Michael Meade Quotes

The old idea is that when tragedy strikes or when an obstacle blocks us, there are only two possibilities. We either become a smaller person or we become a bigger person. If it's a real life change you cannot come out the same. So therefore, you're either going to come out smaller or you're going to rise up and ultimately come out of it a bigger person.

Trouble is another word for fate; what troubles us the most is what we are fated to one day face. What troubles us in youth will return at each crossroad in life because it secretly seeks to provoke a deep awakening to the unique way that we are intended to live.

Genius is the basis for the deepest type of mentoring. When true learning occurs genius teaches genius and both the teacher and the student grow.

The wound in one person can become the door through which everyone can find the center of life again.

An old Celtic proverb boldly places death right at the center of life. 'Death is the middle of a long life,' they used to say. Ancient people did things like that; they put death at the center instead of casting it out of sight and leaving such an important subject until the last possible moment. Of course, they lived close to nature and couldn't help but see how the forest grew from fallen trees and how death seemed to replenish life from fallen members. Only the unwise and the overly fearful think that death is the blind enemy of life.

The problem in most situations is not a lack of calling; but a fear of responding to the call.

What is most lacking in the modern world of duplications and facsimiles, of endless information and intentional misinformation, is the authenticity that makes life truly meaningful and spiritually rewarding.

Mentoring is an archetypal activity that has timeless elements which can connect us to the universal ground where nature renews itself and culture becomes reimagined. Youth and elder meet where the pressure of the future meets the presence of the past. Old and young are opposites that secretly identify with each other; for neither fits well into the mainstream of life.

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." The hidden purpose of fear involves bringing us closer to natural instincts for survival, but also for awakening inner resources and sharpening our intelligence when faced with true danger and the basic need to change.

Myths are intended to break the spell of time and release us from the immediate pressures and limitations of daily life.

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. The problem is that we tend to be most afraid of what our own souls require of us. Often our deepest fear is that we might become who we are intended to be, who we already are at our core. For becoming who we truly are requires the greatest amount of change.

All meaningful change requires a genuine surrender. Yet, to surrender does not simply mean to give up; more to give up one's usual self and allow something other to enter and redeem the lesser sense of self. In surrendering, we fall to the bottom of our arguments and seek to touch the origin of our lives again. Only then can we see as we were meant to see, from the depth of the psyche where the genius resides, where the seeds of wisdom and purpose were planted before we were born.

Fate and destiny are close woven within us and near them can be found the true genius of our lives.

Living myth is about the experience of the waters parting again in the here and now. As a critical moment opens before us the spirit of life and genius of the soul speaks to us and through us. What was about to crush us suddenly parts before us and we shoot forward with the sudden vitality of life, fueled by the living imagination needed to survive.

Whereas literalists and fundamentalists tend to choose one pole of any dilemma or opposition, whereas modern political parties and religious groups tend towards demonizing each other, the creative individual must be born again and again in the crucible created by the tension between opposing instincts, conflicted feelings, and contrasting ideas.

If you don't know who you are, anyone can name you.

When a culture simply shrugs about what happens to people in war, it breaks the fragile sequence, the bond between all people.

We may be closest to hearing the call when we feel most alone or in trouble, for genius hides behind the wound and one of the greatest wounds in life is to not know who we are intended to be or what we are supposed to serve in life.

If we meet a myth with our lives and deepest concerns, the mythic oracles speak directly to us. Myths are oracular in the sense that each person can receive a message or an insight that relates to their life circumstances. The point has never been to "believe" in myths or to simply accept what others have said they mean. The key issue with mythic images is to let them speak to us, wherever and whenever we find ourselves seeking guidance, permission, or understanding.

When a situation feels like a matter of life and death the deep self is close at hand and it already carries inner medicine and its own life remedy.

Unless a person learns of the sacred intentions in their own life it will be difficult for them to understand the sacred presence in all of life.

A false sense of security is the only kind there is.

The ship is always off course. Anybody who sails knows that. Sailing is being off course and correcting. That gives a sense of what life is about.

The second adventure involves the divine spark hidden in each soul and the dark times require that the inner light of soul be found again. Perhaps there is no greater time to awaken to the adventure the soul
would have us live and become agents of the divine in
this world.

The real treasure of life, the one difficult to find and hard to attain, is never far from us. That's an unwritten rule on this earth. What we desperately desire and need most is buried in the recesses of our innermost being all along. This is the open secret found in many traditions and told in many ways. Yet it remains a secret
because trusting in oneself remains one of the hardest things to do in life.

In many tribal cultures, it was said that if the boys were not initiated into manhood, if they were not shaped by the skills and love of elders, then they would destroy the culture. If the fires that innately burn inside youths are not intentionally and lovingly added to the hearth of community, they will burn down the structures of culture, just to feel the warmth.

Something deep in the human soul awakens as things fall apart. Something in the soul knows that everything in this world can become lost. And something in the soul knows how to survive periods of devastation, disorientation and loss. Descent and falling is the way of the soul from its beginning. We each fell from the womb of life when the waters of the inner sea broke and it came time for us to breathe on our own.

