This episode of Living Myth begins with the idea that as everything around us falls apart, the deeper Self and ancient soul within us moves closer to the surface and seeks to become known. For whatever shatters the common patterns of daily life also opens us up to psychological and mythical levels of unusual depth that are not overwhelmed by the divisions and disruptions in the world.

The elements of great imagination and deep spirituality that have become lost in the modern world cannot simply disappear. Rather, what is sorely missing in the outside world waits to be found in the inner realm of being, in the greater sense of Self that is the natural inheritance of each human soul.

The centering and guiding power of the deep Self gives us our innate sense of meaning and instinctive sense of purpose. Without this inner, unifying factor, any meaningful sense of change can become fraught with excess fears and anxiety. Since the world will not quickly settle, we have to look deep inside for a true source of coherence, for meaningful guidance and for finding our true aims in life, which are not deterred by the troubles of 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 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 turns to what many consider to be the oldest known story, the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh. The ancient tale offers guidance for these critical times, not from the heroic battles or kingly powers of Gilgamesh, but from his later life search for spiritual renewal and the plant of immortality.

The primordial plant is described as “the thing that gives immortality” or as “the flower of life that renews vitality,” can only be found in the depths of the ocean. Thus, a great descent is required in order to find the roots of renewal and the touch of the eternal.

In critical times we all need a taste of that plant that might rejuvenate us and renew the spirit of our lives. Down, back and below us, the ocean of the unconscious holds the treasure of the deep self and soul, the source of our inner life and origin of our spiritual longings.

The soul knows that the full potential of life must be sought back at the beginning, down at the source, where the underlying unity of life waits to be found and be touched again. Our ancestors, going all the way back to before recorded time, found the sacred founts of renewal in forest pools, in the rivers and at the shores where the spirit of life waits to be found again and again. When we allow ourselves to be touched by the deep waters that came from the primordial beginning, time stops, life becomes holy again, and we become capable of wisdom that the old knowers knew.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new online series “Gifts and Wounds” that begins on Thursday, May 18.

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 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 uses deeper meanings of the word catastrophe to frame the tragedies and disasters that currently plague both culture and nature. We are in a deeply wounded cultural condition in which current and historical conflicts that are not fully faced will continually lead to ever greater tragedies. The flood of mass shootings, along with environmental disasters cannot simply be contained by the individual psyche, nor can they just be dismissed. In times of tragedy and upheaval, it is not simply a new world that we need; it is a new worldview that we must find.
 
Catastrophe can mean “a sudden end” or “a reversal of what was expected.” In ancient theater, catastrophe defined the crucial turning point in the last scenes of a drama. Before the final curtain could fall, the veil would lift to reveal all kinds of plot twists and undercurrents that had been present, but were hidden. Even when all aspects of the plot clearly pointed to an inevitable, tragic ending, a reversal could already be secretly underway. In other words, catastrophic conditions can lead to turning things around rather than a complete tragic ending.
 
The idea is not to deny the presence of tragedy and loss, but to realize that the great drama of the world includes twists of fate that cannot be predicted and revelations that only appear when the end seems near. Even at the edge of despair we can awaken to a deeper vision and greater understanding that has been trying to become conscious all along.  In these catastrophic times, events can go either way. Either they can lead to a fatal downfall or else to a surprising turn of events in which the saving elements and hidden capacities for renewal become revealed on both individual and collective levels of life.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new online series “Gifts and Wounds” that begins on Thursday, May 18.

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 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 episode focuses on the tension between fear and Eros, between widening societal divisions and our innate instinct to connect and find unity. The struggle between fear and Eros or fear and love is an old one, for one would separate where the other would unify. When fear becomes the dominant collective emotion, it can permeate an entire culture and divide all the people. When we feel surrounded by fear, the danger is that our souls will shrink and life itself will be diminished.
 
An excess of fear separates us from each other, but also divides us within ourselves. We become isolated and cut off from our inner nobility and from the creative capacities of our souls. When people fail to live the life of their soul with its instinctive Eros connections, the world becomes diminished and the garden of life becomes overburdened with the remains of unlived lives.
 
When the enemy becomes fear itself, only boldness, imagination and Eros can save us from it. Eros or love is the antidote to fear and the way in which people can find a deeper sense of imagination, and a greater vision of what is needed both for survival and for feeling connected to each other again.
 
What we love as well as who we love connects us to the life-enhancing energy of Eros and to the original force of creation that wishes to continue. An old proverb states: What we love is the cure. That we love is our connection to ongoing creation. We are being called to imagine the world anew and to open to how our own souls can grow and blossom in greater ways that might contribute to the re-imagination of community and the healing and renewal of the earth.

There are certain, critical moments that say directly to us: You must change your life. Collectively, we are in time when great changes are necessary; yet the idea of truly changing is too fearful for most people. On this episode of Living Myth, Michael Meade tells a surprising story from ancient India in which a fearful tiger suddenly awakens to its true inner nature and becomes transformed.

It turns out that learning about one's true self can be like approaching a tiger. The authentic self has beauty and unique markings. It has power and an intensity of presence similar to the fierce brightness of a tiger. Awakening the deeper self also reveals an inner sense of nobility that can shift fear to awareness and replace uncertainty with a living sense of purpose.

