Michael Meade Quotes

When you step further into the story you came to live, not only does the mythic territory open, but the deep self moves and the world of imagination and meaning comes towards you.

Each person is a story that the Soul of the World wants to tell to itself.

As a culture, we turn away from people just when they are in times of change. That's when most communities used to embrace people, so the individual and the culture both benefited.

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.

Emotions are the natural substances of the soul ... and when we think we can't handle the emotions, we lose the natural substances of the soul and begin looking for substances to replace the flow.

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

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

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.

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

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 gift within the gift involved the opening of an inner eye that changed how I looked at life.

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.

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

Healing is a revolutionary act and we are here to awaken to the true nature of our own souls and the gifts we have to give to the world.

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

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.

The purpose of conflict is to create.

When a person becomes aware of their genius and they live it and they give generously from it, they change the world, they affect the world. And when they depart everyone knows something is missing.

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.

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

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

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.

A genuine education must somehow serve the wings of spirit and imagination that each child brings to life.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Destiny is purpose seen from the other end of life.

If we want the world to change, the healing of culture and greater balance in nature, it has to start inside the human soul.

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

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

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.

We are wrapped around a mystery to which we were drawn before we were born.

Every mistake is a new style.

Whether we know it or not, our lives are acts of imagination and the world is continually re-imagined through us.

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.

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.