On this episode of Living Myth, Michael Meade describes how “entering the modern world at this point is like entering a rite of passage that is already underway. In that sense, we are in a “liminal phase” that requires a transition, not simply from one place to another, but from one way of seeing the world to another way of seeing and being in the world.”

Liminal refers to a betwixt and between period in which we become radically disoriented and repeatedly confused. Yet, in a liminal condition we can also find aspects of ourselves that are otherwise hidden. We can open our eyes and our hearts to the possibility of becoming not just a different person but a greater, more conscious, more creative person.

Whether we call it the “bardo realm” that we fall into, or the liminal phase that we step into, at critical times in life we are called to encounter life's essential mysteries that wait to be found again, and need to be learned anew. If we frame the radical changes and deep uncertainties that we are all currently experiencing as a rite of passage, we may have a greater chance of finding and integrating a deeper sense of ourselves, as well as the greater values and true ideals of humanity.

If we accept that we are in the liminal stage of a collective rite of passage, our fears and uncertainties can become doorways to meaningful callings and transcendent visions. We are being called to leave an old way of seeing the world behind in order to arrive at a new world view and a renewed sense of imagination that can realign human culture with great Nature and the living Earth.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade talk more about rites of passage by joining his new online workshop “Rites of Passage: Ancient and Contemporary” on Saturday, April 15.

Register and learn more at: mosaicvoices.org/events.  

You can save 30% on this workshop 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 500 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 a surprising tale from ancient Africa that involves an eagle and a child. The story reveals how what ultimately soothes our souls is an innate connection to Spirit. Whether we call it the Great Spirit or the great Self within, something greater than ourselves, and yet secretly connected to ourselves, keeps trying to enter the world through our lives.

This greater spirit for life has no choice but to enter through the hearts and souls of those living at a given time. As the world all around us rattles and seems to fall apart, we have the opportunity to see the world with what ancient traditions called the eyes of the heart. It makes sense that when the eyes of the heart try to open, the wounds from early life, which also reside in the heart, become stirred.

In that sense, the way of the heart in troubled times involves healing wounds carried within us, while also finding visions trying to enter the world and bring healing on a greater level.

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 500 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 these challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.

This episode considers the ancient idea that during extreme times the earth becomes plagued with an overshadowing of the light and a darkening of the way that blocks the path to awakening and dims the dream of life.

“When we reach the point where we cannot turn back because the world as we knew it is already gone, then we are standing at the edge of time, on the verge of the unknown. At that point, the only way to continue is to cross over to what the ancients called the Far Shore, the Mystic Reach or simply the Otherworld. What we desperately need now is the same thing that ancient seekers sought; that is the connection to the otherworld and place of origins that has been lost again and again.

We can learn many things from the methods and the ways that ancient people found for crossing the river of life. Yet, we cannot simply use the same crossing places or borrow wholesale the methods that they devised. For, the point is not simply to seek the paths of the ancients; but rather to seek that which the ancients sought. While this has happened before, each age must bring forth living symbols that connect the time bound world with the realm of the eternal.

When the Wheel of Time turns over the danger of collapse and dissolution grows greater in the daily world and at the same time a balancing imagination and energy for healing and renewing tries to awaken in the human soul. At the edge of time, even a small effort in the direction of the Otherworld has a greater effect in tipping the balance of life than at any other time."

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 nearly 500 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.

This replay of a popular episode focuses upon the idea of destiny as an essential part of humanity through which each soul is called to follow its own star and true aim in life. However, the consideration of the word destiny also leads to some confusion about its historical associations and its original meaning. One thing leads to another as concepts about etymology or the study of words become entwined with ideas of mythology and the study of stories.

Michael Meade suggests that language has its own genius and that each word can also be a story that branches out from root meanings to many associations with other words and other concepts. Similarly, each person has their own genius, the inner spark and speck of star that forms the original constellation of their soul. This inner spark connects us to our natural way of being, but also to our North Star that secretly tries to guide us further on the path of our own destiny, as we all participate in the spinning of the world, the turning of the spheres and the song of the stars of creation.

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 nearly 500 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 these challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.

