The Genius of Michael Meade
Let me confess right off the top here, that I could be labelled a Michael Meade Groupie. In fact, I sometimes self-identify as just that. The only thing that got in the way of me attending every one of his local workshops was a pesky wee thing called a dissertation. Sigh.
I first heard Michael speak at a pre-conference workshop during The World Behind the World three-day event in April of 2002, which also happened to be my first exposure to Pacifica Graduate Institute. For the first half of Michael’s day-long workshop, I understood about one of every three words he uttered. I had the sense that large blocks of text were passing right over my head, but I could not slow them down long enough to really comprehend what was being said. By the end of that weekend, after hearing speakers such as Hendrika de Vries, Sobonfu Somé, Lionel Corbett, and Stanislav Grof, in addition to Steven Aizenstat and Michael Meade, I felt as so many of us have: that I had found my tribe.
But the language that baptized me was the melodic, rapid-fire, sparkling, churning, swirling, dancing language of Michael Meade, a storyteller of Irish ancestry, New York City wit, and the soul of a drummer.
Michael speaks about topics touching on creativity, imagination, soul, transformation, culture, depth psychology, and the transformation of culture. He feeds on story and collects them from all over the world. Then he spins them together, adds some West-African drum, and pours out inspiration and healing.
These words from that very first workshop of his have threaded throughout his endeavors: “From the wells of our soul’s deepest desires we yearn to heal our Selves, each Other, and the world. Where is our lifeline, our myth, the larger meaning for our time?”
( The World Behind the World )
With the world in such a maelstrom of crisis and change, however, Michael feels that each person is being called upon to express what he calls our individual genius and thus actively contribute to the service of the world. “One western idea that still resonates,” Michael said to me recently in a phone interview, “is that people each have a genius. The genius within is the resident spirit of the soul that gives each person their unique way of being and perceiving life.” It is each person’s discrete passion/gift/interest/talent that channels into the world exactly what is needed at the time. Whether your abiding interest makes “sense” to you or not, releasing it into the world is not only a choice, it’s something that the world is also actually calling for, through your passion for it.
Michael’s new workshops aim to encourage individuals to locate and express their “innate gifts and talents intended to be delivered to the world.” The storms of climate change and the disruption of cultural institutions have created “a desperate need for the inventiveness, creativity, and resiliency that are natural and essential to human genius.” Michael cautions that this calling is not an outward hero’s journey, a phrase and concept which has become widely used by Hollywood and popular culture, but rather is an inward journey, to bring more presence to our daily life, more consciousness to our creativity. What young people need now, Michael urges, is a way to take action: “The only thing that can stand in the storm is the inner genius/uniqueness of the individual.”
So spread the word, and come experience Michael’s newest genius: The Myth of Genius, the Genius of Myth” being held at Pacifica’s Ladera Lane Campus the weekend of Friday July 8 – Sunday July 10. Find registration information here: The Myth of Genius, the Genius of Myth
This is a time when the expression and vitality of our individual gifts are needed to benefit the collective, our communities, and the animae mundi.
“The gifts are only valuable when given. When the gifts are given, both the giver and the receiver experience healing.”
Respectfully submitted by Beth Anne Boardman, PhD (Myth 2012)
Michael Meade, D.H.L., is a renowned storyteller, author, and scholar of mythology, anthropology, and psychology. His hypnotic and fiery storytelling, street savvy perceptiveness, and spellbinding interpretations of ancient myths are highly relevant to current culture. He is the author of many books including Fate and Destiny: The Two Agreements of The Soul and The World Behind the World. Meade is founder of Mosaic Multicultural Foundation, a Seattle-based nonprofit dedicated to education and cultural healing. For more information, visit www.mosaicvoices.org.
