Living Myth
Mosaic 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.
Episodes
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 ...
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...
This episode brings a focus to ways in which the troubles and tragedies of the world can fall upon us in storms of emotion. When life becomes greatly uncertain, and the daily world becomes deeply unsettled, we can find ourselves subjected to sudden states of fear and anxiety. Michael Mead...
On this episode, Michael Meade explores the dynamic between myth and dream and considers the idea that myths are like the collective dreams of humanity. He also speaks to the core idea that each life carries a message and a meaning trying to find its way into the world and each adds a thread in the tale of history being woven as we speak, being shaped as we dream, and potentially being made anew each time we step more fully into th...
This episode begins with the idea that we suffer a mutual fate of living in a time of tragedy and trouble, and yet, the way through the troubles of the world must depend upon an individual thread of fate set within each person. Although the thread ...
On this episode of Living Myth, Michael Meade looks at two contemporary crises involving young people through the lens of rites of passage. One crisis involves the alarming increase in both the numbers of youth who consider suicide and those actually taking their own lives. Teens and youn...
This 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.
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Michael 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 c...
This 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 reassu...
On 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 exis...
This 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 lim...
This 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 foundat...
This 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...
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 ...
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...
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 surv...
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 bec...
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 ...
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