This episode begins with the idea that we are living in the dark times in which the storms, conflicts and tragedies that darken the earth place us in a crisis of spirit and soul. Either we find a greater sense of our own life spirit and soul purpose or we become overwhelmed with feelings of anxiety, helplessness and despair. As the light hidden in darkness, the soul includes the power of imagination as well as surprising capacities for creativity and renewal.

Michael Meade describes how the dark time of the year, as well as the dark periods in life, were the precise times when ancient cultures turned to myths, stories and rituals to find ways to restore the imagination of people and renew the spirit of life. Meade offers two ancient myths that show how genuine visions, creative ideas and healing come from consciously entering the darkness in order to bring lost knowledge and wisdom back into the light of consciousness.

The lives of the artists and creators, the healers and the peace makers involve conscious descents into darkness to find what is hidden and what has been lost. That's the mythic message, the ancient learning and the hidden light waiting to be found in the darkest of times.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can further support this podcast by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 560 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles. Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth.

If you enjoy this podcast, we appreciate you leaving a review wherever you listen and sharing it with your friends. On behalf of Michael Meade and the whole Mosaic staff, we wish you well during this challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.

This replay of a timely a relevant episode considers the difficulties of finding peace in a troubled world. The increasing amount of tension and conflict in the outside world generates a corresponding intensification of conflicts within each soul. Because the individual soul is not separate from the conditions of the world, simply turning away from outside conflicts does not necessarily lead to states of inner peace.

The word peace comes from two deep roots. On one hand, peace can mean “to settle, to find stillness;” on the other hand, it can mean “to reconcile, to make agreements.” Each root meaning involves a deeper understanding of life and each can lead to finding a greater sense of inner peace.

Being at peace can feel like sitting by a still pond, untroubled by anxiety or the stress of daily life. Yet, being at peace with oneself can also mean finding a vital stream of creative expression that connects the deeper self within us with a genuine calling and way of serving the world. Either way, if we can't find inner agreements that help resolve our own conflicts, we won't be able to help solve the great conflicts that now divide the world.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new online series “Heart Within the Heart” that begins on Thursday, October 19. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.  

You can save 30% on this series and further support this podcast by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 580 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles. Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth.

If you enjoy this podcast, we appreciate you leaving a review wherever you listen and sharing it with your friends. On behalf of Michael Meade and the whole Mosaic staff, we wish you well during this challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.

This episode of Living Myth begins with the growing procession of unprecedented, heart rending and earth-shattering events that currently tear at the core of human culture and also ravage the face of the earth.

The sense of a split screen world of growing tragedies involves one screen showing a map of all the life-threatening hot spots where brutal, deadly warfare is already raging and many other conflicts are heating up. A parallel screen shows the growing number of hot spots where temperatures keep spiking at record levels and the ravages of climate crisis endanger earth’s essential ecosystems.

It may be hard to imagine that we have reached a point where widespread warfare involving many nations might occur again, while we also arrive at the place where radical heat waves have already become a deadly danger for vulnerable people in many parts the world; but that is where we are.

It is our mutual fate and increasingly our shared nightmare to be living at a time when human vengeance and the technologies of war are making more places on earth dangerous to the point of becoming unlivable. At the same time, the lack of creative solutions and the heartfelt commitment needed to stop global warming endangers increasing numbers of people who inhabit places that are also becoming unlivable.

We are living through a great turning of the tides of time and churning of the chaos that surfaces between the end of one era and the beginning of another. We are caught in a cosmic moment of time turning over and life repeatedly turning upside down. We are in the tension of a great transition in history in which both destruction and creation are involved and where one can turn into the other, in true apocalyptic fashion. Chaos, turmoil and loss are all essential characteristics of apocalypse, but so are revelation, discovery of lost things and the potential of renewal.

A poet once wrote that “in the dark times, the eye begins to see,” meaning that it is when we face the darkness around and admit the nightmare that has fallen upon us, we begin to see with the inner eyes of the soul of humanity and with the kind of vision and care that can come from our own hearts and we become capable of seeing ways forward. In this old way of seeing, the heart breaking purpose of tragedies is to awaken us to the importance of each individual life as well as to the life enhancing necessity of our innate connections to the enduring pulse of nature and to the living spirit of the Earth itself.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new online series “Heart Within the Heart” that begins on Thursday, October 19. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.  

You can save 30% on this series and further support this podcast by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 560 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles. Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth.

If you enjoy this podcast, we appreciate you leaving a review wherever you listen and sharing it with your friends. On behalf of Michael Meade and the whole Mosaic staff, we wish you well during this challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.

This episode begins with the ancient axiom inscribed at the Oracle of Delphi: Know Thyself. In Greek mythology Delphi was known as the “navel of the world,” the center and womb from which life as well as inspiration comes. Like many ancient practices, seeking guidance from the oracle also involved a ritual process of being made anew by connecting to the center and the origins of life.

Ancient people went to the oracular center when they were stuck in life or felt overwhelmed by conflicts, loss or tragedy. In many ways, we find ourselves in a collective condition of conflicts and overwhelm that also requires guidance, wisdom and oracular truth.

Michael Meade explores connections between the ancient symbolic center and the deep self-center in each person, which can also be oracular. The deep self and soul within each person can speak in the form of big dreams, sudden realizations and moments of awakening that can reveal guiding visions and inner truths.

Seen that way, to “know thyself” can mean to know that there is medicine within you, that each soul is connected to the womb of the earth, to archetypal sources of wisdom and to the capacity to renew by touching the origins of life.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new online series “Heart Within the Heart” that begins on Thursday, October 19. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.  

You can save 30% on this series and further support this podcast by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 560 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles. Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth.

If you enjoy this podcast, we appreciate you leaving a review wherever you listen and sharing it with your friends. On behalf of Michael Meade and the whole Mosaic staff, we wish you well during this challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.