Michael Meade considers the current threats to nature and the earth from the perspective of an ancient re-creation myth from the Mantaco people of the Amazon. After the entire world has been burned to ashes, the only survivors of the catastrophe struggle to revive life on earth. Surprisingly, they are able to resuscitate life by drumming upon a piece of charcoal and dancing until a green tendril emerges from the charred remains of a tree. The tendril turns out to be the “original ancestor” or Tree of Life from which the forests quickly grow back and eventually all of life returns.

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 nearly 500 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.

Ancient stories depict how each person born carries a precise medicine in their soul. In order to find and activate the inner medicine we need to face and even embrace our inner wounds. This episode explores how each soul is called to awaken more fully and each meaningful path eventually leads to the territory of gifts and wounds. Genius is said to hide behind the wound; living soulfully involves accepting our wounds as the source of our greatest gifts.

Our psychic wounds secretly connect us to the transcendent function in the soul, so that what wounds us also initiates and transforms us. In that sense, the inner wound can be seen as a womb. In going through the wound we become reborn as an initiate on the path of healing. The imagination of initiation becomes a source of curative powers that can serve to awaken the soul of humanity and help us reconnect to the heart of nature.

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 480 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 these challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.

On this episode, Meade explores how as the outer world suffers conflicts and collapse, a balancing imagination and energy for healing seeks to awaken in our individual souls. This in-born code of the soul provides us with a gradient or guideline that can aim our energy as well as protect our lives.

The soul’s gradient is a mythic umbilical that plumbs to the ground of our being, but also connects us with the soul of the world. When in touch with this guiding line we can draw upon the resources and creative imagination of our souls. When out of touch with the gradient, we not only lose the natural vitality of our being, but can also suffer a loss of soul.

Each life calling involves a deeper connection to the inner-woven thread of destiny that leads us to the paths with heart and helps to aligns us with our natural dharma, our way of contributing to life and serving the world. 

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 475 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 these challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.

This episode of Living Myth begins with a review of how cosmology used to refer to all of the ways that humans could imagine the creation of the world and the subtle connections of the human soul to the living cosmos. “As above, so below” is the ancient mantra that places humankind in the middle of the cosmic story as an essential link in the chain of being. As individuals we may properly feel frail and small; yet we belong to more than one dimension of life. And the dark time of the year is the traditional time to recall the interconnection between each of our souls and the starry universe around us.

The word solstice means the “sun stands still” and ancient people imagined that the extremes of darkness harbored a timeless moment of stillness as the sun seems to stop just in time before the gloom becomes too great to recover from. Traditional cultures all over the world imagined that the midwinter sun needed conscious help from human beings in order to turn things around and bring back the light.

These are not simply the dark days of winter; but the dark times for everyone; especially for those who truly care for the souls of other people, and for the well-being of the sacred earth we all live upon. Even as we can feel more physically separated from each other, and just when we can feel even more frail and small in the face of all the worldwide troubles we face, there may be no better time to light a candle, make a prayer, find a song to sing in the midst of the darkness, in order to help bring the light back.

In facing the darkness together in a spiritual sense and in the ancient way, we can also find again and realign with the divine spark of life we each carry. For the soul has its own inner light and each soul is secretly connected to the song of the earth, to the Soul of the World, and to the indelible spark of life and light that can only be found in the darkest hours and the darkest 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 475 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 these challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.

This episode of Living Myth addresses the whirlwind of feelings that can be stirred when the complications and uncertainties of contemporary life become accelerated by the growing darkness, the holiday season and the end of the year. Beginning with the idea that “making beauty gives us a place to stand,” Michael Meade weaves together a nest of poems that invoke the breath inside the breath, the stillness at the heart of being and the ancient soul of the world.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his upcoming online Solstice ritual “In This Darkness Singing” on Sunday, December 18. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.  

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 460 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles. 

This episode begins with a consideration of darkness as a necessary precondition for the creation of the lighted world. The symbolism of endless dark waters in creation myths represents the pre-formal, amorphous darkness that is also the hidden source of all life and all light. In cosmological terms, the presence of eternal night and the coming of the light are the primordial pairing. They are the twin generative principles that formed the origins of creation and continue to shape the living world.

“Yet, in the modern world, the almost universal presence of artificial lights virtually turns night into day. Instead of surrendering to the return of primordial darkness each evening, a manufactured realm of superficial illumination triumphs over natural darkness. Instead of appearing as an essential, uncanny, potentially spiritual presence, night becomes reduced to being the temporary absence of incessant incandescent light.

