Accidental Gods (Accidental Gods)
Explore every episode of Accidental Gods
| Pub. Date | Title | Duration | |
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| 25 Aug 2021 | Power to the People: an Energy R-Evolution for the 21st Century with Howard Johns | 00:59:25 | |
How are we going to create the power that we need in a world where fossil fuel use has to end? How can we end the central control of power and keep safe our data in a world where data-mining is a pernicious - and lucrative - as coal mining? Howard Johns has spent all his professional life finding answers. He shares them here. Howard was a climate activist on the front lines until he realised that he needed ways to say 'yes', instead of 'no'. Accordingly, he set about building solutions, eventually founding Southern Solar a national solar energy company, and Ovesco a locally owned renewable energy cooperative. At the same time he chaired the trade body representing the UK solar industry, finding himself once again a campaigner around energy policy in the process. A believer in solutions, Howard is convinced we have all the technology and money we need to implement the climate and energy solutions we need. It is now time for lots of people to get involved with making it happen. Howard TED talk: https://youtu.be/pkGAMb5sYvg | |||
| 13 Dec 2023 | Bright Fires, Dark Nights: Connecting deeply and building tribe as we head to the Solstice with Angharad Wynne | 01:00:51 | |
This week, as we head down towards what, in the northern hemisphere at least, is the long nights, the dark nights, I wanted to explore our heritage, the way we celebrate the solstice in this land, the land of Britain. I'm aware that quite a lot of you listening are from the southern hemisphere where you're heading up to your long sun and your fires burn differently. I recorded a summer solstice meditation at our long days in June and when we get to the meditation - after the podcast with Della Duncan and Nathalie Nahai, I'll put that up. In the meantime, I hope this conversation with Angharad Wynne helps open doors to reconnection wherever you are in the world. Angharad is a story-teller, a placemaker, a myth-creator holder of tribe and of the land. A native of Wales, she is deeply connected to the land there, and holds retreats and workshops designed to help people connect with the living spirits of the land. In the podcast you're about to hear, she describes her 3 year "Dadeni" training which helps to create the deep tribe-connections, community-connections we speak about in the podcast. If you're interested in this, applications are open until 21st January and the link is in the show notes. I'd also like to remind you that if you have ideas of previous podcast guests - including Angharad, or anyone you've heard over the years - that you'd like us to invite for one of our Sunday evening 'Cutting Edge' events please click the link in the show notes, or go to the podcast section of the website and find the button there and let us know. this is your chance to talk to people, to ask the questions I didn't get around to asking, but you wish I had. And then afterwards, there'll be a chance to connect with other people in breakout rooms, to share your thoughts and ideas and ways of grounding what you've heard in everyday life. So, it's the dark month, the time when we rest, and regather and recoup. The time when we light the fire and invite our tribe to join us. In the spirit of connection, people of the podcast, please welcome, Angharad Wynne, a bard of Wales. Angharad's site https://www.angharadwynne.com/ | |||
| 22 May 2024 | The Story is in our Bones: Rewilding Ourselves with author and activist Osprey Orielle Lake | 01:04:49 | |
Once in a while, a book comes along that changes how we see the world, that re-sets something fundamental in who we are and our capacity to engage with the Web of Life. Braided Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer was one of these: at once poetically beautiful, spiritually inspiring and deeply thought-provoking. The author is an extraordinary person, founder and executive director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) which was created to accelerate a global women's movement for the protection and defense of the Earth’s diverse ecosystems and communities. She sits on the executive committee for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature whose goal is to 'transform our human relationship with our planet' and on the steering committee for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is modelled on the Nuclear non-proliferation treaties of the last millennium, and seeks to manage a global transition to safe, renewable and affordable energy for all. In short, she works internationally with grassroots, BIPOC and Indigenous leaders, policymakers, and diverse coalitions to build climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a decentralized, democratized clean-energy future. This is one of those conversations that dived deep into the heart of what really matters - how we bring ourselves to a place of genuine connection with the Web of Life - in time - and in ways that will create the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. We could have talked for hours, and I have no doubt we'll come back again, but in the meantime, please enjoy the many layers of being and belonging that Osprey brings to all her work. Buy the Book 'The Story is in Our Bones' Osprey on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ospreyorielle.lake/ | |||
| 09 Apr 2025 | Wellbeing: It’s about wholeness, not happiness - with Dr Mark Fabian, author of Beyond Happy | 01:48:00 | |
We grow up thinking we want to be happy (or at least, not-sad). But happiness isn't enough. What we need is wellbeing, and as Dr Mark Fabian quotes in the dedication to his book, Beyond Happy, "Wellbeing is about wholeness, not happiness, and wholeness is so much more demanding than happiness.' So what is wholeness, and what does it demand of us? As the old world crumbles and the new is struggling into being, what steps can each of us take to bring ourselves ever closer to a sense of being complete? This week's guest, Dr Mark Fabian, is Associate Professor of Public Policy at the University of Warwick, and an affiliate fellow at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. In, Beyond Happy, his first book for a general audience, he explores how evolution has wired us to keep happiness just out of reach, leaving us perpetually stuck on a happiness treadmill. Instead of striving to escape it, he argues that we should focus on making the treadmill a place we want to be. Finding this place of relative equanimity begins with listening to our emotions, discovering intrinsic motivation and pursuing our authentic values. Mark coaches us through this process of self-actualisation and then knits it together into a collective, cooperative way of being, building relationships that matter and that work. Mark's book will be available in April - here: https://bedfordsquarepublishers.co.uk/book/beyond-happy/ Or order from your favourite local independent bookshop. Please remember to put a review up on Amazon and GoodReads as well as anywhere else you feel is worthwhile. (this applies to every book you read and like - algorithms matter) and If you want to share the journey with us, we're here: | |||
| 29 Apr 2020 | Lockdown: A moment of death and rebirth - A conversation with Angharad Wynne | 01:02:20 | |
If Lockdown is a moment of death and rebirth, what do we want to conceive? And how can we connect to the Web of Life in ways that will help us to conceive the best possible future? Angharad Wynne offers the wisdom of a life lived on the edge of being - and a close encounter with death - to this conversation of ancestors, Brythonic lore and red kites. Angharad Wynne is a visionary, land-walker and storyteller. She works to reconnect people from around the world with the wild lands and ancient lore of Britain. Her own encounter with death has transformed an already-deep connection to the land, and the lore of the islands of Britain. She draws inspiration from her storytelling - and the ways it is led by the deeper needs of the ancestors to have their voices heard - and from her spiritual practice, leading pilgrimages deep into the edge-spaces of Wales. She is a profoundly spiritual individual with a deep, grounded, authentic understanding of the potential of this moment - and the world's most beautiful voice. Her website is here: https://www.angharadwynne.com Cae Mabon is here: https://www.caemabon.co.uk and the book she mentions is here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ancestral-Medicine-Rituals-Personal-Healing/dp/1591432693/ref=sr_1_1
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| 03 Mar 2021 | Meeting our needs, healing the earth: Donnie Maclurcan of the post growth institute | 01:11:51 | |
Suppose we already have all the answers to the crises that assail us? Suppose countless people, companies, non-profit organisations and local community groups were already working to change the way things work? And suppose we could knit these together into a movement for change? Donnie Maclurcan of the Post Growth Institute explores the ways we can find a generative future. Donnie is a facilitator, author and social entrepreneur, passionate about all things not-for-profit. Originally from Australia, he moved to the U.S. in 2013, from where he coordinates the Post Growth Institute. As a consultant, he has worked in Egypt, Kenya, Fiji, Thailand and South Korea, helping 500+ not-for-profit projects start, scale and sustain their work, while his own initiatives include developing: Free Money Day, the Post Growth Alliance, the (En)Rich List, the Offers and Needs Market process, The Not for Profit Waytraining, Silent Skype team meetings, Project Australia, and the globally-used #postgrowth hashtag. An Affiliate Professor of Economics at Southern Oregon University and Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, Donnie holds a Ph.D. in social science. He is passionate about the concept that we already have the answers to the current world, social, cultural, climatic, ecological and economic crises - and that if we can understand this fact, it will help us to work towards answers that will work. In the podcast, he explores the ways in which we can spread this understanding, and build on it to create a generative future. He focuses on the things that are already working - and ways we can shift the focus of our economy away from the massive hoarding of wealth by big multinationals and the global hyper-rich. How on Earth: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/How-on-Earth-by-Donald-Maclurcan-author-Jen-Hinton-author/9780990369004 | |||
