In this episode of Pathways to Resilience, I sit down with renowned storyteller, author, and scholar of mythology, anthropology, and psychology, Michael Meade, to discuss matters of the Soul. What is Soul; how do we understand it mythologically and in our day to day lives? How has our cultural descent into literalism and materialism suffocated our connection to Soul and therefore to authenticity, wonder, beauty, and possibility? And lastly, how do we reclaim Soul as a guide to steer us through the troubled waters of the times within which we live.
In this episode of Pathways to Resilience, I sit down with Dahr Jamail and Barbara Cecil to talk about their new monthly article series in the publication Truthout, titled, How Then Shall We Live; Finding our way amidst global collapse. The monthly series invites the reader to face the darkness of an uncertain future not with fear but instead with an open, honest, and humble heart, mind, and spirit, that can hold the all of the grief, beauty, despair, and possibility that comes with deep change.
Sacred paths the world over help hikers discover deeper truths about the world and themselves. But what truly makes a path transformative? Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan treks a new 170-mile loop in Montana in search of the pilgrimage she needs.
Pilgrimage is ultimately an expression of healthy power. Power that derives its source from embodiment: from the body of the earth, the body of the journeyer, the body of the group, and from the body of soul—the larger than human force that connects us to the cosmos and in turn to beauty, awe, wonder, and, most importantly, magic. In this embodiment, we find healing. In this embodiment, we are restor(y)ed, re-membered and re-imagined. In this embodiment, we are given the seeds of our future self to take home and water through our work, relationships, and lives. In this sense, the end of the pilgrimage is really only the beginning of a much longer conversation and journey.
Within the reality of death lies a paradox that is crucial to our understanding of the lived experience: that our relationship to life can only be as healthy as our relationship to death.