In this surface oriented, secular world of continuous light, the ancient sense of night as a necessary realm of reality that meaningfully alternates with the edge bright empire of day becomes lost, specifically lost in the light. Ancient people had an instinctive connection to darkness as a place of potential creation, revelation and divination. Thus, night was often seen as the most spiritual time, the dreaming space that cleanses the light before it returns to light up the day again.

As we find ourselves facing the darkest time of the year again, we also find our true selves in the dark times on earth again. At the same time, darkness is the essential background for the process of birth, death, and renewal, which is the underlying mystery of life in the cosmos, in nature and in our own souls. This greater understanding of the importance of darkness was part of all ancient cultures. In many traditions, Winter Solstice involved a willingness to stand in the darkness in a prayerful attitude in order to help bring the light back to the world.”

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his upcoming online Solstice ritual “In This Darkness Singing” on Sunday, December 18. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.  

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 460 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 these challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.

On this episode, Michael Meade turns to ancient stories of the Titans in order to understand all the tragic events and extreme behaviors that keep making the world a darker and more dangerous place.

There are times when myth and fact coincide, when events in the common world become mythical in shape and scope. In such radical times, myths can offer ways of understanding what otherwise appears as completely unprecedented events and impossible dilemmas. In mythological terms, we are facing the end of an era during which everything can seem to collapse back into chaos and darkness before a regeneration of the dream of life can occur.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade talk more about the themes and ideas in this podcast by joining his new online series “Light Within Dark Times” that begins on Thursday, December 1. 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 460 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 these challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.

This episode of Living Myth begins with a report that shows that younger people, voting in larger numbers, made the difference in an election that many viewed as a struggle for the future of democracy and the direction of modern culture. At the same time, a large study found that as people become older they tend to go from being optimistic about the future to being realistic about the present, and from there to being pessimistic about the future.

The tendencies towards pessimism become more pronounced in times of uncertainty and radical change, as many seek to return to idealized visions of the past. The trouble now is that the radical changes affecting and threatening all levels of nature and all aspects of culture make a return to the past, not just unwise, but also impossible.

Michael Meade turns to old ideas that show how a culture renews itself from both the dreams of young people and the visions of the elders. Traditional societies around the world had the idea that youth and elders were secretly connected through a deep sense of imagination that can hold past and future together. Seen that way, finding visions that heal the divisions in society and help realign human culture with nature cannot be the sole burden of young people.

When older people act out of self-interest or fear, they fail to have foresight and genuine vision. They also fail to make the kind of sacrifices that connect them on one hand to young people, and on the other hand to wise ways of thinking and understanding. The idea is not simply to age well, but to become wise in ways that draw upon the archetypal knowledge that sustained our ancestors and can also provide guidance for the future.

When we find ourselves at the end of an era, when even the young can feel older than they otherwise would be, it becomes important to reconnect to the capacity for genuine vision that exists in each person. For, imagination can go places that logic does not know and that fear fails to find. Youth and elders meet in places where imagination blossoms and the inner eyes of the soul open to genuine visions that can unite the old with the new, the past with the future.

This episode of Living Myth begins with the fact that what was once known as “election day” has become a stormy election season as social polarization leaves many outcomes too close to call. The political balance hangs in the troubled air as if to make palpable the sense that the world itself is divided. It is our mutual fate to be alive during a period of extreme divisions and radical changes that endanger the balance of nature as well as the stability and sanity of human culture.

In troubled times, everyone is affected by the storms of life as what happens in the outside world also stirs the internal depths of our own psyches. The deeper self or soul within us knows that politics alone cannot solve the global issues that threaten both culture and nature; yet avoiding the political storms and cultural divisions can secretly add to the collective turmoil.

Michael Meade tells an ancient myth that places the first human ancestor right in the middle of the tension between self-interest and serving something beyond oneself. The circumstances may change, but life has always been hanging in the balance with humanity implicated in the outcome. Once again, humanity faces the elemental tension between simply consuming the resources of life and becoming a true friend of nature and the earth.

The ancient story shows that at crucial times a small change can lead to a great effect that can shift the underlying patterns of both nature and culture. When we listen to the subtle voices that can come from any area of life, it becomes possible to awaken more fully to the creative impulses that sleep within our souls.

