title: Bone
author/editor: Marian Woodman
reviewed by: Frances
BONE
I am reading Bone written by Canadian author, Marian Woodman. It has a copyright of 2002. Marian is a dream analyst which is how I got interested in her books and tapes. I have heard her interviewed and from that and tidbits on books jackets, I pieced together something of her life. However, this is her first personal material I've ever read.
This book contains daily journal entries for about a year beginning just before Marian was diagnosed with uterine cancer. Her journey with cancer allowed me to glimpse the inner workings of her life. For ex-ample, she gets up earlier than her husband and is already at work in "her room" writing when he arises. She calls him her soul mate yet writes of "working on their marriage." Marian writes of arranging fresh cut flowers and enjoying them through their varied stages of fading. Flowers and poetry seem the two artifacts of life that give her strength through her surgery and later radiation.
These details are indirect and woven in the story of her days. More directly, she writes to God. Though a proclaimed Christian -- with books on the subject -- day after day, she writes of and to Sophia the entity she knows as the feminine side of God.
Her journals are not a straight-through read. Many are dense with meaning. I have to read, then lay the text aside to absorb ideas and images. Like water, new ideas have to soak in!
Frances adds, "I have an unread Sue Grafton, K Is for Killer, on the shelf, unread and waiting -- just in case my brain needs to relax!"