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.

As a metaphor for human nature, the Acorn Myth suggests that each person comes into the world with an innate shape and an inborn style intended to grow a particular character. Thus the soul, rather than being a blank slate, tends to be more like a garden already planted and seeded in a certain way.

On this replay of a popular episode, Meade suggests that the inner seed of the soul arrives already packed with knowledge. Specifically, it knows something of its own way of being and, if the shell of the seed can be cracked, the nature and shape and aim of a person's life can become revealed.  Call it a myth, an open secret or an eternal truth, the sense of each soul having a seed story it came to live resonates throughout the cultures of the world.

As the world around us becomes increasingly unstable and chaotic, we need to turn to the inner shape and core imagination of our own soul to find stability, meaning and purpose.

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 445 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 premium episode, Michael Meade talks about key issues that affect transformation in our lives. He considers core complexes in family and culture and wades into the territory of deep emotions. The word complex is trying to point out that when we have a particular kind of interior trouble, the issues are complex. Deep down, we all want to change, he says, and each crisis and obstacle we encounter serves to spark the initiatory transformation our soul longs for.

If we change one small thing in our lives, we affect everything and everyone around us. In following our deep calling in life, we naturally encounter struggles. Yet it is these exact struggles that become the turning point for our lives to become bigger, for our wounds to find healing and for our destiny to be revealed.

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 445 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 begins with the idea that “each family acts as a vessel of fate with an inherited plot that begins all over again each time a child is born. For the infant is not born into a vacuum as much as dropped into a particular stage of a family drama that has been playing out over generations.” Meade considers the issues of “family fate” that can restrict and obscure, but ultimately provoke the discovery of the threads of fate and destiny in each person’s 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 445 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 considers that when the world seems to be falling apart and life seems increasingly polarized, it becomes necessary to tune to the inner voice that is secretly connected to the pulse of nature as well as to the realm of the divine. The problem is not that there is no resonant voice inside us, not that there isn't something trying to awaken in each of our souls; rather the problem is the issue of tuning in.

The old idea is that once we tune in to our own inner nature, we also become aligned with the world behind the common world, with the realm of the Muses who are sending us signals that turn into music or songs and poetry, or ideas waiting to be found and be shared to bring greater understanding. Through tuning in we become the living instruments whose breath is needed, whose song is required in the struggle for meaning and love. Not because we are inflated or believe we are simply special; but because we are tuned in to life and attuned to our own hearts and souls. Soul is the connective tissue of life. Without a sense of soul, our own lives can fall apart, the inner parts turning discordant, the song of our being becoming silenced.

Yet, when inspired by the eternal youth within us and encouraged by the old sage in our heart, we learn how to become instruments for healing and finding love. Then, we use our breath and our voices to shape places of genuine communion where we can all come together, even with our uncertainties and fallibilities which strangely contribute to the resonance of the healing song trying to be found.

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 440 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 considers the problem of resistance to change from psychological and mythological viewpoints. While we are facing radical changes that threaten both nature and culture, we are also challenged by the dilemma of human resistance to change at both personal and collective levels. The issue is not simply a lack of commitment to change. Rather, resistance arises precisely where we have the best intentions to change. The problem becomes all the more difficult as we may not be aware of our resistance because it occurs at an unconscious level. Attempts to meaningfully change can feel like an internal struggle between opposing parts of ourselves; one part that overtly wants change and another part that covertly works against it.

What some psychologists call an internal “competing commitment” or a subconscious “immunity to change” was once known as the fatal flaw that leads us away from our soul's natural goal of transformation and spiritual realization. In terms of mythic imagination, each soul has an original intention waiting to be found and a life dream waiting to awaken. And each soul also has its fatal flaw, a kind of reverse attitude that works against that original intention.

Genuine transformation develops from the inside out. Thus, when change becomes essential, not just for ourselves, but also for life on earth, we are called to awaken to the true aims of our authentic selves as well as to the fatal flaws that work against meaningful change, both personally and collectively.

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 440 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.

Michael Meade tells two ancient tales about what keeps our hearts captive and restricted rather than being open, loving and wise. Our hearts can be capable of great love and true courage; yet when opportunities come for us to change and grow, old fears awaken and the inner walls tend to tighten as the ego or little-self within us restricts our hearts from opening more fully. In the same way that something greater than ourselves once wounded us, something greater than ourselves seeks to awaken through us, but some practices for letting go may be required for true awakenings to occur.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new free online event “Re-creation and Renewal on Earth” on Thursday, August 25. 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 435 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.

Heraclitus said, “It is while we are trying to change that we find purpose.” On this in-depth episode, drawn from an event recording, Michael Meade suggests that because we live in a time of change, if we can allow ourselves to participate in the change, then we can find meaningful purpose that awakens the heart and leads us in the right direction in the world.

