Woodman Marion: Napuštajući očevu kuću

Marion Woodman: Leaving the Father's House

Journey to Conscious Womanhood As a Jungian analyst heavily influenced by Erich Neumann's "Great Mother," Marion Woodman knows all too well the power of the collective unconscious. For this reason, the subtitle of her book, "Journey to Conscious Femininity", is not a mere supplement to the literary title, nor just a specification of what the book is about, but rather a direct movement of confronting that force that, from afar, or from deep within, governs us without us, most of the time, knowing anything about it. Not, then, simply a counterpoint to the title - the juxtaposition of male and female perspectives - but an active act by which the author leaves the male house to look for something else, that which is peculiar to her, and thus suppressed, that which is female. However, Marion Woodman is too lucid an author to replace one closed principle (partialarchy) with another closed principle (matriarchy). The role of leaving the father's house is - freedom. The personal journey of three Marion Woodman analysts - Kate, PhD candidate in literature, Mary, ballerina and dancer, and Rita, sculptor - and three case studies, therefore, including the life journey of the author and analyst herself, allow us a deep insight into the struggle necessary to bring female wisdom to consciousness in a patriarchal society. Although each of the stories of these three women is unique, all three go in the same direction: to meet the harmony of body and spirit, which the author calls "conscious femininity". At the heart of this book is an exciting analysis of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale "Retkozverka". That short text captivated Marion Woodman to such an extent that, in one way or another, she devoted a huge part of her creative energy to motifs that we did not even know existed in that text. The author approaches the Grimm brothers' fairy tales as an ancient text that knows more than we ourselves, and it is up to us to interpret it, understand it and, perhaps, understand its lessons. Combining dream interpretation techniques with literary text interpretation techniques, she crosses perspectives, overlaps and overlaps interpretations, blazes new paths of understanding. Using "Ratkozverka" as an archetypal road map, Marion Woodman shows the reader how to use Kate's, Mary's, and Rita's stories as guides in the transformational process that takes place within oneself—with or without an analyst. To that extent, one of the lessons, expressed in the words of Marion Woodman herself, could perhaps read: "The main paradox of every journey is the light in the darkness". Therefore, he dares to leave his father's house and go on a journey.