Living Myth
299 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 days ago - ★★★★★ - 731 ratingsMosaic presents Living Myth, a podcast with Michael Meade, renowned mythologist and storyteller. Meade presents mythic stories that offer uniquely insightful and wise ways of understanding the current dilemmas of the world we live in. Living Myth proposes that genuine solutions to the complex and intractable problems of our world require both transcendent imagination and cohering, transformative narratives.
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Episodes
Episode 380 - Elders and Youth on Paths of Healing
April 24, 2024 19:18 - 33 minutes - 30.7 MBThis episode follows the path of an old tale in which youth and elders have to solve seemingly impossible tasks, outwit a power-driven ruler and help create a more welcoming, wise and just society. Traditional tales from many cultures show how youth and elders are opposite sides of a psychic pairing in which each is necessary to understand the other. Despite cultural gaps between them, youth and elders are secretly connected, and each holds an essential piece of the human inheritanc...
Episode 379 - Earth Day and the Origins of Gaia
April 17, 2024 18:59 - 29 minutes - 26.6 MBOn this Earth Day podcast, Michael Meade begins by looking at the Gaia Hypothesis published 50 years ago and then explores the older roots of the name Gaia, which can be traced back to ancient India where Gaya or Gayatri appears as the ancient goddess of creation. Gaya appears in the Vedas or sacred texts as the source of all knowledge and wisdom. As the “mother of all,” she also had the power to heal all ills and nurture all of life, so that the wellbeing of the planet depended upon the pre...
Episode 378 - Mythic Medicine
April 09, 2024 17:32 - 32 minutes - 29.5 MBMichael Meade tells an old story from India about the creation of the world. In it, an ancient sage named Markandeya is caught in the tension between creation and wonder, despair and loss. His existential crisis speaks to the world we live in now with its increasing levels of fear and despair. Addressing the two great fears - fear of abandonment and the fear of being overwhelmed – Meade talks about how easily we can get lost in despair if we don’t know there is something essential in the...
Episode 377 - Eclipses and Epiphanies
April 03, 2024 18:33 - 24 minutes - 22.1 MBThis episode of Living Myth considers how a total solar eclipse can have the effect of reinforcing the now common idea that we are each but a mere speck on a small planet orbiting a relatively unimportant star within a random and meaningless universe. Or it can be a revelation that reassures our souls that we are secretly connected to the whole living cosmos. A total solar eclipse has the paradoxical quality of hiding the sun, while also revealing aspects of its true nature. At tota...
Episode 376 - A Divided World, A Hidden Unity
March 27, 2024 18:10 - 24 minutes - 22.7 MBOn this episode of Living Myth, Michael Meade contrasts two creation myths that feature the original division that becomes the source of all subsequent divisions in life. One ancient tale makes clear that healing and transformation are the secret aims of the tension of opposites that exist inside each person, inside each society and inside life itself. “At critical moments in the life of individuals and societies, the basic elements and energies of existence polarize. While the two ...
Episode 375 - The Return of Eros
March 20, 2024 17:28 - 24 minutes - 22.1 MBOn this episode, Michael Meade suggests that the message borne by spring flowers breaking through the hard ground of a long winter involves much more than a simple return to how things were before. In mythological terms, creation is ever ongoing as nature continually presents the essential mystery of life renewing itself from the haunts of death. In terms of that ageless story, we are being invited to participate in a return to the original potential that was there at the beginning and con...
Episode 374 - Threads of Fate and Destiny
March 13, 2024 19:13 - 28 minutes - 26.3 MBThis episode is about how the inner tension between the limits of fate and the call of destiny manifests uniquely in each person’s life. It is also about how a dark night of the soul can serve as the liminal stage of a life-changing rite of passage. Finally, it is about how we are currently in the midst of a collective rite of passage that involves the destiny of humanity and the fate of life on earth. Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Mea...
Episode 373 - Lies that Poison, Truths that Heal
March 06, 2024 20:15 - 26 minutes - 24 MBThis episode begins with Socrates’ idea of the difference between two types of lies. The first type of untruth is the “noble lie” best understood as stories or myths that are not factual, yet are foundational because they reveal important truths and wisdom. The other kind of untruth is the “lie of the soul” that is taken into a person's being and becomes treated as if it was the truth. This is the most dangerous kind of lie because it has a destructive effect on a person's core being and s...
Episode 372 - Jonah and the Whale
February 28, 2024 19:22 - 24 minutes - 22.5 MBThis episode begins with the idea that we are living in flood times again as we face overwhelming changes at most levels of life. Deluge and flood stories have been found even in landlocked places, as if to make clear that it is not simply the literal seas that can overflow, but also the psychic waters of the unconscious that can overwhelm an individual or an entire culture. In the old story of Noah, a great ark serves as a life preserving vessel in the midst of great loss and wo...
