Living Myth (Michael Meade)
Explore every episode of Living Myth
| Pub. Date | Title | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Jul 2024 | Episode 392 - The Call of Genius | 00:25:23 | |
On this episode of Living Myth, Michael Meade suggests that in times of change, just as in periods of personal crisis, there can be an intensification and an acceleration of calling. Whether it comes as a daunting challenge or a crushing blunder, a big dream or a cutting loss, each major life event has within it an opportunity to awaken to the call of the deeper self and the resident genius of the soul.
What calls us calls for the giving of the inherent gifts and natural talents we brought to life to begin with. What calls to us calls to the dream set within our soul before we were born. Answering the call opens pathways of genius and imagination that can lead to finding one’s “dharma” or natural way of being in life and serving in the world. We are each called to become more fully ourselves and our transformation liberates our spirit, but it also serves something beyond ourselves. In transforming each of us, genius also transforms the world.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael speak more about the themes in this podcast by taking his new in-depth course “Healer, Mentor, Elder, Guide”. Purchase and learn more at courses.mosaicvoices.org.
You can further support this podcast and save 30% on this new course by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 650 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 13 Jan 2023 | Premium Episode 108 Excerpt - The Salt of Inner Wisdom | 00:25:54 | |
On this excerpt from a premium episode, Michael Meade follows a myth from ancient Ireland and weaves together cosmology, psychology and philosophy in order to open the soul's vision and catch the fish of wisdom. Rather than being abstract knowledge, "embodied wisdom" is shown to be both immediate and eternal, both spiritual and soulful. 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 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. | |||
| 19 Mar 2025 | Episode 427 - Finding a Place to Stand | 00:24:31 | |
This episode begins by tracing the evolution of propaganda from the creation of a papal agency entitled The College of Propaganda just over 400 years ago to the current process of “flooding the zone” to gain “full spectrum dominance of the news.” What is described as “rapid fire propaganda” aims, not simply to reframe the collective narrative, but rather to drown out all other narratives.
In addition to being emotionally and psychologically exhausting, the flood of emotionally charged language, outrageous claims and crude accusations serves the goal of turning people against each other, using the age-old divisions of right vs wrong, us vs them and good vs evil.
Since there is no simple way to stop the rapid-fire propaganda project that is well underway, one question becomes, how do we find a place to stand when we find ourselves, not just in a time of increasing uncertainty, but also in a storm of unreality? Michael Meade turns further back than the origins of propaganda to the sources of universal truths that cannot simply be drowned out or be canceled because they are indelibly rooted in the innate nobility, radical creativity and ancient wisdom of the human soul.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his free online event “Radical Resilience” on Thursday, March 27. If you’re in the Boulder, Colorado area, you can join Michael for 2 events on April 4 and 5.
Register and learn more about all these events 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 650 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 29 Jan 2025 | Episode 420 - A Crucial Test of the Dream of Justice, Liberty and Diversity | 00:33:02 | |
This episode looks at the misuses of power, the dangers of arch narcissism and the ways that the dream of America is now being severely tested. An old proverb states that: Power lacks morals and principles, it only has interests, and the interests of the powerful are often at odds with the genuine principles and the truth and the kind of understanding needed to create community. The troubled times in which we now all find ourselves are the crucible in which we need to learn more about psychology of power in order not to become discouraged and disempowered and fall under the rule of those who only see power as a force of dominance to be used in the pursuit of personal gain at the expense of human community.
Before he was elected the first time, Donald Trump declared that he could shoot a person on Fifth Avenue and pay no consequences even for such a violent act. That was not simply an off hand statement of personal inflation, but rather a psychological revelation of an underlying sense of being above the law and beyond being accountable for recklessness, cruelty and even violent crimes. Having been elected to a position of great power again causes him to further identify, not just with being a dictator or a king, but with being like a vengeful deity who can create and destroy at will and being god-like, he cannot be restricted, can do no wrong and cannot be held accountable.
Because arch narcissists are psychologically undeveloped, they tend to use black and white thinking and binary codes. Thus a person is either a winner or a loser, and you must either be blindly loyal or you are declared enemy and can be considered evil. In that sense, the use of political power is always personal for Donald Trump. He may use the playbook of dictators and autocrats, but he does it in a dangerously personal way, because narcissism is literally his personal signature as well as his fatal flaw.
This kind of imperial narcissism and threats of vengeance and retribution for disobeying were what the founding fathers fought against. And at this critical time when the delusional power seekers and the self-inflated oligarchs seek to replace the dream of unity through diversity with the sad old rule of "to the winners go the spoils," it becomes our calling, as those who seek freedom and justice for all that find ways to unite in diversity, reject the would be dictators and petty tyrants who carry the flag of the false self in favor of the genuine dream that is always trying to re-awaken and become more conscious in the hearts of “We, the people.” patreon.com/livingmyth | |||
| 22 Jan 2025 | Episode 419 - The Redemptive Power of Soul | 00:31:42 | |
Michael Meade considers how as the world rattles around us and the soul trembles, balancing symbols and archetypal energies stir deep within us. If we can hold the tension of the immediate limitations, we can connect to the soul’s power of redemption and life’s natural energies of renewal.
Archetypes, like instincts, are part of our inner inheritance. They hold all the potentials of life and can initiate creative responses to the challenges and dilemmas we face. As the outside world becomes more divided, the sense of creation coming from within repeats and renews the origins of life as when the sky and earth were separated and the world began.
The archetype of creativity connects us with the deepest roots of humanity and the ancient roots of renewal. The emergence of imagination and inspiration from within is a revelation of our undaunted soul and a little redemption as each act of creativity brings something new and meaningful into the world. patreon.com/livingmyth | |||
| 02 Apr 2025 | Episode 429 - A Lack of Elders, A Loss of Wisdom | 00:26:10 | |
This episode begins with the idea that in traditional cultures worldwide the search for wisdom would be a necessity for developing genuine leadership. It would also be a primary practice for those who would become elders. Genuine elders were considered a valuable living resource, without whose guidance entire societies could become trapped in short term thinking, mired in materialistic aims and in danger of entirely losing their way.
Traditionally, elders lead by remembering further back than others and by seeing more clearly ahead. Although growing older can involve a loss of short term memory, elders remember the essential values and the enduring truths that people keep forgetting. Thus, they are less likely to be strictly political leaders and more likely to be cultural and spiritual guides. In this archetypal sense, elders serve as seers who can see behind and beyond the politics of the day, and perceive more accurately the needs of the future.
The passing of time makes everyone older, but not necessarily wiser. The qualities needed to be a true elder involve more than physical changes. There is something metaphysical, psychological and spiritual involved. As William Blake put it, "Wisdom combines insight with experience and vision with maturity. If maturity expands vision, it leads to wisdom. And if it does not, maturity simply becomes degeneration." As someone else once said, "You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely."
The archetype of the elder exists in the depths of each person’s soul where it is connected to the deepest ideals of humanity. When the world becomes dark and foreboding and even the future of life on Earth becomes uncertain, the inner elder and wise sage can awaken in each of our souls. When that kind of awakening occurs, something ancient and enduring, something visionary and creative can enter the world through us and provide the wisdom we most need.
Thank you for listening to and supporting the Living Myth Podcast. 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 700 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 30 Oct 2024 | Episode 407 - Antidotes to Uncertainty | 00:25:58 | |
This episode of Living Myth begins with excerpts from a new psychological survey that a majority of American adults are worried that the upcoming presidential election could be the end of democracy in the United States. More than 7 in 10 people fear the results could lead to widespread violence. While it is clear that the political stakes are high, the levels of uncertainty and fear are even higher.
Across the board, people feel less able to predict and control things, much less integrate the flood of emotions that come from all of the upheaval. Caught between the extremities of nature and the extremes of contemporary politics, people can become inundated by fear, flooded with worries, and overwhelmed by the radical presence of uncertainty. In the radical times in which we live, human intolerance for uncertainty has increasingly become an intolerance for other humans.
Michael Meade offers an ancient story that suggests that simply turning away from the storms of life or trying to deny their effect upon our psyches does not protect us from the corrosive conditions of our human community. When the world becomes stuck and deeply divided, the solace we desperately need and the sense of unity we have so clearly lost must be sought in the unseen realm of great imagination and in the healing haunts of nature.
Traditionally, the medicines needed to heal this world have been found in the Otherworld in the form of imagination, visions and dreams and in the shape of nature with its many ways of offering healing and refuge for the human spirit.
