discovering the Black Swan within 🖤
unpacking Superstar Signatures™ for your creative rebrand
You can find The Black Swan pirouetting in the liminal space of innocence and rebellion. It’s the moment between being and becoming, haunted by the presence of your own shadow disguised as envy, shame, insecurity, and grief. It’s confronting the monster in your closet and realizing it’s the version of yourself you stuffed away for acceptance.
the white swan
The White Swan represents purity, grace, and virtue. They follow expectation and uphold tradition by following the crowd for survival. Because of this, they’re often downplayed and ignored by walking a perfect path that promised recognition.
Sometimes our perfectionism is disguised as devotion, driven by self-doubt and fear. It’s an erotic asphyxiation dressed in latex that some of us cannot resist. Feeling stuck can become so seductive that we forget to come up for air. We search for moments of rebirth knowing the abyss will bring us clarity. We succumb to being lifeless & misdirect our rage to the ones most free.
In The Black Swan (2010), Nina Sayers lives in a confining world living for the expectations of her mother and herself—which creates an over-achieving monotony in her daily life. That is until she meets Lily, a vilified ballerina who pops ecstasy and can still arrive the next day with smudged eyeliner and an innate eroticism that pushes her ahead of the pack. The one who only cares for hard work doesn’t understand how others have it so easy, not realizing that hard work isn’t always rewarded. When we play by the rules so often, we can become so precise that it makes our commitment seem more rigid and unreasonable.
When someone comes along and disrupts our entire belief system of what’s possible, we realize how stifled we become. Had we just lifted our heads from the research books and into the world to learn what surrounds us, maybe we too would be rewarded.
“all that discipline for what?…perfection is not just about control. It’s also about letting go. surprise yourself so you can surprise the audience. transcendence!”. —Thomas Leroy, Black Swan (2010).
when letting go is the medicine
I did a mock reading1 for an imaginary client yesterday and asked the question, “what obstacles are in the way that I’m not getting promoted at work?”
10 of pentacles, Star reversed, 5 of wands, Queen of Pentacles reversed, and Knight of Wands.
I saw a hard-working employee who’d rather catch up on work to get ahead than mingle with her coworkers in the break room. She studied everything that would impress others. She ate alone, worked alone, and scoffed at her coworkers who would laugh in the halls and take too much time away at the cooler. She was a perfectionist and ironically it was what was holding her back from promotion. She tried to follow a traditional route, but because of the conflicting personalities at work, her boss was actually looking for someone who was more of a “people person” and she came off as detached and burnt out. Her boss wanted someone others could trust to solve conflict and who had experiences outside of work that made them relatable to the team—someone with spark who brought fresh ideas to the established workplace. In order to get promoted, she had to ironically stop thinking about work and tend to herself instead. She needing to find her “why” and this was done through letting her hair down & restoring the light that all of her hard work dimmed.
Come to think of it, I used to be that way too. In my early 20s, all I wanted was to become manager and it didn’t matter how hard I worked, I always felt overlooked. People younger and less experienced than me were getting promoted left and right. I stayed in the same position for years no matter where I applied. It felt like the world was against me and I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t being recognized. A few years later, I got a job at a new shop that was all the rage & I petitioned for us to be able to wear whatever we wanted instead of the “corporate look”. It passed and I knew I had the freedom to dress how I wanted. I came to work with a shaved purple head, platform boots, and gems on my eyes. I stood out so much that my sales went up and the creative team started taking photos of me for socials and the website. Not long after, I was promoted to manager. I worked just as hard, but there was something different about me that made my work feel effortless.
It’s not lost on me that during times of transition, I find myself coming back to The Black Swan signature time and time again for inspiration.
the black swan theory
The Black Swan Theory coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, is based on the assumption that all swans were white until the discovery of black swans in Australia, which showed how a single event can shatter previous beliefs. The three core attributes are:
It is an outlier, lying outside the realm of regular expectations and having no prior evidence to suggest its possibility
It has an extreme impact, causing massive disruption
It has retrospective predictability, with explanations constructed after the fact to make it seem as though it could have been foreseen
In other words, to be The Black Swan is to embrace your inner villain by embracing unpredictability and disrupting the status quo to solidify your impact.
becoming the black swan
To become the Black Swan is to release public perception and allow yourself to rediscover who you are beyond achievement. Ironically, this rebirth becomes the catalyst to the accolades you once desperately desired.
Playing into the aesthetic of The Black Swan signature is to symbolically mark a transitional moment in time. It’s bleaching your brows and finally wearing the clothes you’ve been saving for the perfect night out.
You can see the iconic Black Swan in celebrities like Zendaya, Miley Cyrus, Cardi B, Victoria Monet, JT & Julia Fox. These are artists who tirelessly achieved until they discovered a new desire—to not just be recognized for their talent, but to be free. This transition is seen through their body of work, style, and overall energy. They no longer care to blend in or follow the path laid before them. They rebel against expectation and emerge as someone who finally stands out from the crowd.
They found themselves and everyone else can feel it.
To learn more about how to embody The Black Swan in your creative works or energetic imprint, visit The Black Swan portal where you can mark the alchemic process of your latest reinvention.
