MARION WOODMAN (1928-2018), Canadian mythopoetic author, poet, analytical psychologist and women’s movement figure, from her work Conscious Femininity, published 1993:
“… the goddess energy is trying to save us. If we go on with our power tactics, we’re going to destroy the earth. That’s why we haven’t got a long time to evolve. We’re either going to make a leap in consciousness or we aren’t going to be here. Sophia, Shakti, by whatever name we call her, is that wisdom deep down in all matter, pushing her way into consciousness, one way or another.
“The further you go in understanding yourself, the more you realise the kingdom of God is within…. So that in finding the ‘I’, you’re also finding the ‘I’ that is the God within. And in finding that, you are find the God in other people, in plants, in animals – that animating soul to which we all belong.
“Jung recognised soul. He talked the soul in a man, the anima. And he recognised the spiritual dimension of dream images that connects a person to what he called the Self. The Self is the God-image within, like the golden ball in fairy tales. That golden ball takes you where you need to be led in order to find all the parts of yourself. Your goal is not perfection (which is a very one-sided attitude toward life) but your unique totality. During the process you many not know what you’re doing, but as you look back you see that this unknown dream-maker has been taking you through a circuitous route to find your totality.
“I think that the situation of our planet, our Mother Earth – the earthquakes, overpopulation, the destruction of the rain forests – are perils forcing us to a new consciousness of what matter is. It’s not just black nothingness, opaque. There is energy waiting to be released. … I think ordinary human beings are now waking up to see what is in their own matter, their own bodies, in terms of the larger consciousness in all matter. That awareness is coming in physics, mathematics, biology, theology, psychology. I call it the feminine side of God – God in matter. Matter is metaphor of the Goddess.”
ADDICTION IS A DISTORTED RELIGION
“Creativity is divine! To me it is the virgin soul opening to spirit and creating the divine child. You cannot live without it. That’s the meaning of life, that creative fire.”
“We are human beings. And a human being has a divine creative intelligence. One way or another that creative intelligence is going to find an outlet. If it can’t find an outlet through the imagination, which is its natural route, it will find it in a concretized way. That becomes compulsive because there’s no way it can find what it’s looking for in a concrete way. You can’t find the Divine Mother in gobbling food….. If our creative energy is blocked, it will find an outlet in some kind of distorted religion, or addiction. An addiction to me is a distorted religion.
“Jung pointed out that it was no accident that alcohol is also called ‘spirits’ and said that the alcoholic’s thirst for alcohol is equivalent to the soul’s thirst for ‘the union with God.’
“Alcohol in Latin is spiritus, and you use the same word the for the highest religious experience sa well as for the most depraving poison. The helpful formula therefore is: spiritus contra spiritus,’ he wrote … in 1961. It’s an alchemical formula. It takes spirit to counter spirit.
“Looking at alcoholism and addiction as a longing for spirit might mean that something very different is going on in our society. One might say that we don’t have a crisis with alcohol and drugs as much as we have a spiritual crisis. Addiction is the perversion of spirit, our spiritual nature turned inside out, devouring itself. The epidemic of addiction can also be seen as spirit trying to reenter our society...
“A longing for alcohol does symbolise a longing for spirit. Think of the Greeks with Dionysus, the god of the vine. Intoxication and the transcendent experience with the god were intimately connected….. Alcoholics are longing for spirit because they are so mired in matter, but they make the mistake of concretizing that longing in alcohol. Maybe if they really understood what they were longing for and could go into the realm of the imaginal, the soul’s realm, then something very different could begin to happen.”
“Addicts are trying to run away from God as fast as they can. Paradoxically, they are running right into her arms. Consciousness makes them realise how the soul is trying to lead them into the presence of the divine if only they can understand the symbolism inherent in the addictive substance or behaviour.”
“All the running is away from the tragic fear that we are not loved. Unless we perform well, we are not lovable. That terror leads to self-destructive behaviour. It can also lead to global self-destruction. Addictions may be the Goddess’s way of opening our hearts to what love is – love of ourselves, love of others, love of the dear planet on which we live.”
“Lots of people are trying to find spirit through sexuality. Through orgasms they think they can be released from matter; for one brief moment they hope to experience this extraordinary union of spirit and matter. But if they can’t bring relationship into sexuality then it’s just a fly-by-night thing. Eventually it just becomes mechanical…. Sexuality without love is matter without spirit. People who are unable to love may be addicted to sexuality and be driven over and over again to try to find love. What they are projecting onto sexuality is the divine union they so desperately lack within themselves.”
“Jung said the opposite of love is not hate but power, and where there is love there is no will to power. I think this I a core issue in working with addictions. Sooner or later, the feminine face of God, Love, looks us straight in the eye, and though her love may manifest as rage at our self-destruction, she’s there. We can accept or reject – live or die.“
“THE GODDESS ENERGY IS TRYING TO SAVE US.”
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