When the realm of human culture becomes unwelcoming and toxic, whatever it might be that stirs a sense of eros and deep connectedness can quickly become the antidote to the storms of uncertainty and the currents of fear and anxiety. As many ancient stories try to remind us, the indelible spirit of life keeps trying to enter the world and can only enter it through those people who are alive at a given time.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new free online event “Arts and Practices: Antidotes to Overwhelm, Sources of Resiliency” on Thursday, November 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 700 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 26 Nov 2024 | Episode 411 - The Necessity of Gratitude | 00:39:07 | |
Michael Meade answers questions about the sources and meanings of grace and gratitude. Gratitude used to be called the “parent of all virtues” and its presence indicates the natural nobility of the human soul.
We are most human and most alive when we allow ourselves to be touched by the beauty of the world and when we feel genuine gratitude for the life we have been given, no matter how hard or how dark the world around us has become. In this way, expressing gratitude helps to bring grace back into the world.
More than ever, we need moments of wholeness and unity to rekindle our spirits and to ease our souls. We need occasions of grace and gratitude, however small they may be. We need to feel that life, despite all the existing divisions and conflicts, retains a sense of holiness, so that occasions of gratitude, however small they may be, can enable more grace to enter the world. | |||
| 11 Dec 2024 | Episode 413 - From Polarization to Re-Creation | 00:26:08 | |
This episode begins with the word polarization being chosen as the dictionary word of the year and ironically being the one thing that both sides of the political spectrum agree upon. The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines polarization as “a division into sharply distinct opposites in which opinions and no longer range along a continuum, but become concentrated at opposing extremes.” When polarization becomes the key word, extreme levels of tension are being experienced, both on the collective level and in the psyche of each individual person.
At critical times on Earth, the basic elements and energies of life polarize. We become crucified by seemingly irreconcilable aspects of a conflict that was under the surface all along. When that happens, simply choosing one side or the other in order to avoid the tension and the uncertainty simply causes the dilemma to reform in another area or at a different level. At that point, it becomes important to know that a tension of opposites is the precondition for creation and for any meaningful change.
While the two poles of a polarity seem to be irreconcilable opposites, they are secretly one. For in a true polarity, like light and dark or up and down, one side cannot exist without the other. Like night and day, existence itself is an essential unity, appearing as an oppositional duality. Seen that way, meaningful change and true transformation are the secret aims of the tension inside life itself.
While great uncertainty and fear can cause people to quickly choose one side of each dilemma, maturity, a word which can mean both “ripe and timely,” is related to our ability to withstand and understand the tension of the opposites. When we hold the tension of opposites long enough a surprising third way can appear that allows a truly creative solution that renews the energy of life itself.
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 Friday, December 20. Register and learn more: mosaicvoices.org/events patreon.com/livingmyth | |||
| 24 Jul 2024 | Episode 393 - In Dire Straits | 00:38:43 | |
We live in a time when seemingly all possible conflicts and oppositions come crashing all around us. Each day leaves us more exposed to raw emotions and rocked by the harsh energies of life. The tragedies and calamities of this era leave us in the lurch of history as antagonisms harden into stone and life seems increasingly stuck.
In order to imagine ways to pass through the dire straits of these troubled times, Michael Meade turns to ancient myths which can offer a third way to see when we find ourselves caught between opposing ideas and hardened ideologies.
The old myth of Jason and the Argonauts includes the quest to recover the Golden Fleece, the symbol of justice, authentic authority and balance needed to bring peace back to the world. The tale also involves facing the famous obstacle of the clashing rocks that represent the danger of being crushed between the rocks and the hard places. The story illustrates that some greater imagination must be found, and something must be consciously sacrificed, or else more people will become unconsciously and unnecessarily sacrificed.
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 650 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 03 Jul 2024 | Episode 390 - In the Shadows of Power | 00:24:23 | |
This episode begins with the sense that the recent presidential debate and the series of radical Supreme Court decisions add to the long line of broken moments that leave us in a deepening state of loss about the present and in an increasing condition of uncertainty about the future. Michael Meade turns to ancient ideas about how the process of elevating people to positions of power and authority is related to the web of life. At critical times the web of life becomes more fragile and we find ourselves in danger of losing that which secretly holds us together.
One of the great dangers in the modern world involves the accumulation of great power in the hands of few people without a corresponding education of the people regarding the inevitable shadow sides of power. The more power a single person or a single group can wield, the more damage they can do to the delicate threads of humanity and the subtle web of things. The manner in which power becomes misused or mishandled relates directly to the character flaws of those being elected. For, being elevated to high office inevitably intensifies the shadow side of whoever handles power.
Because of human nature, whoever is given great power will have specific ways in which they become attached to power and become inflated about their own importance in the given situation. Those handling power become tempted, not only to misuse their authority, but also to hold on to it in order not to suffer a loss of a sense of self.
The oldest meaning of the term “king” involved a sense of sacrifice, and the sacrifice means “to make things sacred.” Ancient rites of elevation to high office were intended to be a reminder of what is sacred in life, and also be a renewal of the ideals and core values that bind us all to each other and connect humanity to the web of life.
Each occasion of electing a leader is an opportunity to recall how handling power corrupts in predictable ways and that the ways that we empower people or use power ourselves either contributes to the vitality of the web of things, or the web of life, or else it diminishes, unravels, and can destroy the web of life.
The word crisis refers to “a point in the treatment of an illness or a disease where things can go one way or the other.” We live in truly critical times amidst a series of shocking events and broken moments that are likely to continue. We are in a collective rite of passage that requires that we find deeper ways to understand the shadows of power and greater ways to reimagine the meaning of leadership and sacrifice in service of the ideals of humanity and the living web of 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 650 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 and thank you for your support of our work.
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| 23 Apr 2025 | Episode 432 - Waking the Living Soul | 00:43:48 | |
This episode begins with an often asked question: What is the soul? Michael Meade describes the soul as “the animating and connecting force without which we cannot live,” yet that “cannot be seen directly or simply be proven to exist.” He further describes the soul as “a betwixt and between thing, neither simply physical nor strictly spiritual,” but rather “the third element in the trinity of existence, that fills the subtle space between spirit and matter.”
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade talk more about awakening the soul by joining his free online event “Surviving Uncertainty by Growing Your Soul” on Thursday, May 22. 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 675 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 09 Oct 2024 | Episode 404 - Finding Shelter from the Storms | 00:27:14 | |
This episode of Living Myth begins with the idea that the old terminology of 100-year storms and 1000-year storms makes little sense, since events of that magnitude now happen so often. It becomes difficult to deny that we now live in a world that is more unpredictable, more chaotic, and sadly, more dangerous. As the storms occurring in nature grow greater and move faster, a parallel intensification of cultural conflicts and political storms have also been growing greater and changing with remarkable speed. By now, the two areas of increasing turbulence can be seen to overlap in ways that add more chaos and more unnecessary suffering to those who are caught in the path of the storms.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new online series “The Soul of Change” beginning on Thursday, October 17. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.
You can save 30% on this new 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 700 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 25 Jun 2024 | Episode 389 - The Roots of Personal Myth | 00:30:19 | |
This episode of Living Myth begins with the idea that the task of finding symbols and stories through which we discover the meaning of our lives is as old as human consciousness. In that sense, Carl Jung was rediscovering ancient knowledge when he wrote: “What we are in our inward vision can only be expressed by way of myth. Each human life is…like a plant that lives from its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in that root.”
In response to a time of great crisis in his life Jung realized that an inner myth was trying to become conscious and that he had to awaken to it: “I took it upon myself to get to know my myth and I regarded this as the task of all tasks.”
Since collective mythologies no longer generate a sense of existential meaning and coherence, turning inward in search of our own mythic story becomes essential for our health and psychic growth. By tapping the inner mythic root, we can develop a more conscious and creative relationship with our own deep self and soul; but also find our unique way of contributing to a world in crisis.
As was the case with Jung, our personal myth or inner story tries to surface each time we feel we are in a crisis or at a turning point. If we allow the inside story of the soul to awaken and guide us, we become the living word trying to enter the world though us. Like Jung on his radical path of self-discovery and mythic recovery, we are repeatedly being called to find and learn the personal myths trying to be born from our own souls. 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 650 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 17 Jun 2022 | Premium Episode 97 Excerpt - The Stars Know Your Name | 00:15:56 | |
On this excerpt from a Living Myth Premium episode, Michael Meade considers how when the certainty of the world collapses around us, the danger of cynicism, isolation, and becoming numb inevitably increases. In looking for antidotes to these feelings of overwhelm and separation, he draws on themes and ideas including cosmology, genius and our inner gifts and wounds.
