Dear Friend:

Now that the rush of the holidays is behind us and we all have had time to shift our attention to opportunities in the new year, I thought it would be a good time to let you know about some exciting events coming up over the next few months, including several in which you may want to participate.

‍La Casa de Maria Workshop

‍Beginning in just a few days, I’ll be back in Santa Barbara for several weeks, not only to get away from the winter weather on the East Coast and see the many friends I made while living in California, but also for two events centered on my new book, Persephone Rising: Awakening the Heroine Within. From Friday, February 5th, through Sunday, February 7th, I will lead a workshop on the Sacred Feminine at La Casa de Maria, a beautiful and meditative space that offers many different events for the sake of spiritual examination and illumination.

Here is an excerpt of the workshop description:

‍The chief characters in the myth of Demeter and Persephone enact in symbolic form the journeys that women and men can take to gain access to the full range of our human capacities: open hearts, healthy egos, connected souls, and collective joy. Through lecture, discussion, movement, and writing, we will explore the four archetypal characters and their application to the heroine’s journey today.

‍I will be assisted by Gabi Baryshe-Crosbie, who will lead movement exercises of various kinds. Recently returned from a learning sabbatical, Gabi is the former owner of the Blue Agave restaurant in Santa Barbara, a beloved Nia dance teacher, and an expert in a variety of healing and movement modalities.

In addition, as part of the workshop, Dr. Maureen Murdock will offer a presentation tentatively titled “Evolution of the Image of the Sacred Feminine.” Maureen is a psychotherapist in private practice and teaches at Pacifica Graduate Institute and Antioch Santa Barbara, as well as the author of The Heroine’s Journey, The Father’s Daughter: Breaking the Ties that Bind, and Unreliable Truth: On Memoir and Memory.

The workshop will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and conclude at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday. For further information and to register, visit La Casa’s website. Don’t delay: space is limited!

‍Chaucer’s Book Signing

‍Also in Santa Barbara, I will be doing a book signing at Chaucer’s Bookstore, located at 3321 State Street, from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 9th. I won’t be giving a formal lecture, but the signing will be a chance to chat with old friends (and make new ones) who want to get a signed copy of Persephone Rising. Santa Barbara is where the book was written, drawing in part on the work of some of the wonderful scholars at Pacifica Graduate Institute, where I was Executive Vice President and Provost and later President. If you’re in the area, I hope you will stop by.

‍Dinner & Depth Video Webinar

‍On Tuesday, February 2nd, I’ll be a guest on ”Dinner & Depth,” a free live video webinar offered by the Depth Psychology Alliance, speaking with Bonnie Bright about Persephone Rising. Together, we’ll explore why stories from the ancient Greeks have had such a strong influence on contemporary life and what the field of neuroscience teaches us about our perceptions of reality. I’ll discuss how recognizing patterns in imagery and narrative and correcting our biases of perception enable us to shift our stories and change our individual and collective lives. The webinar will be held from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. Pacific standard time. I hope you’ll have a chance to join us. For more information, visit the Depth Psychology Alliance website and/or the Upcoming Events section of my website.

‍Blogs, Here and There

‍If you haven’t yet checked out the blog posts on my website, now might be a good time to do so. Blogging has given me a chance to expound at greater length on some of the ideas I touch on in Persephone Rising and to explore the links between current events and contemporary culture and the fields of depth and archetypal psychology, myth, and narrative intelligence. I also have begun publishing guest blogs by others who are engaged in this arena and can contribute their original thoughts and observations to the ongoing conversation among readers who are interested in my work. The first two contributors are Dori Koehler, who wrote about “The Goddess of Spring and the Origin of the Disney Maiden“ in November, and Cynthia Anne Hale, whose essay “Creating a Better Future: Transforming Traumas Together Through Myth and Story” appeared this month. Both are very much worth a read. I welcome you to submit comments on any of the blogs.More guest blogs will appear shortly. If you have an idea for a blog that you might like to submit, please send me an email with a brief summary and I will let you know whether it is suitable for my website and, if so, what guidelines you should follow in preparing it.In addition, some of my blogs are now appearing on the websites of Psychology Today, under the title “The Hero Within,” and on the Depth Psychology Alliance site as well as on my website.

