Reflections from Bone:Dying into Life by Marion Woodman
“… The gaps are not my lack of concentration, but rather my too precise pondering on the event.” (Woodman, 2000, p. 215)
“my rational mind has accepted that I do not have cancer; my unconsciousness is still trapped in a death wish.” (Woodman, 2000, p. 216)
“Sophia and her nether depths still feels like chaos, murderous chaos. Rather than face the killer, I fly away into rational, now archaic, patterns of thinking that need to be dumped. There’s a chaos/creation out there that I want to move into.” (Woodman, 2000, p. 216)
“My … crux of Sophia right now is her connection to my new masculinity. I am moving from uterus as creative center to whole Being as creative center. The new masculine that is fighting so hard to overcome the patriarchal death sentence and the patriarchal legal stance is one half of that whole Being. His erect backbone is essential to that Being’s strength; her golden bowl is essential to contain his new light. Their marriage will be consummated right there at the holy bone [sacrum] if I can ever find the balance.” (Woodman, 2000, p. 216)
My Reflections:
I love the first quote that spoke to me in this section as I have reached that stage in life where much that goes on around me seems to be at an accelerated speed. Too much, too fast. I once read some study that said on TV there actually was an intentional increase in the number of words spoken per fraction of a minute in order to get more in. I read pretty well and at a decent rate, but today I cannot keep up with closed captioning on the TV. I understand here exactly what Marion is saying. What to some looks like I might not be concentrating is exactly the opposite … I am deeply concentrating on something that was said about a minute or so ago, but the speaker has moved onto something else yet I am back at considering the previous point.
I also feel as if I understand what Marion says when she speaks of the chaos of Sophia. I feel this inner chaos and realize how I try to make order out of the chaos by moving into my head and intellectualizing. I need to learn to sit with the chaos. Rather than bring it into order I need to let chaos be chaos and allow what will be birthed from it to come through. Perhaps it is the intentional attempts at the ordering of chaos that stifles creativity.
Now I am asking, how do I allow for the chaos of Sophia to move into creativity without denying the essential masculine? Is this the marriage that Marion is speaking of? Does my “floating golden bowl” of my previous imaging need some sort of “erect backbone” to hold that golden bowl? Is it when I can visualize that golden bowl being supported that my own sense of creativity will move from womb to my whole being?
Well, after letting these questions arise, I need to now settle back down into the chaos. This time of isolation does seem to be an auspicious time to engage in such work.
Woodman, M. (2000). Bone: Dying into Life. Penguin Books
*This reflection was first published in a Facebook Group entitled BodySoul Rhythms – Continuing the Legacy of Marion Woodman
Soul Tending 