singing and suggests that this is of a different order to that conveyed by words. Måndotter makes the case for a place for music in the centre of an analysis. It is a book to be appreciated by all who want to explore the ways in which sound and singing carry and transmit emotions in their own unique way.

JULIET MILLER. Jungian Analyst and Documentary Filmmaker.
Author of The Creative Feminine and her Discontents – Psychotherapy, Art and Destruction and Art, Memoir and Jung: Personal and Psychological Encounters.

In The Song of the Soul, Lena Måndotter offers a moving testimony to the essential and numinous relationship between soul, sound, music, and the transpersonal. Drawing from her broad experience as a singer, song- therapist, and Jungian psychoanalyst, this volume integrates Måndotter’s personal musical journey with archetypal themes, neuroscience, somatic experience, reflections on contemporary culture, the poetry of lyrics, and experiences from her consulting room. The Song of the Soul creates a rich tapestry that opens the reader’s ears, eyes, and soul to the power of music to engage with psyche at great depth.

MARK WINBORN. Ph.D. – Jungian Psychoanalyst, Clinical Psychologist and Musician. Author of Deep Blues: Human Soundscapes for the Archetypal Journey and Interpretation in Jungian Analysis: Art and Technique.

As a singer, musician, and music-therapist, I feel that Lena Måndotter’s Song of the Soul is a musical soul journey into the mystical, symbolic, and archetypal worlds. We, who live in the world of sound, know how hard it is to translate this sounding world into words, but Lena has paradoxically managed to verbalize this non-verbal dimension.

For many years, in group courses and supervision, I have experienced Lena’s skillful ability to navigate and therapeutically guide this song- therapeutic process where we are called to reclaim our holy soul voices. Her book is a musical testament to this knowledge, and she appears on the horizon as a messenger for the soul-song of humanity.

This book is very important for our times. It tenderly cares for Song and Soul, and it is a numinous recall to remember who we soulfully are as musical beings. Lena has woven a poetical tapestry of what the healing power of singing and music is truly - and finally about.

MARIT ENESTRÖM. Singer. Guitarist. Pianist. Music-therapist. Eurythmics- and Song-teacher: “Voice and Body” sessions and courses and at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Sweden.

With The Song of the Soul Lena Måndotter presents a profound and very enriching study of the importance of music in therapy, based on her many years of work with Jungian song therapy. A central sentence of C.G. Jung, to which all statements in Måndotter ́s work can ultimately be traced back, is: “I feel that from now on music should be an essential part of every analysis. Music reaches the deep archetypal material that we can only sometimes reach in our analytical work with patients.”

When you read this book, you get the impression, that you can no longer carry out therapy without using song and music, so inspiring are Måndotter’s thoughts and experiences. She goes a long way by delving deeply into the archetypal history of music using a variety of mythological and spiritual references. Actually, no therapy should be without music, because singing means to use our soul-voice. From an early age, even from the time in the womb, song, tone, and music are deeply anchored in our souls, even in our genes as a primal language.

Måndotter, herself, is deeply present in her words through her own living experience. She is almost permeable to her thoughts and experiences and is therefore able to reach the reader ́s psyche. Every one of us psychological therapists, but also music therapists, and indeed everyone interested in the soul and the effects of music, should read this book and be inspired by her wonderful and convincing statements. If you have not any experience with singing and music in therapy, her song-therapeutic work makes you curious to try out. The value and importance of the analyst ́s or therapist ́s soul-voice as an instrument for the patient ́s healing psychological process is made aware – indelibly.

IRENE BERKENBUSCH-ERBE. Ph.D. Jungian psychoanalyst, training/supervising analyst at ISAPZURICH.

Lena Måndotter’s The Song of the Soul is nothing other than just that, a soul song and a song for our collective soul. A scholar and multi-talented artist, this book is Måndotter’s crown jewel in her diadem of life work. Herein she has harvested her knowledge and experience into a penultimate offering, bringing her soul to the souls of others with song, with words, myth, therapeutic practice, and with the sparking forces and fires of alchemical creativity. That we may all emerge from these pages singing.

LISA L LINDSAY. Ph.D. Clinical Psychologist. Leader of Jungian Somatic Workshops. Author of Arlo’s Garden and protagonist of Avenge a Friend – a Book and a Documentary Film about a Deep Friendship with a Horse.

I have known Lena Måndotter for many years and followed her career at a distance. I have listened to many of her concerts, and I have also participated in her experiential seminars and workshops The Song of the Soul. I have been overwhelmed and awed at her ability to guide her students to the deepest parts of their singing souls with a combination of encouragement, firmness, kindness, and a profound knowledge of what she is doing. In this book she describes in a fascinating way how she has obtained this unique ability and what insights and experiences she has gathered along the way. I sincerely love and admire her book, her song- therapeutic work and her moving singing and lovely songs.

KARIN HEDNER. MD Ph.D., and Leader of Ritual Dancing. Author of Rituell Dans – Livets Dans (Ritual Dance – the Dance of Life) and Undran och Förundran – Tankar om Livet (Wonder and Wonderment – Reflections on Life).

With The Song of the Soul Lena Måndotter shows how it is possible for us to “feel” the soul within the body, and how, via the expression of music or song, it is possible for deep movement within. As a singer, song-therapist and Jungian psychoanalyst, Lena has a wonderful gift to share with us.

In her book she uses amplification from Greek mythology, Jungian wisdom, and the symbolism of animals to reach our inner “hearing” and maybe also “conscious understanding.” But most touching of all is to actually hear these songs and music, especially when sung or played with deep feeling from within. We are provided with a heartwarming experience via this book, and encouragement to allow and enjoy this deep expression of feeling and being who we truly are.

