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

— Michael Meade

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

— Michael Meade

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

— Michael Meade

Amidst the rush and confusion of modern life something old and wise is trying to catch up with us. Whereas simple knowledge tends to divide things, genuine wisdom tends to make meaningful unity possible.

— Michael Meade

An old Celtic proverb boldly places death right at the center of life. ‘Death is the middle of a long life,’ they used to say. Ancient people did things like that; they put death at the center instead of casting it out of sight and leaving such an important subject until the last possible moment. Of course, they lived close to nature and couldn’t help but see how the forest grew from fallen trees and how death seemed to replenish life from fallen members. Only the unwise and the overly fearful think that death is the blind enemy of life.

— Michael Meade

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.

— Michael Meade

As people used to say, “What the heart loves is the cure.” The cure for healing the wounds and conflicts between faiths and systems of belief involves awakening to the unique ways that each heart carries devotion and love. When followed far enough, simple belief can transform into wisdom; raw passions can become a greater compassion that trusts what resides in one’s heart and even in the hearts of others. Until the heart opens, and the eyes begin to see there is always the danger of blindness and narrowness and the tendency to hold onto narrow ways of being.

— Michael Meade

At critical moments in the life of individuals and of societies, it is not necessarily the facts that are needed as much as a profound narrative that makes sense of life’s conflicts and misunderstandings. When all seems to be falling apart and becoming less rational and more chaotic, it is usually a different story that is needed to make things whole again. Mythic imagination can break the spell of time and open us to a level of life that remains timeless. Myth is not about what happened in past times; myth is about what happens to people all the time.

— Michael Meade

At critical moments the veil between the little-self and the deep self thins and a meaningful self-adjustment becomes possible. If a person does not become paralyzed with fear or frozen in hatred, the wise self hidden within will rise to the occasion.

— Michael Meade

A true pilgrimage requires letting go of the very things most people try to hold onto. In seeking after what the soul desires, we become pilgrims with no home but the path the soul would have us follow.

— Michael Meade