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

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.