The Return of King Arthur:
Finishing the Quest for Wholeness,
Inner Strength and Self-Knowledge

by Diana Durham

A statement from the author: The Return of King Arthur: Finishing the quest for wholeness, inner strength and self-knowledge uses the legends of King Arthur and the quest for the Grail chalice to trace both the individual path to wholeness and what I see in our times as the emergence of a new paradigm of collective leadership. These two intertwined tales represent the individual and collective stories and the way they interact. The Grail quest is the individual strand, King Arthur and the Round Table is the collective strand. The grail chalice, made of refined gold and set with precious gems, is our heart realm. Over the past few decades, even the past century, many of us have been in one way or another on a quest to heal our hearts and to see the contribution of the feminine as essential. In other words, to find the grail. Today we find ourselves at a juncture where these many individual paths are creating a new collective possibility.

Intriguingly, neither story of King Arthur or the grail quest is complete but trails off, leaving a scent of prophecy in the air. I believe it is now up to us to finish the quest, and fulfill the promise of Arthur’s return, only this time as a collective. A new condition of collective sovereignty, empowered by the emergence of the feminine, of the healed heart in all of us.

The paperback edition of 'The Return of King Arthur: Completing the quest for wholeness' (Tarcher/Penguin) is now available from bookstores and Amazon, price $14.95.

An article about The Return of King Arthur appeared in Issue 70 of Kindred Spirits magazine. Click here to receive as a PDF. For higher quality, download this larger file (3MB).

If you are interested in attending seminars and workshops based on this
book, or would like to inquire about presentations and speaking engagements
by the author, please visit Diana's web site at:

www.dianadurham.net

Early praise for The Return of King Arthur:

"The Grail myth is probably the last great offering of the collective unconscious and is the most pertinent of all its treasures. We are in the midst of this great story, all of us agonizing from the fisher king wound, driven to find the Grail Castle, tugging at the sword maddeningly stuck in the stone. To find the modern relevance of this story is to set one instantly on his own intimate search.

Diana Durham does masterful work in bringing this jewel of the western world into just such relevance; she makes it possible to begin ones own grail quest in terms understandable for our present mentality.

Not the least of Ms. Durham¹s skills is to bring the place of women out of obscurity and thus provide focal points essential to understanding this great Myth."

-Robert A Johnson, D.Hum. Author of He, She, Inner Work, We, and Owning Your Own Shadow

"The Return of King Arthur is an outstanding and important reminder that the two entwined stories are more than relevant to solving modern problems and demonstrates how multiple individual paths can come together to determine the nature of collective destiny."

--Angeles Arrien, Phd. Cultural Anthropologist, Author of The Four Fold Way and Signs of Life

"Great leaders know how to unlock the creative possibilities that live in the teams they lead. 'The Return of King Arthur' brilliantly shows us how, by interpreting the wisdom in two of our oldest stories: King Arthur's Round Table and the quest for the Holy Grail. True leadership turns out to be collective leadership, a must-read for any team!"

-Lance Secretan, Author of Inspire: What Great Leaders Do, Reclaiming Higher Ground, and Inspirational Leadership