At critical moments the veil between the little-self and the deep self thins and a meaningful self-adjustment becomes possible. If a person does not become paralyzed with fear or frozen in hatred, the wise self hidden within will rise to the occasion.

To be purposeful is not to be goal oriented, but to seek to reconnect to the source of one's life.

Human beings long for connection, and our sense of usefulness derives from the feeling of connectedness. When we are connected - to our own purpose, to the community around us, and to our spiritual wisdom - we are able to live and act with authentic effectiveness.

There is a poem at the heart of things and a mythic story in the heart of each of us.

To become nobody but your true self and to struggle against the tide of sameness and the false security of simply fitting in is a fight worth having. To become oneself by contributing one's native gifts and talents to this troubled world: that is the job to keep applying for and a work worth spending an entire life doing.

Everyone who enters the world comes in with hidden gold, it's called your natural gifts. The job of a person is to find the hidden gold and give it. It turns out that when you give it you get more than when you hold on to it, that's the economy of the soul.

A society that fails to water the life-seeds of its members may be capable of instructing its citizens, but will be incapable of truly educating its children or wholly embracing its youth.

Timing can be everything and wisdom requires the patience to wait as well as the courage to leap when the time becomes right.

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.

Each soul lives on the verge of remembering the forgotten agreement and original dream that it carries; yet each moment can be another point when the dream of life becomes lost again. Each meaningful step we take on the path of life involves some tension between the needs of the common world and the dreams of the soul. This inherent tension can stop us in our tracks, yet can also be the source of vital energy needed for the soul to grow. Each time we remember a piece of why we came to life we pull the seeds of eternity farther into the world of time. The inner seed keeps trying to sprout, but often our fate must place us in a crossroads or nail us to a cross before we pay proper attention to it.

There is a myth at the heart of things and some element of genius in the heart of each person.

Education at a deep level means to 'lead out' what is trying to be born from within. The job of a true teacher is to help awaken the inner pupil that has its own way of being and unique way of perceiving
the world.

Becoming a genuine individual requires learning the oppositions within oneself. Those who fail or refuse to face the oppositions within have no choice but to find enemies to project upon. Enemy simply means a "not-friend;" unless a person deals with the not-friend within they require enemies around them.

The issue is not simply one of needing to save the world, but also of needing to solve the problem of the loss of soul throughout the modern world. Part of what has been lost in the reckless rushing of modernity is the sense that each life has an authentic interior that shelters important emotions as well as inherent purpose, and that the dignity of existence includes a necessary instinct to unfold the unique story woven inside each living soul.

Our job is not to comprehend or control everything, but to learn which story we are in and which of the many things calling out in the world is calling to us. Our job is to be fully alive in the life we have, to pick up the invisible thread of our own story and follow where it leads. Our job is to find the thread of our own dream and live it all the way to the end.

The old stories must be learned anew, studied again within the context of a world at odds with itself and only able to be redeemed by the brush of the wing of the great bird of spirit.

Our answer, our opportunity, our chance to change the world has to come from the poetry that is already written on the walls of the soul.

Wisdom can reveal the light hidden in dark times; but it requires that we face the darkness in ourselves. People may desire pearls of wisdom, yet most are unwilling to descend to the depths where the pearls wait to be found. Wisdom involves a necessary descent into the depths of life, for that alone can produce 'lived knowledge' and a unified vision.

Each person carries a hidden poetic unity that reflects the mysterious continuity of the Soul of the World. In the depths of the soul, we are each an old soul able to survive the troubles of the world and contribute to its healing and renewal. The key to what we miss and secretly long for is hidden within us. Medicine men and healers of all kinds from cultures around the world have used various techniques to not only "heal" the soul, but also to restore individuals to their proper place in the world and in their culture. To heal means to "make whole," and when we feel whole we are in touch with the whole world. When in touch with our underlying soul, we are naturally in touch with nature and the Soul of the World. We are the missing ingredient in the solutions needed for all that ails us, if we but awaken to the nature of our own souls.

While you had the chance to live, did you become your true self?

Myth and nature are the two great garments of the world, with nature being the living green garment that covers the planet and myth being the multidimensional, many-colored fabric that continually weaves human culture.

Myth offers a third place to stand or a third way to see when we find ourselves caught between opposing ideas and hardening ideologies.

A true calling is aimed at the genius qualities already set within each person ...

Mythic imagination can break the spell of time and open us to a level of life that remains timeless. Myth is not about what happened in past times; myth is about what happens to people all of the time.

At critical junctures, outer trouble and the inner need to grow conspire to set each of us on a path of awakening and initiation.

During youth a blossoming and budding forth tries to happen from inside out as each young person encounters what is seeded in them and gifted in their soul.

The desire to be part of something greater and to occupy life more fully, is also a desire to touch and be touched by the living imagination that sustains each soul and all of life.

Inside each one of us there is a mostly hidden, mostly golden, mostly eternal image or aspect of being, similar to the gold that is buried in the earth. We are the earthlings, the children of the earth, and therefore we are a replica, in a sense, of the earth itself. One of the ideas that is important is: As above, so below. As outside, so within.

