Pathways

The Heroine's Journey

JockStewart — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:59:02 -0700

“The feminine journey is about going down deep into soul, healing and reclaiming, while the masculine journey is up and out, to spirit.” -- Maureen Murdock

Jungian therapist Maureen Murdock wrote "The Heroine's Journey" in 1990 because in her experience she found differences between the male and female quests. A student of Joseph Campbell, she believed that his work didn't address the needs of contemporary women, needs she felt and observed during twelves years of co-journeying with other women.

"Working as a therapist with women, particularly between the ages of thirty and fifty," writes Murdock in the book's introduction, "I have heard a resounding cry of dissatisfaction with the successes won in the marketplace. This dissatisfaction is described as a sense of sterility, emptiness, and dismemberment, even a sense of betrayal."

Her book is a deep, abiding, and practical road map away from this dissatisfaction.

In her review of "The Heroine's Journey," Joan Halifax wrote that the book "contains a wealth of insight that is of great value to contemporary Western women. It explores a rich territory of the feminine psyche and opens an understanding of female development that relates not only to personal transformation but cultural transformation as well."

In 1998, Murdock followed up her original ground breaking work with "The Heroine's Journey Workbook" intended to help guide women through the steps of the journey. The myths and fairy tales associated with each step of the journey will she light on the meanings of each heroine's personal experiences.

Murdock is also the author of "Spinning Inward: Using Guided Imagery with Children for Learning, Creativity and Relaxation," "Monday Morning Memoirs: Women in the Second Half of Life," "Fathers' Daughters: Breaking the Ties that Bind, and "Unreliable Truth."

Click here for information about her classes and workshops.

Joseph Campbell Quotations

JockStewart — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 07:09:58 -0700

The late Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), introduced the concept of the hero path in his classic 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Here are a few of my favorite quotations from a few of his works.

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.

I think the person who takes a job in order to live - that is to say, for the money - has turned himself into a slave.

The role of the artist I now understood as that of revealing through the world-surfaces the implicit forms of the soul, and the great agent to assist the artist was the myth.

To separate oneself or one’s group-to say, “Oh, no, we are different” - is to set oneself against wholeness. To separate ourselves from the whole is to cut our options and erect the walls of our own prison. When we create duality in our thoughts and lives, we have created opposition.

We have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us — the labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.

We're in a freefall into future. We don't know where we're going. Things are changing so fast, and always when you're going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. And all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It's a very interesting shift of perspective and that's all it is... joyful participation in the sorrows and everything changes.

Boundaries of the Soul

JockStewart — Sat, 30 May 2009 11:15:05 -0700

Many of us who are interested in the hero path find Carl Jung through the references to him in Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces.

From there, we might go straight to the man himself and read his wonderful autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections or the long-popular Man and His Symbols. In terms of the hero path, we can step closer with the recent Enemy, Cripple, & Beggar: Shadows in the Hero's Path by Erel Shalit.

Ultimately, though, those of us who are laypersons rather than analysts will find the late June Singer's Boundaries of the Soul, a book that shows who Jung is by opening a window into Singer's long-time work as a Jungian analyst. This book's been out since 1972, and later versions of it are in print.

Here, for the first time, many of us will find clarifications to actual practice of analytical psychology and how it uses myth and dream to help individuals discover and come to terms with the whole of their selves.

I like Alan Watts classic comment about Boundaries of the Soul: "In a way one might say that this book ought not to have been published, because it gives away the essential secrets of psychotherapy and is from the pen of one of the great masters of the art."

This is a wonderful reference for the hero on the path who wants to learn more about the deeper aspects of his or her journey.

The Hero Workshop

JockStewart — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:29:50 -0700

Matt Langdon started the Hero Workshop in 2006 "to show young people that by doing the little things every day they can become heroes. Far from having to perform miraculous deeds, they are provided with an attainable goal."

Three key words for the hero, as Langdon sees him or her, are OTHERS, ACTION and RISK. The hero, who does not have to be a public figure or larger-than life person, does what benefits others by taking action that may entail physical, social or emotional risk.

Age-appropriate programs focus on schools, youth groups and summer camps.

On the Trail of the Wild Woman: Myths and Stories to Live By

JockStewart — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:51:34 -0700

This Course is a presentation of The Jung Center

Jung Center Home Page

Hero's Journey Programs

JockStewart — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:23:43 -0700

Hero's Journey Programs offers spiritual adventures in beautiful settings that focus on the hero's path, the here and now, the strength of supportive relationships, the power of nature and an invitation to step outside your self-imposed boundaries.

Men: "The Hero's Journey Intensive is a life altering and life giving immersion into the timeless ways of initiation and passage for men."

Women: "The Hero's Journey For Women is a weeklong gathering in the ways of women that embraces the power and mystery of nature in a beautiful mountain wilderness setting.We will create a profoundly trans-formative space that allows us to meet ourselves and each other in a new and vital way with the support of community, ritual, and the elements."

The site has a selection of inspiration articles and poems for the hero on the path as well as a list of the experienced teachers leading the programs.