| 19 May 2021 | River Dart Wild Church: Druid Christian Sam Wernham, founder of a land-based church explores the nature of wild contemplation. | 01:04:46 | |
How does it feel to stand at the balance point between ancient Christian mysticism and the Druid's path of deep connection with the natural world? What do we become if we marry the traditions of Christianity with the far older, land-based traditions of this land - and all lands? In a living answer to these questions, Rev Sam Wernham founded the River Dart Wild Church and the Wild Monastics, as well as the Wild Spirit Community - all dedicated to a deep and sacred connection with the land. "When do you feel most alive? When are you most open and connected with a deeper sense of being? When do you fall in love with life and want to turn towards the world with hope and care? Perhaps, like us, your sacred ground is the earth under your feet… your sacred spaces are cathedrals of trees with branches filled with wind and rain, sunlight or stars… your baptismal pools are filled with deep brown river water or the wild and salty sea. Perhaps, like us, you yearn to share this… for spiritual community, for authentic meeting and deep silence with people and with all beings. So, welcome to wild church!" In this podcast, we explore Sam's journey to the founding of the Wild Church and Wild Monastics - how these fulfil the need for deep connection, and where her spiritual activism has taken her since the pandemic began. Wild Church (including Wild Monastics): https://www.riverdartwildchurch.com Wild Wisdom School: https://wildwisdomschool.com Wild Spirit Community: https://wildspiritcommunity.com/founder/ Blog Post: Returning to the Monastery of the Heart | |||
| 01 Sep 2021 | Thresholds of Being: Connecting to the webs of land, life and death with Dr Sharon Blackie | 00:59:01 | |
In a world where the only constant is change, how can we find the best of our wisdom? How can we find true connection to the spirits of the places we live so that we might learn better how to be in the transition that is coming? How, above all, can we approach death with equanimity, and even joy? This week, we explore all of this with author, mythicist - and elder - Sharon Blackie. Dr. Sharon Blackie is an award-winning writer and internationally recognised teacher whose work sits at the interface of psychology, mythology and ecology. Her highly acclaimed books, courses, lectures and workshops are focused on the development of the mythic imagination, and on the relevance of our native myths, fairy tales and folk traditions to the personal, social and environmental problems we face today. As well as writing four books of fiction and nonfiction, including the bestselling If Women Rose Rooted, her writing has appeared in the Guardian, the Irish Times, the Scotsman and more, and she has been interviewed by the BBC and other major broadcasters on her areas of expertise. Sharon is one of those rare people who walks her talk in every part of her life. Through the past decades, she has lived in each one of the Celtic lands: Scotland, then Ireland, then Wales, always in remote areas with few people and a wild, powerful landscape. Her deep roots to our mythology and to the spirits of place have left her uniquely placed to speak to and of the old ways of our ancestors - and the ways we can avail ourselves of the ancient wisdom of lineage and place to weave new ways of being that will help to guide us through the change that is coming. This week's podcast is a deep, deep dive into our shamanic past and our future. Join us and step beyond the veils.
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| 08 Dec 2021 | Ministry for the Future: exploring the ways through that work with Kim Stanley Robinson | 01:01:37 | |
How can we get from the current edge-of-catastrophe to a world where we have addressed the huge issues of the climate and ecological emergency? Only in fiction can we bring the answers together in a vision of a better world. Author Kim Stanley Robinson talks about his 'The Ministry for the Future' - One of Barack Obama's favourite books of last year. 'If I could get policymakers and citizens everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future' Ezra Klein, Vox 'A novel that presents a rousing vision of how we might unite to overcome the greatest challenge of our time' TED.com 'A breathtaking look at the challenges that face our planet in all their sprawling magnitude and also in their intimate, individual moments of humanity' Booklist (starred review) 'Gutsy, humane . . . a must-read for anyone worried about the future of the planet' Publishers Weekly (starred review) 'A sweeping epic about climate change and humanity's efforts to try and turn the tide before it's too late' Polygon (Best of the Year) Kim Stanley Robinson is one of our foremost visionary writers. Author of 19 novels, numerous short stories, blogs and essays, his Ministry for the Future' was one of Barack Obama's 'must-read' books of 2020. This is one of the few genuine 'Thrutopian' novels which aims to take us from squarely where we are, through a clearly defined route (with all its pitfalls, prat-falls and fights back by the Status Quo) to a place where we have a decent chance of survival. In today's podcast, we explore the book, the author's experience of being invited to COP26 in Glasgow, and where we might go next. Buy the book: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Ministry-for-the-Future-by-Kim-Stanley-Robinson/9780356508863 KSR TED Talk - 'Letter from the year 2071' https://www.ted.com/talks/kim_stanley_robinson_remembering_climate_change_a_message_from_the_year_2071#t-594961 | |||
| 24 Feb 2021 | Breaking the Austerity Myth: The system is broken - but we can mend it. With Richard Murphy | 01:10:27 | |
Imagine a world where we didn’t always feel as if money was tight. Imagine an economy that works for the health and welfare of people and planet rather than all of us working for the health of the economy. Richard Murphy describes where money comes from and how we could use it differently. We all know the economy is broken - that the experiment of free market capitalism has driven us to the edge of extinction. The problem is working out what to replace it with that will help us to find new ways of being without creating such havoc that lives are destroyed in the process. In this first of a two-part series, Richard Murphy explores ways we can change the current system to create a different world. Richard Murphy is a political economist, author of the book 'The Joy of Tax', and is a visiting professor at Sheffield, Anglia Ruskin and City universities. He's an adviser at the Fair Tax Mark and was deeply involved in creating the first iteration of the Green New Deal in the UK. He writes the Tax Research Blog, which shines bright lights on the economic illiteracy of free-market governments. In our conversation, we explore how money is made in the current system, the mythology of austerity and how the world could be if we all understood the nature of the lies. When we all see the Emperor has no clothes, we can re-create a new way of doing and being. Tax Research Blog: https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/ | |||
| 09 Feb 2022 | The Whispers of a New World: Stepping into a different future with Tamsin Omond, activist and visionary | 01:14:47 | |
How can we shape our culture to be one where everyone thrives? How can we write our new stories where everyone is heroic? How can we connect to the world of spirit in ways that include everyone? With Tamsin Omond, climate activist, strategist, organiser and author of DO/Earth. Since dropping banners against Heathrow Airport's third runway from the roof of the Houses of Parliament, Tamsin has consistently shifted public conversation on the climate and ecological emergency. They have organised a number of high profile protests, co-founded a Suffragette inspired environmental campaign - Climate Rush, coordinated (the successful) Save England's Forests coalition, founded a CIC - The Momentum Project - that mobilises the community surrounding London City Airport, led global corporate campaigns as Head of Global Campaigns at Lush Cosmetics and been a founding member of Extinction Rebellion. In 2021 Tamsin stood for co-leadership of the Green Party of England and Wales. They are also active in queer uprising; a theatre maker and the author of two books - RUSH! The Making of a Climate Activist and Do Earth: Healing Strategies for Humankind. In this episode, we explore the nature of activism and how it is evolving; how to create community from the ground up, based on Tamsin's experiences in East London, amongst others, and how we can shape a world where the transactional, zero-sum nature of our current system is no longer the driving force. Links: Tamsin's Website: https://www.tamsinomond.com/ | |||
| 31 May 2023 | Primary Strategy: Growing a new voting paradigm in the South Devon Primary | 01:10:00 | |
To look at these three in more depth and so understand where they're coming from: Simon Oldridge was an accountant with Ernst and Young and then CEO of a manufacturing company. More recently, his awareness of the climate and ecological crisis has led him to engage with a group endeavouring to put forward a Climate and Ecology Bill to the UK parliament (he talks about this in the podcast) and to set up the South Devon Primary campaign which you'll hear about in much more depth. Anthea Simmons is Editor in Chief of the progressive online paper, West Country Voices, speaker for Devon for Europe and author of a number of books, including one for young climate activists. Before that, rather like Simon, she worked in financial asset management. She's a passionate advocate for the South Devon Primary and invented the Democracy Meter, which you're also hear about in the conversation. Ben Long is an author and educator and currently helps his partner run her ceramics business in Devon. He didn't join us on the podcast - partly because I think two extra voices is enough to contend with - but he's a core part of the work of South Devon Primary. And that work is practical, active, really intelligently targeted and if it were taken up around the country, could do more, I think, to shape the outcome of the next general election than anything else I've found. Listen, enjoy - and then make this happen as near to wherever you live as you can. South Devon Primary Website https://www.southdevonprimary.org/ Simon - Twitter thread w Local MP https://twitter.com/SiOldridge/status/1641713280967213056 | |||
| 05 Oct 2022 | Flourish: Designing new paradigms and expanding our agency with Sarah Ichioka | 01:16:18 | |
