Persephone Rising: Awakening the Heroine Within

In this empowering work, the bestselling author of The Hero Within and Awakening the Heroes Within speaks to the heroine in every woman, offering potent strategies to forge lives of greater happiness and fulfillment—through activating the archetypes inherent in the ancient Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone.

Our era of professional and familial pressures, constant connection, and a renewed debate on “having it all” presents unprecedented challenges to contemporary women. In Persephone Rising, celebrated scholar of depth psychology and archetypes Carol S. Pearson brings a fresh vision for meeting those challenges and rising above them, as only she can. Drawing on her profound understanding of myth's enduring power to catalyze transformations, Pearson guides readers on a journey of self-discovery, teaching us how to activate and apply the archetypes of Demeter and Persephone, as well as Zeus and Dionysus, in our own lives— empowering readers to see the unexpected choices and opportunities available to us all.

Illuminating ancient wisdom for a modern audience, Persephone Rising offers meaningful and effective strategies to answer the call to heroism in our own lives: to locate and harness the unique potential within each of ourselves, and ultimately to develop our own innate heroic gifts. Just as Demeter and Persephone discovered, in the midst of great difficulty, their own powers, gifts, and abilities for creating a better path not only for themselves, but the world, Persephone Rising teaches that each one of us has more options than choosing whether to lean in or out—we have the power to change ourselves, and thus our world.

Carol S. Pearson, Ph.D., is an internationally recognized scholar and well-known author of numerous books, among them the bestselling The Hero Within, Awakening the Heroes Within, The Hero and the Outlaw, and Magic at Work. Her forthcoming book, Persephone Rising: Awakening the Heroine Within, will be published in October 2015 and is available for advance orders.

Dr. Pearson's most recent book, The Transforming Leader, is an edited collection of cutting edge essays on the challenges facing leaders in the 21st century that grew out of the Fetzer Institute's Leadership for Transformation Project, for which she was principal investigator. The Transforming Leader was honored by the International Leadership Association for for making a significant contribution to the field of leadership.

Dr. Pearson previously was executive vice president and provost and later president of Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, CA. She has been a senior administrator and professor at higher education institutions including the University of Colorado, the University of Maryland, Georgetown University, and Goucher College; a consultant for multinational corporations and government agencies; and a popular public speaker and workshop leader. Before going to Pacifica, she was executive director of the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland, a professor in the UM School of Public Policy, and a member of the executive committee of the International Leadership Association. Earlier in her career, she was President of CASA: the Center for Archetypal Studies and Applications; President of Meristem, a nonprofit educational organization; and senior editor of The Inner Edge: A Resource for Enlightened Business Practice. She currently lives in Santa Barbara with her husband of 40 years.