The easiest way to know when a new blog goes up on any of these sites is to follow me on Facebook at Carol S. Pearson, PhD and Twitter @carolspearson. Posts and tweets will let you know the topic and how to access it.

‍Promoting Persephone Rising

‍HarperElixir, like most publishers, gives a book a three-month push and then necessarily moves on, making the next group of books coming through their primary focus while assisting authors with earlier books when possible. This means that taking the lead on promoting Persephone Rising now is largely up to me and to those of you who want to help spread the word. You don’t have to ask my permission before giving a talk on it, utilizing it in a workshop or class, or sending out information on it to your social media followers or email list. Just please be sure to reference the book. Also, if you would like to review Persephone Rising on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, or Powell’s, it’s easy and fun to do so. Finally, if you plan to review the book for a publication or a much-visited professional website and don’t already have a copy, please contact me and I will see if the publisher can send you a review copy.

Your advice on how to spread the word about Persephone Rising and my other books will be appreciated as well.

By the way, you can still see and share the short, lighthearted animated video that HarperElixir produced as part of the campaign for Persephone Rising and use the hashtag #IAmPersephone to join the Persephone Rising community on Twitter.

‍Good Morning, Vietnam

‍Since returning to the Washington, DC area, I have reconnected with the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, where I used to be a Professor of Leadership Studies and Director of the James Macgregor Burns Academy of Leadership. I’ve been invited to teach or present in several ways that did not work for my schedule but was thrilled when asked to teach a leadership course in Vietnam. My class is part of a Masters in Justice Leadership program, which is sponsored by the UMD Department of Criminal Justice, with the School of Public Policy supplying instructors for the courses on management and leadership. I will be teaching in Hanoi from March 11th to March 15th.

The 30 students, who include lecturers from the police academy as well as police officers, prosecutors, and professionals in the Vietnamese intelligence community, already are in a heavy reading period preparing for my class, during which time they also shadow and interview a leader they respect and write a paper on what they learn from this experience. My class, which is titled “Principles and Practices of Leadership,” applies psychological principles to the practice of leadership within different settings and organizational cultures. Specific topics covered include: Finding the Leader Within, Leading in Context, The Doing of Leadership, Transformational Thinking, Path/Goal Setting, Difficult Conversations, Harvesting Team Wisdom, Leadership Story-Telling, and Networks and Partnerships. Through our discussions, I expect to learn a great deal from the students about the cultural aspects of leading in Vietnam. After the class, they will write and submit papers on their leadership plans going forward, integrating the materials they’ve studied.

David and I have not been to Vietnam before, so we’ve scheduled some extra time to tour parts of the country. Our daughter and her husband and several friends and relatives who have visited Vietnam have given us lots of advice about where to go and what to see. From everything we’ve been told, we can expect the Vietnamese to be very friendly toward Americans, despite the devastation of the Vietnam War.

‍Future Events

‍DC Jung Society Lecture and Workshop

On Friday evening, May 20th, and all day Saturday, May 21st, I’ll be speaking and conducting a workshop for the Washington, DC Jung Society on “Narrative Intelligence: Using the Power of Story to Transform What Happens.

”Omega Institute WorkshopAnd from Friday evening, September 23rd through Sunday noon, September 25th, I’ll be at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in Rhinebeck, NY, leading a workshop titled “The Heroine Within: Discover the Wisdom of Persephone Rising.”

Information on the times and locations and further detail on both workshops will be posted soon on the Upcoming Events section of my website and will be included in the next edition of my newsletter.As always, please feel free to forward this newsletter to others who might be interested. In addition, I invite you to follow me on Facebook at Carol S. Pearson, PhD and Twitter @carolspearson, and let me know what is going on with you. Just click on one of the buttons on the right to connect.

Sincerely,Carol S. Pearson