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

On this episode, Mead considers the sources and meanings of grace and gratitude,

two words that are connected and come from the same ancient roots.

Gratitude is like a flower rooted in the heart that seeks to blossom from within us.

Grace is a state of awe that can fall upon us unexpectedly and reveal the hidden beauty and wonder of creation.

The instinct to give thanks seeks moments of wholeness that help bring a sense of grace back to the world.

We are most human when we allow ourselves to be touched by the wonder of the world,

and when we feel gratitude for the life we have been given.

Thank you. The ancient Greeks had the notion that there was two ways to account for what happens in the world. And one way was logic, reason, Logos was the Greek word, and the other was mythos. And mythos was everything

that wasn't logos. And so that meant that mythos included all the emotions and all the feeling

states, but also all the imagination. All the things that weren't logical and factual and literal

were part of mythos, the mythological

world. And grace and gratitude are part of that world. Grace is not about achievement or

accumulation as in the materialistic world. It's about surrender and sudden abundance within. Grace, in a sense, falls upon us and we can also fall out of

grace. And one way to understand the modern world is a world that's fallen out of grace. So the

sense of grace and gratitude are actually big things that are supportive of human life,

but also that are indications of the growth of a spiritual and soulful sense of oneself.

Gratitude, the reason I say growth is because gratitude involves a state of wholeness,

even it lasts only for a moment.

If a person is too fragmented, they can't have gratitude.

Gratitude requires that we're whole for a moment.

Everything comes together and we feel grateful.

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