If you would like to hear the rest of this episode, and receive additional podcast content, you can become a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 425 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. | |||
| 05 Mar 2025 | Episode 425 - Looking Down on Autocracy | 00:26:34 | |
This episode of focuses on the dehumanizing aspects of autocratic movements. The increasing uncertainties about the future create vacuums that would be dictators and autocrats seek to fill with big lies and fraudulent claims that are presented with a false sense of certainty. The autocratic playbook that they all inevitably follow requires that they enforce forms of economic and informational isolation and instill a siege mentality that depicts the outside world as being hostile, unfair and dangerous.
Authoritarian leaders deliberately seek to polarize people and radicalize what would otherwise be civil societies. They intentionally promote divisiveness and force people to take sides, while also demanding undivided loyalty to themselves. Autocrats cannot succeed unless others in power or seeking power assist them in creating an alternative reality. Eventually, those who enable and help justify the authoritarian regime lose their own ability to resist the inevitable descent into brutality, nihilism and violence.
When questioning the judgment or actions of a leader equates to blasphemy, when blind loyalty overrides individual ethics and collective values, and when healthcare, science and education become tools for serving the agenda of the self-proclaimed savior rather than for seeking for truth and understanding, then a society has entered a critical phase of a life threatening socio-political disease.
Autocratic leaders do not simply undermine institutions and sabotage basic freedoms, they also seek to normalize dehumanizing behaviors that make social and political violence unavoidable. If some people are denied their part in the whole of humanity, that leads to a diminishing of all the people.
Ultimately, history is written in the depths of individual human souls and the story we are in is still being written. If we allow those in power to deny a genuine sense of humanity to some, we can only continue to lose our way and further lose our souls. If we open ourselves to the understanding that we are literally all in the same story, each suffering in our own way, we may find genuine ways to help heal and protect each other and have no need and no room for would be autocrats or self-appointed kings.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his free online event “Radical Resilience” on Thursday, March 27. 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 650 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 07 Nov 2024 | Episode 408 - To Not Be Lost | 00:23:55 | |
It is our mutual fate to live in a time of such disorientation and upheaval that the institutions we hoped would protect us cannot keep up with the flood of changes pouring through both nature and human culture. It makes sense that we could feel lost when the present is full of chaos and fear, while the future looks increasingly uncertain. In the long run, we are not simply in a battle between Democrats and Republicans or conservatives and liberals, but rather we are in a struggle for meaning and truth, in a battle between nobility and mendacity, which means a struggle for the authenticity of individual life and the soul of human community.
Each time the world takes a darker turn, it becomes easier to feel lost and begin to fearfully imagine that one loss is just going to lead to another loss until the whole thing becomes lost. Yet, the sense that everything and everyone has become divided into two opposing parties or mutually exclusive beliefs is not simply proof that everything is polarized, but rather is the painful evidence that what we are desperately needing and secretly looking for is a genuine sense of unity that can only come from a place that is deeper and more true than all of the things that divide us.
As has happened before, the world has been darkened by the shadow of those promoting falsehoods and being willing to “live in lies” in order to gain political power. The truth is that a government that is built upon falsities becomes captive to its own lies. Meanwhile, everyone who manages to refuse the system of lies threatens the power of falseness and helps in some way to break the spells of ignorance and self-delusion. In the growing climate of great uncertainty, amidst the storms of misinformation and the flood of extreme emotions, the important thing is not to lose our own sense of soul and our own instincts for authenticity.
The antidote to the collective poison of living in lies is found where each of us finds a way to live in truth. Despite the chaos and confusions of the modern world, we are the current inheritors of the deep human longings for truth and beauty and the life-sustaining capacity to grow from within and help transform the world. Each time we take another step in the search for meaning and purpose, we are living in truth.
Thank you for listening to and supporting this podcast. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new free online event “Arts and Practices: Antidotes to Overwhelm, Sources of Resiliency” on Thursday, November 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 700 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 and thank you for your support of our work.
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| 08 Jan 2025 | Episode 417 - A Story That Must Not Be Forgotten | 00:25:00 | |
Michael Meade recounts an ancient myth that reveals essential knowledge for navigating the turbulent time in which we all now live. The mostly forgotten tale describes the origin of the soul and explains how it is that we keep forgetting the still surprising idea that each soul brings to life a unique story and a destiny that seeks to unfold in the course of each life.
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| 04 Dec 2024 | Episode 412 - Living in Two Worlds | 00:26:11 | |
This episode begins with the recognition that, what the United Nations calls “the biggest election year ever recorded,” has left most countries on Earth more divided and less free. Any issue that arises quickly becomes another example of two opposing attitudes or conflicting views of life. As increased polarization fractures any sense of civil society, people come to believe that they literally live in two different worlds that are essentially unreconcilable.
Following a line from Shakespeare, Michael Meade considers the idea that we are in “a prison of our own making” if we believe we are simply living in two different stories. Rather, it is our mutual fate to be alive at a time when the underlying tensions of life rise to the surface. We are all in the same story which can either lead to a meaningful transformation of life on earth or leads us further down the road to oblivion.
Although people commonly now feel that we live on opposite sides in a divided world, the deeper divide and the more damning prison of our own making occurs when we forget that as humans we have always lived in two worlds. The heart of humanity has always been stretched between the ground of Earth and the endless expanse of the heavens. Humanity has always dwelt in the betwixt and between, the liminal space between the throes of hard reality and the wonders of great imagination.
We are most human when we suffer the tension of the opposites in order to find again the threads to the ongoing story of creation and the renewal of the world. The trouble is that genuine visions and meaningful revelations of the way out of the darkness tend to appear only after all the more rational, familiar and predictable ways of seeing and being have failed.
In truly critical times, we can’t solve our problems at the same level in which they were created. We become more trapped in time, more stuck in blind beliefs and more caught in despair when we have no other level of life to turn to. If there is no otherworld of spirit and imagination, there can be nowhere to turn to when everything around us becomes more irrational, more dehumanizing and increasingly chaotic.
As has happened at other critical times here on Earth, the keys for unlocking this prison of our own making have to include an awakening to the sense that there is an otherworld that exists right beside this world, that extends far beyond the political world, a realm that is not ruled by the blind march of time, but rather is connected to and can reconnect us to things eternal. Register and learn more: mosaicvoices.org/events patreon.com/livingmyth | |||
| 18 Sep 2024 | Episode 401 - Why We Resist Change | 00:32:37 | |
On this episode, Michael Meade explores how life is change and to be truly alive means to be repeatedly transforming ourselves. There's an old statement that says, "The soul is here for us to transform". Yet 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 offers ways to understand why we resist the exact changes we most need in order to transform ourselves and help change the world.
Along with this potent image of the butterfly, Meade also looks at transformation through the core practice of ritual. Creative rituals can help release the burdens of our lives while connecting our minds and hearts in ways that reduce fear and anxiety and ease the grief of isolation. Ritual gives a place for constricting attitudes to loosen, for emotions to flow and for the reservoir of genuine hope to renew. On the ground of ritual, undiscovered parts of ourselves can awaken and strengthen our sense of meaning and purpose in life.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new online series “The Soul of Change” beginning on Thursday, October 17. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.
You can save 30% on this new 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 680 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 05 Feb 2025 | Episode 421 - Chaos, Conflict and the Deep Self Within | 00:24:01 | |
This episode begins with the idea that we live in times of extreme changes and increasing chaos. When the world around us falls apart the issue becomes not simply a change in lifestyle or shift in politics, but a revelation of the core imagination and original aim hidden within each of our souls from the beginning. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events. | |||
| 20 Jun 2019 | "Awakening the Soul" Audio Book Sample | 00:12:13 | |
We are pleased to announce that Michael Meade’s latest book “Awakening the Soul” is now available as an audio book. Here is a sample from this newly released title. The audio book can be purchased as a download or CD at mosaicvoices.org/audio. Members of the Living Myth Premium Podcast can save 30% on this title and all other offerings from Michael Meade and Mosaic. Learn more and become a member of this podcast at patreon.com/livingmyth. | |||
| 12 Feb 2025 | Episode 422 - Surviving the Maelstrom | 00:19:09 | |
This episode of Living Myth begins with the idea that we are experiencing not just radical changes that happen in quick succession, but a maelstrom that threatens to upend life as we know it. The word maelstrom comes from old roots meaning, “a grinding stream or great whirlpool that sucks everything into its downward spiraling vortex.” Being alive at this radical time when extreme changes engulf most areas of life means that we repeatedly risk being overwhelmed and pulled down by events that can be disheartening and discouraging.
