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Living Myth

Mosaic presents Living Myth, a podcast with Michael Meade, renowned mythologist and storyteller. Meade presents mythic stories that offer uniquely insightful and wise ways of understanding the current dilemmas of the world we live in. Living Myth proposes that genuine solutions to the complex and intractable problems of our world require both transcendent imagination and cohering, transformative narratives.
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Now displaying: April, 2023
Apr 26, 2023

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.

Apr 19, 2023

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.

Apr 12, 2023



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.

Apr 5, 2023

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.

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