What will it take to restore balance in our world? How can we repair our devastated environments, and secure future generations' survival? And what's they key to unlock the mindset shift to enable truly regenerative transformation? With Sarah Ichioka, co-author of 'Flourish: Design Paradigms for our Planetary Emergency'. Sarah Ichioka is co-author with Michael Pawlyn of 'Flourish' a rich, inspiring book that outlines key paradigm shifts for this time of planetary emergency. Looking deeply into the web of life, Flourish proposes a bold, imaginative - and do-able - set of regenerative principles to transform how we design, make and manage our buildings and our communities. Sarah is an urbanist, curator, writer and podcast host. Connecting cities, culture and ecology, she has been recognised as a World Cities Summit Young Leader, and one of the Global Public Interest Design 100. She is founding director of the Singapore-based strategic consultancy 'Desire Lines' and is co-author, with Michael Pawlyn, of the book 'Flourish' and co-host with Michael of the Flourish podcast. In this expansive, incisive conversation, Sarah expands on the five paradigms she and Michael identified that are holding us back in the old 'business as usual' frame and the ways we can shift our world-view to new ways of thinking, being - and designing our lives. Drawing on the work of foundational thinkers like Freya Matthews, Donella Meadows, Janine Benyus and Ronan Krznaric, plus existing communities such as the Los Angeles Eco Village, Sarah shows us that the ideas and actions are already in place, we just need to build them bigger, proving that, as Willam Gibson has said, the future is here, it's just unevenly distributed. Flourish book: https://www.flourish-book.com Donella Meadows Leverage Points: https://donellameadows.org/a-visual-approach-to-leverage-points/ Freya Matthews: http://www.freyamathews.net | |||
| 20 Jul 2022 | Bridging the Gap: finding truth, reconciliation and climate justice with Saurav Roy | 01:05:36 | |
With a track record of founding startups at a young age, and executing entrepreneurial roles in global non-profits, Saurav Roy was selected as one of the youngest Global Shapers by the World Economic Forum at Bangalore in 2017. Since then, he has studied for a Masters in Regenerative Economics at Schumacher Collage, and is now working for the Carbon Tracker Initiative, a London-based, independent financial think tank that strives to influence the nature of global finance, away from stranded fossil fuel assets. It has cemented the terms 'Carbon bubble', 'stranded assets' and 'unburnable carbon' into the financial lexicon. Saurav's Master's thesis focused on the 'just transition' elements of the Green New Deal with the realisation that 'everything would change and everything would stay the same' in terms of the balance between the global north's endless consumption at the expense of human dignity, ecosystem annihilation and cultural balance in the global south. He examined the lack of supply chain justice in the existing concepts, evolved radical, inspiring ideas of how a global token system might fund non-debt-based climate reparations, and created the idea of a 'Carbon Truth and Reconciliation Commission' - because not all climate devastation can be healed simply by throwing money at it. In this inspiring, thought-provoking episode, we explore these ideas in depth, evolving ideas and questions for COP27 and learn Saurav's three core concepts for healing our times. Saurav on LinkedIn | |||
| 18 Feb 2021 | The Town that shaped its world: Pam Barrett on FlatPack/DIY Democracy and taking charge of politics | 01:08:05 | |
We all know national politics is in chaos. But local governance can be a place of enlivening, inspiring, radical change. Pam Barrett speaks of her work to change the nature of her local town council - what she achieved - and how we can do the same. Pam Barrett worked at the heart of the Westminster government's civil service. Then she moved to picturesque Buckfastleigh, a mill town on the edge of Dartmoor in Devon, and began to see how badly the town was served by the town and regional councils. She started a group to preserve the town's only swimming pool. That grew, and the pool was saved, and she moved on, in time, to stand as an independent for the town council. A group of others stood with her, and they gained 9 seats on a 12 seat council. Which meant they could do things, make things happen... discover the freedom that local democracy gives if it truly serves the local people. and, like almost all participatory budgeting, when people have a chance to really see what their money goes towards - they did want it, and they were happy to pay. So that four years later, when the council came up for re-election, 10 independent councillors stood and 10 were elected. Pam's story is one of agency, and local empowerment and it can play out pretty much anywhere in the world where democracy is still alive. Listen in and be inspired - then go out and see what you can do in your local area.
Trust the People online Training: https://actionnetwork.org/events/trust-the-people-online-course-spring-2021
Positive News on Pam Barrett and Buckfastleigh: https://www.positive.news/uk/the-devonshire-town-that-transformed-local-democracy/ Handforth Parish Council Zoom call (full) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsalmnyed7k Handforth Parish Council Zoom (highlights) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgGmYeAm0jk | |||
| 19 Jan 2022 | The UnderTorah: Exploring an Earth-Based Kabbalah of Dreams with Rabbi Jill Hammer | 01:04:53 | |
How do we understand dreams in ways that make sense of 21st Century life? How can we interpret them in ways that have meaning for us as individuals, in the complexity of our lives? Rabbi Jill Hammer has explored the depths of dreams and dreaming with her new book - and here talks to us about what she learned, and some of the dreams that touched her most deeply. Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, is an author, scholar, ritualist, poet, midrashist, and dreamworker. She is the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish Religion, a pluralistic seminary, and cofounder of the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, a program in earth-based, embodied, feminist Jewish spiritual leadership. North American listeners can PreOrder Jill's book here: https://ayinpress.org/undertorah/ UK and Europe: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Undertorah-An-Earth-Based-Kabbalah-of-Dreams-by-Jill-Hammer/9781532362002 Rabbi Jill Episode 12: https://accidentalgods.life/episode-12/ | |||
| 01 Jan 2020 | (Re) Awakening into Connection with the Web of Life | 00:25:04 | |
Re-Awakening into Connection is the core of what Accidental Gods is about – the return of our heritage, our birthright, our ability to live in context with the web of life. It’s not long in evolutionary terms, since we were a part of the living world, able to ask questions, and answer the questions that were asked of us. Now, as we stand on the cusp either of catastrophe or extraordinary change, we need to regain that capacity: we need to re-awaken our innate abilities so that we can take our part in the web of life, in full confidence that we are the right people in the right place at the right time to do whatever is asked of us to affect the change the world needs. So – how do we do this? How do we bring ourselves to a point where we can walk out into the natural world and open ourselves to a conversation that is going on every moment of every day and every night – without us? How can we ask questions and hear answers in a way that feels as if we are part of a genuine, authentic, reciprocal relationship? How can we become clear enough that our listening is not tainted by our egos, our judgements of self or other, our projections and our sheer terror of getting things wrong? (or right). In this podcast, we talk about this, and propose some answers. None of this happens overnight. We can’t undo the domestication of a lifetime in a few minutes – but it can be done. We are born able to connect. We just need to remember how. And then we need to take our place in the web of consciousness with a sense of integrity and confidence that we’re the right people in the right place at the right time, doing what is needed of us – without ego, projection or fear. It’s fun. Trust me. Listen to the full episode here or find out more and read the transcript at https://accidentalgods.life/awakening-into-connection/ Find us at: https://accidentalgods.life | |||
| 18 Dec 2024 | Solstice Cheer: Three Friends uphold a Podcasting Tradition with Della Duncan, Nathalie Nahai and Manda Scott | 01:28:58 | |
This is the fifth year of our traditional Winter Solstice podcast gathering in which Nathalie Nahai of 'In Conversation with Nathalie Nahai, Della Duncan of The Upstream Podcast and I sit around our virtual dark-nights fire to reflect on the podcasting year just gone and explore what has changed for us since the last time we three met in one place. By any measure, this year has been pretty turbulent and our capacity to predict anything at all for 2025 is fairly ragged, but that doesn't stop us from celebrating Della's news, and sharing the ways we find stability and maintain sanity in a world that feels increasingly precarious. Whatever else is happening, friendship is the glue that builds community and all of us - we who make the podcasts and everyone who listens - are building a de facto community of passion and purpose. So thank you for being there. I hope you enjoy what follows. Della Z Duncan is a Renegade Economist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a co-host of the Upstream Podcast, a Right Livelihood Coach, a faculty member at the California Institute of Integral Studies, a Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics, a founding member of the California Doughnut Economics Coalition, and the designer and co-facilitator of the Cultivating Regenerative Livelihood Course at Gaia Education. Nathalie Nahai is an author, keynote speaker and host of the Nathalie Nahai in Conversation podcast enquires into our relationship with one another, with technology and with the living world. She’s author of the international best-sellers Webs Of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion and, more recently, Business Unusual: Values, Uncertainty and the Psychology of Brand Resilience which has been described as “One of the defining business books of our times”. She’s a consultant, artist and the founder of Flourishing Futures Salon, a project that offers curated gastronomical gatherings that explore how we can thrive in times of turbulence and change.
