Shangri-La: The Frequency of Paradise Lost

Since childhood I have felt a deep connection with classic black and white films. Already in my teens, I spent hours browsing shelves in vintage shops, yes, and there I was, among old books and dusty movies... Orson Welles surprised me with The War of the Worlds, that story of extraterrestrial machines that seemed more real than reality. Hitchcock Instead, I was captivated by its psychological plots: Gaslight, Psychosis, and horror in The Birds… Shadows, fears, and creaking doors where no one should be. And in the midst of that black and white universe, my soul found respite. Audrey Hepburn, in her simple smile, in the charm of her spontaneity, in Sabrina and his impossible love story and his nostalgic life in Paris or in Roman Holidays like that princess who just wants to live a normal life.

But among them all, there's one film that remains etched in my mind with a distinct intensity. A story nestled between mystery, beauty, and the impossible. A plane crashes high in the Himalayas.
A hidden city beyond the visible.
A film that I still feel belongs to me today: Lost Horizon (1937), based on the novel by James Hilton.

High in the Himalayas, beyond the Nepal we know, exists a legendary place, Shangri-La. A hidden valley among the Kunlun Mountains in mythical Tibet. A kingdom unseen on maps, but inhabited by the imaginations of those who once dreamed of happiness and absolute peace. High mountains, perpetual mist, silent monasteries, penetrating sounds, perhaps of bells that travel endless distances, gardens that resemble eternity.

I remember those scenes vividly: a plane flying over icy peaks, a sudden drop in the snow. The passengers walking aimlessly, for days of whiteness and emptiness... Until, like a mirage, it appeared. Shangri-La.

A secret city among the rocks, bathed in a soft, unreal light. Temples with golden roofs, still waters, flowers that never die. Calm faces, dressed in light clothes even though the world around them was frozen. A place beyond time.

And yet, the protagonist decides to leave. I never understood why. He had found harmony, beauty, the perfect stillness of the world... And yet, something in him drew him back to the noise, the rush, the obsolescence. Since my innocence, I clung to the image of that valley like someone who fears losing a treasure. I would never have left.
And when he, years later, repentant, tries to return—guided by a nostalgia he can no longer control—I held my breath and hoped he would find Shangri-La. Because I knew, without understanding how, that Shangri-La was more than a placeIt was an inner promise. A secret vibration. An echo of the soul.

🧘‍♀️ El sonido que abre la montaña

They say that in Nepal, there are still corners where that echo resonates. In small temples or healing centers tucked away in quiet alleyways, an ancient meditative art is practiced: sound healing with Tibetan bowls.

It's not music. It's vibration. A frequency perceived more by the body than by the ears. When the bowls begin to sound, their vibration slowly penetrates the space, and something in the air and within us changes. It's like an instant that becomes eternally present. And as if it somehow connects us to a distant place, remembered, perhaps dreamed of.

Many describe it like this: a sensation of floating. Of returning to something you can't name, but you recognize. And in that state, Some say it's possible to touch, for an instant, what we've been searching for in movies, in books, in our memories...

Shangri-La may not be on a map.
But maybe—just maybe—its frequency can be felt in the deep vibration of a Tibetan singing bowl, when its sound passes through the body and connects with the soul, and everything that is not essential fades away.