On this New Year’s podcast, Michael Meade begins an exploration of the myths of creation and tales of re-creation that allow time to renew and the world to begin again. Any serious consideration of creation must also include the energies of chaos that continually dissolve and disintegrate what creation establishes in the world. An ancient story from India describes the “two hands of creation” through which the world recreates itself from emptiness as well as from abundance, from sorrow as well as joy and from despair as well as wonder.
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 590 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 approaches the darkest time of the year through the creative tension between time and eternity and between darkness and the light. Prior to the hardening of time that is so characteristic of the modern world, the eternal was understood to be part of the present moment, as well as being part of the distant past.
The mystery of renewal is woven into the fabric of being and into the cycles of nature, so that moments like winter solstice represent the core process of creation ongoing. In the far reaches of night, the sun stops for a pregnant moment in which timelessness renews time and brings the light back from the darkness. When seen symbolically, it also represents our innate ability to move from the darkness of unconsciousness to being more aware, or as people say, enlightened.
On one hand, we are time-bound creatures, on the other, we are secretly tied to eternal things. Because we live in such dark times in terms of all the conflicts in the world and the threats to the living systems of nature, it becomes more important that we relearn the secret connections between time and timelessness and between the darkness and the light.
The essence of solstice involves stopping, even if only for a moment, so that a touch of the eternal can restore our sense of the holiness and sacredness of life at the very time when the darkness is at its deepest. The instinct for warmth and care for love, and also for generosity in the dark of the year, arises naturally from the souls longing to feel the holiness and the interconnectedness of all of life.
In making beauty at the darkest time on Earth, we stand in relation to the natural beauty and the natural wonder of this world. We stand in connection to the radiance of the cosmos as anything from a single candle to a glowing shrine or a great bonfire can become a symbol of our longing to help bring the light of spirit and the touch of healing and holiness to life on Earth.
On a personal level, solstice creates an opportunity for each of us to let go of what holds us back in life before starting anew as the sun does each year. When the light of the soul grows within us, it contributes the light of imagination and the spirit of inspiration needed to bring greater understanding to the world.
In facing the darkness together, we can rekindle the divine spark of life in each of our souls and can help each other renew the sense of human community being essentially connected to the light of creation, to the breath of inspiration and to the ongoing process of creation and renewal on Earth.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his free online solstice ritual “In This Darkness Singing” on Thursday, December 21. 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 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.
Currently, the common understanding of “streaming” means “listening to music or watching video in real time as part of a continuous stream of data.” An older idea describes a cosmic stream of essential knowledge constantly pouring through the world. This much needed knowledge about life on earth flows freely, but at such a fast rate of speed that most people cannot catch it or even see it.
On this episode, Michael Meade suggests that when it comes to finding ways to respond to the climate crisis and all the humanitarian issues in the world, we may have to find ways to slow down and tap into the ancient stream of wisdom.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his free online solstice ritual “In This Darkness Singing” on Thursday, December 21. 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 600 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 of Living Myth begins with the ancient idea that nothing exists until it passes through imagination. Imagination is not simply a subjective inner capacity; rather, it is a genuine force of life. In this old way of seeing, the increase of conflicts and intensification of hate in the world can be seen as a loss of soul and a lack of genuine imagination.
At a time when modern cultures can be seen to be unraveling and the sense of the shared suffering of humanity so quickly turns into hatred for whoever can be deemed as the “other,” genuine imagination is not just increasingly important, but can be seen as the redeeming factor for both the individual human soul and for human culture as a totality.
Although viewing life in literal terms has become a habit for many, it ultimately gives us a false sense of security and keeps us blind to the knowledge we most need when the world around us keeps changing. In the ancient world, myth could mean emergent truth and mythic imagination was understood to be the primary way in which the human mind and the human heart could connect or reconnect to the universal truths that underlie all of reality.
