I have worked in and around entertainment for my whole career until a set of midlife disasters sent me on a new path to become a psychotherapist. I never dreamed I would make a discovery like this along the way. This book is the culmination of a decade of research into an analog to The Hero’s Journey that is NOT a heroine’s journey. Like The Hero’s Journey, my book was discovered quite by accident at first and then pursued with a passion. The model helps women transform their lives and helps anyone create better women-driven narratives (from screenplays to psychotherapy).
I wrote
The Queen's Path: A Revolutionary Guide to Women's Empowerment and Sovereignty
Art historian Merlin Stone changed how the world thinks about archaeology. Her work pointed out that goddess statues at dig sites were more plentiful than male representation, and she wanted to know why. Her contemporaries simply dismissed these as “female figurines.”
Stone’s work made me think about a world where women’s power wasn’t treated like an unnatural or evil fallacy but a difference in power. Examining the historical record, she theorized that the power of women was suppressed by colonizing forces that placed more value on conquest than peace. That world is still with us! We still invest more in war rather than peace.
In Stone’s analysis, I found that women’s submission is not “natural” but has been perpetuated via violence and conquest.
The landmark exploration of the ancient worship of the Great Goddess and the eventual supression of women's rites.
In the beginning, God was a woman...
How did the shift from matriarchy to patriarchy come about? In fascinating detail, Merlin Stone tells us the story of the Goddess who reigned supreme in the Near and Middle East. Under her reign, societal roles differed markedly from those in patriarchal Judeo-Christian cultures: women bought and sold property, traded in the marketplace, and inherited title and land from their mothers. Documenting the wholesale rewriting of myth and religious dogmas, Merlin Stone describes an ancient…
Until reading this book (and Stone above), I had accepted that the historical version of womanhood we are given was accurate. While I had been a girl who liked to be active, ride horses, and involve myself in big questions, I believed I was a bizarre example of emerging feminism, not the inheritor of a powerful legacy.
Mayor’s book showed me that there have been women for thousands of years who owned and managed themselves. There was a historical example for me to point towards. The Amazons were real women who lived in communities that were uniquely sovereign. It made my being quake in the profundity of what it meant for a woman today to point to a woman 2000 years ago and say, “Me too” in a whole new way.
Amazons--fierce warrior women dwelling on the fringes of the known world--were the mythic archenemies of the ancient Greeks. Heracles and Achilles displayed their valor in duels with Amazon queens, and the Athenians reveled in their victory over a powerful Amazon army. In historical times, Cyrus of Persia, Alexander the Great, and the Roman general Pompey tangled with Amazons. But just who were these bold barbarian archers on horseback who gloried in fighting, hunting, and sexual freedom? Were Amazons real? In this deeply researched, wide-ranging, and lavishly illustrated book, National Book Award finalist Adrienne Mayor presents the Amazons as they have…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
They didn’t burn witches; they burned women. That is the central premise of this incredible book. I read the original in French and then re-read the English version. The translation is excellent. This book explores the idea of the Witch as a supernatural force and points to how magic was used as an excuse for the unconscious social forces that aimed to keep women in submission.
Women who will not submit are the actual witches. This book is a powerful reminder that whether a woman self-identifies as a witch or is called one, the real message is that she isn’t part of the authority structure that would make her a servant.
'A thought-provoking, discursive survey by Mona Chollet, a bright light of Francophone feminism' - The New York Times
'Rousing . . . a very interesting take on contemporary feminist politics' - Irish Times
A source of terror, a misogynistic image of woman inherited from the trials and the pyres of the great early modern witch hunts - in In Defence of Witches the witch is recast as a powerful role model to women today: an emblem of power, free to exist beyond the narrow limits society imposes on women.
Whether selling grimoires on Etsy, posting photos of their crystal-adorned altar…
This book fundamentally changed my life when I was in my 20s. It was one of the first non-fiction books that helped me see myself. I begged my mother to read it, but it didn’t meet her standards at all.
That difference set up how I made sense of my relationship with my mother for a long time after that. The book's insistence that there IS a wild woman out there for every woman to connect to resonates now more than ever.
First published three years before the print edition of Women Who Run With the Wolves made publishing history, this original audio edition quickly became an underground bestseller. For its insights into the inner life of women, it established Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes as one of the most important voices of our time in the fields of Jungian psychology, myth, and women's mysteries.
Drawing from her work as a psychoanalyst and cantadora ("keeper of the old stories"), Dr. Estes uses myths and folktales to illustrate how societies systematically strip away the feminine spirit. Through an exploration into the nature of the…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
The idea that in the 21st century, we could be having a discussion about the Feminine face of God fundamentally made me feel more welcomed and connected to Divinity, by whatever name you call it. These two accomplished theologians debate how to think about Divinity and what we call sacred.
Their discourse is powerful and thoughtful. They aren’t exposing black-and-white thinking in religion and just pointing out how “bad” traditional religions are at understanding the mystery of divinity. They brought me with them on a deep dive into their own mystical excursions, which, in turn, made it much more safe for me to wrestle with my own conflicts.
In Goddess and God in the World, leading theologians Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow propose a new method for thinking about theological questions: embodied theology rooted in experience and tested in dialogue. Their theological conversation begins from the premise that the transcendent, omnipotent, male God of traditional theologies must be replaced with new understandings of divinity that can provide orientation and guidance as we face the social, political, and environmental challenges of our time. Situating divinity in the world and placing responsibility for the future firmly in human hands, they argue for an inclusive monotheism that affirms the unity…
This is a groundbreaking guide to real women’s lived experiences shared through an archetypal lens. Since the late 20th century, women’s stories have been shoe-horned into the model of The Hero’s Journey. But even when adapted for a heroine, this model comes up short. (For example, Frodo never worries that Samwise is going to expect sexual favors in return for his friendship on the road to Mordor.) There IS a women’s monomyth, and it’s been hiding in plain sight for thousands of years.
This book outlines its discovery, and uses film, fairy tales, sacred literature, and the lives of my patients to illustrate this ancient archetypal pattern. It is a guidebook for better understanding women’s narratives- whether in real life or storytelling.
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
Gifts from a Challenging Childhood
by
Jan Bergstrom,
Learn to understand and work with your childhood wounds. Do you feel like old wounds or trauma from your childhood keep showing up today? Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed with what to do about it and where to start? If so, this book will help you travel down a path…
