YUKA THE RED PANDA

YUKA THE RED PANDA series by Shungi Ono

Adventures of a curious little light worker in search of experiences, beauty and wisdom.

Join Yuka on enchanting journeys through the senses.  This visually stunning series, tailored for highly sensitive souls, offers moments of tranquility, simplicity and wonder.

Yuka’s experiences aim to soothe, relax and down-regulate the nervous system, preparing young & wise readers for bedtime, while inviting them to look forward to sleep, the realm of dreams, and beyond …

Through mostly wordless narratives, more experienced readers are encouraged to reconnect with their inner child, weaving their own language, words, expressions, interpretations and stories appropriate to the moment, thereby fostering imagination and allowing for personalized reflections aligned with one’s culture, values, and belief systems.

By inviting the reader to engage their own imagination, this series also becomes an exercise, potentially slowing down cognitive decline while simultaneously offering a profound resonance for individuals grappling with mental illness, or not, serving as a therapeutic outlet to connect with cherished memories and mostly universal experiences.

Though these books are beautiful objects, work as coffee table books and make for great gifts, they are also meant to be used as a therapeutic tool.

This series was created by/for star seeds, highly sensitive individuals, souls on the neurodivergent spectrum, those gifted with ADD/ADHD, Sensory Integration Disorder, anyone doing somatic work, trauma-informed healing, and/or working on healing their inner child in the most loving and gentle way.

The white frame around the image represents a safe zone with multiple purposes:

• In the same way the silences between the notes determine the rhythm and sequence of a piece of music, the silences also allow time & space for the integration and processing of the input that is, in this case, the image.
• Another purpose is to create a safe zone where the eyes can rest if an image is too complex and/or over-stimulating to the reader allowing them to take a "visual breath".  This would happen unconsciously, and might last a nano second, but it is a way some of us regulate our nervous system.  This is especially important for younger readers who might not know this is not reality.
• As a practitioner, parent or more experienced reader, you might notice that when the eyes go to the white space on the page, it will generate a breath, thereby self-regulating.  Every sigh or deep breath is a recalibration of the nervous system: a release and an integration.
• The white border is also where the brain completes the story, fills in the gaps, corrects inconsistencies, weaves the images together into a more cohesive and complex story.
• If the images (and words) are the inhale, the white borders are the exhale.

In a world of too much and often false or manipulative information, meant to disconnect us from our bodies, our time, our imagination, our instincts, and our joys, we need to come back to ourselves and what it means to be us, alive, incarnated in the here and now, in this form.  Time to reclaim the values and pleasures of simplicity.  True life and enlightenment come through being present in our body and present in the moment.  So, by being intentionally vague, the reader is first invited to enjoy the story through their bio form, with all their senses.  Then, if wanting to, they are invited to research a specific subject to learn more about it, thereby developing their curiosity, interests and possible passions.  The information will also be aligned with the reader’s culture and part of the world.  Each subject can be researched in a hundred ways because each culture, age, soul will approach the information in a different way, with a different vantage point in where they are in the space time continuum of their lives, and who they are as a “design”.  Some souls will resonate with the action part of the story, others with the location, colors, theme, season, etc ...

For some experiencing cognitive decline, or around souls who are, this series will inspire them to use their own imagination or (if the decline is more advanced) just sit with an image and what it represents as they connect with the story's theme and how it relates to their life experiences [lived or witnessed], whether they remember it or not, because the body remembers, and so does the soul.

Yuka is not gender or racially defined so everyone can connect in a way that is inclusive to their own reality.  If nothing else, the charm and poetry of the images will bring pleasure to anyone who is sensitive to this aesthetic and/or subject matter.

Each image, reminiscent of museum-worthy oil paintings, invites contemplation, while the books themselves add elegance to any home, even if left on the floor ... why not make a pretty mess.

Yuka the red panda series is meant to spark the imagination and invite readers to explore and grow their curiosity.  Each book is an ode to the art of being present, the beauty and intelligence of nature, the magic of little moments, and hopefully inspires readers to observe, reflect and wonder ...

An instant classic!

Written by Shungi Ono (Shoon-Jee O-No)
Illustrated by Shungi Ono & Dall-E 2 & Canva
Book & Book cover design by Shungi Ono

Published by Shungite Publishing Inc.
All Rights Reserved.