Description

Branches of Mentoringwith storyteller & mythologist Michael MeadeMentoring involves stories longing to be heard and waiting to be told. For, mentoring offers an essential way in which the story of culture is fashioned, learned, and recreated. The word “mentor” refers to guidance and lived knowledge. Mentor first appears in an old myth guiding youth through inspired ideas and offering skills of survival. Mentoring evokes the genius in a person, develops gifts, and helps heal both personal and cultural wounds.Using the surprising “Story of the Half-Boy,” Meade shows how easily a culture disintegrates into a “Half-Village” that rejects its youth and forgets its elders. The pathway back to making a whole village requires the recovery of dreams deferred, the sharing of “lived wisdom,” and a return to the “dance of life.”While mentoring naturally involves the youth of a community, it also becomes the basis for re-imagining meaningful roles for elders. Through Branches of Mentoring people can discover and clarify what they have to offer in the way of teaching, guiding, and mentoring others. This lively presentation directly benefits mentors, teachers, parents, artists, social activists, and all those who work with youth and value community.