Sometimes it is the addiction itself that brings the woman to consciousness. More often a crisis arises in a relationship that forces her to differentiate the opposites, and in recognizing the two sides she sees that the woman who should be at the center is not there. In flying from Floe to Flame, from Flame to Floe, she has either lost her identity or never had it. The lost one is Fleur, the conscious woman, the blossom that grows on a healthy rooted plant.
If she can realize this, then instead of lashing out against a man or raging against a patriarchal God and seething with bitterness, she knows her task is to find herself. Rage and bitterness do not foster femininity. They harden the heart and make the body sick.
Trust that can dare to stand against all rational logic opens the heart to love. Honesty born of trust may indeed threaten to destroy a relationship, in which case the validity of attempting to save it must be questioned. Even if it is lost, a relationship that has resulted in insight, thus enabling the partners to recognize why a pattern is repeating itself, has been worthy of the energy that went into it. Both can then develop their own individual resources and search for their virgin within.
~ Marion Woodman, The Pregnant Virgin, p. 116
[Art: Michael Parkes]