Lacking a renewed sense of genuine imagination, the modern world will continue to divide and fall apart. For what is missing in most cases is not simply a lack of the resources needed to change things, but a tragic lack of the imagination required to awaken to a greater, more inclusive visions of reality. For, it is the intermediating function of imagination that makes it possible to unite otherwise opposing states, such as the objective and the subjective, religion and science or any pair of antithetical ideologies.
Imagination has always been the unifying force in the human psyche, the inherent function that precedes thought, but also follows the body's inner ways of knowing and being. Imagination is the key that opens us to all that is immeasurable, creative, and healing in life. For that reason, imagination has been called the deepest power of the human psyche.
The power of imagination, which is part of the natural inheritance of each soul, has surprising and indelible capacities for creativity and renewal. By the virtue of imagination, we see with penetrating insights and creative vision, not the delusions of fantasy, but the surprise of revelation. The point is to allow the immediate powers of myth and imagination to give us a poetic grasp of our own lives and the events of the world. Without such a mythic sense, the world becomes increasingly divided and we can become overwhelmed by conflicts both inner and outer. As the collective sense of unity collapses, the uniqueness within each person's soul becomes the essential source of the unifying imagination needed to sustain and renew life.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new online workshop “Ritual, Healing and Transformation” that on Saturday, December 9. 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 of Living Myth looks at both the need to transform and our resistance to change through the lens of the metamorphosis of butterflies. The fact that the Greek word psyche means butterfly implies how we are secretly connected to the essential dynamic of transformation in life. As if compelled by the primordial poetics of transformation, scientists named the cells that carry the potential for a true transformation of the caterpillar “imaginal cells.”
The capacity of the imaginal cells to develop into a butterfly and transform life completely is related to the inner capacity of the human soul to also transform repeatedly in the course of life. In the same sense that the imaginal cells hold all the information and energy for the butterfly to be, there is core imagination and deeper self trying to awaken in the soul of each person.
At the same time, something within us resists changing, even when the time for transforming our lives has come. In the mysterious way of the world, the metamorphosis of the butterfly also offers ways to understand why we resist the exact changes we most need in order to transform ourselves and help change the world. In simple biological terms, an exchange of one kind of cell for a different kind of cell changes a crawling caterpillar to a winged butterfly. In terms of understanding the essential dynamic of change in the world and at the core of the human soul, a great mystery is revealed that can be called the wisdom of the butterfly.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new online workshop “Ritual, Healing and Transformation” that on Saturday, December 9. 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 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 brings a focus to the need for having a calling in life and the idea that as the world seems to fall apart there can be an acceleration of calling. The human heart carries an indelible expectation of being called to a greater sense of meaning and a revelation of our true aims in life. In the old sense of a rite of passage, the deeper point is not simply to grow up and take more responsibility in society, but rather to awaken to the story trying to unfold from within oneself. The point is to open up, to break out and to feel the feathers of the heart in full flight.
No one knows when an opening to spirit might come and change the trajectory of their life. Something as light as a feather, as bright as an idea or as fleeting as a dream comes into our life and essential aspects of our souls become revealed to us, at the same time that the mysteries of nature and the realms of spirit speak directly to us.
Without a calling we can feel lost throughout our lives. Without a genuine purpose, we can turn bitter, drifting without genuine passion and withering without the blessing of the spirit of life. Yet, the spirit of life within us does not age as we grow older. The inner genius continues to be on the verge of awakening and our calling keeps calling no matter what age we are, no matter what position or condition in life we may have. Because what calls to us is timeless, the calling can come at any time in life.
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.
On this excerpt from a Living Myth Premium episode, Michael Meade explores how inside of each of us is a mostly hidden, mostly golden and mostly eternal image and aspect of being similar to the gold that is buried in the Earth. In seeking out this inner gold, we meet egoic resistance and must find ways to break the ego’s shell to tap the deeper wisdom within. Along the way, part of what opens this territory is a courageous act of facing death, for a death of the ego is required in order for the deeper self to emerge.
You can hear the full episode and receive additional podcast content by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 520 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