The Wild Reed: Michael Meade

Showing posts with label Michael Meade. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 11, 2026

Memes of the Times

NOTE: The above quote is from author Marianne Williamson.

Monday, January 20, 2025

It’s Inauguration Day, and like a lot of people I’m feeling heartsick at the prospect of a second Trump presidency.

In an effort to be and stay hopeful and proactive moving forward, I shared throughout the day on Facebook today positive and hopeful words and images.

As it’s also Martin Luther King Jr. Day today, I couldn’t think of a better way to start my sharing then with his words!

My second sharing was a meme featuring a quote by writer Madeleine L’Engle.

L’Engle’s words prompted one friend to share the following:

Thanks for what you have posted, Michael. I am sitting here listening to what Trump is saying, and I just want to cry. Much of what is being said is appalling to me. Very uncomfortable. What was I expecting? I should have known better. Has any past President EVER spoken this way at his inauguration?! I make it a practice to never make political commentary, but I just feel sick. I re-read your post multiple times already.

My third sharing today was an inspiration quote from author, activist, and former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, who is currently running to be chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

I supported Marianne’s 2020 and 2024 presidential campaigns. In fact, on this day exactly one year ago, my friend Kate and I travelled to New Hampshire to campaign for Marianne in the Granite State’s “First in the Nation” presidential primary. . . . What a very different president she would have made to the one being inaugurated today.

In honor of Marianne today, the day I would have loved to have seen her sworn in as president, I wore as my undershirt my “Marianne Williamson for President 2024” t-shirt.

Next, another motivating quote. This one by storyteller, author and scholar Michael Meade . . .

My fifth sharing today was Maarva’s posthumous speech from the Star Wars TV series Andor. Her words never fail to move and inspire me. . . . “Fight the empire!”

Now there are many ways to fight the empire, and personally I’m into non-violent resistance. And by “empire” I’m referring to Chris Hedges’s understanding of the American Empire.

It’s the same empire that poet Mary Oliver identifies – one that needs to be named, resisted, and transformed.

My next sharing, which by now was in the late afternoon, was a call to action! It grew out of my becoming today a monthly contributor to (and a “Guardian of Liberty” member of) the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). This sharing consisted of my inviting of my Facebook friends to consider joining me in becoming ACLU members. And I extend this same invitation to you who are reading this!

Click here to make either a one-time or monthly financial contribution to the important work of the ACLU.

I concluded today’s Facebook sharing of hopeful and proactive thoughts by returning to where it all began – the challenging wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Wednesday, January 01, 2025

Wisdom at the Edge

Michael Meade’s New Year Message

Michael Meade is a storyteller, author, and scholar of mythology, anthropology, and psychology. He’s also the founder of the Mosaic Multicultural Foundation, a non-profit network of artists, activists, and community builders that “encourages greater understanding between diverse peoples.” Meade regularly shares his wise and healing insights on his podcast, The Living Myth.

Meade’s Facebook page is called Mosaic Voices, and through this online resource he recently shared the following New Year message, one that I find to be both insightful and hopeful. Perhaps you will too. Happy New Year!

___________________

Although there can be no quick fix for all that troubles the world at this time, the aim of traditional New Year rites was to end the reign of the old year in order to begin everything anew. The idea was to follow the course of nature in which the world descends into darkness before the light and the energy of life begins to return.

The old idea was not simply the turning over of a calendar, but the understanding that a capacity for transformation and regeneration resides at the heart of nature, at the center of the cosmos and in the heart of humanity as well. The point was not to be naive and deny problems that must be faced, but to return to the origins of creation and symbolically participate in the capacity of life to renew itself.

For, small and insignificant as we may increasingly feel, we carry within our souls a spark that is connected to the galaxies and to the origins of creation. On one hand we are time bound, on the other we are secretly tied to eternal things that transcend the limits of time and place. By symbolically participating in the dissolution of time, ancient people were temporarily delivered from their faults and failings and had their original life potentials restored.

Although this primordial sense of rejuvenation and renewal does not remove suffering or injustice from the world, it becomes more important if we are to avoid overwhelm and navigate the chaotic and exhausting times in which we live.

We live amidst a shattering of paradigms that radically alter familiar patterns in both nature and culture. As the future of the Earth itself becomes increasingly uncertain, the search for genuine knowledge begins with accepting the sense that we truly do not know what the New Year might bring. To find the kinds of insight and wisdom we most need, we must accept the condition of “not knowing” that parallels the uncertainty and darkness that appear before creation occurs.

Inside all stuck situations there is a deep vulnerability that can lead to a release of unexpected imagination and inspired ideas. In Zen Buddhist traditions the practice of shoshin translates as “beginner’s mind.” Shoshin begins where received ideas and accepted patterns are left behind as an innate capacity to awaken from within begins with “not knowing.” The open and humble attitude of a beginner makes us less likely to simply repeat old patterns of behavior.

