The Vital Spark: Reclaim Your Outlaw Energies and Find Your Feminine Fire

by Lisa Marchiano

A renowned Jungian analyst shares a call to action for women who dream of reuniting with their brilliant, creative, and fiercely independent nature.

Within every woman lies a powerful a vibrant, sizzling spirit that lives life to the fullest. For so many of us, the burdens of responsibility, caretaking, and social expectations cause us to bury this essential part of ourselves under six feet of niceness. Yet as Jungian analyst Lisa Marchiano says, “Our inner flame of embodied wisdom, sharp-witted cunning, burning passion, and empowered confidence is never truly extinguished.” With The Vital Spark , she invites us on an immersive journey to reclaim the split-off parts of ourselves that enliven and rejuvenate us―and allow us to become who we were meant to be.

Combining personal stories, intercultural mythology, and guidance for inner exploration, Marchiano shares invaluable resources for breaking free from the conditioning that has kept us confined to rigid roles and muffled the sound of our souls. Here she invites us to explore eight core aspects of shrewdness, disagreeableness, desire, trickiness, sexuality, anger, authority, and ruthlessness. Each chapter reinforces the truth of our relentlessly human narrative in the truest sense―allowing us to retrieve our “outlaw” energies, our discarded talents, and the deepest parts of our authentic selves.

“When we try to domesticate our wild, assertive, and liberated spirit,” says Marchiano, “she flies away to some shadowy part of our soul, where she waits for us to find her again. Though she can be a bit savage and uncivilized, she is also the very best of us―and what we need to become whole.” The Vital Spark is a guide to recovering our courageous inner spirit so we can access her wisdom, her fire, and her burning aliveness.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Feminism, Self Help, Spirituality, Mental Health, Womens

272 pages, Paperback

Published February 6, 2024

Reviews

[Karina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highlightable! (My copy is mostly neon now haha). Insightful! (My journal is full of revelations that I wouldn’t have had otherwise!) This is a book with plenty to savor, yet I tore through it hungrily. Thank goodness for the journal prompts, because that slowed me down enough to digest the immense portion of spiritual nutrition I was being provided. A book I’d recommend to any woman, any person who was socialized into a feminine role, and any person who wishes to unlock their hidden potentials. (I feel hesitant to recommend this to trans male readers, because of the very woman-centric language. But considering when they transitioned, I believe trans men would have so much to gain from this too! I just wish there was a note or forward that explicitly made the book a safe space for the trans community, too, especially those who transitioned to men but are still feeling the effects of being socialized as children to be kind, sweet, empathetic girls).

Lisa Marchiano is a person I highly respect and am always eager to hear more from! I first heard of her work as a Jungian Analyst through the podcast This Jungian Life. Then, I read (and am still reading) her debut, Motherhood. She is well-versed in psychoanalysis, dream interpretation, and all sorts of archetypal imagery that often appears in fairy tales. In this book, she uses the symbolism from fairy tales and dreams as well as true accounts from her psychoanalytic practice to further investiaate traits women often reach adulthood ashamed of (shrewdness, aggression, desire, etc). She provides gentle guidance on how we can reclaim these traits in a healthy, balanced way. Her goal is to help us discover an inner wholeness! It is a beautiful mission, and everyone who reads this will find something to set them on fire (in a good way, I promise! Haha).

[Sarah Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of the This Jungian Life podcast and always appreciate Lisa's insights. Reading her book I appreciate her even more. This is not your usual women's empowerment book, but dives deep into archetypes, fairy tales, and Jungian psychology to inform as well as inspire. She truly helps you see the world differently with practical advice as well as stories that show us we are part of something larger than ourselves and our current society.

[Tess · Rating 5 out of 5]

A compassionate and revelatory exploration of age-old conditioning, how to become aware of it, and how to step out of it into true freedom. Before I'd even reached the last chapter, I’d encouraged several friends to read this book. Insightful and potentially life-changing.

[Ragna Louise]

En salig kombinasjon mellom eventyr, pasienthistorier, film og populærkultur og egne erfaringer, alt rammet inn av jungiansk tenkning.

