Status Updates From To Be a Woman : birth of a ...

"So warped are our sensitivities that we have to learn to honor nature, to honor our own bodies. We have to reconnect with the primal wisdom that assures us that we are loved, that life is our birthright, that we need not prove ourselves or justify our existence." (Marion Woodman)

"The child learns that its own little body is its home on this earth, that it has respected boundaries, that its feelings and needs are recognized.

Instead of using the child to mirror her, the conscious mother mirrors the essence of the child—its delight, its anger, its imagination, its growth. Rather than concentrating on the product she is creating, she delights in her child's process." (Marion Woodman)

"Unconscious mothering can be transformed into conscious mothering when the feminine container is strong enough to open to archetypal energy and allow the love to pour through, at the same time recognizing human limitations. A mother who genuinely loves her baby, who honors her body through which the gift was given, who celebrates her sexuality, creates a container for her child." (Marion Woodman)

"An appreciation of the basic feminine attitude of acceptance of and
harmony with nature is absolutely essential. In this sense the Feminine is submissive to nature and unable to alter or change the course of natural events. But it is just this apparent submissiveness and helplessness, this complete acceptance of what is, that has not been respected by the masculine spirit in our culture." (Robert M. Stein)

This reality—that women have largely identified with these roles and that men have generally remained on a similar primitive level, relating to women only as maternal or erotic archetypes— has contributed much to the sterility of modern marriages. (Robert M. Stein)

While the maternal capacity and the need to evoke erotic desires in the male through her physical charm and beauty are certainly instinctual dominants in women, to be forced to identify with these roles prevents a woman from developing her individuality. (Robert M. Stein)