Faced with increasing uncertainty we must find things to hold on to that can keep us from being pulled under. We need the practices, the arts and the methods that allow us to witness the maelstrom but survive the vortex of descent and despair. People in Finland use the term “sisu” to describe an inner ability to push past usual limits when facing great adversity and survive even when the obstacles seem to be insurmountable.
Sisu involves an innate quality and latent power that exists deep within each of us, that can be accessed when our limits are tested and our greatest fears are faced. In that sense, sisu involves having the courage to follow what feels right and what feels just, and trust in life's hidden potentials. While sisu bears similarities to notions of resilience, grit and will power, it goes much further. The understanding of sisu includes an underlying sense of individual courage, but it also involves an awakening of the principle and power of a just and inclusive sense of social unity.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new online workshop “Arts and Practices” on Saturday, March 1. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.
You can save 30% on this new 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 650 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 19 Feb 2025 | Episode 423 - Facing Darkness | 00:20:11 | |
On this episode, Michael Meade explores the roots of wisdom and what it means to face the darkness. The healing and transformation needed now, both individually and collectively, require going into the exact places that look darkest to us. In following this path, we encounter hidden resources and an inner gold that connects us to sources of wisdom. During this time of division and isolation, Meade suggests that whereas simple knowledge tends to divide things, genuine wisdom makes meaningful unity possible.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new online workshop “Arts and Practices” on Saturday, March 1. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.
You can save 30% on this new 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 650 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 13 Oct 2023 | Episode 353 - Roots of Inner Peace | 00:29:16 | |
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. | |||
| 19 Apr 2019 | Premium Q&A Episode 6 Excerpt - The Two Agreements of the Soul | 00:16:38 | |
On this excerpt from the latest Living Myth Premium episode, Michael Meade answers questions about the soul posed by listeners. One question is “what is the meaning of the original agreement of the soul?” Another is “why is this first agreement so important that it is indelible in the soul?” Using ancient stories about the origin of the soul, Meade offers a compelling commentary on the soul’s way of bridging the two worlds, the eternal and the time bound. Rather than being separated from the divine by an “original sin”, old stories depict the separation as an original forgetting of the unique pattern in each soul. The rest of life involves a longing to reconnect to the eternal and live out the soul’s first agreement and original intention in life. This excerpt is from the first of a two-part Living Myth Premium podcast series on the two agreements of the soul. Hear the full episode and receive additional podcast content by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Go to www.patreon.com/livingmyth to learn more and subscribe. For $10/month, members of Living Myth Premium receive:
Living Myth and Living Myth Premium are products of Mosaic Multicultural Foundation, a 501©3 organization. Your membership helps grow Living Myth and ensures we are able to continue developing and expanding this creative project. | |||
| 23 Aug 2023 | Episode 345 - Your Calling Keeps Calling | 00:28:47 | |
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. | |||
| 17 Dec 2024 | Episode 414 - Solstice and the Tree of Life | 00:18:03 | |
On this winter solstice episode, Michael Meade states at the beginning: “This is not just the dark time of the year, but increasingly dark times for everyone, especially for those who care for the souls of other people and for the well-being of the earth we all live on.” He goes on to describe how ancient symbols and practices at the Winter Solstice served as a reminder of the cosmological connection between the human soul and the hidden unity of life.
Symbols have the power to bring the mind and the heart together and connect us to the deepest truths of life. A Christmas tree can stand for the Tree of Life, as it represents both the still point at the center and the power of life to change and renew itself. Simply lighting a single candle in the midst of darkness can be a reminder of the eternal process of renewal and restoration that is an essential, yet easily forgotten aspect of all of life.
Register and learn more at: mosaicvoices.org/events patreon.com/livingmyth | |||
| 26 Mar 2025 | Episode 428 - Being Worth Your Salt | 00:32:10 | |
This episode of Living Myth begins with an unassuming teacher finding herself in a public controversy for refusing to take down posters that state that everyone is “welcome, important, respected, encouraged, valued and equal” in her classroom. As she said in an interview, "I would do anything to protect my students. I love all of them unconditionally, and as teachers, we protect them from danger, quite literally. This is the one small thing I can do to stand up for them, to protect them from being affected by racist sentiments that are affecting their classroom and our culture."
There's an old idea that says that at critical points in the course of life, we find ourselves in situations in which we have to become worth our salt. For, there are truths set within each soul that can become a medicine and an antidote against the rampant falsehoods and political manipulations being used to create fear, to drive divisions and to cause people to abandon their own genuine selves.
The greatest challenge has always been the risk of becoming our genuine selves in a world that tries to turn us into everyone else or scare us into believing things that are simply untrue. Genuine change begins in the depths of the individual soul, and this is the struggle that we came here for.
We are the students of life trying to awaken further and we are the potential teachers and leaders and healers trying to tap the wisdom of the sage set within our own hearts. Each time we allow ourselves to be touched by the beauty of the world and by the roots of truth, we take another step in the direction of generosity and inclusion; we go further on the path of the soul and come closer to understanding how we are all in this together. Whether we diminish our lives out of fear or grow more soul and live in truth depends upon how much we become worth our own salts.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his free online event “Radical Resilience” on Thursday, March 27. If you’re in the Boulder, Colorado area, you can join Michael for 2 events on April 4 and 5.
Register and learn more about all these events 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 650 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 06 Jan 2017 | Episode 1 - Why Myth, Why Now? | 00:21:25 | |
Michael Meade introduces the role of myth in making sense of our complex and challenging world and he answers the question “Why Myth, Why Now?”. | |||
| 26 Dec 2024 | Episode 415 - The Inner Speck of Star | 00:23:49 | |
This episode begins with an ancient myth from a tribe along the Amazon River. The story tells how the inner soul of each person travels at night all the way the center of the cosmos. Once there, the soul receives a message that is brought back and shared with the tribe as a dream. Meade draws on this link between the individual soul and the cosmos to describe how ancient cultures imagined each person to be born with a speck of star hidden in their soul, buried in their heart, just waiting to become a person’s “guiding star.” Each person is intended to contribute presence and meaning to the world and liberation happens each time we become conscious of the contents of our soul. We are here to awaken and learn how to express the uniqueness of our souls, and if we do that we add presence, being and creativity to the world and we become irreplaceable. If we don’t find the meanings hidden in our souls, the world loses presence and people who have no idea who they are come to dominate society. Rumi wrote that: “The world inside is bigger than the world outside.” Meade argues that in this time of darkness and conflict, hatred and bigotry, we have to revive the sense of the inner magnanimity and enduring brilliance of the individual soul. 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 700 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 16 Apr 2025 | Episode 431 - Opening Pandora's Box Again | 00:24:58 | |
This episode of Living Myth considers the oldest versions of the tale of Pandora’s Box as a way of understanding how it is that all the ailments and troubles of the world seem to be loosed upon us again. The name Pandora is connected to the abundance of the Earth and carries meanings like “all gifted” and ‘the one who sends up gifts.” It turns out that it was not Pandora who lifted the lid and released all the anxieties, chaos and suffering that can plague life on Earth.
Pandora married Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus who gave fire to humans and was credited with inspiring human culture. Whereas Prometheus means “far-seeing” or “one with foresight,” Epimetheus means “one who is short-sighted” and only able to see the effects of his actions after the damage has been done. In the old myths, it was the impulsive, uninformed and short-sighted brother who lifted the lid on the proverbial box and released all of the troubles of the world at the same time.
As waves of anxiety, uncertainty and panic once again spread through the world and undermine social patterns and institutions, it doesn’t take a seer to see that the self-proclaimed strong men and would be autocrats repeat the impulses and lack of foresight that characterize the weaker, blinder and ultimately ill-fated brother. While branding themselves as all-knowing culture-bringers, all would be dictators and autocrats, out of their own arrogance, blindness and greed, inevitably open Pandora’s box and release storms of uncertainty and chaos that intensify all the pain and suffering, all the corruption and injustices that torment people and threaten the core values of human culture.
