Living Myth

Michael Meade explores how the soul's great adventure tries to surface throughout life, so that any moment can become a true turning point if we leave the maps that others have made, follow the soul's original calling and enter life more fully and more meaningfully. He suggests that ultimately it involves a "gnosis," a deeper way of knowing that uncovers our inner resources and reveals the unique powers and gifts of our soul. We are repeatedly asked to choose: either we accept the life that has been given to us or we undertake the greater adventure of the 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 725 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 in this new year and thank you for your support of our work.

This episode of Living Myth begins with a Native American story of the origin of healing rituals. In telling the tale Michael Meade emphasizes a remarkable point in the story when knowledge, healing and songs all enter the world at the same time. The songs become central elements in the original healing ritual which brings those that are sick or wounded to the center of the community. Having established the importance of healing songs, Meade introduces an excerpt from Mosaic's recording "A Song is a Road".     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 725 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.

This episode of Living Myth begins with a review of how cosmology used to refer to all of the ways that humans could imagine the creation of the world and the subtle connections of the human soul to the living cosmos. "As above, so below" is the ancient mantra that places humankind in the middle of the cosmic story as an essential link in the chain of being. As individuals we may properly feel frail and small; yet we belong to more than one dimension of life. And the dark time of the year is the traditional time to recall the interconnection between each of our souls and the starry universe around us.     The word solstice means the "sun stands still" and ancient people imagined that the extremes of darkness harbored a timeless moment of stillness as the sun seems to stop just in time before the gloom becomes too great to recover from. Traditional cultures all over the world imagined that the midwinter sun needed conscious help from human beings in order to turn things around and bring back the light.     These are not simply the dark days of winter; but the dark times for everyone; especially for those who truly care for the souls of other people, and for the well-being of the sacred earth we all live upon. Even as we can feel more physically separated from each other, and just when we can feel even more frail and small in the face of all the worldwide troubles we face, there may be no better time to light a candle, make a prayer, find a song to sing in the midst of the darkness, in order to help bring the light back.     In facing the darkness together in a spiritual sense and in the ancient way, we can also find again and realign with the divine spark of life we each carry. For the soul has its own inner light and each soul is secretly connected to the song of the earth, to the Soul of the World, and to the indelible spark of life and light that can only be found in the darkest hours and the darkest times.     Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his free online Solstice ritual "In This Darkness Singing" on Saturday, December 20.   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 725 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.

This episode  brings a focus to the problem of perfectionism and how it can silence our natural spontaneity, turn our innate passions into stone and cancel the imagination and creativity that are natural to our souls. Perfectionism can be paradoxical in the sense that it can foster an egotistical sense that we are better than others or plunge us into feelings of inferiority and inadequacy.     Michael Meade uses an old tale to show how the quest for perfection is a hopeless endeavor that operates as a kind of spell that continuously leads us away from our deeper sense of self and soul and prevents us from finding a genuine sense of self-worth. Rather than trying to be perfect, the true aim of life is to become a whole person. Becoming whole involves making mistakes and having faults, but also finding forgiveness and healing.     No one is perfect, yet each soul is unique, having true self-worth within and a genuine aim in life that waits to be discovered. In the end, it is not perfection, but the uniqueness of the individual soul that makes each person meaningful, purposeful and innately valuable.     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 Saturday, December 20.   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 725 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.

This episode brings a focus to the importance of recognizing that we live in more than one world. Before modern times, it was commonly understood that there was another world next to the daily domain of facts and figures and that this other world is real in its own way. What traditional societies called the Otherworld turns out to be the primordial center, the place of origins and the essential source for changing and healing the daily world. Thus, the problem is not simply that damaging things have been done in the course of history. Rather, the greater issue is the fact that so much has been lost and forgotten over time.     By insisting on seeing reality as only those things that are measurable and provable, modern societies have lost the subtle connections and hidden threads that secretly tie the time-bound world to all that remains immeasurable, timeless and capable of renewing life. The sense of the Otherworld as the endless source of imagination and ongoing creation allowed ancient people to accept the fact that things do fall apart, but also have the understanding that life can be renewed by being in touch with the sacred center and secret source of all existence.     The Otherworld, that keeps being lost but can be found again, has always been the source of the unity that is lacking in the common world. It cannot be scientifically proved, but can intuitively become known, that what we most need when everything is falling apart and time is running out on us is not simply more time, but importantly, more timelessness and the redeeming touch of the eternal. We may increasingly feel that we are but tiny, frail beings who are insignificant in the great expanse of an accidental universe. Yet, we have always lived in two worlds and as the fabric of life loosens, the veil between this world and the Otherworld thins and we are called to be witnesses of the collapse, but can also become again the soulful vessels through which the daily world of the time bound and the redeeming realm of the eternal can meet.      Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining him for two online events: "Your Genius is Calling", an in-depth workshop on December 6 and "In This Darkness Singing", a free solstice ritual on December 20.   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 725 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 and find it meaningful, 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.