[Kathryn Hilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lisa Marchiano’s “The Vital Spark” is a powerful guidebook for women who desire to reclaim their inner lifeforce and creative center. From the start, I felt a permission was being given to me to peel back the polite and “good girl” exterior I’ve armored, to reveal the wild woman in me who longs to take chances and assert my fiery qualities. Marchiano gives weight to the book’s theme of personal transformation and self-discovery through the art of storytelling – using fairy tales and personal anecdotes from her life and her clinical work. Each chapter ends with a series of questions to reflect upon so that you can tie it to your own experience. I feel empowered to live life a little louder after reading this book. I loved how Marchiano kept shining a light on the hidden and lost parts women often have, like our feistiness, our disagreeableness, and sass. I now feel it’s my turn to give myself the permission to take the wisdom from this book to express my own personal power with confidence and clarity.

[Brooke Laufer]

Lisa Marchiano’s latest book, The Vital Spark, is an invaluable reclamation of the banished feminine. As women we have taken parts of ourselves and disavowed them, as they did not meet the symbolic mandate of Feminine in the West. Marchiano breathes life back into these characteristics that define feminine strength, such as shrewdness, disagreeableness, and sexual desire. This book, essential for all women, and men, who have thwarted their feminine within, reminds us we can be ruthlessly authentic. Having worked for many years with mothers in clinical settings, this book will be recommended reading to help mothers resist the social push into the Too Good Mother, the mother who endlessly gives of herself and drains her life force onto her burdened child. Marchiano does a beautiful job of using fairytales and contemporary culture to outline the development of a whole woman, including models from the Frog Prince and pitfalls from Blackbeard. The Vital Spark invites the reader to let herself know what she knows, to authentically live out one’s feminine principle as Lilith did, embracing outlaw energies without a need to pretend, ultimately sparking new life.
Brooke Laufer, Psy.D.

[Mephistopheles · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was excellent. It was written more for lay people than many Jungian books, which are in fact written for other Jungian analysts. If you are new to Jung, this is a good place to start, but if you have read a great deal, it is still valuable. She deals incisively with very important material: how a woman can lay claim to the darker aspects of her soul in a fruitful, productive way. I found this book to be incredibly useful.

[Julie Schultz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read a lot (10-12) of books on the divine feminine in the last couple years and this is by far the best. It’s presented in easy to digest sections that you can read, sit with, and revisit easily. It dives into lore, symbolism and the present day. Along with giving examples of old themes reappearing in modern storytelling.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first few chapters gave me valuable insights, but I didn’t connect with the rest of the material.

[Brittney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Outside my normal interests being touchy-feely, not much evidence but interesting to learn another perspective.

[Ylenia Damiani · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve leveled up to another planet for this one.
If you like any sort of predictability do not read this. This is for the playful, wandering, curious. We have sprinkled in psycho education (educating on principles and theory not only Jungian but connecting everything to Jung theory because she is a Jung analyst), we have dream interpretation from real life clients, and .. peace de resistance… ladies, we have storytelling. We have different chapters broken up into areas women have suffered — and Lisa tells powerfully visual stories about princes and princesses and learning lessons. I found it compelling and I am a new woman because of it. I won’t tell you this replaces therapy- but it does a great job of being therapeutic and comforting. This will reignite your fire as a woman— no other book has done this.

Be honest about the wounds you carry. It’ll help the women around you.

[cara cara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve changed so much in the past year, and this book has been the little locket I’ve kept close through it all.

[Milena Ryzhkova · Rating 5 out of 5]

The amount of confidence a woman can get by reading this book is beyond count. It made me reevaluate my life several times and, I think, I’ll take time to process all the insights for the next month at least. It also came to me at the perfect time, full of perceived failure and self-doubt. I no longer see it that way. I recommend this book to anyone, regardless of their gender, it’s an absolute treasure of life wisdom.

[Ashley Connolly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't love the storytelling elements felt like it was all a stretch to fit into her narrative

[Evan Micheals · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this as a fan of Lisa Marchiano from the This Jungian Life Podcast and to help me better understand the Mythos of the shadow of women in my female clients. The book is seen from the lens of Lilith, Adam’s first wife, who refused to be in union with him.

