In these tumultuous times, one man is offering an ancient antidote to despair. Longtime island resident, author and nationally renowned mythologist Michael Meade has spent a lifetime applying the enduring power of myth to seemingly intractable issues of the day. Next week, Meade will bring his deeply held understanding and mythic perspective to Vashon with “Touching the Soul of the World,” an evening of myths and stories that illuminate the turmoil of contemporary life.

Myth is a common denominator in all cultures — a symbolic narrative that explains the unknown. There have always been two great ongoing stories, Meade said in a recent interview, the drama of the world and the drama of the humans living in the world. Until recently, humans acted primarily on their own stage, but now, with humans acting as a driving force in each story, there is an overwhelming sense of cultural apprehension.

“This is an extraordinary period because of climate change and cultural disruption. The two big systems of the world are in turmoil, and humans are the conscious factor in both,” Meade said. “There is cultural, collective anxiety exacerbated by collapse of institutions and major instability in the White House. With politics becoming so aggressive, oppositional and winner take all, people need another story other than the political one. Myths have always served as a place for people to step back, get a deeper understanding and realize we are in story. In stories there are solutions as well as problems.”

An essential requirement of story, Meade explained, is conflict or danger of some kind. With the current crisis, we now have a really big story, what the Greeks called “apocalypsis.” Apocalypsis — a far cry from the co-opted “zombie apocalypse” — originally meant an uncovering or disclosure of something hidden, a collapse-renewal. When things fall apart, something else grows.

“The moment we are in is not a small moment; it is an open moment,” Meade said. “There is great uncertainty, but it is danger-opportunity, collapse-renewal, and that means we have a choice. Are we hiding in fear and isolating, caught on the side of collapse, or are we going to find our way of contributing to the renewal?”

The key to finding our way, according to the author, is connecting to our own particular genius. In Meade’s recent book, “The Genius Myth,” published last year, he describes genius not as extreme IQ or talent, rather as its literal meaning — “the spirit that is already there.” He writes that every person is born with genius, and if we can awaken to our individual genius, we will both know our path in life and benefit others. In the midst of collapse-renewal, danger-opportunity, there can be an acceleration for genius.

“There is an old-saying that in comfort genius sleeps, while in disturbance genius awakens,” Meade said. “Another old idea is when nature has a problem, she creates a genius to solve it. Genius and apocalypsis are really old ideas in the West, and they can be brought to bear today.”

He also cites the antiquated idea of cosmos, with macrocosm, mesocosm and microcosm, as a lens through which to view our current state of affairs. If macrocosm includes the planets and stars, and microcosm is about the human being, then mesocosm is the mess in between. Meanwhile, as the mess goes on, so does creation.

For example, on the microcosmic level, he said, we learn about the interaction with the Russians during the presidential campaign and other daily revelations in the news cycle. In the macrocosm, discoveries range from the seven new planets to the oldest fossils dating the earth back 4.7 billion years.

As for the messy middle, Meade sheds light on it through understanding chaos.

“Chaos is a big mythological idea. It means gaping maw or abyss; it doesn’t mean disorder,” he said. “I think people didn’t realize there would be this much chaos, which is the opposite of cosmos meaning everything in its place. Chaos means the big dark unknown, so people who are using chaos are making a big mistake because chaos will use them.”

All creation stories begin with chaos, Meade said, so accepting chaos is also closer to being creative and that brings back the idea of genius awakening in times of turmoil within the mucky mesocosm.

But for genius to be sustained, for people to fulfill their lives, they need a supportive community, and for community to survive, it needs awakened, enlightened people.

“Both are necessary,” Meade said. “The response to the distortion of politics depends upon the roots of community. So, Vashon becomes a very interesting place because you have the sense of community, but then the question becomes how does community deepen itself when there is all this uneasiness, disruption, even danger.”

It’s not uncommon during scary times for communities and countries to become divided. It’s an old survival story, according to Meade. The two forces of survival are called the hard-headed and the open-hearted.

“Fear drives people into those hardened places,” he said. “If they are not awakened and become engaged, people become hard-hearted, with fixed ideas and ideology. People think this is how we survive, and that is partially true. But the other side of survival is openhearteness and communal connections.”

We need both aspects, he said. When people are divided, the soul is missing, an idea Meade will explore by blending timeless tales and unifying songs in his talk, “Touching the Soul of the World.”

“The soul is the connecting tissue,” he said. “It is when I feel sympathetic or empathic with someone I barely know because they are in pain. So, the fight over health care, you could say, is another fight over the hard-headed versus the open-hearted, and the answer is somewhere in the middle or is a completely new idea. That is the mythic view. These are big forces, and we are part of it.”

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“Touching the Soul” will be presented at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 29, at Open Space for Arts & Community. Tickets are $12 and available at mosaicvoices.org.