Dark Wood to White Rose, journey and transformation in Dante’s Divine Comedy

Dark Wood to White Rose, journey and transformation in Dante’s Divine Comedy

In this provocative study of Dante's Divine Comedy, Helen M. Luke takes the reader on an intense spiritual and symbolic journey. Beginning with the dark wood, which the pilgrim must go through to find his path, Luke explores each of Dante's poetic images, down to the white rose, the final emblem of joy and regeneration.

The path towards consciousness and wholeness is impossible, Luke says, "without a continual dying — without repeated death of old attitudes, of superficial desires, and finally of every claim of the ego to dominance." Through choice, responsibility, and real attention, a deeper way of looking and living is possible, a true sense of morality can develop, and a transformative equilibrium of body, mind, and feelings can result, reflecting "the symbolic life which all great religions have existed to maintain." Luke's grounding in Jungian psychology serves as a touchstone for her interpretation. She pays particular attention to differences in levels on the various stages of the journey, pointing out, as one reviewer said, "windows and gateways through which the reader may see great vistas through Dante's eyes."

Illustrated throughout with paintings from Illuminated Manuscripts of the Divine Comedy, by Peter Brieger, Millard Meiss and Charles S. Singleton.

Helen M. Luke is the author of Old Age: Journey into Simplicity, Kaleidoscope: The Way of Woman and Other Essays, The Inner Story, The Voice Within, and Woman: Earth and Spirit. Though her early studies at Oxford University were in French and Italian literature, Luke changed direction in her career two decades later, to pursue the ideas of C.G. Jung in Zurich and London. After several years as a counselor in Los Angeles, in 1962 she founded the Apple Farm Community near Three Rivers, Michigan, where she continues to live and write.

Details

• Paperback
• ISBN: 9780930407285
• Condition: Good 
  
• Publisher: Parabola Books
• Cover: Domenico di Michelino, Dante ed il suo poema. Courtesy of Scala/ Art Resource. Cover design: Studio 31.