Thank you for listening to and supporting the Living Myth Podcast. 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 700 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 20 Nov 2024 | Episode 410 - On Hope and Despair | 00:30:53 | |
This episode begins with the old idea that emotions travel in pairs. Sorrow tends to travel with joy, so that if we allow sorrow to penetrate us, it will pull us to a deep level of our soul where joy can provide a renewal of spirit that lifts us back up. On the other hand, when we deny the grief and sorrows that enter our lives, we wind up losing our capacity for joy. Another natural pairing of emotions occurs with hope and despair. While despair can mean to “lose all hope,” it is not simply a blind alley or a dead end. Rather, the dark territory of despair becomes the place from which a deeper sense of hope can arise.
In response to the dark times in which we live, Michael Meade revives one of the oldest stories ever recorded. On the tattered remains of a papyrus scroll from over four thousand years ago, an unnamed poet describes a deeply unsettled country where people suffer from increasing chaos and an erosion of ethical values. He reports how wide scale injustice and the excessive greed of powerful people has induced the spread of mindless violence and brought him to the depths of despair. In his darkest hour his soul speaks and advises him to turn to the original potentials of his life and live in authentic ways despite and because of the troubles that have befallen everyone.
In times of darkness and loss, it becomes more important to know that there is a deeper sense of hope that can be found by experiencing some of the depths of despair. This hope found after hopelessness involves inspiration and the kind of vertical imagination that can reclaim the deepest values of humanity and envision meaningful ways to, not simply survive, but to revive the meaning and purpose of our lives. | |||
| 10 Jun 2023 | Premium Episode 116 Excerpt - The Subtle Ground of Imagination | 00:17:02 | |
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 | |||
| 15 Jan 2025 | Episode 418 - The Creative Middle Way | 00:26:59 | |
Michael Meade looks at how a living system tends to be most complex in the middle or at the center, while being most open at the edges. Being at one side of a bridge of change opens possibilities of crossing over and reaching a place of greater understanding on the other side.
Yet the actual change must happen in the complicated middle which involves both loss and renewal, both chaos and creation. The creative middle way involves the power of becoming; becoming aware of new ways of being as well as coming to know ancient wisdom again.
The inner medicine of the soul is found in the moving middle where a person can truly change. An older person can be inspired by a youthful spirit, a younger person can become wiser than their age might suggest. While in touch with the golden middle way we become most aware of our true selves and more in tune with the ever renewing mysteries of life. patreon.com/livingmyth | |||
| 27 Jan 2019 | Premium Episode 15 excerpt - The Song Coming Through | 00:10:19 | |
On this excerpt from the latest Living Myth Premium episode, Michael Meade reads selected poems from The Rag & Bone Shop of the Heart, the renowned anthology edited along with Robert Bly and James Hillman. The recording includes reflections on the surprising dynamic of creating the anthology along with commentary on the importance of poetic inspiration. This is the first part of a Living Myth Premium podcast series that weaves poetry, spoken word and anecdotal stories about the role of art and creativity and the undying speech of the soul. You can hear the full episode and receive additional podcast content by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Go to www.patreon.com/livingmyth to learn more and subscribe. For $10/month, members of Living Myth Premium receive:
Living Myth and Living Myth Premium are products of Mosaic Multicultural Foundation, a 501©3 organization. Your membership helps grow Living Myth and ensures we are able to continue developing and expanding this creative project. | |||
| 04 Sep 2024 | Episode 399 - Messages from the Cosmos | 00:23:46 | |
One of the problems in the modern world is that people now tend to believe that science and technological inventions can solve problems that exist on much deeper and much greater levels. As Albert Einstein expressed it: “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.” In the upward and onward at all costs rush of the modern world, it is the heart and soul of humanity that most often becomes lost. | |||
| 10 Jul 2024 | Episode 391 - The Pathless Path | 00:39:05 | |
On this episode of Living Myth, edited from a Shift Network Summit on mysticism, Michael Meade suggests that we each arrive at turning points where the map we have been given does not match the territory we find ourselves in. Because each soul is unique, each life journey leads to the pathless path where we must awaken to the dream of our own life. When we open the eyes of the heart, we find the ways of the mystic souls and visionary seers, the outsiders and wounded healers who hold the threads to the underlying unity of life.
In seeking after what the soul desires we become pilgrims with no home but the path the soul would have us follow. As the old proverb says, “Before you begin the journey, you own the journey. Once you have begun, the journey owns you.” After all, what good is a dream that doesn’t test the mettle of the dreamer? What good is a path that doesn’t carry us to the edge of our capacity and then beyond that place? A true calling involves a great exposure before it can become a genuine refuge.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael speak more about the themes in this podcast by taking his new in-depth course “Healer, Mentor, Elder, Guide”. Purchase and learn more at courses.mosaicvoices.org.
You can further support this podcast and save 30% on this new course by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 650 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 11 Sep 2024 | Episode 400 - In the Face of Tyranny | 00:25:33 | |
This episode of Living Myth focuses on the struggle between the force of tyranny and the power of liberation from falsehoods and injustice. The old Greek word tyrant was applied to despotic kings and rulers, but was also used to describe popular usurpers who claimed to be all powerful and above the law. In modern usage, a tyrant can be any oppressive or cruel ruler, a would-be dictator or autocrat. The rule of divide and conquer has been a favorite tool of tyrants who typically ascend to power through the manipulation of people's fears and the proliferation of confusion and chaos.
A key characteristic of such a tyrant is an insistence upon complete obedience from other people. And there lies a sad irony, for tyranny is not something simply imposed upon people without their agreement. Rather, the rise of tyranny requires consent from those willing to lose their own sense of individual freedom and liberty. Needless to say, it is when people are becoming smaller at the level of their self that they give the power of their lives over to those who claim to be the strong men, but who turn out to be empty within themselves and lacking that very thing that makes each person meaningful and purposeful, that is to say, a soul.
Opposite tyranny's unfair and cruel use of power would be a greater sense of autonomy and freedom. The word liberal can mean “generous, noble or free,” but can also mean “selfless and unrestricted.” Although it has become common for conservative politicians to use the word liberal as something derogative, it remains the key concept and core spirit of any genuine democracy. The American experiment in democracy was founded upon the liberal principle that all humans are endowed with natural rights and that government exists to protect those rights.
Authoritarianism has always posed the most potent challenge to liberalism, and it has now returned as an ideological force armed with previously unimaginable tools of social media, disinformation and social controls, even reaching into the heart of liberal societies, seeking to undermine them from within.
The dream of America as a liberal democracy was never simply an economic enterprise, never only a search for personal aggrandizement. Rather, America has always been a dream of freedom needing to be renewed and be reimagined by each generation. The seeds of that dream have always included longings for opportunity, but also a desire for living with a sense of justice for all that includes care for those less fortunate and mercy for those suffering illness or trapped in poverty. There has always been a deeper dream of America, not simply the political notion of a union of states, but an intuition of a deeper unity of life. Not simply the chance to win an election, but an opportunity to keep dreaming the dream forward and even the opportunity to sacrifice for a future of renewed meaning and universal ideals.
The word vote can mean more than “the formal expression of a wish or a choice for a candidate or a proposal.” Vote comes from old radical roots that mean “a vow, even a promise to God or a solemn pledge.” And there are times when casting a vote can be both an act of recalling the origins of the dream of freedom and also a strike against tyranny in all its forms. For it is exactly in times of great conflict and fear that the ideals of humanity must be remembered while meaning and truth are being struggled for again.
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 680 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 02 Jan 2025 | Episode 416 - A Touch of the Eternal | 00:24:36 | |
Although it may often feel that we are running out of time when it comes to the great issues of the world and the struggles of daily life, Michael Meade suggests that it is not more time that we need but a stronger connection to things that are timeless, and therefore eternal. Meade tells an ancient Bushman story from Africa that depicts the dilemma which humanity faces with each crisis that involves issues of meaning, truth and the human soul. When great troubles abound, whether it be on the world stage or at a critical stage of life, what we need is the touch of imagination and a hint of the eternal. 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 700 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 23 Oct 2024 | Episode 406 - Men, the Soul and the Search for Truth | 00:27:14 | |
This episode addresses the issue of the “strongman” in politics and the way it exemplifies and contributes to a loss of authenticity, a lack of integrity and a loss of soul in modern cultures.
