The 30th Anniversary Edition of the groundbreaking book that provides a model of the feminine journey for contemporary women that has touched generations of women worldwide.
"Anything is possible for women as we find our voice, honor our identity, work together for a common goal, and stand unapologetically with our arms wide open to the skies in a stance of pride and acknowledgment of the sacredness of the feminine."
— from the preface to the thirtieth anniversary edition
Read Maureen’s reflections
on the book’s 30th anniversary.
In celebration of the 30th anniversary of its original publication, Shambhala Publications has reissued Maureen Murdock's groundbreaking book, The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness. The new edition includes an updated preface from Maureen reflecting on the last 30 years of women’s experiences and a new foreword by Christine Downing, PhD.
The Heroine’s Journey was written as a response to Joseph Campbell’s book on the hero’s journey. Maureen, who was a student of Campbell’s work, felt his model did not address the specific psycho-spiritual journey of contemporary women. She developed a model of the feminine journey based on her work with women in therapy and showed it to him in 1983. Campbell’s response was, “Women don’t need to make the journey. In the whole mythological journey, the woman is there. All she has to do is realize that she’s the place that people are trying to get to.”
Knowing that women were indeed involved in their own deep psycho-spiritual journey, Maureen developed a model of the heroine’s journey which has become a template for novelists, screenwriters, and those who desire to understand the deep wounding of the feminine on both a personal and cultural level. Drawing upon cultural myths and fairy tales, ancient symbols and goddesses, and the dreams of contemporary women, Murdock illustrates the need for—and the reality of—feminine values in Western culture today.
The publication of The Heroine’s Journey touched a nerve in women’s consciousness around the world. Maureen received thousands of letters from women throughout the world, particularly from fathers’ daughters, relating to the wisdom in book. It has been published in French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Serbo-Croatian, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Polish and Farsi.
Published August, 2020 by Shambhala Publications.
Combining personal experience and painstaking erudition, Maureen Murdock's The Heroine's Journey shares with us the essence of the female journey. A fine, warm, and insightful book.
Carol Pearson,
author of The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By
Maureen Murdock's important book on the heroine's journey 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.
Joan Halifax,
author of Standing at the Edge
Though the book is rich with examples drawn from myths and Jungian psychology, it is surprisingly easy to read. The journey requires serious, often frightening, wandering before one's true identity and power are known. Like the journey Murdock describes, there are no cheap, easy lessons. There are many rich, rewarding lessons, but these are gained only through integrity, courage, and the willingness to meet challenge with all the resources one can muster.
Creation
Murdock's personal journey will surely speak to many women, but I hope also to those men willing to hear these newly awakened female voices—and of the feminine in their own souls.
Utne Reader
What I love about the 30th Anniversary Edition of Maureen Murdock’s The Heroine’s Journey is that the premise and inquiry the author put forth originally, borne of her own desire for the expression of a woman’s quest rich with story and meaning, still bears fruit for us today. Companioned by a workbook which guides the reader through each of the stages of the Heroine’s Journey, the books provide context and a way to work through writing, ritual, and art making, that brings one toward wholeness. But it is not a straight path. It is not a clear road. It is labyrinthine, there are questions posed which could cause the reader to pause for days, for a week. And there are questions that will set our pens on fire. This paired set of books is an able and deeply provocative guide. The voice is that of the Wise Woman, a Crone to urge us on our journey towards what we all crave: wholeness, connection and integration of our inner and outer lives. Many thanks to Shambala Publications for this special edition of Maureen Murdock’s necessary and illuminating work.
Suzi Banks Baum,
artist, actress, writer, teacher