Feeding Your Demons by Tsultrim Allione https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/feeding-your-demons-ancient-wisdom-for-resolving-inner-conflict-tsultrim-allione/1740345?ean=9781848501737 If you want to share the journey with us, we're here: | |||
| 12 Feb 2020 | Emerging from Complexity: how we become the change we need to see with Manda Scott | 00:24:12 | |
Emergence from Complex Systems is a thing. And the thing about it is, that there are only two options when a system reaches maximal complexity: collapse to chaos and extinction OR emergence to a new phase. We prefer the second option, so this is a look at complexity - and at the levers of change in any system. Complexity is all around us - in fact if we're looking for a distinction between complicatED things as opposed to comPLEX things, then it's that people make things complicated (but linear, and readily described) while the whole of the rest of the web of life makes things that are complex... from a cell to an organ to a human (or animal, or plant) body, to an ecosystem, to our climate, to the entire planetary biosphere... Anyway - if we're going to understand how we tick, if we're going to understand why the non-linear tipping points of complex systems trend towards infinity quite so fast (think methane hydrates boiling off in the arctic causing runaway global heating) - and particularly if we're going to get to grips with why and how we might reach a stage where conscious evolution is the next emergent property of the hyper-complex system of human society... We need to understand the basics of complexity. If you want to look more at her work, it's here | |||
| 11 Aug 2021 | Meeting the World unmasked - with Forrest Landry | 01:03:09 | |
When Forrest Landry was 16 years old, he took a vow to meet the Natural World openly, fully, without any projection or expectation on his part - he was not going to take one step and wait for the rest of the world to take 99 steps to him - he was going to go all the way. His life has been shaped by the experience - and he talks to us this week about where that has taken him. "Love is that which enables choice. Love is always stronger than Fear. Always choose on the basis of Love." – Forrest Landry You might know him as the founder and CEO of Magic Flight, a company among the first to introduce the portable vaporizer to the world, but Forrest Landry is really a philosopher, writer, researcher, scientist, engineer, craftsman, and teacher who has been studying and practicing the varied High Arts since the mid 70’s. Before creating Magic Flight, Forrest was a third generation master woodworker who found that he had a unique set of skills in large scale software systems design. This led to work in the production of several federal classified and unclassified systems, including various FBI investigative projects, TSC, IDW, DARPA, the Library of Congress Congressional Records System, and many others. This work was a fun diversion, but Forrest’s heart has always been most focused on metaphysics – the study of what is, what is the nature of being, what is the nature of knowing, and why are we all here. And, so, the most challenging system design that Forrest has tacked is his work “The Immanent Metaphysics” a decades long effort to restore legitimacy to the practice of metaphysics and construct a rigorous, coherent and precise statement of, well, everything. He talks to us this week of his experience in connecting with the world unmasked - about the considerations of life that it led to: what matters most and how we, too can connect with it. Forrest Landry TED Talk: https://youtu.be/iAmLRLc4ffk SolarPunk questions answered: https://mflb.com/civ_dev_1/solarpunk_questions_out.pdf Overall orientation to What is needed to meet the coming transformation: https://mflb.com/civ_dev_1/overall_recommendations_out.pdf Forrest Landry's technical investigations into the meaning of life: https://mflb.com/geek_index_1.html | |||
| 22 Jan 2025 | HeartFood - Healing our communities with Food grown on Regenerative Farms with Erin Martin of FreshRxOK | 01:12:03 | |
What happens when people with chronic, unstable diabetes eat food grown in local, regenerative farms? Erin Martin talks to the Accidental Gods podcast about the dramatic and spectacular improvements in health her group FreshRxOK saw in Oklahoma when they instigated a 'Food as Medicine' programme, offering real food with good nutrient density to diabetic patients in some of the poorest communities. An Oklahoman on track to be a lawyer, Erin’s first job in a retirement community inspired her to pursue a degree in gerontology instead. During her Masters program at USC, Erin ran a team of advocates serving over 700 low income older adults in the Southern California area. She was troubled by how little support people get as they age. So Erin founded Conscious Aging Solutions, a company dedicated to helping older adults navigate health and social systems so they can age successfully. As Erin’s work focused on strategies for longevity, she found that food—access to quality food—had an enormous impact on our life spans. As her interest in food grew, she became certified in Regenerative Soil Advocacy. Erin moved back home to Tulsa during the pandemic to find that the supply chain disruptions had only intensified what was already a food system problem in the city. Lack of access to nutritious foods was contributing to poor health outcomes and high mortality rates for Tulsans, especially those with chronic conditions. Recorded on the day of the US Presidential Inauguration, we talk about the shift from a sickness service to a health service and how food can help us move towards a more regenerative system. Most particularly, we talk about the truly spectacular health improvement indices in the diabetic patients who benefit from the FreshRxOK programme. Erin's website: https://www.erinwmartin.com/
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| 22 Apr 2020 | What If....? A journey through time and place | 00:30:00 | |
As discussed in episode 9, this is a thirty minute mediation focussed on the question of WHAT IF we got it all right from this moment forward. If we can really begin to feel the emotional reality as a physical thing, a felt-sense in our bodies, so that it suffuses all of us - then we can aim for this. If you want longer variations - or if you live in the Southern hemisphere and would prefer to go north, than south - you'll find more here: https://accidentalgods.life/what-if-imagining-the-new-future-our-hearts-know-is-possible/ | |||
| 04 Jun 2024 | Breaking the Doom-Loop of UK Politics with Neal Lawson of Compass | 00:36:34 | |
Our first Election Special with friend of the podcast, Neal Lawson. Neal is Director of the progressive campaign group, Compass and co-host of the Compass podcast ,called It's Bloody Complicated. Neal is a long-time progressive campaigner and a tireless advocate for Proportional Representation as a vehicle for radical progressive change in the way we do politics. In this swift half hour, we look at the circumstances of this utterly unexpected election and Neal explains the practical steps we can take between now and polling day with the aim of brining about what he calls a progressive 'Pitch Invasion' that will fundamentally upgrade and update the way we arrange our governance structures... Neal Lawson on Twitter https://x.com/neal_compass | |||
| 11 Oct 2023 | The Web of Life & New Tech Webs – A Beautiful Connection? with Monty Merlin of ReFi DAO | 01:24:08 | |