Episode 371 - Fear is the Way Through
February 21, 2024 13:29 - 43 minutes - 40 MBMichael 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 coll...
Episode 370 - Veiling the Truth
February 14, 2024 19:55 - 27 minutes - 25.3 MBMichael 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...
Episode 369 - Three Kinds of Wisdom
February 06, 2024 23:26 - 33 minutes - 30.3 MBUnlike 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...
Episode 368 - Touching Spirit, Making Soul
January 30, 2024 21:21 - 24 minutes - 22.8 MBIncreasing 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 th...
Episode 367 - The Redemptive Power of Soul
January 23, 2024 20:24 - 41 minutes - 38.4 MBAs 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, th...
Episode 366 - Facing Our Fears
January 16, 2024 20:21 - 34 minutes - 31.9 MBUnder 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 fe...
Episode 365 - Kairos Time
January 09, 2024 21:17 - 33 minutes - 30.4 MBCurrently, 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. Al...
Episode 364 - The Sacred Fifth
January 04, 2024 18:20 - 25 minutes - 23.2 MBThis 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 othe...
Episode 363 - Myths of Creation and Re-Creation
December 27, 2023 13:34 - 22 minutes - 20.6 MBOn 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 a...
Episode 362 - Darkness and the Light
December 19, 2023 12:48 - 23 minutes - 21.6 MBThis 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 creati...
Episode 361 - The Stream of Knowledge
December 13, 2023 18:25 - 28 minutes - 26.4 MBCurrently, 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 climat...
Episode 360 - Ancient Myths, Modern Science
December 06, 2023 20:24 - 29 minutes - 26.7 MBThis 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. ...
Episode 359 - The Necessity of Imaginatioin
November 29, 2023 19:49 - 25 minutes - 23.5 MBThis episode of Living Myth begins with the ancient idea that nothing exists until it passes through imagination. Imagination is not simply a subjective inner capacity; rather, it is a genuine force of life. In this old way of seeing, the increase of conflicts and intensification of hate in the world can be seen as a loss of soul and a lack of genuine imagination. At a time when modern cultures can be seen to be unraveling and the sense of the shared suffering of humanity so quic...
Episode 358 - The Origins of Gratitude
November 21, 2023 17:39 - 26 minutes - 24.6 MBThis episode begins with an ancient Mayan myth about the first human ancestors being shaped from corn. Far from being random creatures, humans were created to bring missing ingredients to the world. The missing ingredients included: a conscious awareness of the wonder of creation, a sense of gratitude and thankfulness, and a potential for imagination and genuine vision. Central to the role of humans was the capacity to be thankful for the gift of life. Thus, people all over the e...
Episode 357 - The Wisdom of the Butterfly
November 15, 2023 19:33 - 24 minutes - 22.7 MBThis 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...
Episode 356 - The Furies in Myth
November 08, 2023 20:01 - 24 minutes - 22.6 MBOn this episode Michael Meade turns to Greek myths about the Furies in order to imagine ways that deeper understanding and healing might be found amidst the tragic events engulfing Gaza and Israel and the “unbearable losses and blood-dimmed blindness that currently plague humanity as a whole.” The Furies appear as primordial spirits of vengeance and retribution that can rise from the underworld when people violate the rules of nature, when innocent blood is wrongfully spilled on ...
Episode 355 - The Purpose Seeded in You
November 01, 2023 19:52 - 22 minutes - 20.7 MBThis episode of Living Myth begins with recent scientific research showing how having purpose can lower levels of stress and contribute to longevity for older people. Michael Meade suggests that in troubled times finding a genuine purpose is also necessary for young people who can easily become discouraged and despairing about life. The ancient Greek term telos refers to the kind of purpose that gives us, not simply a sense of aim, but the potential for fulfillment. Connecting to that kind...
Episode 354 - The Light Within Dark Times
October 25, 2023 17:30 - 26 minutes - 24.2 MBThis episode begins with the idea that we are living in the dark times in which the storms, conflicts and tragedies that darken the earth place us in a crisis of spirit and soul. Either we find a greater sense of our own life spirit and soul purpose or we become overwhelmed with feelings of anxiety, helplessness and despair. As the light hidden in darkness, the soul includes the power of imagination as well as surprising capacities for creativity and renewal. Michael Meade descri...
Episode 353 - Roots of Inner Peace
October 13, 2023 19:53 - 29 minutes - 26.8 MBThis 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 ca...
Episode 352 - A World on Fire
October 11, 2023 17:13 - 21 minutes - 20.1 MBThis episode of Living Myth begins with the growing procession of unprecedented, heart rending and earth-shattering events that currently tear at the core of human culture and also ravage the face of the earth. The sense of a split screen world of growing tragedies involves one screen showing a map of all the life-threatening hot spots where brutal, deadly warfare is already raging and many other conflicts are heating up. A parallel screen shows the growing number of hot spots where...