Lilith is the disagreeable cantankerous women who puts her own needs first and refuses to sublimate her own needs to those of others. Marchiano contends that this is the shadow that needs to be integrated if women are going to reach their potential. She uses myth, fairy tales, and even contemporary cinema to show the role of strong and powerful female archetypes who get their needs meet firstly and then the needs of family and community. These are women who need to be contended with and are formidable. Marchiano show how the integration of the feminine shadow delivers whole and complete individuals who have mastery in their lives.

There is a lot to contemplate and it gives another perspective of the ‘bitch’. It allows women to see their selves, not just an idealised and sanitised version of their selves. I like the ‘innocence’ complex and can see it in some of the women in my life who refuse to recognise their power, such as in Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. ‘Who me? I did not mean to kill the witch’. Women are good at hiding their power in innocence, not wanting to own the pain of harming others (or have others harm on their behalf). I struggled with the ‘trickster’ and found it had to think of times where I have used the ‘trickster’ to advance my own needs.

I co-read and contrast this with Becky Kennedy’s ‘Good Inside’ which revels in the innocence complex. I am not sure one can be a Jungian and a Rousseauian. Jung welcomes the shadow and Rousseau denies it. Marchiano is comfortable with the shadow and what was lacking was where she harmed others. She told anecdotes of being hurt and harmed by others and how she was able to overcome this. What is interesting is when someone struggles with the pain they acknowledge they cause others. The shadow would have been more integrated had she been to do this. When was Marchiano ‘the bitch’? She was able to identify (and admire) the Lilith in others, but I did not see it clearly identified in her self.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those books I really wanted to connect with. It has a great premise: reclaiming your outlaw energies and reconnecting with the parts of yourself you’ve buried to fit in - woohoo! Bring it on. I’m all for all of that! And the ideas in here are totally valid. I found myself nodding along a lot. Everything the author said made sense to me. But none of it actually shifted anything for me. It didn’t change how I move through the world, and nothing was particularly memorable. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'll forget everything about this book by next week.

Each chapter focuses on a specific aspect of the repressed feminine psyche, and the author pairs these with particular myths or fairy tales, then follows up with a modern case study and a few journaling prompts. It’s a solid structure in theory, but I got bored with it pretty quickly. I also didn’t connect with the journaling prompts. They felt too generic to be useful.

As usual with these types of books, I was hoping for something more practical. More of a how to—how do I ACTUALLY integrate these so-called outlaw energies into my everyday life? Not how did Jane and Sue do it... How do I do it? How do I live this, not just think about it? But the book stays up in the realm of ideas and never really grounds them. And while I appreciated the pairing of myth with case studies (that part worked okay), both felt a little glossed over. I kept wishing she’d either go deeper into the myths or the case studies, rather than staying superficial with both. As it was, it often felt like everything was being bent to fit her thesis.

That said, I think this book will resonate with folks who love fairy tale retellings, mythology, and archetypal psychology. If that’s your jam, you might love the structure and themes here. It reminded me of books like Women Who Run With the Wolves and The Heroine’s Journey, just… less impactful. Not as rich or nuanced.

[Elizabeth Wilcox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading The Vital Spark: Reclaim Your Outlaw Energies and Find Your Feminine Fire, by Lisa Marchiano, is like spending an evening with a brilliant and funny friend – it made me laugh, smile, and think deeply. A Jungian analyst, Marchiano knits together observations from her clinical practice, personal experiences, the writings of Carl Jung, pop culture, history, and fairy tales to explore how women can live their fullest lives.

By integrating their interior, often suppressed qualities, women can revive what Marchiano calls their “unbridled life urge.” Each chapter focuses on a different interior quality, including desire, rage, shrewdness, and authority, and the questions for reflection at the end of each one are ideal for book groups or conversations with friends. The book is filled with creative and surprising references and analysis, including to Shirley Chisholm, the former Yugoslavia, The Oresteia, and The Devil Wears Prada, that keep the reader engaged, challenged, occasionally unsettled, and inspired.

I read this book in one sitting when it arrived and have returned to it again and again to absorb Marchiano’s wisdom and wit. Like Marchiano’s earlier book, Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself, The Vital Spark is wonderful.