“As a storyteller and someone who studies mythology, I carry stories around, maybe in the same way that someone might carry food or medicine or equipment in a backpack in case a need arises. To follow the metaphor, I need stories for nourishment. I need stories for medicine. And stories equip me with ways of dealing with trouble or tragedy or trickery that I otherwise wouldn't have. When something strikes me as troublesome, a story often comes to mind. That's what happened when I read news reports about the current presidential election in the United States coming down to gender issues and what it means to be a man.
Observers and pollsters are pointing out that while a high percentage of women say they will vote for Vice-President Kamala Harris, an even higher percentage of men say that they will vote for former president Donald Trump. Polling data also indicates that younger men are increasingly being persuaded by Trump's posturing as a strong man. And sadly, that leads him to double down on crudely demeaning the first woman to become a vice president in the United States, while also threatening to punish members of the media and anyone else who opposes him.
While the notion of a strong man as savior can seem appealing when the world is full of conflicts and uncertainty, the long history of human survival as a species depends upon something other, something more than just claiming to be strong or trying to appear as manly and invincible. The idea of people, especially young men, falling for the posture of strength and the pretense of courage brought to mind an old story from the traditions of Central Africa.
The ancient story of how a powerful hunter becomes a visionary seeker has been handed down from people who were specifically known to be crafty survivors able to withstand hardships and survive the most difficult life circumstances. They knew that in the hard times they had to draw upon their instinctive capacities for toughing it out. They also knew that at critical times the point becomes hunting for a greater sense of meaning in life and responding to the age old calling of truth and beauty, or else everyone might lose their way and wind up both empty handed and hollow inside.
We are living amidst massive storms in nature and confounding storms of conflict and chaos in culture and our survival, as well as life on the planet, depends upon our connection to our own souls, where the instincts for survival and the longing for truth and meaning dwell together. In the depths of our souls we can find the age-old connection to the Soul of the World, which has survived endless numbers of storms and natural disasters. The quest for truth and meaning is as ancient and necessary as the hunt for food and shelter and safety; for truth and beauty provide places of refuge for the heart and the soul of humanity without which we cannot find the true courage or the actual wisdom needed to survive the storms of life.”
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade talk more about finding soul in difficult times by purchasing his new in-depth course “Holding the Thread of Life”. Purchase and learn more at courses.mosaicvoices.org
You can save 30% on this new course 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 680 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 12 Mar 2025 | Episode 426 - The Deeper Self Within | 00:25:27 | |
At this critical time on Earth, we are caught in storms of change that involve the shattering of norms and a loss of orientation as unprecedented events tear at the heart of humanity and ravage both the body politic and the face of the earth. The sense that we might just turn away from the troubling news of the day does not simply save us, for the polarization and fragmentation that trouble the outside world are also felt deeply within us.
As the rational mind reels from the cascade of irrational events, we are thrown back upon ourselves, so that the illusion that the troubles are simply outside us can keep us from finding solutions that reside deep within ourselves. When we find ourselves on the edge of uncertainty and near the road to despair, we have an essential choice. We can succumb to anxiety and fear and become a smaller self increasingly alienated from life or we can turn inwards and find connections to a deeper sense of self that naturally resides within us.
In times of radical change and potential transformation, a greater psychological awareness is required, and a deeper understanding of life is needed. Knowledge of a deep self center and source of inner guidance has been known to people throughout time. This deeper sense of self does not suffer overwhelm, but rather has surprising resources and radical resiliency. The deep sense of self knows who we are at our core and how we are aimed at life. This animating inner self makes each of us unique and essentially valuable and it tries to awaken and become more conscious to us precisely when everything else seems to fall apart.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his free online event “Radical Resilience” on Thursday, March 27. If you’re in the Boulder, Colorado area, you can join Michael for 2 events on April 4 and 5. Register and learn more about all these events 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 650 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 05 Jun 2024 | Episode 386 - How We Become Ourselves | 00:25:47 | |
On this episode, Michael Meade tells two stories about the question we are asked at the end of our lives. We enter the world as seekers and what we most need to find is the uniqueness of our own souls. Each life is a surprising pilgrimage intended to arrive at the center of the pilgrim’s soul.
The figures most revered in the many traditions found throughout the world became memorable because they became uniquely themselves. Whether a spiritual teacher or an artist, a healer or a leader, they had to awaken to an inner vision and find a destiny that was already set within them for the tale of their life to become instructive to others.
Although it has mostly been forgotten in the modern world, each soul bears an inborn purpose and a natural way of being from the beginning. Each person born is intended to bring something meaningful to the world. When everything seems to be falling apart, we must turn all the way inside in order to find the threads of meaning and purpose that are woven into our very being. When we follow our soul’s inner thread it becomes more clear that the changes so urgently needed in the outside world have to begin with meaningful changes in the souls of those born to these troubled times.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael live by joining his free online event “How To Not Abandon Oneself” on Thursday, June 13.
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 625 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 07 Aug 2024 | Episode 395 - To Not Feel Lost in the Chaos of the World | 00:24:59 | |
In a world that's rapidly changing in ways that can feel chaotic and threatening, it becomes easy to feel diminished, lost and small. Although it is common now to feel like nothing but a speck in a vast, accidental universe; we only feel truly small when we lose our sense of soul. Small and insignificant as we may feel at times, we carry within our souls a spark that is connected to the galaxies and to the origins of creation. When the world becomes darker, more confusing and more chaotic, we have to learn to see with the eyes of the soul or else wind up feeling smaller and smaller when our souls would have us grow in meaningful ways.
When we begin to feel diminished by the chaos and the confusion in the world, there are two places to turn to. We can turn to our innate connection to the stars, to the origins of life and the source of ongoing creation. For that is part of the inheritance of the human soul. And we can turn the opposite way, looking inward where there is also a great expanse of darkness, in which the speck of star, the spark of life and inner light of the soul waits to receive our attention in order that it might grow, and it can only grow from darkness.
It is our nature to be betwixt and between, to be part of both the macrocosm and the microcosm; to be stretched between the mundane and the sacred, between the gravity-bound surface of the earth and the endless expanse of the starry heavens. We are here to grow our souls, despite and because of the darkness around us. For, the world is not a finished place; rather it is always on the verge of becoming. The same is true of our lives; for our souls are always on the verge of awakening further in both small and big ways that can connect with and contribute to creation ongoing.
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 660 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 21 Aug 2024 | Episode 397 - Following the Call of Soul | 00:29:56 | |
On this episode, Michael Meade talks about inner genius and how 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. This episode is edited from a Jung Platform Summit presentation. Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael live by joining his free online event “Finding a Calling in Life” on Thursday, September 5.
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| 29 May 2024 | Episode 385 - Your Inner Initiate | 00:31:42 | |
This episode of Living Myth brings a focus to the inner initiate, the eternal seeker in the soul. To initiate means “to begin, to originate, to enter into, to awaken.” The inner initiate is the “beginner’s mind” part of each of us that is always wanting to learn and ever ready to begin anew. In that sense, the initiate within us becomes the locus through which healing energies and inspired ideas continually try to enter the common world.
Entering the modern world is like stepping into the middle of a rite of passage that has reached the stage of darkness and descent. In the midst of all the conflicts and confusion, the inner initiate knows how to tap the original source of life and keep finding ways to start anew and help regenerate life on earth.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his free online event “How To Not Abandon Oneself” on Thursday, June 13. 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 625 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 29 Jun 2019 | Premium Episode 23 Sample - Inner Eyes of the Soul | 00:15:49 | |
This excerpt from the latest premium episode offers samples from the new audio book Awakening the Soul, along with expanded content and spontaneous commentary by Meade. The book sample focuses on the chapter “Inner Eyes of the Soul” which includes a story of an orphan left behind by his tribe, who then unexpectedly has a radical awakening experience that leads to a vision that affects everyone in the tribe. The commentary by the author includes autobiographical material as well as psychological ideas about each person’s “orphan self.” You can hear the full episode and receive additional podcast content by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Go to www.patreon.com/livingmyth to learn more and subscribe. For $10/month, members of Living Myth Premium receive: * Q&A episodes where Michael Meade answers member questions * Autobiographical and anecdotal stories from Michael * A 30% discount on all products and many events * Archival recordings from live events and dynamic interviews * Access to over 125 Living Myth podcasts Living Myth and Living Myth Premium are products of Mosaic Multicultural Foundation, a 501©3 organization. Your membership helps grow Living Myth and ensures we are able to continue developing and expanding this creative project. Peace and blessings, Mosaic Staff | |||
| 12 Jun 2024 | Episode 387 - The Three Kinds of Thinking | 00:29:58 | |
This episode of Living Myth begins with the meaning of the verb to think. Ever since Descartes declared, “I think therefore I am,” thinking has come to mean to form in the mind, to consider, to reflect upon. Yet, the Indo-European roots of the verb “to think” can also mean “to feel” and even “to imagine.” The sense of thinking having more than one meaning leads back to the ancient idea that there are three realms of life and three ways of thinking about the world.
