This episode of Living Myth begins with a Native American story of the origin of healing rituals. In telling the tale Michael Meade emphasizes a remarkable point in the story when knowledge, healing and songs all enter the world at the same time. The songs become central elements in the original healing ritual which brings those that are sick or wounded to the center of the community. Having established the importance of healing songs, Meade introduces an excerpt from Mosaic's recording "A Song is a Road".

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can further support this podcast by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 725 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles.

Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth

If you enjoy this podcast, we appreciate you leaving a review wherever you listen and sharing it with your friends. On behalf of Michael Meade and the whole Mosaic staff, we wish you well and thank you for your support of our work.

This episode of Living Myth begins with a review of how cosmology used to refer to all of the ways that humans could imagine the creation of the world and the subtle connections of the human soul to the living cosmos. "As above, so below" is the ancient mantra that places humankind in the middle of the cosmic story as an essential link in the chain of being. As individuals we may properly feel frail and small; yet we belong to more than one dimension of life. And the dark time of the year is the traditional time to recall the interconnection between each of our souls and the starry universe around us.

The word solstice means the "sun stands still" and ancient people imagined that the extremes of darkness harbored a timeless moment of stillness as the sun seems to stop just in time before the gloom becomes too great to recover from. Traditional cultures all over the world imagined that the midwinter sun needed conscious help from human beings in order to turn things around and bring back the light.

These are not simply the dark days of winter; but the dark times for everyone; especially for those who truly care for the souls of other people, and for the well-being of the sacred earth we all live upon. Even as we can feel more physically separated from each other, and just when we can feel even more frail and small in the face of all the worldwide troubles we face, there may be no better time to light a candle, make a prayer, find a song to sing in the midst of the darkness, in order to help bring the light back.

In facing the darkness together in a spiritual sense and in the ancient way, we can also find again and realign with the divine spark of life we each carry. For the soul has its own inner light and each soul is secretly connected to the song of the earth, to the Soul of the World, and to the indelible spark of life and light that can only be found in the darkest hours and the darkest times.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his free online Solstice ritual "In This Darkness Singing" on Saturday, December 20.

Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events

You can further support this podcast by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 725 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles.

Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth

If you enjoy this podcast, we appreciate you leaving a review wherever you listen and sharing it with your friends. On behalf of Michael Meade and the whole Mosaic staff, we wish you well and thank you for your support of our work.

This episode brings a focus to the problem of perfectionism and how it can silence our natural spontaneity, turn our innate passions into stone and cancel the imagination and creativity that are natural to our souls. Perfectionism can be paradoxical in the sense that it can foster an egotistical sense that we are better than others or plunge us into feelings of inferiority and inadequacy.

Michael Meade uses an old tale to show how the quest for perfection is a hopeless endeavor that operates as a kind of spell that continuously leads us away from our deeper sense of self and soul and prevents us from finding a genuine sense of self-worth. Rather than trying to be perfect, the true aim of life is to become a whole person. Becoming whole involves making mistakes and having faults, but also finding forgiveness and healing.

No one is perfect, yet each soul is unique, having true self-worth within and a genuine aim in life that waits to be discovered. In the end, it is not perfection, but the uniqueness of the individual soul that makes each person meaningful, purposeful and innately valuable.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his free online Solstice ritual "In This Darkness Singing" on Saturday, December 20.

Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.

You can further support this podcast by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 725 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles.

Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth

If you enjoy this podcast, we appreciate you leaving a review wherever you listen and sharing it with your friends. On behalf of Michael Meade and the whole Mosaic staff, we wish you well and thank you for your support of our work.