How much do you know about AI, blockchain and Web 3.0? If you're like us, the answer is probably very little. But these techs are going to change our world out of all recognition and while there is the potential for catastrophe, in the right hands, the same technology has the potential to help us shape the future we'd all be proud to leave behind and this is what this podcast is about. Monty is one of the founders of ReFi DAO. Monty is working deeply and effectively at the cutting edge of emergence, a change-maker working on many different scales to build a future we'd be proud to leave behind. He is helping to build a global network of regenerative communities and start-ups and then taking those ideas out into the world as a public speaker and evangelist for ReFi & Regeneration. His public work includes a TEDx talk titled 'Can Crypto Regenerate the World?'. He has an undergraduate and Master's degree in Management & Innovation, with specialism in sustainability, digital technologies, blockchain, and design & systems thinking. This conversation ranged across landscapes from the nature of greenwashing to the potential for borderless nations, from the way financial markets currently underpin the existing structures, to how they could be tilted to underpin a whole new regenerative paradigm. We explored the difference between what's sustainable and what's regenerative - and discovered what's actually happening now, that you could be involved with in your communities of place, purpose and passion. I say the word, 'inspiring' way too often in this podcast, and I apologise in advance, but it's true: knowing that this is happening is one of the bright points of this year and I am genuinely thrilled to be able to share it with you. ReFi DAO https://www.refidao.com/ | |||
| 24 Apr 2024 | Eco-Spirituality - Exploring Deep in the Woods of the Divine with Woodford Roberts and Rupert Read | 01:19:47 | |
In this deep, thoughtful conversation, two of the men at the heart of the Climate Majority Project discuss their own journeys into eco-spirituality - what they believe it to be and why it's a core, foundational bedrock of their lives. If you follow anything else that Faith and I do together, you'll know that we believe heart-felt connection to the All That Is forms the bedrock of human existence and is the pathway to human flourishing, to our being good ancestors, to laying that foundation on which future generations can build a world where we are an integral part of the web of life. The whole of the Accidental Gods membership program exists to help people find ways to make this heartfelt connection and the Dreaming Awake contemporary shamanic training takes it more deeply. We don't often get to unpick this in depth here on the podcast. But long term friend of the podcast, the author, philosopher and academic, Rupert Read, suggested a while ago that we might like to have a three way conversation with him and Woodford Roberts who is an integral part of the Climate Majority Project of which they are both founder members. Both have been active in Extinction Rebellion. Both have moved on to believing that change happens in other ways, and both have at the core of their actions and activism a heartfelt connection to the All That Is, however we define it. We have regular guest appearances by people who work deeply in shamanic traditions, or other aspects of contemporary spirituality, but this is the first time we've had a chance to explore what we might call western 'eco-spirituality' in a way that is practiced distinctly from contemporary - or indigenous - shamanic practice. Rupert is a philosopher who has studied both Quaker and Buddhist traditions, naming Joanna Macey and Thich Nhat Hahn as his teachers. Woodford Roberts - who is called Rob within the movement - comes from a more meta-cognitive stance, but still deeply embedded within western psycho-spiritual philosophy, albeit with personal experience in the shamanic realities. So this was a deep, wide ranging, thoughtful episode and I hope it helps you to navigate your own routes to thinking, feeling and being in these turbulent times. So please welcome back Rupert Read and welcome for the first time, Woodford Roberts, both of the Climate Majority Project. Bios: Woodford Roberts is a writer based in Cornwall. With a focus on eco-spirituality and emotion, Woodford's work seeks to help readers stare down the truth of the metacrisis as he seeks to do the same, sharing his own spiritual journey of navigating the challenging terrain of a time between two worlds and the lessons found within. His work appears in Dark Mountain Books, Resurgence & The Ecologist. His first book, called 'How To Be Happy At The End Of The World' is currently in development, and he publishes on a Substack of the same name. Prof Rupert Read is co-director of the Climate Majority Project and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia. He is the author of several books, including This Civilisation is Finished, Parents for a Future, Why Climate Breakdown Matters and Do you want to know the truth? The surprising rewards of climate honesty. His spiritual teachers have included Joanna Macy and Thich Nhat Hanh. Links: Climate Majority Project https://climatemajorityproject.com Rob in Resurgence https://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article3855-waking-up-to-the-world.html Rupert's website https://rupertread.net/ Climate Majority Culture Peace Gathering https://climatemajorityproject.com/culture-peace-gathering/
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| 20 Jun 2023 | Manda - Summer Solstice Roundup, Reading and Listening | 00:51:27 | |
At the halfway point of the year, Manda looks back on what's been on the podcast, forward at (some of) what's to come, thoughts on where we're at as a world, and explores the books and podcasts that have stood out in the past six months.
A People’s Green New Deal by Max Ajl https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/a-people-s-green-new-deal-max-ajl/5731783?ean=9780745341750 Building Tomorrow by Paddy Le Fluffy https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Building-Tomorrow-by-Paddy-Le-Flufy/9781739345204 Spinning Out By Charlie Herzog Young https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Spinning-Out-by-Charlie-Hertzog-Young/9781804440315 Saying No to a Farm Free Future by Chris Smaje https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/saying-no-to-a-farm-free-future-the-case-for-an-ecological-food-system-and-against-manufactured-foods-chris-smaje/7448082?ean=9781915294166 Two Lights by James Roberts https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/two-lights-james-roberts/7366651?ean=9781912836178 Post-Capitalist Philanthropy: Healing Wealth in a time of collapse by Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Post-Capitalist-Philanthropy-by-Alnoor-Ladha-Lynn-Murphy/9798986531007
Fiction Black Water Sister by Zen Cho https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/black-water-sister-zen-cho/6464196?ean=9781509800018 The Grief Nurse – Angie Spoto https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-grief-nurse-angie-spoto/7230526?ean=9781914518171 Now She is Witch by Kirsty Logan https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/now-she-is-witch-a-witch-story-unlike-any-other-from-the-author-of-the-gracekeepers-kirsty-logan/7387771?ean=9781529116113 Habitat Man by DA Baden https://www.dabaden.com/habitat-man/ The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-First-Fifteen-Lives-of-Harry-August-by-Claire-North/9780356502588 Frankie Boyle, Meantime https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/meantime-frankie-boyle/6521254?ean=9781399801157 Podcasts Bankless Episode w Eliezer Yudkowsky https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/bankless/id1499409058?i=1000600575387 Planet Critical – particularly the episode w Alastair Campbell https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/planet-critical/id1545009586?i=1000615243292 David Bollier’s Frontiers of Commoning, particularly the episode with Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/frontiers-of-commoning-with-david-bollier/id1501085005?i=1000615201925 Your Undivided Attention https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/your-undivided-attention/id1460030305 The Great Simplification https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-great-simplification-with-nate-hagens/id1604218333 | |||
| 15 Sep 2021 | Sounds like Magic: a journey into the wild magic of sound with Caro C | 00:57:31 | |