The first and most evident realm of life appears as what most now refer to as the “real world.” At this level, things tend to be seen as concrete and measurable and thinking tends to be objective, logical, even logistical. The second realm of life involves a greater capacity for psychological thinking as there is a kind of doubling of reality. How we feel is added to the factual details of what we experience. Our inner life expands, a deeper self becomes more present and relationships become more complex and more important.
On the third level of life, we find that behind the logical and beyond the psychological, there exists the realm of the mythological. Seen this old way, myth has its own logic as imagination is added to the powers of thinking and feeling. It has become a common mistake to think that myths are about the past, the deeper truth is that myth is about what happens all the time. It isn't that literal things aren't real, but that they have never been the whole story.
Mythic imagination can reveal the hidden patterns and universal truths that make events meaningful and that can also make life renewable. For, myth has always performed a redeeming function as it can open new ways to envision the world and new paths to follow in life. Myths are vehicles of imagination that are not intended to be believed in, but that exist in order to be learned from.
The deep and abiding truths that nourish the roots of life can never be proven through scientific methods, but must be grasped intuitively. 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 in the world.
Whereas history is said to simply repeat itself, myth connects us to the origins of life where creation constantly renews itself. When life seems to make no sense at all, it is the mythic sense of life that we are lacking. Mythic imagination makes the most sense when the common sense of things has been lost and the familiar ways of thinking and seeing no longer work.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael live by joining his free online event “How To Not Abandon Oneself” on Thursday, June 13.
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 635 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 16 Oct 2024 | Episode 405 - The Symptoms We Suffer, The Symbols We Need | 00:24:36 | |
This episode is about the need for living symbols that can give us a sense of unity and wholeness in a divided world. Symptom is an old Greek word that refers to something that “falls upon us or strikes us” in a way that wounds us or divides us against ourself. At this critical time on Earth, almost anything can suddenly become symptomatic and leave us more personally wounded and more collectively divided.
The word symbol derives from Greek roots, meaning “to throw together or bring things together.” A genuine symbol unites unlike or opposite things in a way that reveals the underlying unity of life, but also reveals other levels of reality. When most levels of Nature and culture simultaneously manifest disruptive symptoms, we have a greater need for symbols that can remind us of the origins of life, which are always nearby and able to be tapped for the energies of healing and renewal.
The antidote for the isolation and dissociation that has become so characteristic of modern life lies in finding again the ancient wellsprings of human imagination and the personal thread to the underlying continuity of all of life. In this old way of imagining and thinking, an endless story unfolds from the core of creation, and a living thread of imagination is woven within the heart that connects each of us to that unfolding story.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new online series “The Soul of Change” beginning on Thursday, October 17. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.
You can save 30% on this new 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 700 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 13 Nov 2024 | Episode 409 - The Law of the Fish vs. The Rule of Law | 00:32:29 | |
Michael Meade turns to an ancient myth from India to show how elections can have such dire consequences that the rule of law becomes replaced with the “law of the fishes.” In the great oceans the big fish endlessly devour the little fish and the same drama is often replicated in the realm of culture, where every pond has its big fish and the small fry continually become fodder for the big shots. The law of the fishes was used by ancient people to describe periods of cultural disorder when there is no genuine leader, but only those seeking to wield power.
Raw power lacks morals, lacks principles and only has interests. And the interests of those who are seduced by power become endless longings for more wealth, more personal fame and more dominance. When those elected to positions of authority are committed to the idea that there are only winners and losers, the big fish not only make all the rules, they also break the rules and do so for personal gain at the expense of everyone else. It is not simply that an excess of power corrupts, but that the desire for great power attracts those who are most corruptible.
The chaos that ensues from the lack of genuine leadership leads to increasing divisions amongst people and to the loss of norms that otherwise would protect common folk. If leaders are dishonest, unjust and not dedicated to serving the people as a whole, if they are too narcissistic and power driven, the society will fall into the realm of the fishes. Under the law of the fishes, as governing falls into the hands of a powerful few the rich become richer and the poor become poorer. Society becomes more lawless, people turn against each other and minority communities live at the mercy of those who hold power, but do not know what to use it for.
In the ancient story, as at this troubled time on Earth, everything hangs in an uncertain balance as humanity is required to choose between the chaos of the “survival of the fittest” and the greater sense of awakening to the force of meaning and truth and the presence of an underlying unity of life. In the midst of fear and division people can learn to reconnect to the origins of life, which mysteriously leads to becoming interconnected with all other levels of life and to being reconnected to life's inner power to renew itself. The drama of the world turns out to have more than one level of understanding, so that at opportune times, a small change can lead to a great effect and can even turn everything around.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining him for two free online events: “Arts and Practices: Antidotes to Overwhelm, Sources of Resiliency” on Thursday, November 21 and “Living Authentically in Uncertain Times” on Thursday, December 5.
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 700 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 14 Dec 2019 | Bonus Episode - Premium Podcast #37 - The Language of Truth | 00:22:14 | |
On this bonus sharing of the latest premium podcast, Michael Meade begins with a poetic response to the deadening language that at times dominates the discussion about impeaching the President. What begins as a critique of the speech being used to defend the politics of big lies turns into a lament for the loss of language able to carry the truth of the human heart and soul. A procession of poems and commentary ranges from Aime Cesaire seeking “to rediscover the secret of great communications and great combustions" to D.H. Lawrence warning us how big lies and damning mistakes have repeatedly been sanctified in modern times. Thank you for listening to this podcast. You can hear more content like this by joining the growing community of listeners who are members of Living Myth Premium. Become a member with a $10/month subscription and receive 3 bonus episodes each month, the full podcast archives and a 30% discount on all products. Become a member at patreon.com/livingmyth. | |||
| 31 Jul 2024 | Episode 394 - Living in Turbulent Times | 00:24:15 | |
This episode of Living Myth begins with the series of shocks and radical changes that have occurred in contemporary American politics and the current election campaign. Michael Meade expands the theme of dramatic changes to include both nature and culture as we find ourselves “in the midst of a transformation of life on earth.” Whether we want to admit to it or not, we have entered a radical transition of life in which we are being pushed and pulled into territories that we would not choose to go on our own. We keep finding ourselves in uncharted waters in terms of the future of the planet and in unmapped territories in terms of human culture.
At the same time, the human soul is not separate from the living world, but rather is secretly attuned to it. The radical changes sweeping through both nature and culture at this time can be felt by our souls, and because humans are implicated at all levels of the current crises in the world, a transformation of humanity is also required. Without a renewed sense of genuine imagination, the battles between lies and genuine knowledge will grow, just as the divisions between the mind and the body, humanity and nature will also expand. When everything seems about to fall apart or even come to a tragic end, what we need is not a sense of evolution over time, but a felt connection to the possibilities of recreation and renewal at this particular 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 over 660 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 28 Aug 2024 | Episode 398 - A Deeper Sense of Hope | 00:22:55 | |
For many reasons, people question whether there is any hope for the world at this time. Yet, it is the nature of hope to become lost before being found again at another level of life. In the old myth of Pandora's Box, hope only appears after all possible troubles, pains and agonies have been unleashed upon the world. At critical times, life can seem hopeless before a deeper level of hope can be found again in the depths of the human heart and soul. | |||
| 19 Jun 2024 | Episode 388 - The Call of Dreams | 00:24:46 | |
This episode of Living Myth is about how our dreams call to something in us that is awake in some other way. Dreams call us to recognize other aspects of ourselves, other levels of awareness and even other realms of being. Dreams are the universal evidence that there is an Otherworld and that we as humans, as dreamers live in both worlds. Each person born is called to become a living bridge where dreams and reality can meet.
Whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we remember it or not, each night we dream. And each night we die to the practical, measurable, logistical world and float on waves of the eternal. We let go of so-called reality, pull on the skyrope of dreaming and whether we know it or not, we touch the source of life again.
