Michael Meade: (laughs)
Well, I have a lot of heroes from previous eras so -
Rob Kall: How about
living [heroes]?
Michael Meade: You can have heroes that aren't alive, yes,
because the way a person lives can leave marks in the world, you know? So I revere all kinds of ancient poets, and
philosophers, and people like that that I've studied, and then some of the
people that are doing/have done that kind of work in the modern world as well. My heroes tend to be bards and poets and
singers, and people like that because my intrigue with the world awakened when
I realized the power of story.
Rob Kall: The power
of story. So can you give me some names
of some of your heroes?
Michael Meade: Yeah. Joseph Campbell is in there, because he
brought an awareness of mythology back into American culture; but also Mircea
Eliade, who is not that well known anymore, but he worked at the idea of "What
is at the root of all the religious and spiritual practices?", and that was
something I studied and learned a lot from.
At the same time, William Blake: the painter/philosopher/poet, to me, is
a kind of interesting model of where a person has many gifts and talents, and
they find unique ways to use those. He
never sold any of his paintings, or maybe sold one or two in his entire
lifetime, and yet they're known all over the world because they capture
something in a way that they continue to connect people to big ideas and to
deep feelings. I could go on; it's
mostly, there's Gerta, and Yeats, a Rilke; the poets and the visionaries, I
guess, are the people that consistently move me.
Rob Kall: How about
people who are alive?
Michael Meade: (laughs)
Well, people who are alive; I'm still kind of drawn to the artists, but also
because of the work that we do, in terms of healing communities and that, also
to the activists, Nelson Mandela is also a big hero to me. I don't know why I'm not thinking that way, I
think it's because I started to talk about cosmos and genius, and I'm kind of
caught in a bigger arc so that names aren't popping up immediately. But I revere people who learn how to stand in
their own depth, and then give from there what they are intended to give, but
also with the feeling of helping others.
I mean, I could go into the area of Psychology and say Carl Jung was a
very meaningful figure, because he brought depth psychology back into modern
awareness.
I'm on my way in a couple of days to New York City
to participate in a tribute to James Hillman, who died last fall but was one of
the great thinkers and psychologists.
Also, people of imagination in recent modern life. And then Robert Blythe, who thankfully is
still alive and is a big mentor for myself.
There are many other people who wouldn't be as well known.
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