44th Annual Jungian Conference

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The Heart of Matter:

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The Feminine Principle, Embodiment,

and Marion Woodman

 

Special Guest Speaker
Sheila Langston, BFA

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link to audio file

 

Saturday,  March 23, 2019, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm

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[NOTE: THIS PROGRAM IS ON A SATURDAY, NOT SUNDAY]

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In the Inuit fairy tale “The Raven and the Whale,” we are confronted with the archetypal motifs of creation and destruction.  Between these two opposites lie the dancing feminine, desire, and suffering.  The tale invites us to consider the urge in the unconscious that drives us toward consciousness, no matter what the cost.  This story comes to us from the far north, from a world that few of us have known or lived in.  It therefore brings us into a psychic environment of an alien nature and reveals a creation story of a culture with which few of us are familiar.  However, the themes are universal, and therefore speak to the deepest parts of us. 

 

No less deep, though perhaps somewhat more familiar, is the work of our beloved Marion Woodman.  An extraordinary woman, she was forced by her own bodysoul to forge a more conscious relationship between psyche and matter.  Her commitment to bringing the feminine principle to consciousness is her greatest legacy.  In her own words, “The feminine is always on the side of life. In feminine consciousness, spiritual and physical are two aspects of one whole.”

 

In the morning we will explore “The Raven and the Whale” and its relevance to our own lives in our individual quests for greater consciousness.  In the afternoon, we will watch excerpts of filmed interviews with Marion Woodman (conducted by Marlene Schiwy, Vancouver BodySoul sister), followed by a beautiful embodiment exercise developed by Marion Woodman, Mary Hamilton and Ann Skinner, and practiced worldwide by BodySoul women.

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Course objectives:

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• Explore a Northern creation myth from a modern-day depth perspective.

• Investigate the archetypal relationship between creation and destruction.

• Discuss and embody the experience of the feminine principle in our lives and in the collective unconscious.

• Invite an experience

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Sheila Langston, BFA, Voice Specialist, is a practicing Diploma Candidate Jungian analyst in private practice, studying in Switzerland at the Centre for Depth Psychology.  She trained with and taught alongside Marion Woodman and teaches internationally for the Marion Woodman Foundation.  She has co-led numerous intensives, seminars and workshops for more than a decade in North America and Europe.  Sheila originally studied and worked in theatre and dance and has taught voice and body work for more than thirty years.  Her primary interest is the meeting of body and psyche through myth, dream and embodied awareness.