Meeting Michael Meade
Michael Meade is a modern day mythologist, a Y2K10 version of Joseph Campbell, perhaps.
I am new to Meade’s work but am struck by many of his phrases: creative mentoring, the world behind the world, and mosaic voices. Each captures an internal conceptual strain for something beyond basic cultural motifs. Mentorship is valuable, but creative, dynamic mentorship is sure to reach further; the world we live in is merely the outermost layer of an eternal world that propels us forward; we are not one, but many voices, and beyond that, a complex arrangement of mosaic voices. Beautiful ideas.
Here, Michael explains the general concept of The World Behind the World:
Lots of trinkets here:
1) Each of us is connected to the eternal world by a small, personalized, metaphorical thread. How do we engage this — how do we tap into this narrow path that zips us to the divine? Each of our answers is different — that’s the hero’s journey, the inward quest to identify the eternal waters of bliss.
2) Ends are not ends, but instances that leave remnants to sprout new beginnings. Re-birth, resurrection and redemption are vibrant metaphors of western, Christian thought that have the power to propel personal transformation.
3. Western, biblical philosophy misapplied to ancient mythological thinking regarding calendrical predictions of ‘the end.’ We should be careful not to project cultural and personal mythologies without considering other ways of thinking.
I look forward to delving further into Michael Meade’s work.
This movie looks intriguing; Michael is interviewed:
GeoThermal is quite a re-birth and new beginning:
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/36316.pdf
The Capitol Building in Boise, Idaho is heated with GeoThermal technology, evidently.
Interestingly, Margaret Mead once said:
“Sooner or later I’m going to die, but I’m not going to retire.”
http://womenshistory.about.com/cs/quotes/a/qu_margaretmead.htm
Lots of good stuff from Meade and Mead.
Best,
Brent
epistemocrat
September 18, 2010 at 4:44 am
Hi Brian,
thanks for the post about Michael Meade. If you can go to one of his live workshops – he’s a poet/storyteller and he does this while playing a drum! I’ve always wanted to practice what he does because speaking/singing has always been a challenge for me.
He just published a new book as well entitled, Facing Fate, Finding a Destiny. His website is http://www.mosaicvoices.org/
Thanks for the reminder to revisit his powerful mythic mentorship style.
Holding the tension between the end and beginning to me has close associations with the Goddess, from the mythological viewpoint that the cosmic womb or chaos is the center.
Some may prefer to view the void as genderless, neutral or like the alchemical Hermes who is both genders. Ultimately, gender doesn’t matter except where each individual can truly embody the divine presence. Some of us do better visualizing the Divine Source as Feminine and other Masculine.
Death, Birth and Rebirth are archetypal ideas that express that a spiraling movement, inwards and outwards, downwards and upwards. These are all cyclical and we can experience this through our senses by looking at the natural world here on earth and the planets and galaxies in the multi-verses.
Thanks for the inspiration and sending good thoughts your way!
~Kris
Kris Oster
September 18, 2010 at 5:03 pm
Kris,
Thanks for the note!
I will look into Michael’s workshops, as well as his new book.
I envision the void as genderless, but it is entirely logical and fair that each gender should envision the divine as she/he desires. How limiting otherwise.
The spiraling movement continues here in Sacramento; we’re having our first rainy, foggy fall morning. The best.
Brian
bgeremia
September 20, 2010 at 3:33 pm