[Frrobins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is perfect for women at the cusp of middle age who have confronted the harsh reality that being nice will not guarantee that they are treated well. Using Jungian analysis of fairy tales and by exploring case studies and dream interpretation, Lisa Marchiano skillfully explores how women distance themselves from vital traits that they need to adequately assert themselves in the world and offers a path forward on how to integrate these banished parts of oneself to become a more whole person who can function better in the world.

I loved reading about how Marchiano uses Jungian analysis on fairytales. While I have read many of them many times, the Jungian perspective added an exciting new layer, so I was riveted as she explained the larger truths that they reveal and was often on the edge of my seat reading them through fresh eyes. And as someone struggling to reclaim my inner authority, ruthlessness and to use rage effectively, this provided me with needed direction on things to work on and some good reflection questions to work my way through.

This was definitely the book I needed that I did not know I needed. I'd already started to gain an appreciation for Jungian psychology after reading Marchiano's first book, and this has increased it further. Highly recommend!

[Renata Leal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Immediate thoughts after finishing:

This is like... An initiation? A portal? A map? I feel like someone just spun me around a hundred times and then set me out on my path and I'm completely disoriented. But like, in a wonderful way.

Read this and take your time with it. This is a book to be savoured, re-read, meditated upon, written and dreamed about, hugged, discussed in therapy and conferred about with female friends... Couldn't ask for a better companion while I keep giving that Fate my piece of bread (it'll make sense when you read it)

This is not a theoretical book, but as I explored its contents in my own life I found I understood junguian concepts like shadow and unconscious with so much more depth and embodiement. That tired Jung quote "only what is really oneself has the power to heal" also gained a whole new meaning and wisdom.

We've been taking in a certain message all our lives and something deep in us immediately awakens when reading disruptive words like Lisa's. I feel kind of shocked, kind of scared and full of questions, but also awake and excited.

I always feel like thanking the author after reading a careful, deep, helpful text. So thank you, Lisa, for all your beautiful, wise and corageous work!

[amf]

Lisa Marchiano is one of the three Jungian analysts that offer context to everyday life and everynight dreams through the lens of depth psychology in a podcast called, This Jungian Life. I happened to listen recently and Marchiano's book was mentioned, so here we are after a visit to the local library's Libby app to give it a listen.

Marchiano uses feminine centered fairytales from various global cultures to illustrate her points about feminine complexes and their shadows. Many will sound familiar, especially if one has read any of Clarissa Pinkola Estés writings. As someone who has entered the early stages of the second half of life, and who is bent on getting friendly with my shadow side, this book was quite illuminating. Chapters cover archetypes on the trickster, authority, anger, shrewdness, and many more. Marchiano uses her therapy client's presented issues as a pushing off point to then insert an appropriate fairytale to narrate a way to understand aspects of shadow and psyche at play. These non-saccharine tales are an entertaining tool that really helped me to have a couple of a-ha moments about my own approach to life. Marchiano is an excellent storyteller in her own right and keeps Jungian jargon to a minimum without losing the depth of her analysis.

[Lathram · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a take what you’d like, leave all the rest type of read for me.

Into: The centering of dark goddesses like Lilith, Kali, and Persephone. The teasing apart of our own shadowed and silenced parts of self at a soul level. Particularly interested in the integration of the parts that are in the corners, and how they are worked with, shaped, invited in while still maintaining the magic and wisdom of the dark. And thinking a lot about the destruction they can cause in ourselves, lives, relationships when they’re ignored and/or unshaped. I appreciated the role of stories and myth in this book and the author’s analysis of them afterwards. Then she pairs the myth with modern case studies. You’ll find them in each chapter.

Biggest critique is the thread of the feminine felt small and limited to a cisgendered socialized as a woman experience throughout the whole book. I wished there was more framing around the archetype and energy of the feminine existing in every one and less of the same characters playing the stories out. We all got something to learn from Lilith.

[Celeste Luciani · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book for me, was like the perfect stew. A concoction of heart felt anecdotes, intellect, a dash of mythology, a dash of poetry, a dash of philosophy, an ounce of Jung to underpin and make sense of the vastness of the lived experience.


An epigraph insert page 248


Love after Love
Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here.
Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread, Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit.
Feast on your life.