Episode 351 - Oracle at the Center
October 04, 2023 18:17 - 21 minutes - 20.1 MBThis episode begins with the ancient axiom inscribed at the Oracle of Delphi: Know Thyself. In Greek mythology Delphi was known as the “navel of the world,” the center and womb from which life as well as inspiration comes. Like many ancient practices, seeking guidance from the oracle also involved a ritual process of being made anew by connecting to the center and the origins of life. Ancient people went to the oracular center when they were stuck in life or felt overwhelmed by conf...
Episode 350 - Two Agreements of the Soul
September 27, 2023 17:53 - 32 minutes - 29.5 MBThis episode begins with the idea that our original agreement with life involves the inner dream of our soul and the unique pattern that brought us into being in the first place. At birth the soul enters a series of secondary agreements that involve accepting the world as we find it and learning to negotiate between our soul and the “facts of life,” between our deepest desires and the reality of one’s circumstances. Our true guide is the deepest image in our soul, the divine spark a...
Episode 349 - What the Soul Sees
September 20, 2023 18:47 - 30 minutes - 27.6 MBThis episode of Living Myth tells the story of Gustave Fechner, a scientist and professor of physics who went blind while doing experiments involving human sight. After years of living in utter darkness, his eyesight returned, bringing with it a renewed vision of the world. After decades of looking at the world through the lens of physics and the hard sciences, Fechner had a spiritual awakening that brought a deeply personal connection to the living pulse of nature. Having dwelt for...
Episode 348 - Soul on Trial
September 13, 2023 18:37 - 29 minutes - 26.7 MBThis episode of Living Myth begins with a review of the Great Soul Trial, a strange event in 1967 in which the existence of the human soul was the subject of a superior court trial in Phoenix, Arizona. The loss of soul that now plagues modern culture is then traced back to the Fourth Council of Constantinople in 869 CE. Before that Council the main conception of human nature derived from the ancient view of the cosmos being made of spirit, soul and matter. After that event the prevailing n...
Episode 347 - Beyond Anxiety
September 06, 2023 18:09 - 28 minutes - 25.8 MBThis episode addresses the increase of anxiety at both the collective and individual levels of life. Each day we face extreme weather changes and extreme politics, but also the exaggerated feelings that develop inside people as well. As irrational influences and undue pressures become common it becomes difficult to avoid intense feelings, edgy thoughts and the alienating presence of anxiety. “In simpler times, people used to say that they were under stress. But the amount of stress ...
Episode 346 - Facing Inner Fears
August 30, 2023 17:57 - 27 minutes - 25.1 MBThis episode of Living Myth takes up the issue of deep inner fears that keep us from finding our way in life. Rapid changes in nature and culture cause an increasing loss of context in life and that gives rise to greater levels of fear, both collectively and individually. Typically, our inner patterns of fear derive from early life feelings of abandonment and from early experiences that suggest the world is too overwhelming for someone as insignificant as us. Later in life we contin...
Episode 345 - Your Calling Keeps Calling
August 23, 2023 16:50 - 28 minutes - 26.4 MBThis 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. Th...
Episode 344 - The Thread of Life
August 16, 2023 18:37 - 24 minutes - 22.1 MBThis episode begins with the idea that at critical times all of life can just hang by a thread. Michael Meade then describes the ancient rites of passage that involved the “upavita” or thread of life. The upavita was imagined as the red thread of passion that runs within the blood of every being. It was also envisioned as the green thread of existence that is dancing through the endless windings of the vegetal realm. Either way, it's the vine of eternity that secretly unites all living ten...
Episode 343 - The Right Trouble
August 09, 2023 17:42 - 21 minutes - 19.8 MBThis episode of Living Myth begins with the report on the increase of perfectionism in the world. Whether caused by comparisons found on social media or notions of meritocracy, young people especially suffer from perfectionism. Beginning with the idea that something perfect is finished, and therefore closer to death than to life, Michael Meade turns our attention instead to the value of trouble. Not just any trouble, but the importance of getting into the right trouble, the kind of trouble...
Episode 342 - A Climate of Overwhelm
August 02, 2023 18:33 - 24 minutes - 22.1 MBThis episode considers the record breaking heat waves that are currently plaguing many parts of the planet and how easily we can feel overwhelmed and helpless in the face of worldwide crises. “In radical times like this, great emotions can fall upon us in a similar way that massive storms and heat waves now settle over entire areas of a country. The overwhelming facts about disasters in the world around us can quickly become overwhelming emotions inside our individual psyches. We ca...
Episode 341 - A True Path in Life
July 26, 2023 19:06 - 29 minutes - 26.6 MBThis episode of Living Myth is about accepting elements of fate in order to find the threads of destiny that are woven within our own lives to begin with. “Each child must be born to a particular family, yet the purpose of each soul rises from a different conception and aims at a different destination. Each has a family legacy of some kind, yet each also has a deeper birthright waiting to be discovered. Elements of fate and destiny press upon us from within and also call us from out...
