The Heart of Transformation with Michael Meade

Michael Meade (0:00)

One of the great things about Carl Jung is he gave so many powerful, cogent, graspable ideas about the essence of a person. And so we really are falling back into our own essence. And the more people that understand there's a deep self, deep soul, there's many words you can use. It has its own core image, and that's the source of imagination. And that's where the new world is born, in the depths of the individual soul.

Lisa Marchiano (0:33)

Welcome to This Jungian Life, conversations with Jungian analysts on the unseen forces shaping our lives, and what it means to be truly human in today's complex world. I'm Lisa Marchiano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.

Deborah Stewart (0:48)

I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst on Cape Cod.

Lisa Marchiano (1:03)

Well, today is a very special podcast because we have one of my favorite authors on. Michael Meade is a renowned storyteller, author, and scholar of mythology, psychology, and anthropology With spellbinding interpretations of a unique street-savvy perceptiveness, he connects ancient myths to the dilemmas we face today, finding illuminating and healing ways to bridge the timeless with the present. Michael is the author of The Heart of Transformation. That's his new book. We're going to be focusing on that today. It is available now. Awakening the Soul, The Genius Myth, Fate and Destiny, Why the World Doesn't End, and The Water of Life. He's the creator of the Living Myth Podcast, which is an excellent podcast and the founder of Mosaic Multicultural Foundation. Michael, thank you so much. I'm thrilled that we finally got this chance to get you on the podcast. We're really looking forward to talking about your new book.

Maybe just start off letting us know what prompted you to write this book.

Michael Meade (2:15)

Well, good to be with you and thank you for having me.

I was thinking a lot about transformation, and particularly the idea that we're living during this time when culture is unraveling and nature is rattling.

That seems to me to be an unusual combination. The world has gone through many cycles and many ends of periods or ends of the era. And I think we're at the end of an era. And so I thought transformation is the thing to understand. In other words, transformation simply means to transit from one form to another. And one way that I was thinking about it is the world that we thought we had is gone. I know some people are trying to bring it back, but it's gone. And we haven't yet gotten clear vision of the world that's coming. And I'm saying that there's a world coming because in mythology, the world can't end, or in mythology, it ends all the time and begins again. And the word end doesn't mean finito, good night over and out. The word end means loose end or remnant. That's the meaning of the word end. And since from the loose ends and the remnants of the previous world, then there's a transformation from those loose ends into the reweaving of the next world.

And in nature, so part of the book is about reading the text of nature. And nature, like in the case of a forest, will grow this really diverse biological thing with really big trees reaching for the sun, and then they fall down and rot into the earth, and they become the nourishment for the next bunch of trees growing up. And so all of our ancestors were very close to nature, and they saw this process, and they understood that the world does that as well. And then modern scientists kind of catch up to it partially by realizing that stars die and other stars are born. And so then I begin the book by saying transformation is the way of the world, it's the way of the cosmos, and it's the aim of the human soul was something that I think I wrote into the book.

Lisa Marchiano (4:34)

Hello, I want to let This Jungian Life listeners know about a very special opportunity. This winter solstice, the Kosmos Institute will convene its inaugural residential colloquium in Ascona, Switzerland, in a magical landscape where Monte Verita and Arenos rose to legendary prominence as centers of artistic, spiritual and intellectual life. An intimate company of scholars and participants will gather at Hotel Ascona, high above Lago Maggiore, for five winter days of exceptional depth and beauty. Distinguished speakers, including Gary Lauchman and Lawrence Hillman, will offer extended lectures while shared meals, unhurried conversation and time for reflection sustain the life of the gathering. I will also be among those presenting. A highlight will be a visit to Arenos where Jung, Marie-Louise von Franz, Mircea Eliade, Henry Corbat, James Hellman and others developed work that profoundly shaped depth psychology, archetypal thought and symbolic imagination.