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Michael Meade tells a story to illustrate the idea that sometimes we must go where we fear to go. Fear is an old word that derives from the same roots that give us “fare,” as in “thoroughfare.” Although it often causes people to run away from troubling situations, at a deeper level, fear means “to go through it.” When we fail to recognize how fear works in the world, we become ruled by it. The point is not to become paralyzed with foreboding or be caught in the panic that can grip the collective and cause people to run blindly in the wrong direction. The point is to willingly go where most fear to go and follow where the fear might lead.   Fear used to be called “the awakener,” for healthy fear intends to awaken us to our inner nature and the meaning and purpose embedded in our souls. When faced with danger or disintegration, fear would have us respond from the depths of our soul, where the core pattern of life tries to grow and guide our way. In the end, what we fear will not go away, for it indicates what we must go through in order to awaken, become more genuine, and live more fully.   Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can learn more about how stories can awaken us and give deep insight into our lives by taking Michael Meade’s new in-depth course “Finding Stories to Live With”. Purchase and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/store.    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 600 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles. Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth.   If you enjoy this podcast, we appreciate you leaving a review wherever you listen and sharing it with your friends. On behalf of Michael Meade and the whole Mosaic staff, we wish you well during this challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.

Michael Meade uses an ancient tale about a lost message from the god of creation to consider the contemporary dilemma in which many people become blind to the truth. The old Sanskrit word avidya can mean “ignorance,” but also “delusion.” Avidya is a fundamental blindness about reality, not simply a lack of information that can be resolved with some new facts, but a veiling of the truth that can befall, not simply individuals, but entire groups of people.   The veil of avidya causes a kind of trance state in which people become increasingly distanced from their own deeper self as well as the underlying realities of life. The loss of shared truths in the outer world must be balanced by a greater sense of inner truth being uncovered in the hearts and souls of individuals. This kind of awakening involves a conscious connection to a deeper sense of self, which then becomes the unifying factor in each life. When the center cannot hold in the outside world and everything becomes divided, we need to tap the deep resources of our own self and soul, which can connect us to the endless energies of creation.   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 600 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles. Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth.

Unlike religious narratives or scientific theories, folk myths don't require that we believe in them. They simply prefer that we continue to learn from them. Sometimes, the ancient wisdom needed for surviving and transforming our lives comes in the form of animals. This episode of Living Myth centers upon an old teaching tale about how a wise fish, a half-wise fish and one who is simply unwise deal with the nets intended to entrap them. Amidst a consideration of all the current crises that can entrap and incapacitate us, a bird appears with three pieces of wisdom about avoiding being trapped by the past as well as being caught in present fears and dangers.   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 600 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles. Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth.   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.

Increasing tensions throughout the world pit the effects of modern culture against the instinctive practice of becoming a genuine individual. Yet, the heart of the human drama concerns whether we are becoming a greater vessel for the flow of life. Either we are following spirit and growing more soul or we can find ourselves shrinking from life.   Downward movement personalizes and upward movement eternalizes. Thus, the genuine way is made by answering both the call to spirit and the pull of soul. Spirit continually calls us to awaken to a greater sense of self, while soul would have us connect more deeply to the world.   When in touch with the soul’s mythic thread we can find the arts and practices, the aims and meanings that allow our souls to grow deeper, our imagination to expand and our spirits to awaken.   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 600 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles. Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth.   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.

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.   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 600 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles. Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth.   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.

Under the rule of the ego or little-self, we live on the fringes of our natural potential and our genuine purpose in life. A core pattern exists in each soul intended to shape the unique project of that life from within. Whenever we experience a life transition or personal crisis, the esoteric pattern and latent genius within us tries to awaken.   At each turning point in life, we must face our deepest fears in order to grow. The path of discovery will inevitably raise the exact fears that hold the heart captive. If we don't respond to fear, that's when we get stuck and paralyzed by fear. Fear is a message to the instincts and the intuitions of a person to move towards a greater awareness.   In contrast to the sense of a heroic journey that leads to treasure in the outside world, the road of awakening involves a pilgrimage to the genuine center of the deep self. What is so often sought in the outer world waits to be discovered in the soul’s inner realm. As things fall apart all around us, we have to find the center of the deep self within us.   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 600 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles. Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth.   If you enjoy this podcast, we appreciate you leaving a review wherever you listen and sharing it with your friends. On behalf of Michael Meade and the whole Mosaic staff, we wish you well during this challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.

Currently, the world is beset by a cascade of crises that seem impossible to solve. Yet, the situation can also be seen as what the ancient Greeks called a kairos period, a betwixt and between time in which the course of history changes and all of reality seems to be altered. Things become both impossible and more possible at the same time as life transforms on many levels.   A kairos period often begins with crises that break time open and break down our usual patterns of life. Although radically disorienting, such moments can be transformative, even revelatory as hidden potentials of life become more visible. In that sense, kairos can be seen as “awakened time,” moments in which we can awaken to a greater sense of the world and our place in it.   Moments of awakening become “lived time” in which genuine transformation can occur at all levels of life. We have entered such an extended moment of radical change and alteration, one that is life-defining as well as life-changing. When the whole world turns upside down, it is the soul at the bottom of everything that is trying to become known 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 600 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles. Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth.   If you enjoy this podcast, we appreciate you leaving a review wherever you listen and sharing it with your friends. On behalf of Michael Meade and the whole Mosaic staff, we wish you well during this challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.

