A friend left the most magnificent documentary in my mailbox, Marion Woodman: Dancing in the Flames.
This film is a spiritual journey that asks us to rethink our relationship with the earth, life, and death. This is the most incredible SL (silver lining) addition to this day and my life..
A Jungian analyst, author and educator, Marion Woodman is renowned for her contributions to feminist thought, the study of addiction, and the endeavour to join spirituality with professional psychology. This is such mind candy to me.
She believes that we all have a destiny. We either live it or escape it because we are afraid to live our own reality.
This makes me think so much about Silver Linings. We have choices in life about how we deal with challenges (whatever they are) and even seemingly insurmountable F-bombs. I am fully choosing to live in the reality of FBC. As hard as it’s been and continues to be, I am learning and growing through the adversity. While I wouldn’t have wanted FBC to learn this incredibly important lesson, I’m embracing it and feel stronger for it.
To find the full spiritual dimension, Woodman believes that we must surrender the old life to the new. Surrender feels like death, but results in a whole new consciousness. Profound.
Death happens throughout life, Woodman believes. The death of part of our soul, for example. But out of that death, new life will come. Certain things have to die in order for life to come. This is stimulating such thought and reflection for me. What part of me is dying so that another part can be born anew? I don’t have the solution at this minute, but I’m confident that it will present itself.
Author, scholar and mystic Andrew Harvey (who interviews Marion Woodman in the film) says that she is a sign that it is possible to live a full, passionate, dignified deeply concerned human life with profound mystical awareness. All of this AND he considers her a down-home woman with a great sense of humor. How fabulous!
As a thinker, Woodman draws on religion and myth to explain the mind; hers is a philosophy of dynamic opposites, the bridging of seeming contradictions. Life and death, love and grief, courage and submission are part of a harmonious whole.
What a Silver Lined way to live life. Truly aspirational and inspirational.
Just found your blog by was of Slim. I am so enjoying your writing and your wise, generous and gracious spirit. Thank you! xo
Hollye,
As you know, Shawn works for Pacifica Graduate Institute, and has had the pleasure of getting to know Marion Woodman. She has shared much of her personal story, and he was awed by her life experience and the depth of her spirit. What an amazing woman, and an example of how life can have so many chapters, some so very challenging, some so uplifting and blessed, and yet we learn from it all. She exemplifies that we never stop evolving if we allow ourselves to reflect on our lives, and ask ourselves if the path we are on is the one we should remain walking, or if there are branches in road that we should take into unknown territory. You are indeed walking down an unknown path, and yet are sharing with all of us your reflections, fears, inspirations, and most importantly WISDOM that you have gained. Thank you for having the chutzpah to be so open about your journey; a friend of mine on Kauai that had breast cancer wrote to me then "it has unleashed my courage". Words to live by for us all….