If Women Rose Rooted
If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie
I had the honor of interviewing Dr. Sharon Blackie (@sharonblackiemythmakings) about her work as a writer, mythologist and psychologist.
Our discussion expands on her reasons for writing "If Women Rose Rooted," and her focus on the eco-heroine's journey. We explore why and how we can move beyond the archetypal dependence on the hero/heroine and turn back to the earth, simultaneously restoring the sacred Feminine. We can not move beyond the wounds of the opposites, the old stories, until they are heard and worked through, only then can we re-root and rise to claim our stories anew. Dr. Blackie is located in Wales and focuses on indigenous stories for Celtic women and the Celtic diaspora.
You can watch our interview here.
Quote from the interview by Sharon Blackie: "Maureen Murdock, one of Joseph Campbell's students, reportedly told her: 'Women don't need to make the journey. In the whole mythological journey, the woman is there. All she has to do is realize that she's the place that people are trying to get to.' I respectfully disagree. Women absolutely do need to make the journey; we do not, however, need to make the same journey which the Hero makes. Our journey is different, our stories are all our own. It's more than time we told our own stories, outlined our journeys for ourselves. We don't need heroes to tell us who to be. Campbell's Hero’s Journey, along with later adaptations of it by a variety of Jungian therapists and other writers, is entirely focused on an individual's spiritual growth and personal transformation — what CG JUNG called individuation. But the journey we need to make today is one which rips us out of the confined spaces of our own heads and plants us firmly back in the world where we belong, rooted, and ready to rise. Yes, if we want genuinely to contribute to the world, if we want to change it, we need to do some work on ourselves too. We need to understand our dysfunctional ways of being, to confront the beliefs and values we have subscribed to which caused the mess we are in today... This can't be done in isolation. We are not separate from this Earth; we are a part of it, whether we have let ourselves fully feel it in the body yet or not."
Books mentioned:
If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie
