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Living Myth

Episode 446 - On the Wings of Myth

Living Myth

Michael Meade

Transformation, Philosophy, Society & Culture, Genius, Education, Myth, Soul, Culture

4.9944 Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This episode begins with a description of the youngest sisters and youngest brothers in fairy tales. They seem out of place and behind everyone else, yet they are the only ones able to break the collective spells of materialism, resentment and despair. They represent the genuine dreamer inside all of us and they are deeply connected to the dream of life and the wisdom of mythology. As agents of myth they have exactly what this troubled world most needs. However, it is the attitudes of the older brothers and sisters that prevail in the daily world. Only after all else has failed will people turn to the youngest sister or brother within who has been holding onto the true dream of life all along.

 

 

Michael Meade then lays out the old idea of the Three Kinds of Thinking: the logical, the psychological and the mythological. Following the trail of the youngest aspects of the psyche, he shows how when all else makes no sense, mythic imagination makes the most sense. Myth is the deepest layer of life where grace and wisdom and even redemption can be found.

 

 

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to the Living Myth podcast with Michael Mead, where this shifting, changing world is looked at from a mythic perspective.

0:20.5

This episode begins with the description of the youngest

0:23.4

sisters and youngest brothers in fairy tales. They seem out of place and behind everyone else,

0:29.9

yet they are the only ones able to break the collective spells of materialism, resentment, and

0:35.4

despair. They represent the genuine dreamer inside all of us,

0:39.4

and they are deeply connected to the dream of life and the wisdom of mythology. Mead then lays

0:46.1

out the old idea of the three kinds of thinking, the logical, the psychological, and the

0:52.6

mythological. Following the trail of the youngest aspects of the psyche, he shows how when all else makes no sense, mythic imagination can make the most sense. Thanks. There's an old idea that says,

1:19.5

When the common world is making less and less sense,

1:24.5

mythology makes more sense.

1:27.8

There's a way in which one of the functions of myth

1:31.4

is to make the world meaningful,

1:35.7

meaningful in deep ways.

1:38.4

It could also be said,

1:40.4

being meaningful is essential to the human soul.

1:49.7

And so it could also be said that mythology is essential to the human soul. And the part of the soul most connected to mythic imagination, to narrative intelligence, and to the instinct to be part of creation in the world

2:06.5

is the youngest part of the soul. If you think of all those fairy tales and folk tales

2:14.1

where there's the three sisters or the three brothers, usually three at a time,

2:23.0

myth works in threes, third time is a charm.

2:27.9

And the youngest of the three sisters or youngest of the three brothers is the one who has the charm.

2:35.2

And usually the youngest is considered slow-minded or dreamy or out of touch.

2:44.1

And yet, when nothing else is working and everyone is either under a spell or stuck somehow. In the stories, it's the youngest

...

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