Persephone Rising

Book excerpt: Nautilus Award Winner 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.