Facing Fate, Finding a Destiny

Author and mythologist Michael Meade brings his vital blend of storytelling, poetry and discussion to New Albany on Wednesday, May 11th, 7 p.m. at the Temple Beth Shalom. This event celebrates the release of Meadeâ??s recent book, Fate and Destiny: The Two Agreements of the Soul. Drawing on folktales and myths from many cultures and spiritual ideas from the East and the West, he leads us to an undeniable truth: that the only story we came here to live is our own.

Meade shows how the limitations of family and fate form the inner threads from which our individual destiny must emerge. Weaving stories within stories, lacing pertinent psychology within cultural analysis, and mixing autobiography with myth, Meade opens the territory of fate and destiny to new interpretations and deeper meanings.

A New York native with a razor sharp wit, Meadeâ??s insights are especially valuable since they have been hard won through decades of work in the trenches of mentoring youth, visiting prisons, assisting war veterans and fostering dialogues between genders and races. Through story, poetry and discussion, he is able to find common ground on hostile turf, working with Chicago gangs, in â??barriosâ?? in LA, on Native American reservations and with Sudanese refugees.