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The World Behind the World | 
| Author: Michael Meade
Publisher: Greenfire Press
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $12.53
You Save: $5.42 (30%)
New (16) Used (1) from $12.53
Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 37748
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Pages: 220
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.8
ISBN: 0976645068
Dewey Decimal Number: 398
EAN: 9780976645061
ASIN: 0976645068
Publication Date: April 28, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW and IN STOCK - dispatched within 48 hours from the US
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Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews:
Is there wisdom for the modern world to be found in the ancient world's myths and legends? July 11, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Is there wisdom for the modern world to be found in the ancient world's myths and legends? There is, claims author Michael Meade in "The World Behind the World: Living at the Ends of Time". Examining the ancient world of mythology to use as a commentary on the modern world, and providing insights that many readers would have never connected before, "The World Behind the World: Living at the Ends of Time" is a deftly researched and recommended piece of writing. An ideal acquisition for academic and community library Cultural History and Mythology reference collections and supplemental reading lists.
seeing ourselves in the world behind the world June 11, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
The great American poet William Stafford found his poems in the fragments of language that shyly presented themselves to him in the early morning hours when he wrote. It was following these literary threads that shaped his poetic life.
Michael Meade, using a poetic artistic palette, reveals a way of discovering meaning while being led by the mysteries of folktales and mythic stories that he finds in studying archival books, artistic images, and the revelations woven into his dreams.
Whether it is Markendaya finding himself in the despair of swimming in a vast limitless ocean, the myriad sureties of old blind men describing an elephant, or the quandary of a mullah looking for lost keys. Meade builds an imaginal vocabulary that maps a path to an understanding of the complex beauty and layered architecture of mythic images. He encourages us to catch sight of a place for ourselves in these stories, by using our own language, in our own time, without losing the ancient veil that keeps our ideas from becoming the destructive literalism of modern thought.
He breathes life into these stories and they, in turn, give guidance, healing, and discovery to all who struggle to be found in them, a profoundly magical read.
A poetic and mythic exploration of the modern world. May 1, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Meade once again takes us into the territory of myth and story with The World Behind the World. The idea that the world is ending is woven throughout our culture. Meade explores the idea that science, religion, and culture are surprisingly agreeing that the world is ending. Viewing this notion through the lens of myth, Meade displays his ability to synthesize the collective views of the end-times of many cultures and many eras of human thought into a cohesive theory that the world cannot end unless it runs out of stories. Meade finds the common threads that run throughout creation and re-creation stories from all corners of the human experience. The end result is a reassuring reminder that we may be at one of the many "ends" of time, not the literal "end" of time. He explores similar ideas in The Ends of Time, the Roots of Eternity.
More so than in The Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of the Soul, Meade has found a way to weave the natural rhythms and flow of his storytelling style into his writing. Anyone who has seen him speak will instantly recognize this voice within the book. Overall, The World Behind the World is a very approachable and enjoyable read; neither too scholarly, nor overly simplified. It places the reader squarely in the story of our times, serving as a reminder that many cultures have faced "the end" before, but that the "ends" exist to lead to renewal and new beginnings.
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