The idea of a threshold is something that exists before one state and another, before one place and another. Most of us are collectively on that threshold betwixt and between the letting go of the old view of the world and the full stepping into the new world.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new free online event “Re-creation and Renewal on Earth” on Thursday, August 25. 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 435 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 Celtic myth about the mythic mother that attends each human birth and the ways we each can be “spellbound” is specific ways. “Spells appear in the important areas of our lives; especially in the areas where meaning and purpose must also be found. Fate marks the spot where the limitations in our lives insist on being known, but also where the deep imagination of each soul resides. Breaking an inner spell allows us to be touched by the grace of the world. It releases vital life energy that otherwise remains trapped and reveals creative imagination that makes us able to serve our deeper self as well as the world.

When a person becomes self-denying, self-rejecting or self-neglecting, they have fallen into an inner spell and forgotten core connections to their inner radiant self. Each person suffers their own version of being a motherless child, each an orphan in search of a meaningful task or a path of awakening that can lead to a genuine transformation. In the strange way of the world, it is the orphan part of us, the long abandoned, often rejected element of our own soul that finds the true inspiration of our lives. From the dark cave of confused feelings and traumatic memories comes the next phase of the story trying to unfold from within us. If we can accept and even forgive ourselves, we can be redeemed by the gift of Mother Nature in the form of the inner Milk of Inspiration.”

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new free online event “Re-creation and Renewal on Earth” on Thursday, August 25. 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 430 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 episode, Michael Meade uses the ancient metaphor of the pearl that begins as an irritant inside an oyster, that grows from within to become the treasure worth diving deep to find. “When the world fragments and falls apart on the outside, the underlying unity of life has to be found in the depths of the individual soul. Soul is the missing ingredient that has to be found again or the Spirit of life itself can seem to drain from the world. The iridescent pearl can symbolize both the life trying to grow from deep within us and the mysterious force that begets all of life to begin with.

An old Latin word for pearl means “unique,” attesting to the fact that no two pearls are identical. But also pointing to the fact that no two souls are the same as each soul born is unique and valuable in its own way. Those who claim to be perfect and have no visible defects are like manufactured pearls. Their glow does not come from the mystery that turns blemishes into beauty or inner wounds into gifts. Those who desire pearls must dive into dark waters and risk the isolation and confusion of the depths. Similarly, those who would find the inner pearl of the self must enter the deep waters of soul and face the darkness found within. They must crack the hard shell of the little-self and come to know themselves from the inside out. Ascent and upward movement can eternalize, while the downward movement of conscious descent personalizes and makes things real.

Finding the inner pearl of the soul requires great vulnerability, thus many fear and avoid the cracking and breaking open process. Yet, each time the shell of the little-self opens further, the inner radiance and iridescence of the soul can shine through. The deeper the connection to our inner self becomes, the stronger our connections to both nature and the divine also become. When the inner pearl of the soul becomes revealed, something also comes alive in creation. That's how things change here on earth, from the inside out, as the revealed value of the individual soul contributes great value and vital energy to the transformation of life trying to happen on 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 430 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 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 this challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.

On this episode, Michael Meade revives two ancient myths about the origins of death in order to consider the core mysteries of life on earth. “Little deaths occur throughout the course of life; attending to them and learning from them adds to the vitality of one's own soul, but also to the vitality of the world. The presence of death is a tactic of life, and a little death is needed whenever life would grow greater.

The world is a mystery trying to be revealed. How we solve the mystery of the world and how we solve the mystery of our own lives matters. And each matters more at the end of an era, when all aspects of life and come into question. It's as if we need an ecology of both life and death in order to help sustain the delicate balance that allows both great nature and human culture to continue.”

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 430 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 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 this challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.

This episode of Living Myth begins with the fragmentation and breakdown of political parties and social lives currently happening in countries around the world. Michael Meade then takes the issues of upheaval in both nature and human culture to the deeper levels of psyche and soul where archetypal energies of transformation and healing try to enter the world though each of us.

In accepting that we are in the midst of a great turnaround that involves a shift of the underlying archetypes of life, we become more able to tolerate and understand the tragic events that threaten both nature and human culture. The question becomes whether the pattern of collapse and renewal takes place simply through the raw energies of the unconscious or does a transformation of life on earth develop with the conscious awareness and assistance of people living at this time. 

On this episode, Michael Meade draws upon a story about the fall of the earth into darkness that is thousands of years old, yet strangely parallels and can help illuminate the worldwide crises that currently trouble all of our lives. Churning the Milk Ocean is a vast myth depicting how beauty, meaning and wisdom become drained from the world as all levels of life become more divided and chaotic.

The story focuses upon two important things that become lost and cause the earth to diminish and the world to grow dark. On one hand Lakshmi, the goddess of wisdom, beauty and abundance has disappeared from the earth. On the other hand, “amrit,” the eternal elixir and source of all healing has fallen to the bottom of the ocean of existence.

Churning the ocean is a surprising tale of lost and found on a cosmological scale, intended to remind us how the most important things can disappear, yet not be completely lost. It is an eternal drama in which only a strange cooperation between the opposing forces of dark and light can bring back the lost powers of creation and the medicine needed to sustain both nature and culture.

It's a grand tale about the struggle between the forces of dark and light at a cosmic level. It involves a pantheon of ancient gods and a horde of demons, as all levels of life become caught in a struggle to find again, and sustain, the balance of creation.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new online series “Finding Stories to Live With” that begins on Thursday, July 21.

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