While those who claim to be able to solve the complex problems we face may claim dogmatic certainty, the openness of the beginner is more likely to find the true nature of a situation. A principle idea in shoshin is that in the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few. Thus, beginner’s mind offers a particular kind of wisdom based upon a willingness to be at the edge where life remains open to many possibilities and unrealized potentials.

In keeping with the sense of many possibilities, the ancient term for beginner’s mind has more than one meaning. Shoshin can also mean something or someone that conveys “genuine truth.” Thus, it can refer to a work of art or a person that is genuine and not a fake or an imitation. When we draw from the root of our deeper self, we become more authentic and able to act in alignment with the inner spirit and the genuine aim of our souls.

As a practice, beginner’s mind can also involve the sense of forgiveness. For only when we forgive ourselves for mistakes and misdeeds can we let go of the ties that bind us and be released from the need to repeat the mistakes of the past. In that sense, not knowing, being open to change and forgiving ourselves and others turn out to be key ingredients in seeking to rejuvenate, start anew and be able to imagine and contribute to a better world.

Something ancient and knowing is trying to catch up to us and being fully present when a moment in time breaks open to unseen possibilities depends upon practices like beginner’s mind that help us be authentic and original and able to start anew. In being more open and forgiving we become more able to unlock untapped capacities for creativity, flexibility, and resilience.

In the open moments of life we become connected to the heart of nature again and can sense what the ancients meant in saying that all of life is sacred; and that can be a grace in the world and at the edge of every moment.

We at Mosaic wish for you and for all of us, that we might allow ourselves to be touched by the eternal, be blessed by the sacred and become more able to help with the healing of the Earth and each other.

– Michael Meade
December 29, 2024

Saturday, December 21, 2024

Honoring the Inner Light of the Soul

Saturday, February 18, 2023

Michael Meade on “Slowing Downwards”

Writes Michael Meade . . .

“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.

For more of Michael Meade at The Wild Reed, see:
• Soul: The Connecting Force in Life
• The Way of Love and Healing
• Where Soul Would Have Us Go

See also the previous posts:
• Awakening the Wild Soul
• Trust and Surender: “The Soul’s Foundation”
• Thomas Moore on the “Ageless Soul”
• The Soul’s Beloved
• Brigit Anna McNeill on Hearing the Wild and Natural Call to Go Inwards
• To Dream, to Feel, to Listen
• Honoring the Dark While Celebrating the Light
• Thomas Moore on the Circling of Nature as the Best Way to Find Our Substance
• “Radical Returnings” – Mayday 2016
• Balancing the Fire
• A Sacred Pause
• Aligning With the Living Light
• Mystical Participation
• Returning the Mind to God
• The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present in the Moment
• Being the Light
• The Mysticism of Trees
• Mistwalking
• Holy Encounters Where Two Worlds Meet
• The Prayer Tree
• Cosmic Connection

Thursday, February 02, 2023

The Way of Love and Healing

Writes Michael Meade . . .

When the time comes for the heart to open fully again, the old fears will awaken and the inner walls will tighten up. Although fear can become terrifying and paralyzing, what we most fear is where we must go. “Fear is the guide for the true direction of the heart,” they used to say when considering the courage required to become oneself. Our way of loving and healing is seeded within us, yet it takes more than one breakthrough to reach the inner treasure. A long road made of longing and self-discovery is required in order to re-open the heart and reveal the gold within it. Another old proverb states that “what the heart loves is the cure.” Life is the ailment and what we love provides the cure for what ails us.

Sunday, August 07, 2022

Where Soul Would Have Us Go

It is part of the mystery of life on earth that the human soul can awaken, grow greater, and reveal inner gifts when everything turns dark and seems about to fall apart. Soul does not fear a downturn or seek to avoid a period of darkness. Soul carries a deeper wisdom and darker knowledge born of descent and loss and renewal. Soul would have us go where we fear to go in order to learn who we are intended to be.

– Michael Meade

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Soul: The Connecting Force in Life
• Thomas Moore on the “Ageless Soul”
• The Soul’s Beloved
• You Are My Goal, Beloved One
• Awakening the Wild Soul
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Andrew Harvey
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Caroline Jones
• Thomas Moore on the Circling of Nature as the Best Way to Find Our Substance
• Soul Deep
• The Soul Within the Soul
• The Source Is Within You
• Spiritual Caregivers as “Soul Companions”
• Arthur Kleinman on the “Soul of Care”
• The Soul of a Dancer

Image: A filter-treated image of Syrian-born dancer Ahmad Joudeh, whose autobiography, Dance or Die, I’m currently reading. Ahmad dedicates his memoir “to the spirit that guides every single one of us, in the memory of the soul, where the flame is, our spirits glow.”

The Wild Reed

Wednesday, February 11, 2026

Memes of the Times

Monday, January 20, 2025

Inauguration Day Thoughts

Wednesday, January 01, 2025

Wisdom at the Edge

Saturday, December 21, 2024

Honoring the Inner Light of the Soul

Saturday, February 18, 2023

Michael Meade on “Slowing Downwards”

Thursday, February 02, 2023

The Way of Love and Healing

Sunday, August 07, 2022

Where Soul Would Have Us Go

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