Dancing in the Flames | Intro + Chapter 1
The Fierce and Loving Goddess
“If we throw ourselves into the flames of desire and then dance with her in the refining fire, how will our everyday lives be changed?”
Reading Schedule | Meeting Registration | Original Concept | Order the Book | Archive of Weekly Posts
Welcome to the first week of our slow read of Dancing in the Flames by Marion Woodman and Elinor Dickson!
Over the coming six weeks (April 12-May 23), we will:
Read one chapter a week
Dive deeper into the material through weekly posts and “amplifications” (delivered to your inbox or the Substack app)
Share thoughts, favorite quotes, and questions in the comments
Explore the reading together in two live sessions, plus a bonus men’s discussion group!
✨ Meet co-author Elinor Dickson in an exclusive author chat! ✨
Find your own rhythm with this. You can participate in whatever way calls to you, and you can also participate at your own pace: these posts and the recordings of our sessions will remain available to paid subscribers if this is not the right time for you to dive in.
What’s this all about? Read about the origin of this book group and its guiding intention in these times here.
A note about the reading: This material is psychoactive by design. In other words, it’s meant to work on you on many levels, not just intellectually. You may notice yourself having memories or recalling dreams that you haven’t thought about in years as you read. You may also find the material too dense at times to fully make sense of. Keep reading! Take notice of what arises in your mind, and write down whatever questions you can form about what’s not making sense. Drop questions and thoughts below in the comments.
In addition to being psychoactive, this is a community effort!
What brings you here? What has this topic and reading brought up for you?
The introduction begins with our quest:
“This book explores… the unknown feminine figure who is appearing in the dreams of so many contemporary men and women… This unknown figure whom so many people encounter in their sleep speaks to the psyche and to the very cells of the body.” (1)
“If we throw ourselves into the flames of desire and then dance with her in the refining fire, how will our everyday lives be changed? If we really do believe she holds the whole world in the palm of her love, how do we live with that sacramental truth at our center?” (1)
“She speaks to men as clearly as to women.” (2)
A Clarification of Terms: Masculine + Feminine
The authors, Woodman and Dickson, are careful in their introduction to define the words that they’ll use throughout the text:
“In writing this book, the authors have been very aware of the pitfalls of using the terms masculine and feminine. While these words are not synonymous with male and female, they unquestionably carry connotations that are so ingrained in our psyches that we consciously and unconscionscuously react to them with ancient gender prejudices.” (2)
“Part of the resistance to the words masculine and feminine lies in our inability to accept that each of us contains both masculine and feminine energy and that both energies are divine. We pay lip service to the concept consciously, but if we listen to ourselves, we hear the archaic, gendered, pigeon-holed thinking plop out of our mouths like an unexpected toad.” (p.2-3)
“While we are clarifying words, we need also to note that patriarchy and masculinity are not synonymous. …This book is not a defense of the feminine at the expense of the masculine. The one without the other leads to suicide or tyranny.” (p.4)