Encounters With Marion Woodman by Marcia Taques Bittencourt

Posterity will not be able to understand why, after light has reigned, we have to live again in such

thick darkness.

Castellio in "De arte dubitante"

First encounter

One day, talking to my dear friend Ceres about binge eating, she said to me: "There's a book,

The Owl was the Baker's Daughter - Obesity, Anorexia Nervosa and the Wounded Feminine, by

Marion Woodman”.

Marion Woodman is an internationally known Jungian analyst who has been exploring the body-

soul relationship in her work as an analyst and teacher for over thirty years. A Canadian graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich and a member of the International Association of Analytical Psychology (IAAP), she is the author of several books, including The Pregnant Virgin, The Addiction of Perfection and Conscious Femininity.

Second meeting

It was in 1996, in Hilton Head, South Carolina, at a conference on Psychoneuroimmunology, that I

saw her for the first time. Marion was responsible for opening the event. There were more than eight hundred people listening attentively to her. Tall, with wavy hair and intense, bright blue eyes, she had a vibrant energy, was articulate and humorous.

She told the story of her life, of her struggle in various life and death situations, anorexia, serious

kidney problems, her experience in India, and how she had survived cancer through a daily

dedication to dreams, to the "dancing expressive symbols" (healing images) in her body and to

the energy of the feminine.

"The energy of the feminine tends to enjoy the pleasure of the journey, and is able to take this

energy both ways, to the ego and to the shadow." (my note from this conference)

Alone, being her own witness, she recorded the flow of her images, feelings, associations that

arose, and later worked on these contents by writing, dancing, drawing and in her therapeutic

analysis. Her words entered my soul. At the end of the conference, at the table where she was signing books, I asked her how I could study with her.

"There are workshops you could go to. Leave your address so I can send you the information."

As I handed her that piece of paper with my address on it, her coffee cup tipped over and

smeared all the writing! Then, as I thought I would never hear about the workshops, she threw my address into her inseparable handbag.

Back in Brazil, the clock was ticking. Then one day a letter arrived from Canada containing the

precious information!

Third meeting

Decided, I packed my bags and flew. Abraxas Retreat Center, in Mississagua, about two hours from Toronto. Lots of green, lots of peace and a big house, like an outhouse. After walking the local trails, I decided to cool off with a dip in the pool. That's when Marion arrived and said to me in amazement: "You really came, give me a hug!" I felt a welcome full of love and consideration such as I had never experienced before. Also leading this group were Ann Skinner, a voice teacher; Mary Hamilton, a dance teacher; and Paula Reeves, an analyst. Throughout the group of teachers and students there was the same loving quality, an unconditional love, full of respect and acceptance.

Fourth, fifth........encounters

Several other workshops, dream seminars, reading groups of Jung's seminars on Zarathustra were experienced. I completed the first leadership program offered by the Marion Woodman

Foundation in 2003. At that time I invited her to come to Brazil, and in October 2004, in a letter,

she confirmed her intention to come to São Paulo:

"We must all accept the reality that my physical health is no longer as dependable as it was

before these heart difficulties (...) Time is healing. Meeting Marion was an opportunity to find and lose myself, to experience a totally unknown energy and use it creatively. To open my soul to spirituality, to feel empowered to surrender, to seek the security to cut out the old, the security to act free of criticism and judgment from others.

To seek the possibility of being authentic. Accept the power of the unconscious, respect dreams

and live the wisdom of the body. Sovereign over the conscious, the unconscious, according to Jung, "should not only be considered dangerous. In any case, the unconscious is unfavorable or dangerous only because we do not form a unity with it and are therefore in opposition to it. A negative attitude towards the unconscious, or separating from it, is harmful if we consider that the dynamics of the unconscious are identical to instinctual energy. Disconnecting from the unconscious is synonymous with losing one's instincts and origins." (Two Essays in Analytical Psychology or.r.7.parg.195)

My personal journey in this search for knowledge of the body-soul relationship began when, at

the age of eight, I took part in dance classes based on the Laban method. My spirit flew and my happy soul felt this encounter in my body. By dancing you can be everything or nothing. In The Soul and the Dance, Paul Valery writes about an encounter in which Socrates, Phaedrus and

Eriximachus appreciate the dancer Athiktê and discuss what the dancer could represent: love, the waves of the sea... Socrates says: "Nothing, dear Phaedrus, but anything, Eriximachus. Both love and the sea, and life itself and thoughts... Don't you feel that she is the pure act of

metamorphosis?" (p.47-48)

The years of studying and working with Pethö Sandor, learning and teaching together with him in courses at the Sedes Sapientiae Institute, participating in the creation of a Psychological

Kinesiology program, independent of the Psychomotor Therapy course, due to the large number

of people interested in trying this path, contributed to affirming and confirming my belief in the

totality that is the human being: body, soul, spirit.

And so, by integrating the somatic aspect (located in the bones and flesh) with the unconscious

complex of the psyche, bridges with Jungian theory were gradually built, bringing to life the

energies of complexes, archetypes, the shadow and the persona.

"The separation of psychology from the assertive bases of biology is purely artificial, because the

human psyche lives in an indissoluble union with the body" (Greene, 1936).

Meetings in Brazil

In April 2005, Marion arrived in São Paulo, the first Latin American city to welcome her for two

conferences and three workshops. The desire to share my experience with the Brazilian community was only possible thanks to a combination of personal and institutional efforts. With this contribution, I can say that the

meetings were a success.

The conferences at PUC São Paulo and Mackenzie University provided a unique opportunity for

teachers and students, as well as the community in general: to hear and feel the energy of this

analyst whose work has been recognized internationally. Spring, Journal of Archetype and Culture, issue 72, dedicates its entire edition to Marion. In the workshops, everyone is led to the paradoxical experience that it is necessary, during the process, to increase the strength and flexibility of the body ego, while at the same time the defenses are gradually dissolved.

This is necessary to enable a dialog with the energies of the unconscious. Since the ego is a filter between the conscious and the unconscious, it is through it that this process can take place. If the ego is not sufficiently strengthened, it will be destroyed by the power of complexes and behaviors linked to addiction. In order to be able to surrender to the world of the soul, a strengthened ego is necessary, because it is the ego that holds and maintains the center, so that new ideas can appear.

The world of the soul and the world of images. When you work on the body, images come to consciousness so that you can dance to them, paint them, make a sculpture or use any other creative path that the energy suggests. It is through the images that the possibilities of transforming the energy are presented, to make it expressible, to make it conscious, so that it doesn't remain in the unconscious and become dangerous. It is through dreams that symbols are seen and it is through the body, properly prepared, that they can be experienced. If you allow yourself to play with the images, observing their process of transformation, the energy trapped in the shadow emerges, bringing with it the creative fire.

In this new integration, the Self offers the opportunity for healing for the soul and the energy for

art, for creativity. For Marion, "work with the body is work with the soul, and images are the bridge between the two". Discovering her own voice is an essential part of this journey. According to her, "the frequent loudness of women's voices is due to a negative animus, which tightens its throat with its inner criticism".

The teachings in her workshops lead us to know love, the love we have for ourselves, rather than

the desire for power. On this journey of the soul, it is necessary to create a space that positively contains love, respect and presence, not only on a physical and interpersonal level, but also on an archetypal level. This is why we can see ritualistic elements in his work.

Finally, these methods help to open up the body, loosen the bonds of the complexes, care for the

wounded child, as well as helping the suffering and traumatized body to reach the field of

consciousness through the ego more quickly than in a traditional analysis.

What we can also observe in the accompaniment of people who try this methodology is the

construction of more sensitive and flexible bodies, containers for conscious femininity.

It is also important to remember that both genders need a good differentiation between masculine and feminine energies. The powerful structures of patriarchy have deeply wounded both men and women, and a mature relationship is almost always only possible with the help of hard psychic work. (Marion Woodman pg 2 Dancing in the Flames)

Bibliography

GREENE, Anita U. Listening to the Body for the Sake of the Soul in Spring 72, Journal of

Archetype and Culture. Body and Soul. Honoring Marion Woodman.

HARRYS, Judith Jung e o Ioga - A ligação corpo- mente. São Paulo: Ed Claridade, 2004.

JUNG, Carl Gustav.

STROMSTED, Tina. Cellular Resonance and the Sacred Feminine: Marion Woodman's Story-

Somatics. Journal of Bodily Arts and Science XIII (1) (2000-1,Fall-Winter), 4-11&5154.

VALERY, Paul. The Soul and Dance and Other Dialogues. Rio de Janeiro: Imago Editorial, 1996

WOODMAN, Marion and Dickson, Elinor. Dancing in the Flames. The Dark Goddess in the

Transformation of Consciousness. Boston & London Shambhala Publications, Inc.,1996.

WOODMAN, Marion. The Owl was the Baker's Daughter. Obesity, Anorexia Nervosa and the

Repressed Feminine. São Paulo: Cultrix Publishing House, 1980.

______________ The Pregnant Virgin. A process of psychological transformation. São Paulo: Paulus

Publishing House, 1999.

______________ The Addiction to Perfection. Understanding the relationship between eating

disorders and psychological development. São Paulo Editora Summus Editorial, 2002.