This episode takes up the issue of healing from the ancient idea of the Sacred Fifth, or Secret Fifth, that represents the hidden center of the world, the original source of wholeness and renewal. Following the Navajo myth of the Fifth World, Meade describes how a small reed can become the connective link to the axis of the world that then leads to the hidden center that remains the living source of life.  The ancient myth becomes a way of recovering from and shifting the burden of the otherwise overwhelming dilemmas of the modern 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 nearly 600 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles. Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth.   If you enjoy this podcast, we appreciate you leaving a review wherever you listen and sharing it with your friends. On behalf of Michael Meade and the whole Mosaic staff, we wish you well during this challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.

On this New Year’s podcast, Michael Meade begins an exploration of the myths of creation and tales of re-creation that allow time to renew and the world to begin again.  Any serious consideration of creation must also include the energies of chaos that continually dissolve and disintegrate  what creation establishes in the world.  An ancient story from India describes the “two hands of creation” through which the world recreates itself from emptiness  as well as from abundance, from sorrow as well as joy and from despair as well as wonder.    Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can further support this podcast by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 590 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles. Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth.   If you enjoy this podcast, we appreciate you leaving a review wherever you listen and sharing it with your friends. On behalf of Michael Meade and the whole Mosaic staff, we wish you well during this challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.

This episode approaches the darkest time of the year through the creative tension between time and eternity and between darkness and the light. Prior to the hardening of time that is so characteristic of the modern world, the eternal was understood to be part of the present moment, as well as being part of the distant past.   The mystery of renewal is woven into the fabric of being and into the cycles of nature, so that moments like winter solstice represent the core process of creation ongoing. In the far reaches of night, the sun stops for a pregnant moment in which timelessness renews time and brings the light back from the darkness. When seen symbolically, it also represents our innate ability to move from the darkness of unconsciousness to being more aware, or as people say, enlightened.   On one hand, we are time-bound creatures, on the other, we are secretly tied to eternal things. Because we live in such dark times in terms of all the conflicts in the world and the threats to the living systems of nature, it becomes more important that we relearn the secret connections between time and timelessness and between the darkness and the light.   The essence of solstice involves stopping, even if only for a moment, so that a touch of the eternal can restore our sense of the holiness and sacredness of life at the very time when the darkness is at its deepest. The instinct for warmth and care for love, and also for generosity in the dark of the year, arises naturally from the souls longing to feel the holiness and the interconnectedness of all of life.   In making beauty at the darkest time on Earth, we stand in relation to the natural beauty and the natural wonder of this world. We stand in connection to the radiance of the cosmos as anything from a single candle to a glowing shrine or a great bonfire can become a symbol of our longing to help bring the light of spirit and the touch of healing and holiness to life on Earth.   On a personal level, solstice creates an opportunity for each of us to let go of what holds us back in life before starting anew as the sun does each year. When the light of the soul grows within us, it contributes the light of imagination and the spirit of inspiration needed to bring greater understanding to the world.   In facing the darkness together, we can rekindle the divine spark of life in each of our souls and can help each other renew the sense of human community being essentially connected to the light of creation, to the breath of inspiration and to the ongoing process of creation and renewal on Earth.   Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his free online solstice ritual “In This Darkness Singing” on Thursday, December 21. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.    You can further support this podcast by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 580 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles. Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth.   If you enjoy this podcast, we appreciate you leaving a review wherever you listen and sharing it with your friends. On behalf of Michael Meade and the whole Mosaic staff, we wish you well during this challenging and uncertain times and thank you for your support of our work.

Currently, the common understanding of “streaming” means “listening to music or watching video in real time as part of a continuous stream of data.” An older idea describes a cosmic stream of essential knowledge constantly pouring through the world. This much needed knowledge about life on earth flows freely, but at such a fast rate of speed that most people cannot catch it or even see it.   On this episode, Michael Meade suggests that when it comes to finding ways to respond to the climate crisis and all the humanitarian issues in the world, we may have to find ways to slow down and tap into the ancient stream of wisdom.   Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his free online solstice ritual “In This Darkness Singing” on Thursday, December 21. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.    You can further support this podcast by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 600 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles. Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth.

This episode of Living Myth begins with scientific studies of the ways that ants can be capable of incredible feats during times of crisis. A single ant will quickly drown in the turbulent floodwaters of a hurricane. Yet, a group of ants can instinctively create water repelling rafts that allow them to float for weeks without drowning. Flotillas of ants are an example of “swarm intelligence,” a collective creative capacity that allows ants and other species to solve complex problems.   In the strange way that facts and myth can meaningfully coincide, the Hopi First Nations people of the American Southwest have compelling stories of how the Anu Naki or Ant Friends were the saviors and original guides of the first people. When the entire world was threatened by fire and great floods, it was the Ant People who showed the first humans how to find refuge and sustenance and survive life threatening changes.   The Ant Friends also showed people how to create Kivas as underground spaces for community rituals and prayer. The old word Kiva has two parts with ki meaning ant and va meaning a dwelling place. A Kiva could be a place of refuge and retreat from the pressures of the daily world. It was also a place of connecting with Earth energies that can bring healing and centering to the entire community.   Indigenous peoples from all around the world typically learned about survival and adaptation in times of radical change by reading the texts of nature. Ancient myths and the resilience of other species can both serve as guides to how we survive the cataclysms occurring in the world at this time. For, both can be sources of essential insights into what was once understood as the Earth wisdom embedded in the living texts of nature.   Since we find ourselves, once again, facing both intense heat and great floods, we need to learn more about truly resilient systems that involve creativity as well as survival. That includes “swarm intelligence” as well as the kinds of Earth wisdom that can help us survive the uncharted waters, the hurricane seasons, and the rogue waves that currently threaten the ecosystems of nature as well as the social systems of human culture.   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 and his free online solstice ritual “In This Darkness Singing” on Thursday, December 21. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.    You can further support this podcast by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 600 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles. Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth.   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.