For years, I read Joseph Campbell’s works with awe and love and appreciated his spellbinding work that drew myths together from around the world. His mythic images of plants and animals, his universal truths and his palpable enthusiasm for the journey of life intrigued and educated me.

Joseph Campbell and the Hero’s Journey

But, I had to admit, he discussed a man’s journey. He was very clear about it, saying that the hero is the one who seeks and the woman embodies that which is sought. I’m paraphrasing, but basically he was describing a man’s life journey through phases that became what he termed “the hero’s journey,” and he (understandably) wasn’t quite sure what the woman’s journey could be. He seemed to feel she was the destination and was not someone who experienced a journey herself.

As a woman, I wondered if I was not part of the global phenomenon of mythology and adventure. As I began writing Once Upon A Place, I began to realize that many myths actually talk about both woman and man being responsible for life’s origins and that, together, they could create form from formlessness.

In other words, it takes both.

And even more importantly, as Once Upon A Place grew as a research manuscript, I began to find myths and tales that celebrated girls' rites of initiation just as much as they did the boys’. The Heroine’s Journey is as powerful and life-changing as the hero’s and it's important for our girls to have role models for their life journeys.

The myth of the German girl Madchen who jumps down the well to collect her dropped spinning wheel celebrates domesticity because she ends up with Mother Winter and must do household chores to become a strong woman. But it also showcases the girl’s adventure and her capacity and desire for growth and maturity, especially since her stepsister follows her to Mother Winter’s home and doesn’t do a damn thing. Ethics and story morals aside, it’s the tale of a girl becoming a woman. It's her life journey.

The Growth Tale of Vasalisa and Baba Yaga

Nowhere is the feminine journey more front-and-center that the tale of Vasalisa, a young girl at puberty whose stepmother tells her to leave home, trek through the deep forest and ask the Forest Witch for embers for their fire. There is so much symbolism here that I’m giddy to explain it, but it’s all discussed in the book Once Upon A Place. Suffice it to say, the heroine’s journey is clear in her trigger from home, her adventure through the Abyss of the forest, and her encounter with Baba Yaga. To cap it off with the image of the Guide, Vasalisa brings with her a doll that was a gift from her mother, so we’ve got feminine energies of love and compassion mixed with feminine energies of control and power in the Forest Witch – both of which are necessary for a heroine on her journey.

Clearly, it’s not enough to say that boys and men are the only ones who change throughout life and must pursue answers and tackle obstacles in order to mature. Girls grow into women in much the same way, though our challenges are often different.

The Heroine’s Journey Today

I imagine that in your own life, you can identify times where you were forced to make a decision, or you faced terrible odds or obstacles that forced you to assess yourself and radically change, either physically, emotionally, spiritually, or professionally.

I’m grateful to the countless women and men who fought for women’s rights and equality throughout history: to assure women of their right to vote in politics; to purchase property; to hold credit cards and take out loans independently; to choose family or work or both; to participate in leadership and politics that influence social power and economics, and so much more. Without these steps, our Heroine’s Journey would likely be that of puberty, motherhood, and death. Today women can be so much more and we must be vigilant to ensure these rights are never taken away. The choices we make matter. Having the opportunity to make a choice matters even more.

The Heroine’s Journey is the quintessential path that leads to maturity, creativity, and self-agency. It's a delightful and destructive path (a duality that baffles) and it's the journey at the core of Once Upon A Place.

Once Upon A Place: Forests, Caverns and Other Place of Transformation in Myths, Fairy Tales and Film is available for pre-order now! Purchase from your favorite bookstores or order from Amazon, Llewellyn, Barnes and Noble, and anywhere you get your favorite books. Go here for more info about Once Upon A Place.