How can sound edge us closer to the centre of ourselves, bring us closer into connection with our own authenticity and with the heart of the earth? Caro C has produced the Accidental Gods Podcast since its inception. Here, she talks about the wild magic of sound in all its forms. Caro C has been described as a Soul Enchantress (BBC Radio 3) and a 'One Woman Electronic Avalanche' (BBC Introducing), she's a composer and musician, a sound engineer and a solo performance artist. She's a rock climber and a dreamer, a creator of magic with all things sound. She created the music that is our signature at the head and foot of the podcast and she's been our engineer and producer for nearly two years, weaving miracles with technology and weaving our conversations in ways that bring them to coherence while always being a balm to the ears. As she launches her new album, Electric Mountain, we talk about her journey into sound, her experience of earth-connection and conscious evolution and how she weaves all of these into into a deeply connected, dream-woven life. Links: Caro's Page: https://carosnatch.com/ | |||
| 02 Aug 2023 | AI: Integral to the future or existential risk? (or both) - conversations on current evolution with Daniel Thorson | 01:17:46 | |
How dangerous is AI? Are Large Language Models likely to subvert our children? Is Generalised AI going to wipe out all life on the planet? I don't know the answers to these. It may be that nobody knows, but this week's guest was my go-to when I needed someone with total integrity to help unravel one of the most existential crises of our time, to lay it out as simply as we can without losing the essence of complexity, to help us see the worst cases - and their likelihood - and the best cases, and then to navigate a route past the first and onto the second. Daniel Thorson is an activist - he was active in the early days of the Occupy movement and in Extinction Rebellion. He is a lot more technologically literate than I am - he was active early in Buddhist Geeks. He is a soulful, thoughtful, heartful person, who lives at and works with the Monastic Academy for the Preservation of Life on Earth in Vermont. And he's host of the Emerge podcast, Making Sense of What's Next. So in all ways, when I wanted to explore the existential risks, and maybe the potential of Artificial Intelligence, and wanted to talk with someone I could trust, and whose views I could bring to you unfiltered, Daniel was my first thought, and I'm genuinely thrilled that he agreed to come back onto the podcast to talk about what's going on right now. My first query was triggered by the interview with Eliezer Yudkowsky on the Bankless podcast - Eliezer talked about the dangers of Generalised AI, or Artificial General Intelligence, AGI, and the reasons why it was so hard - he would say impossible - to align the intentions of a silicon-based intelligence with our human values, even if we knew what they were and could define them clearly. Listening to that, was what prompted me to write to Daniel. Since then, I listened many times to two of Daniels own recent podcasts: one with the educational philosopher Zak Stein on the dangers of AI Tutors and one with Jill Nephew, the founder of Inqwire, Public Benefit Company on a mission to help the world make sense. The Inqwire technology is designed to enhance and accelerate human sensemaking abilities. Jill is also host of the Natural Intelligence podcast and has clearly thought deeply about the nature of intelligence, the human experience and the neurophysiology and neuropsychology of our interactions with Large Language Models. I've linked all three of these podcasts below and absolutely recommend that you listen to them if you want more depth than we have here. What Daniel and I tried to do today was to lay things out in very straightforward terms: it's an area fraught with jargon and belief systems and assumptions, and we wanted to strip those away where we could and acknowledge them where we couldn't, and lay out where we are, what the worst cases are, what the best case is, given that we have to move forward with technology, switching it all off seems not to be an option—and how we might move from worst to best case. With this latter in mind, I've included a link to Daniel's new project, the Church of the Intimate Web which aims to connect people with each other. I've also - because it seems not everyone listens to the very end of the podcasts - included a link to our membership programme in Accidental Gods where we aim to help people connect to the wider web of life. I definitely see these two as interlinked and mutually compatible. So - trigger warning - a lot of this is not yet impinging on public awareness and we're not yet aware of how close we are to some very dangerous edges. This podcast leads us up to the edge so we can look over. We do it as gently as we can, but still, you'll want to be resourced and resilient before you listen.
Bankless with Eliezer Yudkowsky https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/bankless/id1499409058?i=1000600575387 The Church of the Intimate Web https://tome.app/the-church-of-the-intimate-web/the-church-of-the-intimate-web-a-response-to-the-global-intimacy-disorder-clhgc8h1l1b2p5k3z9ppbitfy The Soul's Code by James Hillman https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-soul-s-code-james-hillman/1563087?ean=9780553506341 | |||
| 24 Jul 2024 | Earth and Soul: Reconnecting Amid Climate Chaos with Leah Rampy | 01:10:50 | |
Clearly we need urgently to shift the democratic dial towards something that might actually serve the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. But how do we get there? How do we open the doors to possibility so that we can shift from the disconnection of our culture to a path of real heart-mind connection to the web of life? Our guest this week is Leah Rampy, author of the book Earth and Soul, Reconnecting Amid Climate Chaos, a beautiful, many-layered weaving that is a memorial to the world that is dying around us, a paean to the world that is possible and a deeply imagined, deeply practical guide to how we can actually engage with the living web so that we can bring ourselves into a place of understanding, connection and service. She says, 'We are not made to be separate from Nature. We were formed from Nature by the same cosmic evolution. The vitality of our lives depends on our acceptance of the gift of communion.' This book is full of personal insights, of stories from the islands of Britain, from Australia, from the Americas. It's beautiful and heartfelt and the prose flows with an ease you'll recognise when you hear Leah speak. At this time of utter turbulence in the world, please take this chance to settle into the words of someone who is crafting a path towards a future that works for all. Leah's website https://leahrampy.com/ | |||
| 17 Nov 2021 | Transport for a flourishing Future: Zero deaths, Zero Emissions, Zero Carbon - with John Whitelegg. | 01:07:45 | |
As we lurch towards irreversible climate chaos, how can we begin to pull back from the edge? This week, we look specifically at the area of transport: how can we be mobile and yet reach the 3 Zeroes of Death, Emissions and Carbon? What would it mean to live in an area with fair, free, extensive public transport? And how can we make this happen. Our lively, inspiring conversation with Dr John Whitelegg has answers. Dr John Whitelegg, BA PhD LLB, is visiting professor, School of the Built Environment, Liverpool John Moores University and was formerly professor of geography and head of department at Lancaster University and a staff member of the global science policy organisation, the Stockholm Environment Institute. He has worked with the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Energy and the Environment (Germany) and is an associate of the Kassel Centre for Mobility Culture (Germany) and a board member of the Californian organisation “Transportation Choices for Sustainable Communities”. John has edited the journal “World Transport Policy and Practice for 25 years and has written 10 books. In the most recent book Mobility, he presents an evidence-based case for a transformation of the totality of transport and mobility policy to achieve three zeroes (zero carbon, zero deaths and injuries and zero air pollution). He has also worked extensively on practical measures to achieve 100% decarbonisation of land transport. In this episode, we talk at length about what needs to happen in our transport systems to bring about the three zeroes of death, emissions and carbon. John has travelled widely and worked in Germany, Sweden, and the outer Hebrides as well as many locations in the UK. He has a coherent set of ideas of what needs to be done - and we considered some of the ways ordinary people can begin to make these happen.
