Marion Jean Woodman (née Boa; August 15, 1928 – July 9, 2018) was a Canadian mythopoeic author, poet, analytical psychologist and women's movement figure. She wrote and spoke extensively about the dream theories of Carl Jung. Her works include Addiction to Perfection, The Pregnant Virgin and Bone: Dying into Life.
Early life and education
Woodman was born on August 15, 1928, in London, Ontario, the eldest of three children of Ila (née Phinn) and Andrew Boa, a clergyman. She completed a degree in English literature at the University of Western Ontario.
In 1982, Woodman wrote a book about analytic psychology, Addiction to Perfection, which was published by the new company, Inner City Books, set up by her colleague Daryl Sharp. She has also lectured internationally. She has written collaboratively with Thomas Moore, Jill Mellick and Robert Bly.
Woodman was listed in Watkins' Mind Body Spirit Magazine in 2012 as the 100th most spiritually influential living person. Her collection of audio and visual lectures, correspondence, and manuscripts are housed at the Pacifica Graduate Institute, OPUS Archives and Research Center, in Santa Barbara, California.
Personal life
Her husband Ross Woodman was Professor at the University of Western Ontario. He is the author of The Apocalyptic Vision in the Poetry of Shelley, and Sanity, Madness, Transformation: The Psyche in Romanticism, both published by the University of Toronto Press. Ross Woodman died at their home in London, Ontario, on 20 March 2014.
Her younger brothers were the actor Bruce Boa and the Jungian analyst Fraser Boa, both of whom predeceased her.
In November, 1993, Woodman was diagnosed with uterine cancer. She recorded the subsequent two years of cancer treatment in a journal, which was later published as Bone: Dying into Life. She died at her home in London, Ontario, on July 9, 2018, aged 89.
- Conscious Femininity : Interviews With Marion Woodman, 1993 Inner City Books.
- Dancing in the Flames : The Dark Goddess in the Transformation of Consciousness (co-authored with Elinor Dickson), 1996 Shambhala Publications. (PB edition)
- The Maiden King : The Reunion of Masculine and Feminine (co-authored with Robert Bly), November 1998, Henry Holt & Co;
- Bone: Dying Into Life, 2000 Viking Compass.
- Sitting by the Well: Bringing the Feminine to Consciousness Through Language, Dreams and Metaphor, 2000 Sounds True (audiobook)
- Coming Home to Myself : Daily Reflections for a Woman's Body and Soul (co-authored with Jill Mellick), April 2001 (paperback ed.) Conari Press.
- The Art of Dreaming, by Jill Mellick (with a foreword by Woodman), 2001 Conari Press.