Michael J. Meade Quotes

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Traumatizing agents include the rise of mass culture and the subsequent diminishing of the individual soul, the spread of rampant materialism, and the rise of “connective” technologies that contribute to deep disconnections while “linking” people at surface levels of life.

The ability to be tough-minded remains useful; but by now, the fact that we are all in trouble in terms of both nature and culture can only be denied by those who become overly conservative and blindly reactionary. The more tender-hearted imagination that suggests we are all in this together and that there must be an underlying unity in life may be the only way to survive.

Liberation happens each time we become conscious of the contents of the soul.

When we place our immediate conflicts in the territory of an archetypal story we can better see the nature of our problems and find solutions that bring creative imagination to bear in the realm of hard facts and hardening dilemmas.

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.

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.

Until 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.

Young people have always felt misunderstood; but increasingly they say that no one listens to them and that they do not feel seen. The connectivity of modern technology seems to offer a substitute for the process of being connected to and recognized by other people. However, people confuse simple connection with the crucial need to be truly seen and genuinely heard. What the soul longs for — and rightfully expects — is not simply to be recognized, but to receive confirmation of one’s genuine self; not an automatic response from a device, but acceptance as a unique and valuable person.

Our deepest longings and the question of who we are intended to be cuts us in half, dividing us within ourselves. At critical stages and significant moments in the course of life, we sink with the weight of our own questions; we drown in our own psyche in order to reach a subtle ground that secretly sustains our every breath. In that sense, all separations, splits, and conflicts are evidence of a unity we long to find, both individually and collectively.