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| 22 Jan 2020 | The Route to Heart Coherence with Manda Scott (part 3) | 00:25:08 | |
How do you create heart coherence and inner resilience? This episode of the podcast explores the ways we can balance head-mind and heart-mind to create the kinds of inner equanimity that allow us to flourish, whatever the outer world throws at us. The early podcasts opened the concept of ReAwakening into Connection with the Other-than-Human world. The previous podcast opened the door to Growing into Coherence – the ways in which we can use the fact that ‘what fires together wires together’ to develop a practice of close and open focus meditations. This podcast explores the routes towards Heart Coherence – which develops outwardly as regularities in heart rate variability. There is more on this at the Heart Math Center: and at the Mind Life Institute. The ability to build coherent heart-based sensations – of joy, or compassion, or love, or gratitude, or wonder, or awe… or whatever it is most open to us and most available in the moment as a default sensation that we can revert to in moments when we don’t need to be thinking about something else. Because what fires together wires together, if we can begin to develop these The second part of the podcast explores intent focused meditations – the ability to hone our attention into a clear, clean intention in a way that manifests in a changing reality in the world – focused on the creation of conscious evolution. Leading from these, we come to the last two parts of the four step route towards conscious evolution: Asking for Help, and Letting Go. In Asking for Help – we need to take our place in the web of life, and ask ‘what are we here for’ in ways that yields answers that are clear, coherent and constructive. So we have to be able to ask in ways that are free of ego, judgement, projection and fear. We need also have built a set of authentic, grounded relationships with the Other-than-Human world so that we can ask for help and hear answers that make sense to us. This requires that we hone our faculties of attention so that we can interpret the responses as they come to us – this is part of the practice that will take us forward. Each of us needs to understand our own internal landscapes so that we can make our own interpretations cleanly. This is a hugely personal practice that takes time – and a degree of trust – to develop. Trust grows over time and we need to build it. and then – when we can stand in balance; when we can become fully coherent so that we are able to stand in our own power, cleanly and clearly; when we have practiced asking questions in ways that yield clean, clear, coherent answers… Then we can balance on the knife edge of the moment so that we are pure awareness, knowing that all we have to do is ask for help in that space of unknowing where all that we have to do is ask for help and wait for the answers in a place where we can hear cleanly. And this is not going to be a one-hit event. It’s a thing we build to and then we practice it over and over – and if enough of us are practicing this, then this practice will yield a sense of the future iterations that take us to conscious evolution. This isn’t hard. It’s not rocket science. It’s just going to take quite a lot of us, working together. If this sounds good to you, there's more detail - and meditations/visualisation at https://accidentalgods.life | |||
| 29 Mar 2023 | Meshworks of Being: Building Community on the DAO with Grace Rachmany of Priceless DAO | 01:20:38 | |
We know that the future is based on Community. What we lack are practical routes to creating communities of community on a worldwide scale - ones that can form and will be resilient enough to survive. In this week's podcast, therefore, I'm genuinely thrilled to introduce you to one of the women who is breaking new ground in the creation of communities at scale and across wide geographic areas. In quite specific order, Grace Rachmany is a mother, a tech industry trouble shooter, author of over a hundred White Papers, creator of Voice of Humanity, Gangly Sister and - crucial to the trajectory we're taking just now - co-creator of Priceless DAO. And here we are: Grace is one of those people who has thought outside the boundaries of our current system, about the nature of the current system, about economics and governance and politics and decision making and the creation of viable communities as we head out of the old paradigm into something new and different. The result is Priceless , which is a cause-based DAO in the form of a networked nation, which says it is dedicated to creating a true alternative economy and alternative citizenship for its members. In pursuit of this, Priceless funds economic experiments that are designed to replace the current monetary system. The holders of PricelessDAO tokens can create whatever they want with the DAO, while the founders of Priceless Economics develop decentralized economic models that support life on earth. At Priceless, we are convinced that the existing financial system is crumbling and at the end of life. While many projects seek to salvage what we’ve got, Priceless is looking forward to creating a completely new system that will be a destination for those trying to escape the collapse of everything. I mean, you know everything’s collapsing, right? What can you do about it? At the very least you can give your sh*tcoins to PricelessDAO. Any funds we have will be used to research, design, prototype, and deploy economic models that respect humans and the planet. Which is just what we're here for. Truly. If you want to know more, or to be part of her thinking, follow the links below - and then stay tuned for the bonus podcast, in which we recorded the follow-up conversation on the nature of cryptocurrency and Ponzi schemes and the global financial crash(es). Grace's website https://gracerachmany.com/ | |||
| 23 Jun 2024 | Election Special 3 - Labour party Manifesto - anything worthwhile? with Jeremy Gilbert | 01:05:59 | |
What are we being offered by the incoming Labour Government? What's good in their Manifesto (spoiler alert, not very much)? What's not good? What could be improved upon and how do we go about pushing them to a place where they actually do something useful that isn't simply a repeat of the same-old, same-old we've had for the past decade and a half? Jeremy's been on the podcast before back in Episode #95 - and he's always my go-to person for insight into progressive thinking within the current Labour party, and for a broader, more political scientific view of where we're at. As chance would have it the Labour party published their manifesto about thirty six hours before we were due to record, so I took the chance to ask Jeremy what he thought of it: what's good, what could be better, what can we who care about people and planet do to help shift us onto a trajectory where we're not barrelling towards the edge of the biophysical cliff. It's not the most upbeat of conversations - because the answers to all three are 'not a lot, but joining a union is probably one of the most useful things you can do' - but it gave us a chance to look into a bit of the ideological, conceptual and pragmatic views of the current Labour party - and how we can shape things for a world that will work. Jeremy's Website Green Party Manifesto | |||
| 03 Apr 2024 | Evolving Education: Building a Doughnut School with Jenny Grettve of When!When! | 01:06:25 | |
This week's guest is one of those people whose breadth and depth is an inspiration. As you are about to hear, Jenny Grettve is an author, a philosopher, a systems thinker who takes her ideas and brings them alive in the world. She's the founder and director of When! When!, a design studio that tests and actively implements ideas and projects on systemic transformation with the goal of slowing down our speeding meta crisis. When!When! regards simplicity as a tool for innovation and create a beautiful and regenerative life for all. Those who work in and for When!When! believe that at the core of our planetary problems lie vulnerable human ponderings about why we live, what life is meant to be and how that is deeply intertwined with our economic structure. By daring to open up dialogues on economy and emotions, fear and trust, technology and using fewer resources, but also on hope and how all living things profoundly need each other, they believe they can unlock new possibilities for our shared futures. Jenny's heart-mind is huge and deep and we explored many areas of the transformation that's coming, from the evolution of a primary school along Doughnut Economic lines to the future of architecture, to the role of systems thinking in our political, social and, in the end, human, evolution. It was a truly heart-warming conversation and I hope it helps you, too, to think to the edges of yourself. https://videos.theconference.se/jenny-grettve-feminist-economies https://www.howtolivehappilyonmars.com/home/small-cities-lead https://www.howtolivehappilyonmars.com/home/systems-thinking-on-a-beautiful-life | |||
| 09 Jun 2021 | Behave! - Solving the existential crisis of our times, with Alexandra Kurland | 00:48:10 | |
If we have all the technical and scientific answers to solving the climate and ecological crisis - which we do - how do we bring the greater mass of humanity to a place where we all work together, bringing our boundless creativity to the creation of a regenerative world? Exploring the world of behaviour with Alexandra Kurland, behaviourist, horse trainer and regenerative farmer. First of two parts. Alexandra Kurland is a horse clicker trainer, behaviourist, classical rider - and convenor of the annual (now bi-annual) Science Camp that explores the art and science of positive reinforcement. She is host of the Horses for Future podcast, co-host of the Equiosity podcast, and author of The Click that Teaches and a whole host of other books and online courses about horse training. The Clicker Center: https://www.theclickercenter.com | |||
| 18 Mar 2020 | Finding stillness, Finding wholeness: Sharing enquiry with Daniel Thorson of Emerge | 01:02:08 | |
Daniel Thorson, host of the ground-breaking, innovative - and hugely courageous - Emerge podcast is a Buddhist monastic, activist and meta-modern thinker. In this conversation, we dive deeply into what it means to be human - and how we can live as the best of ourselves. The Emerge podcast is a must-listen for anyone interested in exploring human potential as we surge into the anthropocene. Its host, Daniel Thorson is fearless in exploring the ways we can evolve, interviewing thought-leaders in the fields of psychology, philosophy, spirituality - all individuals engaged in finding ways we can become the best of ourselves - and better. A former activist/organiser at Occupy Wall Street, Daniel has spent tens of thousands of hours in meditation, and almost as many thinking deeply about the ways we can move forward in the heart of the Anthropocene. In this conversation, we have the opportunity to join his enquiry, to find out where his work has taken him, to dive deeply into what it means to be alive now, and the ways we can move forwards as individuals and as a collective. His suggested must-read book is The OverStory by Richard Powers Happy listening! As ever, if you want to connect with us, we're at Accidental Gods. | |||
| 18 Sep 2024 | Forking the Future: building routes to viable change with Tim Frenneaux of Pivot | 01:09:06 | |
My first guest after the summer break is Tim Frenneaux, whom I first met in his role as Source for the Piʌot project which is a thoroughly engaging and inspiring new concept, that he describes as a people-powered movement for regenerative transformation. As you'll hear, Tim really understands what it is to live - to dance - at the inter-becoming edge of emergence. He's a multi-talented, multi-hatted entrepreneur, who once established England’s only carbon negative Local Industrial Strategy whilst working as Head of Economic Policy, and now specialises in regenerative businesses transformation. Tim is a bookseller, regenerative business designer and rebel economist on a journey to understand his role in the great system of life. Through his practice, he cultivates an emotional connection with this pivotal moment for life on Earth to create change and transformation that comes from the heart not just the head. Because of this work, the Doughnut Economics Action Lab have, called him a thought leader, though he prefers to think of himself as a thought weaver. He also works as a consultant, facilitator and public speaker on regenerative design, and runs a monthly book subscription, Adventurous Ink, which helps people reconnect with themselves and the wider world. In this wide-ranging conversation, we move from ideas of how to bring the UK's water companies back into genuine public ownership, to how we could build political consensus around bio-regions, to what it is to walk the doughnut of Doughnut Economics. This was a really encouraging, enlivening conversation to start our new season and I hope you find it takes you further in your own journey - it certainly helped me.