Episode 340 - When Men Are Lost
July 18, 2023 22:37 - 25 minutes - 23.4 MBThis episode begins with excerpts from an article entitled “Men Are Lost.” The writer describes how many “young men struggle to relate to women, don't have enough friends…and lack long term goals.” In addition, recent data shows that “men now account for almost three of every four deaths of despair that come from suicide, alcohol abuse, or overdose.” In what seems to be “a widespread identity crisis,” the question becomes: What does it mean to be a man? The article concludes with the notio...
Episode 339 - On Not Being Perfect
July 12, 2023 17:12 - 25 minutes - 23.7 MBThis episode of Living Myth deals with perfectionism and the inner dynamics of gifts and wounds in the human soul. Some people were told as children that they had to be perfect; others were told they were somehow defective and could never be perfect. Either way can cause a kind of spell and a life-long struggle with perfectionism. And sadly, the stress of trying to be perfect can lead to great feelings of anxiety and aching feelings of low esteem, to eating disorders, sleep disturbances and...
Episode 338 - Waves of Change
July 05, 2023 18:48 - 21 minutes - 19.4 MBMichael Meade uses current scandals in politics along with the recent discoveries in science to show how we live in revelatory times. We are in the midst of a cultural, political and emotional catharsis, yet for those willing to look behind the veil, an apocalyptic period can mean a time of revelation on many levels. The archetype of apocalypse involves a “lifting of the veil” in which many scandals and misdeeds become uncovered, while at the same time both ancient wisdom and new knowledge ...
Episode 337 - Original Mind
June 28, 2023 13:21 - 23 minutes - 21.5 MBDespite the narrowing of mind and loss of imagination that characterize much of modern life, we each still have an old knowing mind within us. Not the mechanics of the brain that contemporary science seems obsessed with, but the ancient mind untouched by the passage of time, the intuitive and instinctive mind, which knows both basic survival and great consciousness and awareness. This original mind is logical in its own way, that is to say it is mytho-logical, it is psycho-logical, and it ...
Episode 336 - A Divine Wake-Up Call
June 21, 2023 18:09 - 27 minutes - 25.5 MBThis episode begins with the surprising story of a spiritual seeker who meditates and fasts and abstains in order to know the divine and serve something that transcends the common fate of human experience. After many austerities, the god Vishnu grants his wish and gives him a mission. Somehow, on the way the seeker forgets the divine errand he was on and becomes immersed in the dramas and delights of earthly life. It will take a shocking wake-up call to return the seeker to his conversation...
Episode 335 - A Clash of Worldviews
June 14, 2023 18:15 - 22 minutes - 20.4 MBSurviving modern life requires learning to navigate a clash of worldviews. People look at the same facts, yet draw radically different conclusions. On one hand people carry different worldviews; on the other hand, many people remain unconscious of the fact that they carry a limiting worldview. Collectively we find ourselves in uncharted waters in terms of the future of the planet and in unmapped territory in terms of human culture. In that sense, the biggest problem we face involves the ...
Premium Episode 116 Excerpt - The Subtle Ground of Imagination
June 10, 2023 14:44 - 17 minutes - 15.6 MBOn 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 ...
Episode 334 - Living in the Shadow of Doubt
June 07, 2023 18:08 - 25 minutes - 23.7 MBOn this episode, Michael Meade turns to a myth from Mesopotamia that tells how the genesis of mistakes, as well as the source of conflicts comes from the shadow of doubt felt by the primal god at the beginning of creation. Surprisingly, the origin of what troubles the world to this day comes not from an original sin by a creature, but from a seeming mistake on the part of the creator. At this troubled time when people feel painfully polarized and come to believe that we live in diff...
Episode 333 - The Forgotten Language of Myth
May 31, 2023 18:49 - 23 minutes - 21.9 MBThis episode illustrates how myths are not intended to be believed in, but exist to be learned from. Myths are forever things that offer endless meanings to those willing to open their hearts and minds to the living mystery of life. Yet, even though it is the original language of our soul, myth has become the forgotten language. The “once upon a time” incantation that often begins a story is an evocation of a pregnant moment that can open to things eternal that ever wait near the do...
Episode 332 - The Deep Self Within
May 24, 2023 18:43 - 24 minutes - 22.5 MBThis episode of Living Myth begins with the idea that as everything around us falls apart, the deeper Self and ancient soul within us moves closer to the surface and seeks to become known. For whatever shatters the common patterns of daily life also opens us up to psychological and mythical levels of unusual depth that are not overwhelmed by the divisions and disruptions in the world. The elements of great imagination and deep spirituality that have become lost in the modern world c...