C.G. Jung Foundation of Ontario

Marion Jean Woodman was born in August 1928 in London, Ontario, Canada.  She died on the 9th of July 2018, a few weeks short of her 90th birthday.

Marion had a first career as a legendary and beloved high school English teacher.  Through poetry, she helped to transform ‘terminal’ students into kids that went on to university.

While accompanying her husband Ross Woodman on a sabbatical in London, England in the early 70’s, she began analysis with Dr. E.A. Bennett, which later led her to begin her training at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zürich.

After receiving her Diploma in 1979, Marion opened a practice in Toronto.  She began writing books, publishing them with Daryl Sharp at Inner City, and they became bestsellers in the 1980’s.  Her work on the feminine and on addictions helped to transform the lives of many.  Marion also developed workshops based on the complementarity of body and soul, as espoused by Jung himself.  Marion was also one of the founders, along with Daryl Sharp and Fraser Boa, of The Ontario Association of Jungian Analysts (OAJA), and the recipient of three honorary Doctorates.

Marion was the older sister of Bruce and Fraser Boa.  Their mother was very sickly when they were young and Marion looked after them.  Her brothers meant the world to her.

Marion and Ross enjoyed a fruitful life together over many decades.  Ross died in 2014 at the age of 91.

For the last several years, Marion suffered from dementia and lived in a long-term care facility very close to her home in London, Ontario.

Two weeks ago Marion sustained a bad fall and was never able to recover.  She passed away peacefully with Fraser’s daughters, Marion and Shelley Boa, at her side.

Judith Harris
July 9, 2018.

The mass celebrating John’s life was on Thursday, July 5th at St Joseph’s Church in Ottawa. This was the same church in which John was baptized as an infant, and it was the church he attended for most of his life, since he had lived ‘just down a bit’ on the same street. This kind of continuity always touches me, since it is so different to my story, as someone who has lived most of her life spread over three quite different continents.

The large, old, cathedral style church saw hardly a seat left spare within its rows of many pews, and spoke to the sense of communitas that John knew and lived, as a member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate; a well- respected teacher of Religious Studies at Carleton University, Ottawa; a much loved colleague among those who knew him in the Jungian community; a trusted, personal analyst and supervisor to many in Ottawa for close to forty years; as well as a favourite cousin, and uncle to his nieces and nephews.

Representing our OAJA community in the church that day were Rosemary Murray, Rosemarie Kennedy (now physically frail but with lots of spark), Suzanne Musters, Nimi Menon, Brenda Roberts, and Bob and myself. His beloved long- time friends and kindred spirits, Daryl Sharp (now 82) and Marion Woodman (now at 90) who trained alongside him in the 1970’s, were unfortunately not well enough to attend. Daryl and John used to hang out around their family cottages in summer as twelve year old boys, and then had their friendship rekindled when they bumped into each other as trainees at the Jung Institute in Zurich early in the 1970’s. They had a long and close friendship and latterly kept in touch by email. I remember that Marion used to love to tease John. A one time high school drama teacher, Marion could make John blush like a young boy. Whenever we met as a group and John showed up at the door, Marion would swoon and call out to him as though he were her long lost love. Although it seems that she can hardly retain much in the way of new information these days, it perhaps should not be lost on us that Marion suffered a serious fall that required hip surgery less than twenty four hours after John died, even though she hadn’t been told of his death. She once told me that her body knew things long before she did, and related how her body went into spasm on a plane at the very moment when one of her parents had died, before she had a chance to be told this news. It’s hard not wonder about the sequence of recent events between these two dear friends.

Fraser, Daryl, Marion, and John allowed many of us in Ontario and Canada to develop a deeper appreciation of Jung’s work – through their lectures, seminars, the volumes of books they gifted to a library for us, and by giving us a chance to go into a personal analysis with them where we could cultivate a relationship to ourselves, our dreams, and to some extent, to them. They began training in Zurich just 10 years after Jung’s death, when many of the analysts in practice would have known something of Jung and how alive his experience of the unconscious was. It was John who went to Rome – we always teased him about this – in 1985, to make the case at an IAAP Congress for OAJA to have the right to begin training. At that time, OAJA had five analysts, all trained in Zurich, with eight others who had already begun training. By 1991, there were thirteen analysts in Ontario, two of whom were from Ottawa, and had originally worked with John.

