Search - Michael Meade :: Alchemy of Fire: Libido and the Divine Spark

Beginning with the frustrations of cultural conflicts including: fundamentalism, literalism and opposed ideologies; Meade takes up the soul s cry for a multiplicity of ideas and a diversity of beliefs. Using mythic imagination and alchemical notions he reveals how conflicts and oppositions are essential for the ongoing creation of the world as well as for the redemption of the individual. An Eskimo story, The Mistress of Fire, shows how solutions for both personal and cultural struggles depend upon a conscious willingness to sacrifice infantile attitudes that sustain narrow self-interests. Meade shows how received ideas and fixed attitudes restrict and distort our instincts for survival and for shaping vital communities. Beyond that, he redeems the role of pleasure in life and reconnects the flame of libido to its origin in the spiritual realm. Through stories and poems and surprising insights Meade excavates the ground of libido and the realm of the senses to release the vital energies of embodied thought and lunar awareness. In the human crucible made of body and soul Meade finds hidden treasures of imagination and the divine spark of creation. Themes: The Alchemy of Emotions, Shame, Guilt and Eros, Domesticated Libido vs. Vital Life Force, The Diamond Body and the Flesh, Nigredo, Albedo and Rubedo, Primordial Thinking versus Fundamentalism, A Golden Heated State of Soul