Endings and beginnings are eternally intertwined; “most end-of-the-world visions and end-time myths involve images of a regenerated world.” Life is cyclical, and despite the feelings we get when we find ourselves hurtling towards what feels like an end, it is important to remember that after that end comes a beginning. We are simply in the middle of another one of life’s many cycles. Cultures from across the world and throughout history all have myths associated with the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, and in his book Meade tells a number of these tales.

One of the myths our author shares is about a Native American woman who lives in a cave and alternates between weaving a cloth and stirring a pot of broth. There is a black dog that lives in the cave and every time she puts down her cloth in order to stir the broth, the dog approaches it and unravels it with his teeth. Then, when she puts down her spoon and leaves the pot unattended, its contents begin to settle on the bottom and burn. So, she is caught in a perpetual balance of tending to one and then the other, with each becoming undone when she turns her attention away. It’s a simple story that is packed with metaphor.

The woman represents Mother Earth and the cave is her earthly home; the weaving of the cloth represents the slow and patient construction of life and the interconnectedness of all things while the pot of broth symbolizes sustenance. Together, they mirror life, as the cloth creates meaning and the broth sustains life. The black dog represents entropy, the unknown, and death, and it doesn’t destroy the cloth out of malice, but unravels it as a necessary function of the cycle of creation and destruction.

The story itself is a metaphor for creation: it is never finished, but is in a constant state of becoming and unbecoming. Life’s creation and destruction are found in balance with one another, synonymous with order and chaos, yin and yang. “The most animated, surprising, and soulful places are those spaces found betwixt and between one thing and another” Meade writes, “between sleeping and waking, between culture and nature, where the inner and outer and the above and below entwine.” The story teaches us that true balance requires opposition—if the woman ever managed to complete her cloth, it would represent perfect harmony, a state of affairs we can never truly achieve. This tale of Mother Earth helps us understand that time is circular and has no end—it is an eternal loop of activity.

This is one of many mythological stories shared by Meade and extrapolated upon in the pages of his book in addition to many anecdotes on change. He writes about how when cultures fall apart it “happens in two places at once: where its youth are rejected and not fully invited into life and where its elders are forgotten and forget what is important about life.” This idea struck me as appropriate for our current day: young people are struggling to get their first foothold in society and older people have forgotten what is truly important in life as they have pulled the ladder to success up after themselves.

Intertwined throughout the myths of renewal and anecdotes of change, Meade writes about the journey we all take towards greater realization of our own role in the grand stories of life. “Every pilgrimage is secretly a journey to the center of oneself,” he says, “when we risk seeking what we most long for, we also begin the path of self-discovery.” This journey is an important spiritual one to take, for it is how we understand how creation and destruction take place in our own personal lives. The cycle of change happens on the individual level and also the societal level, and the myths we tell about one are appropriate for the other.

My overall take-away from reading this book is that regardless of where we are in our lives, either individually or collectively, we are in the middle of a cycle. If the end feels near, there is a beginning waiting in the wings, and vice versa. Despite the cloudiness of the future, we can all count on one thing: life will go on.