We are called to awaken in ways that allow us to hold the two worlds together. For, what is most missing in the common world must be found in the Otherworld. In order to find our way in life and not lose our sense of self, we need both deep sleep and deep dreams. The two go hand in hand and each contributes to the creative presence of imagination and the renewal of life and that can happen while we sleep.
Life is the dream that dreams us up to begin with and that dreams the world on through us. Even when everything around us seems to be falling apart, dreams of a coherent center or a living source of life can appear to remind us that we are secretly connected to the Otherworld, to the center of things, to what used to be known as the Soul 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 640 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 19 Jun 2018 | New Podcast Offering - Living Myth Premium | 00:10:48 | |
Hey Living Myth listeners, thank you for being a part of this podcast. We wanted to let you know about the Living Myth Premium Podcast, a new offering from Mosaic that gives members access to additional content beyond the free weekly edition of the podcast. Go to mosaicvoices.org or livingmyth.org to learn more and become a member. Your membership helps grow Living Myth and ensures we are able to continue developing and expanding this creative project. To give you a flavor of the premium content, we have included an excerpt from the first bonus episode. | |||
| 16 Sep 2022 | Premium Episode 104 Excerpt - Complexities of Life | 00:18:03 | |
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. | |||
| 09 Apr 2025 | Episode 430 - Re-Creation and Renewal on Earth | 01:04:22 | |
This episode of Living Myth explores how as humans we live and die in the context of the stories we tell ourselves about the world and our place in it. Two great stories happen at the same time, the great drama of the world and the unique story trying to unfold from each individual soul. At this critical time on earth, something essential to the story of the world is trying to be re-discovered and something crucial in each life story is trying to be revealed.
People are increasingly fearful about the future of the earth. Yet, people cannot simply be scared into caring for the earth. Fear can be an awakening force; yet fear over time can become a cause of further division and greater isolation. The unity of life must be found again and one challenge involves seeing how collapse and renewal can be happening at the same time. Through myths of re-creation we can touch the timeless images and archetypes from which the living world first arose and find inspiration as well as insights into collective transformation on Earth.
Thank you for listening to and supporting the Living Myth Podcast. 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 700 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 02 Oct 2024 | Episode 403 - The Divine Touch: Living Through Chaos and Fear | 00:21:30 | |
This episode of Living Myth focuses on the sense that we are living through a radical time when change becomes necessary and a transformation of life becomes more possible. Michael Meade uses an ancient myth to depict, not just creation, but importantly the process of re-creation which secretly sustains life on earth. When we find ourselves in a time of radical changes in nature and conflicts and chaos in human societies, growing our true selves and changing our lives becomes more possible, unless we become stuck in the grip of uncertainty and fear. If we stay at the fearful, anxious level too long we can become divided from our deeper sense of self and can lose our natural capacity to be part of ongoing creation.
As difficult and fearful as it can be to live at this critical time on earth, the human soul is ancient and deep and knows that the world can collapse and renew itself at the same time. In terms of myth and imagination, we are also in a period of re-creation and potential renewal. To be human is to feel vulnerable and suffer uncertainty, but also to be touched by the divine and therefore be able to heal and transform and contribute to the natural and necessary process of re-creation.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new online series “The Soul of Change” beginning on Thursday, October 17. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.
You can save 30% on this new 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 680 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 28 Jan 2025 | Premium Episode 151 Excerpt - Pathways to the Center | 00:22:57 | |
On this excerpt from a Living Myth Premium episode, Michael Meade explores how even in the darkest times, the inner abundance of the soul is ever nearby. The problem is that the pathways to our inner inheritance and instinctive vitality are blocked by received ideas and an over-adaptation to early life conditions. The rigid attitudes of our ego or little-self make it difficult to connect to the imagination and vitality of the greater self within us. The deeper self is our true center that can be both a place of stillness and refuge or a place of breaking open and breaking through the limitations of the little self. 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 700 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 | |||
| 26 Feb 2025 | Episode 424 - Hubris Comes Before the Fall | 00:25:38 | |
This episode of Living Myth begins with a consideration of psychological characteristics of the archetype of the king. In its positive form the king archetype is often connected to the sun which appears as a unifying force that brings warmth and light along with generosity and life enhancing generativity. Since it is the nature of archetypes to manifest negative as well as positive energies, the shadow king manifests the dark side of power, the corrupt side of ruling and the backside of humanity that everyone else must suffer.
The dark side of the king archetype appears as the tyrant or dictator who rules by fear and force, who seeks to control everything, while growing increasingly vindictive and destructive. The old term for the kind of arrogance and psychological inflation that causes a person to run amok and violate the natural order of things was hubris. When those stricken with hubris are given power, they display a great insolence and recklessness that leads to a shattering of norms and breaking of laws with callous disregard for any damage done or suffering caused to other people.
At a time when the world is experiencing a rise of dictators and autocrats, some psychologists are describing a Hubris Syndrome that shows how destructive patterns intensify the longer an afflicted person is in a position of power. Pride may come before a fall, but overbearing hubris can be said to come before a complete implosion and collapse. It becomes increasingly important for the future of democracy and the well-being of humanity that we all learn to see more clearly how the psychological disorders of those given positions of great power can plunge enormous numbers of people and even entire countries into unnecessary levels of division and disaster.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new online workshop “Arts and Practices” on Saturday, March 1. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.
You can save 30% on this new 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 650 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 25 Sep 2024 | Episode 402 - The Storm of Uncertainty and Your Authentic Self | 00:24:24 | |
This episode begins with the idea of the Cone of Uncertainty as the front part of a hurricane or tropical storm that can veer to the right or left and change directions frequently. Michael Meade uses the Cone of Uncertainty as a metaphor for the political storms and radical uncertainties that characterize the current campaign season in the U.S. “No political forecaster could have predicted the storm of inauthenticity that overshadows so many issues and increasingly divides people into fearfully opposed sides. At this point in the amplified uncertainty of the modern world, some major candidates are boldly creating and spreading outright lies, as if their plan is to use an overwhelming storm of misinformation and easily proven untruths to simply overwhelm people and undermine any source of truth or shared sense of common humanity.”
When the world becomes flooded with anxiety and uncertainty a greater psychological understanding is needed and that can come through an awakening of the authentic self that makes each person unique and unrepeatable and valuable in the struggle for healing and renewal. When we unfold the story wound within our souls and untie the knots within our hearts, we instinctively add presence to the world and contribute to the spirit of life in ways that are authentic and meaningful. As we transform ourselves from within, even if it only consists of small steps or little ways, we also help in some way to transform the world.
Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his new online series “The Soul of Change” beginning on Thursday, October 17. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.
You can save 30% on this new 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 680 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 11 Aug 2024 | Episode 396 - Dreams of Healing | 00:30:38 | |
On this episode, Michael Meade tells an old story of someone who follows a dream that leads to being stripped down and stuck, before it unfolds a path to healing and wholeness. Stories and dreams are about the mysteries of life. And penetrating the mysteries requires a different kind of vision and a different understanding than what we use to negotiate the common world. By now, most people can agree that we are living in a broken world at both the levels of nature and culture. What still seems difficult to accept is that the way to find solutions involves accepting our own participation in the woundedness of the world. The presence of the wound makes healing necessary; it is also the presence of the wound that makes healing possible. The current moment of stripping down institutions and dissolution of familiar patterns of life may be the exact condition in which we begin to see with other eyes and find the threads of the dream of life again. But, in order to find ways to awaken to the meaning of life again, we have to accept our own woundedness. The world needs healing on so many levels, that there cannot be a single idea, simple process or common belief that ends all the conflicts and begins the healing. The missing ingredient, the deep medicine, the inner gold is hidden in our own hearts. Until we can loosen the stones that we have constructed to protect our vulnerable selves, we can't find the inner medicine or the inner wisdom of the soul. Only through that kind of process can we find genuine ways to become wounded-healers and bring some healing back to the world. If enough people would do that, then enough medicines would be found that we could contribute to the healing of ourselves, and at the same time, be humbly, but creatively helping to heal the world. Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael live by joining his free online event “Finding a Calling in Life” on Thursday, September 5. 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 625 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 and thank you for your support of our work. | |||
| 15 Nov 2023 | Episode 357 - The Wisdom of the Butterfly | 00:24:48 | |
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. | |||