Marion Woodman
Overview
 
Marion Woodman is a Canadian mythopoetic
Mythopoiesis
The mythopoetic men's movement refers to a loose collection of organizations active in men's work since the early 1980s. While in the public eye in the early 1990s, the movement carries on more quietly in The ManKind Project and independent psychologico-spiritual practitioners...

 author and women's movement figure. She is a Jungian analyst
Analytical psychology
Analytical psychology is the school of psychology originating from the ideas of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. His theoretical orientation has been advanced by his students and other thinkers who followed in his tradition. Though they share similarities, analytical psychology is distinct from...

 trained at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zürich
C. G. Jung Institute in Zürich
The C.G. Jung Institute in Zürich, Switzerland was founded in 1948 by the psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, the founder of Analytical Psychology...

, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

. She is one of the most widely read authors on feminine psychology, focusing on psyche
Psyche (psychology)
The word psyche has a long history of use in psychology and philosophy, dating back to ancient times, and has been one of the fundamental concepts for understanding human nature from a scientific point of view. The English word soul is sometimes used synonymously, especially in older...

 and soma
Soma (biology)
The soma , or perikaryon , or cyton, is the bulbous end of a neuron, containing the cell nucleus. The word "soma" comes from the Greek σῶμα, meaning "body"; the soma of a neuron is often called the "cell body"...

. She is also an international lecturer and poet. Her collection of audio and visual lectures, correspondence, and manuscripts are housed at OPUS Archives and Research Center
OPUS Archives and Research Center
OPUS Archives and Research Center holds the archival collections of scholars in the fields of mythology, depth psychology and archetypal psychology. The archival collections housed at OPUS include: Joseph Campbell, Marija Gimbutas, James Hillman, Jane Hollister Wheelwright and Joseph Wheelwright,...

, in Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...

. Among her collaborations with other authors she has written with Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore (spiritual writer)
Thomas Moore is an American writer of popular spiritual books including the New York Times best seller, Care of the Soul . He is a psychotherapist influenced by the writings of Carl Jung and James Hillman....

, Jill Mellick and Robert Bly
Robert Bly
Robert Bly is an American poet, author, activist and leader of the Mythopoetic Men's Movement.-Life:Bly was born in Lac qui Parle County, Minnesota, to Jacob and Alice Bly, who were of Norwegian ancestry. Following graduation from high school in 1944, he enlisted in the United States Navy, serving...

.
Her brothers are the late Canadian actor Bruce Boa
Bruce Boa
Bruce Boa was a Canadian actor, who found success playing the token North American in British films and television....

 and Jungian analyst Fraser Boa.
Her husband is Ross Woodman, currently an English professor at the University of Western Ontario
University of Western Ontario
The University of Western Ontario is a public research university located in London, Ontario, Canada. The university's main campus covers of land, with the Thames River cutting through the eastern portion of the main campus. Western administers its programs through 12 different faculties and...

.

On November 7, 1993, she was diagnosed with uterine cancer.
Quotations

Her [an Anorexia nervosa|anorexic's] natural bent is towards perfection, purification, aesthetics. Her ideal is to remove all the superficial veils until only essence is left.

p. 80

Their [those with eating disorders'] task is to rescue themselves from a drive that is destroying them. Food embodies the false values that their own bodies refuse to assimilate, by which I mean that their bodies become edemic, bloated, allergic, or resort to vomiting the poison out. The unconscious body, and certainly the conscious body, will not tolerate the negative mother.

p. 15

Living by principles is not living your own life. It is easier to try to be better than you are than to be who you are. If you are trying to live by ideals, you are constantly plagued by a sense of unreality. Somewhere you think there must be some joy; it can't be all "must," "ought to," "have to." And when the crunch comes, you have to recognize the truth: you weren't there. Then the house of cards collapses.

p. 61

The whole, however, had become more than the sum of its parts. The parts concentrate on the periods in the chrysalis when life as we have known it is over. No longer who we were, we know not who we may become. We experience ourselves as living mush, fearful of the journey down the birth canal. The whole has to do with the process of psychological pregnancy—the virgin forever a virgin, forever pregnant, forever open to possibilities.

Introduction, p. 7

 
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