As I listened to the homily for John, I was struck by the remark that John would leave an imprint on us that would be long and loving. John was generous; in the early nineties when we met over dinner at each other’s homes, he would always bring a fine bottle of Scotch for the evening. He showed up for a good time, and never counted the cost. He was also very kind, and all of our candidates who had him as a selection committee member or supervisor would speak of how much they felt supported by him. John could listen for what really mattered.

Blessed with a lively sense of humour, he kept his involvement steady without sowing much antagonism. But he never shied away from speaking his mind, resigning once from OAJA in protest against a decision made by his good friend, Fraser, who had begun training someone before OAJA had formally set up a training programme. I had just returned from Zurich and remember the sparks generated by this conflict. John was gone from our group for a full ten years, but asked to join as soon as he heard we had started a training programme in 2000. From then on, he contributed frequently to both our public and training programmes, and drove five hours each way to attend our meetings. Nothing about him sought to mail it in!

In one of our last email exchanges, John expressed his concern about the loss of depth he noticed in the collective, and especially within the perspective held by the larger Jungian community. With a nod to what he called his John-the-Baptist-complex, he wrote that we were in danger of being reduced to a psychology based on conscious guidelines that remained overly influenced by the spirit of the times, at cost to a mind that was in touch with something greater than itself. Much of the writing he left us came from this mind.

Late last fall, John wrote to say that due to his health, he would no longer be able to attend meetings in Toronto. And then he followed with “But I will remain so much present to the OAJA community in spirit.”

His is a long and loving legacy; thank you, John.

Dorothy Gardner
7 July, 2018

by Rosemary Murray, Jungian Analyst, Ottawa
Long-time friend and colleague

We all knew that John Dourley was an esteemed scholar who wrote extensively on Jung and religion, books with intriguing titles like The Illness That We Are, On Behalf of the Mystical Fool, and The Goddess Mother of the Trinity. The books were attractive to some and distasteful to others, radical as they were, in the face of patriarchy and conventional theology. Like Jung, John felt compelled to write, to communicate his understanding of Jung’s message to the world. I’m bitten by this, he said, and I have to keep on writing.

John had a private practice as a Jungian analyst from 1980 until the time of his death. His analysands spoke of his compassion, wisdom, and presence. He was always there, open and ready and focused, one said.

On a more personal note, John Dourley enjoyed good conversation and meals with friends and colleagues. We used to get together about once a month for dinner, talk, case presentation and peer consultation. There were seven of us at one time since the group included analysts who were not OAJA members. Dinner was usually a simple affair of veggies and dip, pizza, fresh fruit and something sweet for dessert. John brought the wine. At Christmas the meal was a little more elaborate and gifts were exchanged. John liked smoked salmon. He also loved to debate. This was most often seen at conferences but from time to time debate would break out during one of our evenings. John was one of the greats in the Jungian world yet he was a humble person who took care to respect others.

John enjoyed outdoor sports. In winter during the week he went skating on the Rideau Canal. Weekends he drove “up the Gatineau” to ski. On Fridays he often met up with Carleton University students for afternoon and evening skiing. Later, retired from teaching, when sports activities were curtailed by health, John took long walks in the city he grew up in. His childhood neighbourhood was Sandy Hill and the family summered at their Britannia Beach cottage.There was a photo of him about 8 years old with three other little boys sitting on the grass laughing for the camera.

In summer John loved to go fishing. His favourite watering hole was at a lake in the Gatineau Hills on land owned by his cousins. He spoke warmly of his summer fishing weekends. In a framed photo on his wall we see John Dourley wearing a jacket and hat, sitting alone in a row boat on the lake fishing on a summer’s day. I think that was his favourite spot in the whole world, a place where he could relax, reflect, and gather himself in quiet tranquility.

Finally, one last thing. John liked cats and cats liked John. No matter whose house we were at the resident cat, no matter how shy, would come to John to be stroked, and spoken to, and generally worshipped. He had a favourite photo of an orange tabby, a neighbourhood cat, he adopted and fed whenever it came round.

John Dourley was a brilliant thinker, author and theologian; a respected and valued Jungian analyst, and a dear friend to many. We had good times together here in Ottawa. Last November he and I drove to Kingston to have lunch with retired analyst Rosemarie Kennedy. The five hour trip there and back was the last extended time of conversation I had with him. I saw him in March at my father’s funeral and we were planning to have another analyst lunch soon. His dying was unexpected, but I think he might have preferred a swift exit, seated in his analyst chair, and I wish him Godspeed.