01c. 1944 ADOne 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.Michael Meade / quote ↗
02c. 1944 ADIn the end, as at the beginning, the divine turns out to be most interested in the unique life of the individual soul. That’s what was meant by the old idea that “inside people is where god learns.” This is not a religious notion, but more of a spiritual insight. For this conversation god is simply the shortest way to refer to the divine. When a unique life becomes fully livedeveryone involved learns something and it becomes clear that god was involved all along.Michael Meade / quote ↗
03c. 1944 ADSet 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.Michael Meade / quote ↗
04c. 1944 ADSoul 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.Michael Meade / quote ↗
05c. 1944 ADSomething watches over us and we know it when we follow the little voice inside or heed the warning or inspiration that arrives as if on wings. We need the intermediaries that keep us close to the spirit of life, to the wonders of nature and to the subtleties of our own inner nature.Michael Meade / quote ↗
06c. 1944 ADThe hardest thing in life may be to learn to truly trust that there is something noble and generative in ourselves. This is a greater sense of the notion of believing in our self; to truly believe in oneself means to uncover the inner core of imagination and authenticity that can also be called the genius within us. When we connect to the inner resident of the soul, we also learn how we are woven to the Soul of the World.Michael Meade / quote ↗
07c. 1944 ADThe 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.Michael Meade / quote ↗
08c. 1944 ADLiving 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.Michael Meade / quote ↗
09c. 1944 ADIf 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.Michael Meade / quote ↗
10c. 1944 ADEach life involves an essential errand; not simply the task of survival, but a life-mission embedded in the soul from the beginning.Michael Meade / quote ↗
11c. 1944 ADLiberation happens each time we become conscious of the contents of the soul.Michael Meade / quote ↗
12c. 1944 ADInside 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.Michael Meade / quote ↗
13c. 1944 ADFate and destiny are close woven within us and near them can be found the true genius of our lives.Michael Meade / quote ↗
14c. 1944 ADMyth 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.Michael Meade / quote ↗
15c. 1944 ADIf we want the world to change, the healing of culture and greater balance in nature, it has to start inside the human soul.Michael Meade / quote ↗
16c. 1944 ADEveryone experiences pain and most suffer from patterns that continue to make life miserable unless something or someone intervenes. The pain we feel comes from the cross-wise energies that keep curving back and cancelling the wise self and the good word that wait to be expressed from within us. Persistent pain is usually the indication that we have become trapped in a life too small for our true nature. That is the usual human fate and the common predicament where the little-self obscures the greater nature behind it. Until people realize what harms them and limits them from within, they are unlikely to call out for someone to help stop the pain. The remedy may be nearby, but until the pain becomes unbearable most remain caught in the agony of one form or another of self-inflicted wounds. As Rumi said, 'The cure for the pain is in the pain.Michael Meade / quote ↗
17c. 1944 ADThere is a myth at the heart of things and some element of genius in the heart of each person.Michael Meade / quote ↗
18c. 1944 ADThere 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.Michael Meade / quote ↗
19c. 1944 ADTiming can be everything and wisdom requires the patience to wait as well as the courage to leap when the time becomes right.Michael Meade / quote ↗
20c. 1944 ADUntil a person has failed significantly or missed the boat, they will not know how to hold the tension until the right moment or how to test the waters before pushing on.Michael Meade / quote ↗
21c. 1944 ADWe are wrapped around a mystery to which we were drawn before we were born.Michael Meade / quote ↗
23c. 1944 ADWhereas 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.Michael Meade / quote ↗
24c. 1944 ADWhether we know it or not, our lives are acts of imagination and the world is continually re-imagined through us.Michael Meade / quote ↗