Every mistake is a new style.

In these dark and uncertain times, there can be great value in imagining a bit of star in each human soul.
Not just that it gives some hope for humanity at a time when man's inhumanity to man seems ever on the increase; but also because it points to an inner brightness
that can light the way
in dark times.

Growing old can mean more than slowing down; it can be a time of truly growing down and incarnating further. Because the inner genius that tries to incarnate through us will keep calling for us to awaken further until we come to the end of our life adventure.

To awaken to the living dream within one's life and
remain awake in a world trying to lull everyone to sleep involves repeated struggle, yet also presents something truly worth fighting for.

Slow' and 'down' are modes of the soul; they are connective modes, ways of keeping connected to oneself and to one's environment. 'Slowing downwards' refers to more than simply moving slowly, it means growing down towards the roots of one's being. Instead of outward growth and upward climb, life at times must turn inward and downward in order to grow in other ways. There is a shift to the vertical down that re-turns us to root memories, root metaphors, and timeless things that shape our lives from within. Slowing downwards creates opportunities to dwell more deeply in one's life, for the home we are looking for in this world is within us all along. The lost home that we are seeking is ourselves; it is the story we carry within our soul.

There is a greater will, a greater need and purpose hidden within each life, and there is an inner law that knows best how each must live and that is worth stealing for; it's worth dying for, and worth living for as well.

Soul is found where life deepens us, where meaning calls to us, where trouble deters us, wherever and however we slow down in the midst of the rushing and racing at the surface level of life.

Sometimes, the greatest safety can be found in taking the right risk. Whether it be an individual, a community or a country, when faced with tragedy or fearful uncertainty, we either become bigger and enter life more fully, or else we accept a diminished life and resign ourselves to a smaller way of being.

A community best serves itself when it truly serves the awakening of the unique story trying to come to life through each person born.

Run towards the roar,' the old people used to tell the young ones. When faced with great danger and when people panic and seek a false sense of safety, run towards the roaring and go where you fear to go. For only in facing your fears can you find some safety and a way through. When the world rattles and the end seems near, go towards the roar.

The thread that ties us to the center is the hidden cord of the heart, it is the thread of genius that can connect the mind with the heart, that allows the mind to feel and reveals the thought set within the heart.

The only choice once your world has been torn apart is to find your genius and live with that. 'Normal' is out of the question. The healing for veterans, or anyone going through great tragedy, is finding your natural spirit and your genius that was waiting to be found. That can now become the cohering principle in your life. The idea of patching someone up and back into normal when they've had extremely abnormal experiences is a misunderstanding.

Set within the seed of the soul is not jut a fleeting image or a vague pattern but a lifelong story enfolded within, waiting to be cracked open and lived all the way out.

Once a person falls in the fields of love, all the rules are already broken; the lover becomes open an exalted in ways that transcend the local issues as well as the commonly held beliefs. Love, like genuine devotion, will find a way. Where duty becomes replaced with love, a greater and deeper faith will blossom forth.

One of the open secrets of life on earth is that the answer to life's burning question has been inscribed in one's soul all along. The soul is a kind of ancient vessel that holds the exact knowledge we seek and need to find our way in life. Each life is a pilgrimage intended to arrive at the center of the pilgrim's soul. From that vantage point, the issue is not whether we managed to choose the right god or the only way to live righteously; such notions fail to recognize the inborn intimacy each soul already has with the divine.

Everyone gets wounded in this world and everyone has within them some golden qualities that can serve to heal the wounds of time and the traumatic effects of human tragedy.

There will always be the facts of life to contend with, and there are times when the facts can become overwhelming. Yet, there is a poem at the heart of things and a mythic story in the heart of each of us. At certain times it is the poetry of life and the mythic imagination of the soul that become necessary in order to heal the wounds inflicted by an excess of reason or an overuse of force. When we unfold the story wound within our souls and untie the knots within us, we add presence to the world and contribute to the spirit of life in a specific and authentic way.

The divine is at the edge of our awareness and vision, but it is also within us as the first seeker found when all seemed lost completely. In order to find the dream of life again, we must first find the way that the dream exists within our own souls. We may be daunted by the surfacing of all the dilemmas and trouble of this troubled world, but the deep self and soul within us already knows how we are intended to swim in the blessed turmoil of the waters of life. For humans exist to bring meaning to the surface of life and awareness to the dream of existence.

As people used to say, "What the heart loves is the cure." The cure for healing the wounds and conflicts between faiths and systems of belief involves awakening to the unique ways that each heart carries devotion and love. When followed far enough, simple belief can transform into wisdom; raw passions can become a greater compassion that trusts what resides in one's heart and even in the hearts of others. Until the heart opens and the eyes begin to see there is always the danger of blindness and narrowness and the tendency to hold onto narrow ways of being.

Some might ask whether the path is before us or within us. The answer is: Yes. We are both driven from within by our resident spirit and something outside calls forth the genius within us.