Men and the Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of Men

Presents a collection of stories that is a multigenerational exploration of what it means to be a man, including tales of ritual mating dances and life in the African bush

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Meade, Michael

Psychology & Counseling

Harpercollins

These two African stories speak to the father-son relationship.

Off With the Rat's Head: Tales of the Father, Son & King

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Yellow Moon Pr

Old African tales demonstrate how to work with stories as a window to the soul.

The Lizard in the Fire: Male Encounters with the Feminine

Contemporary

Michael Meade is one of the few people who provides a mythological view of critical issues affecting the world at this time. In The World Behind the World, Meade weaves a tapestry of mythic tales and cogent commentary that truly inspires and offers a "mythic inoculation" in times of great uncertainty. As nature rattles and culture unravels, mythic imagination tries to return to the world, for endings and beginnings are particularly mythic. When "the End" seems near, how people imagine the world becomes more important; how people imagine humanity becomes of the utmost importance. Meade shows how "myth makes meaning" and helps a person find the meaningful path through life. He mines a series of "re-creation" stories in which the earth renews itself just when all seems lost. When it appears that there's no time left, it isn't time that people need, but the touch of the eternal. While explaining how culture renews itself from the dreams of youth and the visions of elders, Meade introduces the concept of becoming ancient again by connecting to the eternal youth and the old soul within. At one level, The World Behind the World is a guide for living at the ends of time. At another level, it's an introduction to "living myth" and it involves a re-imagination of culture at all levels.

The World Behind The World: Living at the Ends of Time

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Greenfire Pr

In this highly anticipated book, renowned mythologist and storyteller Michael Meade explores the complex and mysterious territories of the human soul with daring and hard-won wisdom. Drawing on folktales and myths from many cultures and spiritual ideas from the East and West, he leads us to an undeniable truth: that the only story we came here to live is our own. 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 efforts in the world are intended to lead us to a treasure divinely seeded within us before birth. Fate and Destiny speaks directly to young people looking to find a genuine path in life and trying to awaken to the dream they carry inside. It offers penetrating insights for those caught in life s inevitable struggles and shows how the wisdom of elders depends upon re-membering the spirit of eternal youth. As one story puts it, god has only one question to ask you at the end of life: did you become yourself? Weaving stories within stories, lacing pertinent psychology within cultural analysis, and mixing autobiography with myth, Meade opens the territory of fate and destiny to new interpretations and deeper meanings.

Fate and Destiny, The Two Agreements of the Soul

Reference

Starting with a new preface that describes the dual nightmares of global terror and global warming, The Water of Life addresses meaning and purpose in personal life and the need to return culture to its mythic context. Meade is a masterful storyteller with a genius for metaphorical thinking; he draws on the power of myths, fairy tales, and his own personal story of descent and transformation during the Vietnam War. At once a mythic journey, a study in depth psychology, and a treatise on initiation The Water of Life addresses the roots of conflict, the recurring hunger for war and the issues of reducing the warrior. Throughout the text the water of life functions as the core symbol for both personal and cultural renewal, and redemption in the spiritual wasteland. Using ideas gleaned from many years working with youth and communities at-risk Meade s writing rings with the echoes of truth and sings with an incantational voice that takes you right to the edge of elemental knowledge.

The Water of Life

Religion & Spirituality

SOUNDS TRUE.

Weaving a rhythm through images, storyteller & drummer Michael Meade takes you on a journey of descent & healing. In order to effect a deep change in the psyche & reach the "Water of Life," one must pass through the gates of suffering. Unravelling the details of two ageless stories, Meade illustrates this timeless theme of rejuvenation through the acknowledgement of loss. Topics: the creative function of sorrow, the importance of stopping, breaking through denial, listening to small voices, & much more

Rear cover notes: "Thunderous drums sound as 750 men enter the room singing. Thus begins a day of passionate, provocative and humorous dialogue with poet Robert Bly, psychologist-author James Hillman and mythologist Michael Meade. 'The Firebird' - a Russian fairy tale about power, love and danger; poems from D. H. Lawrence and W. B. Yeats to thirteenth century poet Rumi; Stories and mythology from African tribal lore to Shakespeare - these and other sources are drawn upon by Bly, Hillman and Meade as they explore issues crucial to men today. Topics include: the hunger for the father; the difference between need, want and desire; the importance of male initiation. Recorded live in digital stereo at the Scottish Rite Temple in San Francisco, California on March 11, 1990. NOTE: Contains explicit language." Four audio cassettes, four hours.

Men and the Life of Desire

Hillman, James

Bly,Robert

Oral Tradition Archives

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

Books by Meade, Michael

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

Men and the Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of Men

Off With the Rat's Head: Tales of the Father, Son & King

The Lizard in the Fire: Male Encounters with the Feminine

The World Behind The World: Living at the Ends of Time

Fate and Destiny, The Two Agreements of the Soul

The Water of Life

The Water of Life

Men and the Life of Desire