The Genius Myth

Each person born participates in the genius of life and the world at this time is in great need of an awakening of genius qualities hidden within each of us. In a rapidly changing world faced with seemingly impossible problems, it becomes important to understand that each person has something to contribute. Both timely and timeless, this book combines dramatic real life experiences with compelling mythic tales and a profound exploration of the wisdom of genius, and is essential for anyone who seeks to awaken their own genius and learn how to heal nature and renew culture. Rather than a heroic journey undertaken by a select few, the genius myth imagines that everyone by virtue of bearing some genius qualities is subject to a genuine calling in life. The question becomes not whether or not you are a genius, but in what way does genius appear in you and how might it contribute to your well-being and at the same time benefit the world around you. This book will help young people hoping to find a meaningful way in the world and adults wanting to dwell more deeply in life. It offers essential ideas for parents and teachers, counselors and mentors seeking to encourage and support those they teach and care about. The Genius Myth is vital reading for anyone searching for a true orientation in the midst of a world gone wrong.

Michael Meade

Religion & Spirituality

GreenFire Press

In response to demand for a new edition of The Water of Life, Michael Meade has revised and refined the classic text and added a new preface that addresses the important issue of men and violence in modern culture. As a recent reader remarked, This book is even more prescient and important at this critical point in the world than when it was first published. At once a mythic journey, a study in depth psychology and a treatise on initiation, Meade mines ancient stories, finding wisdom and guidance for the turbulent times in which we live. Throughout the text, the water of life functions as a core symbol for both personal and cultural renewal, and for the redemption of nature from a wasteland condition. Using ideas gleaned from many years of cutting-edge work with at-risk youth and oppressed communities, Meade's writing has the ring of lived truth.

The Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of the Soul

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Voices of Vets draws upon work that began in a five day retreat that focused upon healing from the effects of combat and dealing with the post-traumatic stresses that follow exposure to modern warfare. The retreat was facilitated by author Michael Meade, a Vietnam era veteran, noted mythologist, author, and storyteller, along with experts in the field of trauma recovery. Healing only happens where and when the burdens of war can be shared by the greater community. A public gathering allows citizens to become compassionate witnesses to the stories of war and the need for conscious and genuine acts of witnessing and welcoming. As one of the veterans put it in a poem:''Can we create a village as strong as a war?'' The suffering and sacrifice of veterans must be acknowledged at a genuine human level just as quality medical treatments must reflect the nature of physical wounds. A genuine rite of return for veterans involves an open and compassionate community that fully acknowledges the courage and the wounds of those who return from battle as well as fully grieves those whose lives ended in the unforgiving fields of war. Excerpted from Michael Meade s introduction to Voices of Vets. Includes a foreword by Peggy Rubin, an essay by Michael Meade, and an afterword by Michael Maxwell.

Voices of Vets : A Bridge Back to the World

Michael Meade et al.

Drawing on the experiences of his life, traditional wisdom stories, poetic and metaphoric language, etymology, and his personal brand of scholarship, Michael Meade leads us to an undeniable truth: that the only story we came here to live is our own. Often called "an instant classic," in this newly revised and expanded edition of Fate and Destiny, Meade has taken his original message of the uniqueness of each life to new levels of meaning and inspiration. By elaborating key themes and polishing the gems of wisdom, Meade gives us an even more powerful opportunity to change ourselves and the world. Meade shows how the limitations of family and fate form the inner threads from which our individual destiny must emerge. He explains how our wounds can become doorways to our deepest gifts and how our greatest obstacles are intended to lead us to a treasure divinely seeded within us before birth. Amidst the current turmoil of the world, Fate and Destiny speaks directly to young people seeking to find a genuine path in life and trying to awaken to the dream they carry inside. At the same time, stories of the elders help older people find new ways to value their lives and touch the threads of their own destiny. Fate and Destiny offers everyone penetrating insights for those caught in life's inevitable struggles and shows the wisdom of elders depends upon remembering the spirit of eternal youth.

Fate and Destiny, The Two Agreements of the Soul - Newly Revised and Expanded Edition

Philosophy

Starting with the sense that the contemporary world is uncertain and fragmented, troubled with tragedy and fraught with inauthenticity,mythologist Meade seeks for hints of renewal amidst the rattling and the rubble. At a time when people expect the world to come to an end because of global warming or nuclear nightmares, at the hand of wrathful deities or the prediction of ancient calendars, Meade offers surprising tales of renewal as well as an in-depth treatise on the psychology and mythology of the end of an era. In place of simple apocalyptic scenarios, the author follows a knowing thread back to ancient notions of apocalypsis as a liminal period marking the passage between one era and the next. Apocalypsis involves eruptions in nature and disruptions of culture, but also makes possible revelations of a unifying principle and guiding force in each life. Apocalypsis uncovers the hidden unity that connects all of life; but only after the surface of life cracks and the expected patterns fail. He describes a time of indeterminate length when people face the choice of assisting with the renewal of the world or falling under the spell of collective anxieties and doomsday predictions.

Why the World Doesn't End, Tales of Renewal in Times of Loss

Awakening the Soul addresses the issue of the loss of soul throughout the world and the loss of meaning and truth in modern life. Michael Meade shows how meaning is essential to the human soul and uses ancient stories and compelling insights to describe how soul can be recovered and people can learn to live in truth. Drawing from dramatic episodes in his own life, Meade shows how the soul tries to awaken at critical times, and how an awakened soul is crucial for finding medicine to treat the ailments and alienation of modern life. What we need now is not a minor repair, but a major transformation of the world that can only start with the awakening of the individual soul.

Awakening the Soul

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Books by GreenFire Press

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the GreenFire Press publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Genius Myth

The Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of the Soul

Voices of Vets : A Bridge Back to the World

Fate and Destiny, The Two Agreements of the Soul - Newly Revised and Expanded Edition

Why the World Doesn't End, Tales of Renewal in Times of Loss

The Genius Myth

Awakening the Soul