Monika Wikman stories us into transformation. In her case-studies of dream work with clients, both the drama of the personal psyche and our participation in collective myths shine as if through stained glass. The reader's own life takes on extraordinary colors of "what is possible."

What needs to be transformed? "When we become ill, or lose jobs, or relationships are on the brink," or when we experience the darkness of any unknowing, Wikman offers tools for renewal. For meaning-making that engages the whole of our psyche, she surrounds us with mirrors for psychological healing from dreams, poetry, art, ritual, metaphor, and storytelling.
Her own story shines assurance regarding the importance of conscious transformation. Given a death sentence with stage IV cancer, Wikman describes the experience of surrender to the darkness of unknowing, which opened autonomous energy available in the transpersonal realm for "spontaneous remission." (A resounding title, then, Pregnant Darkness).

She found in C.G. Jung's work the lens that recognized how such "mysteries" are described by alchemists, world religions, and pagan deities. After a doctorate in mainstream clinical psychology with research on dreams of the dying, Wikman earned her diplomat at the C.G. Jung Institut, Zurich.
 
With Pregnant Darkness she provides the richness of personal and professional experience for a much overlooked arena--how the personal psyche can tap into the "transcendent dimensions of reality that are beyond the ego and ordinary states of consciousness." Such a journey may not be for the faint-hearted, since guiding and protecting forces activate by encounter with inner darkness.

In this dynamic, Wikman's descriptions of work with clients draw us into the poignant "possibility of a renewing drink" from the living waters that reside beyond the ego. Something wise resides in our psychic makeup that instructs and inspires, if we open to what is possible. These cases of healing resonate with symbols that provide both personal and universal guides to transcend our hanging on the cross of "opposites"-desire and duty, known and unknown, shadow and persona, our conscious sun and reflective moon.

Here a brilliant mind and a poetic voice "plunges to the depths", as Jung described this kind of writing. Yet this work also grounds in cultural, political, and ecological attentions. The context is a field of heart, soul, and (from Rumi) "companions who have come before." And Wikman attends to personal love, perhaps the most universal peak experience, how it alters and incarnates meaning. Love lifts into a spiral of personal renewal and sometimes to a larger Self and wholeness, "giving and glowing in all directions."

By Sheila Mc Avers Ph.D., (Seattle, Washington) October 16, 2005

Stark Beauty

Pregnant Darkness is a stunningly deep beauty of a book. Like a dark ruby
revealing its many facets, the value of this book grew on me as each chapter
unfolds into deeper and deeper chasms of the psyche in dream, myth, nature,
synchronicity, creativity.... Wikman takes the reader on a tour du force
trek through the living mysteries of the psyche at work in our lives. This
is fresh innovative living and writing here, truly an original voice capable
of subtly and playfully illuminating the transcendent nature of reality.

Compelling and witty, bright minded and meaty the text brings the work of
Jung and the alchemists into modern times now alive in resonances in dream,
life synchronicities, nature, myth, culture, cosmos. And then reveals to us
the stark beauty of the naked bones of our unfolding humanity as we link
with the transcendent in ever fresh ways. Grace is ever newly accessible,
that is what I learned over and over in the alchemical mysteries freshly
explored.

What makes her work different from other books on alchemy and dreams?
Several things. The language is immediate and carries experiential
resonances for the reader and curious deep humor while taking you into the
belly of the whale of transformative processes. The natural voice for
sharing the life stories and dreams of others is refreshing. The care that
is given and the complexity of her vision into the human soul in each shared
story is half the value of the book.

I found the subtle invitation to discover the places in oneself as a reader
that are aching for a fresh drink from the living fountain of renewal to
sneak up on me as the pages turn.

Indeed, Wikman awakens the reader to the "god size hunger under the
questions of the age" and then assists in turning our hearts and attention
to all that is possible of individual relationship with inner guiding
forces. Watch your own dreams as you read this, and you will see the opening
to the deeper realms is wonderfully contagious! The help that is possible
with the divine or transcendent realms is ever more real to me for having
found and ventured through this gem of a book.

What is missing? A workbook, a sequel. And please more material on the
complex unfolding in the male psyche as she has discovered and shared in Ch.
6. There I found I wanted her to write extensively on the unfolding
mysteries of the anima in men as she has witnessed it. So often
individuation and the anima issues involve such polarites of ecstacy and
misery for men -- and these cases were particularly enlightening and
touching.