In mythological terms, the less people awaken to who they are in essence, the greater the amount of fear in the world becomes. If we are to find some way through the cascade of crises that currently threaten the world, we must face our deepest fears, open our hearts and begin to see with the visionary eyes of our tiger self. When the inner eyes of our hearts and souls open, we begin to see the world as we were intended to see it, and in so doing, find ways of transforming our lives that also help to transform this troubled 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 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 offers an honoring of the living Earth as a continuous source of nourishment for the soul and the spirit as well as the body. It begins with recent scientific discoveries about ultra-low frequency sounds coming from all corners of the earth. This phenomenon, termed the “hum of the earth,” fosters a ceaseless droning at a level too low to be heard by the human ear.

When viewed through the lens of mythology, rather than the theories of science, many origin stories depict a living world that is conceived in sound with each thing having its own vibration. In the beginning was the sound that became the song of the earth, which continues in the whispering of the trees, in the winged nation of birds singing in the skies and in the mysterious incantations of whales in the oceans deep.

One ancient chant in particular has great bearing on the story of Gaia as the living world and on the recent discoveries of the hum of the earth. Being both a sacred chant and an origin story in the oldest language on earth, the Gayatri Mantra connects each soul to the ever-sounding song of creation and to the hidden unity of the cosmos. Repetition of this mantra was said to inspire wisdom and beauty in the heart of each person and help bring awakening and fulfillment.

In this ancient way of seeing and singing, we each become part of the hum of existence and the song of the Earth, which is part of the hymn of the spheres and the endless song of the cosmos that continually renews the living world. The ancient knowers used all kinds of methods and arts to remind us that we are but one step or one song or one breath away from finding the thread to the center of ourselves and to the center of the Earth. And because the center turns out to also be the beginning, we are always on the verge of tapping into the original resonance of creation and the ongoing song of the living Earth.

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 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 examines the ongoing plague of mass shootings and growing tragedy of gun violence in America. Michael Meade uses a teaching tale from ancient Africa to show what happens to a culture when people refuse to face up to dangers that can turn any public place into a site of tragedy and unnecessary death.

An old idea states that it is the same to live in a tragic time as to be in a tragic place. We live in tragic times, but by now, anyone can find themselves in the midst of gun violence and great tragedy in any place in the United States. Mass shootings have happened in banks and in grade schools, in churches and in movie theaters, in nightclubs and in synagogues, at universities and at concerts, in shopping malls and dance halls and the list goes on and on.

It is our mutual fate to be alive in tragic times; yet when we fail to grasp the nature of our fate, we become ruled by it. If we deny or try to escape our fate, we simply contribute to the hardening of it. And right now, America is going through a hardening of minds and hardening of hearts in which some people come to value guns over children and choose continued violence over safety and healing. A culture that begins to deny the tragic presence of death will end up denying the value and meaning of life. Unless we change, our mutual fate will be ever more tragic.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live 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.

Michael Meade turns to old myths of Proteus, the Greek deity from whom we get the term protean, which can mean “changeable” but also “primordial.”

To say that we live in times of change is an understatement; to say that we live in “protean times” can be accurate and prophetic. In Greek myths, Proteus was a wise old sea God, both a shapeshifter and a source of prophecy. He was able to rapidly transform himself into many shapes and would only reveal hidden truths to those who could capture him and hold him fast.

As the original source of prophecy, Proteus knew all things past, present and future. For the genuine prophet can bring back lost truths and ancient wisdom from the past, as well as provide revelations of the unseen future. Paradoxically, deep memory includes the future and true prophecy involves the past.

We live in times of upheaval and loss and we also live in prophetic times. As the world around us goes through many disturbing transformations, it is helpful to know that the next world is hidden inside this one and that lost wisdom and hidden truths wait to be revealed.

The stories of Proteus offer metaphors for working with mythic imagination and the archetypal energies that can reconnect the wisdom of the ancients to the moments in which we live. When that happens, the wholeness that is the antidote to the fragmentation of the world can be found again and the origin potentials of life can be restored.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live 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 special discounts on all events, courses and book and audio titles.

Learn more and join this community of listeners at: patreon.com/livingmyth.

Michael Meade considers ancient understandings and practices related to the Spring equinox as well as deeper meanings of the word “balance.” What ancient people intuitively knew that modern people need to rediscover is that the balance of the earth and the cosmos is tipped towards ongoing creation and a renewal of life at both predictable points and at critical times.

While many ancient people felt aligned with cosmic rhythms and nature’s ways, modern people tend to be cosmologically disoriented and primarily connected to history. This loss of the instinctive connection between the cosmos and the human soul has profound effects on life on Earth at this time. Without a felt sense for a living cosmology, life can seem increasingly random and pointless. The sense of cosmological dislocation diminishes our sense of self as well as our reverence for life.

Rituals of renewal, some of which were enacted at the time of the equinox, sought to stop the loss of energy and imagination that leads to a decrease in the quality of life. Rather than being a fixed point of balance, the Spring equinox would also be a crack in the wall of time and an opening in the cosmos, through which people could assist in the renewal of life, not simply by celebrating, but also by helping raise the quality of life energy on Earth.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live 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.

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.