"The breezes at dawn has secrets to tell you, Don't go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don't go back to sleep."- Rumi

Otto Rank: 'The Myth of the Birth of the Hero'

JockStewart — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:17:10 -0700

Otto Rank (1884-1939), a Vienna-circle psychoanalyst whose views about the Oedipus Complex ultimately clashed with Freud's, wrote the the ground-breaking The Myth of the Birth of the Hero in 1909. The book focuses on the Mythical Motif that Rank saw in the lives of legendary heroes.

This book book is available from Johns Hopkins University Press via online bookstores and as free, scanned-in text in a number of web sites including this one and this one. You can also find the book included within In Quest of the Hero published by the Princeton University Press in 1990.

"The newborn hero," says Rank, "is the young sun rising from the waters, first confronted by lowering clouds, but finally triumphing over all obstacles." The book's characteristic heroes include Sargon, Moses, Karna, Paris. Perseus and Gilgamesh.

In his introduction to Rank's work in the Princeton University Press volume, Robert A Segal notes that Rank's Freudian hero pattern only focuses on the first half of a male individual's life from birth to young adulthood at which point he is abandoned by his parents. "Symbolically, or unconsciously, the hero is heroic not because he dares to win a throne but because he dares to kill his father."

Jung's approach* doesn't dwell on interactions and issues between the child and his parents but on the second half of life where the interplay between the hero on the path and the external world and the unconscious realms of the self become paramount.

*You'll find an excellent introduction to the role of the hero from Jung's viewpoint in Jungian analyst June Singer's 1972 book Boundaries of the Soul: The Practice of Jung's Psychology.

Heroes of Myth

JockStewart — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 13:36:25 -0700

The Encyclopedia Mythica has a selection of 49 articles about heroes and heroines out of classical mythology. These are listed in alphabetical order for easy reference.

The Encyclopedia, edited by M. F. Lindemans, uses the Merrian-Webster definition of the hero:

Etymology: Latin heros, from Greek hErOs

1 a: a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability; b: an illustrious warrior; c: a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities; d: one that shows great courage.
2 a: the principal male character in a literary or dramatic work; b: the central figure in an event, period, or movement.

Here you will find articles about such heroes as Achilles ("the mightiest of the Greeks who fought in the Trojan War, and was the hero of Homer's Iliad") to Beowulf ("About one thousand to twelve hundred years ago, an unknown author put pen to paper and transcribed an epic that had already been circulating for about two centuries. The work which he wrote was a sweeping Anglo-Saxon tale entitled 'Beowulf.' It is the oldest piece of English literature extant today") to Yoshitsune ("A famous Japanese hero, son of Yoshitomo who was murdered by a member of the Taira clan. Intent on avenging his father, Yoshitsune went into the woods where he was instructed in all the martial arts by the King of the Ten-gu demons.")

This site is great as a quick reminder or an easy introduction to many of the better known personalities of myth.

Hero's Journey Structure in Literature.

JockStewart — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:26:28 -0700

Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell state that many of the important elements of myth function as archetypes. So, as a writer, you may well understand the hero's journey from study and/or from your intuition as you create plots for your short stories, plays, novels and films.

However, you'll find on the Internet a variety of web sites that explain how to use the stages of the hero's journey as a guide to your art. While these are useful as you explore the hero's path schema and/or apply it to your work, I suggest that--other than practice exercises--you hide these kinds of recipes while writing. If you follow them slavishly rather than relying on your innate sense of the journey, the result will be appear forced and fabricated.

That said, Christopher Vogler's 3rd edition of his popular The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers is an exceptional resource. Vogler, who runs his own consulting business called Storytech, believes Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces is one the most important books of the 20th Century. In Writer's Journey, you will find a knowledgeable presentation of the hero's journey stages and their applications to storytelling.

Stuart Voytilla's Myth and the Movies: Discovering the Myth Structure of 50 Unforgettable Films makes a nice companion volume because it shows examples of the use of myth in practice. Many have written about the relationship of the hero's journey monomyth and such films as The Matrix and Star Wars. This book provides additional examples, including Annie Hall, Beauty and the Beast, Chinatown, Citizen Kane, E.T., The Fugitive, The Godfather, The Graduate, La Strada, The Piano, Pulp Fiction, Notorious, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Searchers, The Silence of the Lambs, T2- Judgment Day, Sleepless in Seattle, Star Wars, and Unforgiven.

A Glimpse at the Hero's Journey Web Site

JockStewart — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 11:03:03 -0700

"Have you ever contemplated what makes a great story? How is it that humankind has generated so many great stories throughout history? Why does the reader feel aligned with the heroes of these stories in such a way that the stories go beyond the printed word and impact our own lives back here in "the real world"?

"While many people believe that myths are stories that are "untrue" or even "lies," in fact, resonant mythologies are metaphors that provide us with symbols of a life we long to experience. To read a myth literally is to miss its higher truth.

"Mythological narratives may or may not be based in fact. Myths that are temporal will cease to inspire over time and will die out. The perennial myths, however, are those which persevere and project a timeless truth which point the way to our ultimate destiny. To pursue this destiny is The Hero's Journey." --Lynne Milum at The Hero's Journey.

Milum includes an exciting analysis of the hero's journey process as it applies to the Harry Potter series. A very interesting perspective for Rowling's fans.