Despite feeling overwhelmed by the dramas and challenges of change, our hands are never far from finding again the old practices that help us weather the storms, while keeping our hearts open to the language of nature, and the inspiration and imagination trying to enter this troubled world through each of our souls.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new free online event “Gratitude and Grace” on Thursday, November 17. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.  

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 450 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 these challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.

This episode begins with a report on the radicalization of a radio station where extreme political views began to be mixed in with the local weather and local news. Ironically, the name of the town was Normal, as if to underline the sense that “normalizing” extremist movements and disinformation causes any sense of what might be normal to be a thing of the past.

The dramas and conflicts happening locally are also occurring throughout the world as the rise of social media, where anything goes, becomes added to the strong arm politics of gaining power by any means necessary. In the midst of all the misinformation, fear mongering and rabble rousing, people don't know what to believe or who to trust. To be alive at this time means to be a witness, willingly or unwillingly to the upheaval of the world.

The conditions in which we find ourselves are the conditions through which we must find our true selves and the genuine purpose of our lives. If we accept that we live amidst a great metamorphosis that involves all levels of life, we can become more able to tolerate and endure the troubling and tragic events that threaten both nature and human culture. In times of upheaval we are being called, not to return to normal, but to find a greater imagination as well as a deeper understanding about life on Earth.

As things fall apart in the outside world, a deep sense of purpose and meaning seeks to awaken within us. The inner alchemy of the human soul includes a settling self-center, but also resilient resources of great vitality and transcendent creativity. Ancient traditions held that the individual soul could be the source of “vertical imagination” that allows us to reconnect the inner with the outer, the upper with the lower, the older with the younger, each other with one another, and help bring human culture and great nature back into balance.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new free online event “Gratitude and Grace” on Thursday, November 17. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.

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 450 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 Michael Meade turning back to an ancient myth and a five thousand year old fragment of writing in order to find wisdom that is missing in the modern world. Both the myth and the words of the ancient scribe offer solace and encouragement to people feeling helpless and hopeless about contemporary life.

“Like the ancient writer, we live in tormented and troubling times, as all of life's conflicts and uncertainties seem to surface at the same time. Like the anguished scribe, we cannot deny the turmoil of the world. And yet we cannot simply bear the weight of it as frail human beings. As was the case for the ancient scribe, this time of cultural upheaval is also the time of a struggle for the presence of the human soul and a battle for the soul of the living world.

The counterweight to the feeling of having the weight of the world on our shoulders and being subjected to collective fears and anxieties, involves an awakening of the inner soul. For, the soul is always on the verge of some great awareness and on the edge of awakening to more meaningful ways of being. As the underlying and unifying force of life, the human soul carries an inheritance of resiliency, and a capacity for innovation in the face of disaster.

The idea of drawing on our own inner resources and from there contributing to the healing and renewal of the world is essential to avoid feeling powerless, and helpless in the face of the storms of life and the radical changes of the worldwide upheaval at this time.”

You can save 30% on this series and further support the podcast by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 450 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.

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

You can save 30% on this series and further support the podcast by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 450 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.

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

On this episode, drawn from a live event, Michael Meade explores an old idea that genuine maturity depends upon our ability to withstand and understand the tension of the opposites. The word individual means “un-divided,” not divided on the inside and thus able to remain true to ourselves when under great pressure from the outside world. Although we can feel crucified by opposing sides and torn between conflicting ideas, transformation is the secret aim of the tension inside life itself.

For just when everything seems to fall apart, what seeks to become more conscious is the eternal youth in the soul that sustains the dream of life and the wise old sage in the heart of each person that serves as inner teacher and guide. Inner wisdom involves a creative unity in which the eternal youth and wise elder within us help us hold together the past and the future and find meaningful ways forward.

You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new online series “Heart and Soul: Living Wholeheartedly in a Troubled World” that begins on Thursday, October 27. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.  

You can save 30% on this series and further support the podcast by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 450 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.

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

On this episode, edited from a live event, Meade considers how as accepted patterns dissolve and uncertainty grows, we become more vulnerable to feelings of insecurity, anxiety and fear. While the rational mind reels from the irrational blows, it becomes necessary to find a sense of wholeness within ourselves.