SANDY SCHNEKENBURGER. Adv. Dipl. (PSW), Jungian psychoanalyst and training/supervising analyst at ISAPZURICH.

Lena Måndotter

PRESS CLIPS ON EARLIER POETRY- AND TRAVEL BOOKS AND PERFORMANCES:

”An original imagination…Lena Måndotter represents the visionary poetic tradition where invocations and transcendence are at the centre” TOM HEDLUND, SVENSKA DAGBLADET

”Lena Måndotter clearly shows that poetry is born out of visions, rhythm and movement and her live performances competes easily with rock’n roll when it comes to expressiveness and intensity” CLEMENS ALTGÅRD

”An independent artistic expression and a poetic sensibility that moves along poets like Octavio Paz and Homeros Aridjis. Lena Måndotter uses the language of mystery where the archetypal beings of mythology come alive.” ZORAN ALAGIC, LITTERATURTIDSKRIFTEN HORISONT

”This is a promising poetry-book; brave in it’s highly inventive literary form. This lyrical collection is very different from most other poetry books published today. It’s a poetic collage of impressions from both the inner and the outer landscapes where mystery and mythology is highly present.” ULF MALMQVIST, NORDVÄSTRA SKÅNES TIDNINGAR

”This book shows an intensive search for new poetic forms and a journey towards the source of the creative power itself. These poems turn their back on modernism and post-modernism and they are as far away from cynicism as any poem can be, Listen - and be touched!” CHRISTINA HOLMGREN, SYDSVENSKAN

”Lena Måndotter holds a very specific position in the cultural world. Her poems are recited like incantations - each word drawn towards the spiritual. Her poetic recitals speak directly to one’s intuition with a splendid balance of intensity and seriousity.” BOEL GERELL, SYDSVENSKAN

”This is a poetic and imaginary journey into the archetypal world of symbols and myths. Enigmatic, original and totally fascinating” INGELA BROVIK, SKÅNSKA DAGBLADET

”An artistic expression which shines with originality while it rebels against all forms of cultural conventions” MALENA FORSARE, EXPRESSEN/KvP

”Lena Måndotter’s poems are carried by a powerful rhythm and harmonic musicality which moves the reader back to the archaic times where order was created out of chaos”. ROBERTO DUNKELBERG, ARBETAREN

”Lena Måndotter is the artistic star that shines the strongest” LISA APPELQVIST, SYDSVENSKA DAGBLADET

”The atmospheric lyrical suite ’Where All Angels Have Fallen’; brings the reader to the Transhimalayas - to the sacred Tibetan mountain of Kailash; the mythological place of death and rebirth” YSTADS ALLEHANDA

”Lena Måndotter has her own very special nisch in todays Swedish poetry and music” Bengt Eriksson, BTJ

”Un exacto sentido de la estetica, un libro hecho con cuidado, porque Lena Måndotter es una poeta” JUAN CAMERON, LIBERACIÓN

	Sierskans Brev / Letter from the Seeress A letter, sent from the future, by a seeress called Kassandra who lives in exile in a little chapel in the mountains of Crete in Greece. The transcendent voice of Kassandra has both a mystical and political edge when she speaks about the broken heart of the earth. The letter is available in print at Lena Måndotter’s premier concert at Palladium in Malmö Wednesday 6 of April and then, after the premier, as an ebook at many internet book and library sites (distributor Elib www.elib.se)
	Asien - Mystik och Verklighet/ Asia - Mystery and Reality A book with prose, poems and photos from journeys in Tibet, Burma, Ladakh, Nepal and India. (FC-SYD, 1994). The writers have done many travels there and the book deals with both religious and political issues in these countries.(The book is sold out! Contact your nearest library if you are interested)
	Där Alla Änglar Fallit/ Where All Angels Have Fallen A book of poems about a journey in Transhimalaya to the pilgrim-mountain Kailash in Tibet. Photos by Christer Strömholm. (Art Distribution 1993). The text has also been performed together with percussion (by Bert Mellblom) in a performance with the same name. This book also contains a spanish translation by Juan Cameron.(Sold Out! contact your nearest library if you are interested).
	Offra denna dröm A book with poems and prose about a journey through Mexico and Guatemala. Pictures by Max Liljefors (Art Distribution 1991). Some of these poems were also included in a series of exhibitions.(Sold Out! contact your nearest library if you are interested)

Sierskans brev

Sierskans Brev / Letter from the Seeress

A letter, sent from the future, by a seeress called Kassandra who lives in exile in a little chapel in the mountains of Crete in Greece. The transcendent voice of Kassandra has both a mystical and political edge when she speaks about the broken heart of the earth. The letter is available in print at Lena Måndotter’s premier concert at Palladium in Malmö Wednesday 6 of April and then, after the premier, as an ebook at many internet book and library sites (distributor Elib www.elib.se)

Asien - Mystik och Verklighet/ Asia - Mystery and Reality

A book with prose, poems and photos from journeys in Tibet, Burma, Ladakh, Nepal and India. (FC-SYD, 1994). The writers have done many travels there and the book deals with both religious and political issues in these countries.(The book is sold out! Contact your nearest library if you are interested)

Där Alla Änglar Fallit/ Where All Angels Have Fallen

A book of poems about a journey in Transhimalaya to the pilgrim-mountain Kailash in Tibet. Photos by Christer Strömholm. (Art Distribution 1993). The text has also been performed together with percussion (by Bert Mellblom) in a performance with the same name. This book also contains a spanish translation by Juan Cameron.(Sold Out! contact your nearest library if you are interested).

Offra denna dröm

A book with poems and prose about a journey through Mexico and Guatemala. Pictures by Max Liljefors (Art Distribution 1991). Some of these poems were also included in a series of exhibitions.(Sold Out! contact your nearest library if you are interested)

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