[S Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Vital Spark is an illuminating and powerful read. Marchiano has woven together her Jungian interpretations of classic fairy tales, modern movie references, her own personal life experiences and her clinical expertise to create an original tapestry of insight and encouragement. She uses questions and exercises for the reader to reflect, be curious and integrate the themes and ideas that she introduces. It’s an approachable read that instantly drew me in to the idea of reconnecting and reclaiming the power of my shadow self. I just finished my first read but am already excited to read it again! I can’t recommend it enough for any woman who has ever felt that she has to make herself quieter, more palatable, less brilliant or less vibrant in order to be accepted.

[Kenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I devoured this book. I've looked into shadow work before, and this book is by far the most helpful for reclaiming the parts of self that don't fit common social standards of femininity. I think some shadow work can look too much like self-flagellation, taking responsibility for our supposed short comings in a sort of confessional attitude. This book is about seeing the true gifts in feelings that we all have but have been socialized to demonize. It's also a reminder that not recognizing them and giving them their due is much more damaging in the long run. Best to work with these volatile energies and use them to add new dynamism to our lives.

[Mihai Pop · Rating 2 out of 5]

The massive disclosure: I'm a man.
The disclosure: I realized I'm not much into associating correlation into causation, as such many of the Jungian framing falls flat on my worldview.

So the book did underdeliver, but I figure that in some manner it may deliver the self-control the book assumes the female readers picking up this book lacks. I'm into stories, interpreting them, but at the end caveating the fact that these are exactly that - a story + an interpretation - both massively subjective. I figure this book the book/writer takes itself too much seriously for this to not make the reader feel like a gullible irrational taker. But then again we need that at times.

[Angie Escalante · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was one of my first “self help” books which I’m not sure if you can call it that but it was a new genre for me. It is quite of a slow burner in the sense that you truly need to follow along to be able to connect stories. I will say it is jam packed with a lot of ideas which I loved but that it was a tad all over the place. It took me a while to finish it because it was hard to stay interested. It had a monotone feel. However I will say the last couple of chapters and the epilogue spoke to me on such a spiritual level. These chapters are truly packed with a punch.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book - it’s a great exploration of traits and qualities we usually think of as negative, particularly in women, as it turns them around and discovers how these qualities are actually beneficial and even necessary for growth. I liked how the darker parts of our personalities are illustrated through myths and fairy tales from a variety of cultures, showing how universal they are. Examples from the author’s therapy practice were also helpful - sometimes “real world” cases can be more relatable than fairy tales. I’d recommend this book to any woman who suppresses her darker side, believing it to be unacceptable to society (and that’s most of us, especially women of a certain age). To be sure, the author is not encouraging anyone to behave in antisocial ways, but rather to embrace her inner fierceness in order to establish and maintain appropriate boundaries and to stand up for herself.

[Leanne Hunt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had been looking forward to reading this book and it did not disappoint. Read by the author, whose voice is ideally suited to the material, it deals with the problem that many women have when it comes to claiming their "outlaw" qualities. This is something I can relate to, so the content was very interesting to me. The chapters read well and are accessible to the non-academic reader, yet will satisfy the student of psychology or literature because of the myths and fairy tales they discuss. Highly recommended for anyone wishing to unleash their captive strengths.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an incredible way to share on the power of the divine feminine. At first I was uncertain as she laid reference after reference between mythology and clinical practice, but rather quickly I settled into her creative way of disclosing awareness and wisdom, finally, walking away at the completion - delighted with her imagination and perspective on the world. Marchiano makes this read entertaining and it can serve as a guide for women ready to reclaim their wholeness by facing their shadow side and conditioned social faux pas.

[Carrie Birde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clarissa Pinkola Estes urged women to reconnect with their inner Wild Woman; C.G. Jung, their Shadow; & Lisa Marchiano, Lillith’s feminine fire. In her 2024 book, she explores how we may access our “outlaw energies”, sharing personal experience, themes from her private practice (client’s names changed), and cherry-picked fairy tales. Both insightful & practical (she poses thematic questions for consideration at each chapter’s end), Marchiano encourages us toward wholeness, to “welcome our fiery qualities back from their exile and make a comfortable place for them within our lives”.