Links to organisations and books mentioned in the podcast Kate Raworth 'Doughnut Economics' https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/doughnut-economics-seven-ways-to-think-like-a-21st-century-economist-kate-raworth/2694262?ean=9781847941398 Miles Richardson 'Reconnection' https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/reconnection-fixing-our-broken-relationship-with-nature-miles-richardson/7335558?ean=9781784274856 Jenny Odell 'How to Do Nothing' https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/how-to-do-nothing-resisting-the-attention-economy-jenny-odell/3185527?ean=9781612198552 James A Pearson 'The Wilderness that Bears your Name' https://www.everand.com/book/725658458/The-Wilderness-That-Bears-Your-Name Manda Scott 'Any Human Power' https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/any-human-power-manda-scott/7637805?ean=9781914613562 Dan O'Neill et all 'Provisioning Systems' paper https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959378020307184 | |||
| 16 Oct 2024 | The Lama, the Oath and the Web of Treasure Vases - with Cynthia Jurs, author of 'Summoned by the Earth' | 01:16:55 | |
We know we need to shift from our Trauma Culture to a resilient, connected Initiation Culture where we can open our heart-minds to the Web of Life, ask 'What do you Want of Me?' and respond to the answers in realtime, with flexibility, authenticity and a grounded awareness of our place in the huge complex system of the More than Human World. Knowing this, and being able to do it are two different things. But it's possible, and our guest this week is someone who walks this path with enormous grace and huge integrity.
She has written of her experiences in a book, 'Summoned by the Earth: Becoming a Holy Vessel for Healing our World,' and if you're interested at all in how we can connect with the web of life, I absolutely encourage you to read it. These days, inspired by her years of service and connection with others who care, Cynthia is forging a new path of dharma in service to Gaia—a path deeply rooted in the feminine, honouring indigenous cultures, and devoted to collective awakening. If you want to join her, Cynthia leads meditations, retreats, courses, and pilgrimages to support the emergence of a global community of engaged and embodied sacred activists. You can find her offerings and join the global healing community at: www.GaiaMandala.net and there is more about her book at https://www.summonedbytheearth.org/ Her book is here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/summoned-by-the-earth-becoming-a-holy-vessel-for-healing-our-world-cynthia-jurs/7556979?ean=9781632261328 | |||
| 04 Oct 2023 | What your Food Ate - Or why you should never eat industrially farmed food ever again- With Anne Bicklé and David Montgomery | 01:16:40 | |
How does soil health intimately and profoundly impact human health? What's the link between the soil microbiome and the human gut microbiome? How can we begin to restore our health, and the health of the living earth in concert with each other? These are the questions posed by the outstanding book 'What your Food Ate: How to heal our land and reclaim our health' and the co-authors, Anne Biklé and David Montgomery are this week's guests as we delve deeply into the nature of soil, the functions of fungi, the populations of bacteria we depend on that inhabit our guts, and how we might affect total systemic change in the food and farming system. So a little light listening for your day. In detail, Anne Biklé is a biologist, avid gardener. She is among the planet’s leading experts on the microbial life of soil and its crucial importance to human wellbeing and survival. She is married to David Montgomery, who is a professor of Geomorphology at the University of Washington. David has studied everything from the ways that landslides and glaciers influence the height of mountain ranges, to the way that soils have shaped human civilizations both now and in the past. All of this has led him to write a number of books, including Dirt: The Erosion of Civilisations which explores how our historic - and contemporary - farming practices have critically undermined the living soil on which we depend. Following this, David and Anne co-wrote, The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health and the book we're going to be exploring in depth today: What your Food Ate: how to heal our land and reclaim the our Health. David also plays in the band, Big Dirt, which is, and I quote directly from their Facebook page: Americana Alternative. Whatever that means. Roots folk-rock with something to say and fun to listen. I read What your Food Ate earlier this year and if you've listened to the podcast for any length of time, you'll have heard me mention it more than once. It's the most readable exploration I've come across of how our food is grown, and how it could - and should be grown - it's really easy to read, but it's full of the kind of mind-blowing data that we need if we're going to change our habits. You'll hear more in the podcast, but truly, the detail they gathered on the difference in content between food grown in the modern agri-business farm and that grown on a regenerative farm with no chemical inputs and no or minimal ploughing, one that strives to build the soil health and so build the health of everything else... it's both terrifying and inspiring. If you want something to persuade you that you need to change the places you buy your food, this is it. So, here we go. People of the Podcast, please welcome Anne Biklé and David Montgomery.
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| 03 May 2023 | Building Tomorrow: Practical steps to a new economic system with Paddy Le Flufy | 01:28:50 | |
As you will know by now, this podcast searches long and hard for answers to the over-riding question of 'what do we need to do, to get us from where we are, to where we need to be to set the stage for that generative future our hearts know is possible?' So when I got a book that directly asked and then answered that question, I dived straight in. 'Building Tomorrow: Averting Environmental Crisis With a New Economic System' does exactly what it says on the cover. It's full of concrete examples of individuals, organisations and businesses who are forging new ground at the leading edge of change, weaved into a coherent imagining of a future that runs by different rules. Author, Paddy Le Flufy, read mathematics at Cambridge, then - as seems to have happened with quite a lot of our recent guests, he took a job in the city and qualified as an accountant with KPMG. And then, as also seems to happen with our guests, he didn't buy into the system, but instead spent years living something of a double life, earning money as a finance specialist in London then spending it living in remote places, alongside people whose lives were radically different from his own. This period culminated with a year, funded by a Royal Geographical Society Award, being taught by indigenous wisdom-keepers in the Peruvian Amazon. Since 2015, he has been based in the UK and then Canada, researching how we can redesign our economic system to avert the impending environmental catastrophe. His book is the result of this research. It brings together some ideas we've explored already on the podcast, but knits them with things I had never heard about, and it creates a whole that has the potential to change the way our culture functions - which is genuinely exciting. Paddy's website https://paddyleflufy.com Building Tomorrow on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Building-Tomorrow-Averting-Environmental-Economic/dp/1739345207/ Paddy on Twitter www.twitter.com/paddyleflufy The Cosmolocal Reader https://clreader.net/ | |||
| 21 Dec 2020 | Birthday/Solstice Celebration: a new Anniversary tradition, with Della Duncan and Nathalie Nahai | 01:14:12 | |
It's our Birthday... and it's the December Solstice, the time of transition and potential transformation . In honour of which, we are crafting a new tradition: a PodBoom shared with Della Duncan of UPSTREAM podcast and Nathalie Nahai of THE HIVE. So, it's our Birthday - and it's that time of year when every pundit endeavours to look back at the year just gone and ahead to the one that is coming. And we thought we'd like to establish a parallel tradition, where we bring together our favourite podcasting-friends and explore the ways we think. So we set up a structure that will be repeatable in future years... where we give each other gifts of a book, podcast or something else that has brought us real insight, and then we explore each other's existential questions. And we have fun. So that you can have fun too. Della Duncan is a Renegade Economist who hosts the UPSTREAM podcast challenging traditional economic thinking and uplifting stories of sustainable, just, and equitable economic systems-change around the world. Della is also a Right Livelihood Coach, a Senior Fellow of Social and Economic Equity at the International Inequalities Institute in the London School of Economics, the Course Development Manager of Fritjof Capra’s Capra Course on the Systems View of Life, and an Alternative Economics Consultant.
Her work explores the intersection between persuasive technology, ethics and the psychology of online behaviour, and clients include Google, Accenture, Unilever and Harvard Business Review, among others. Nathalie gives keynotes, workshops and webinars on the psychological dynamics behind evolving consumer behaviours, teaching people how to ethically apply behavioural science principles to enhance their website, content marketing, product design and customer experience. A member of the BIMA Human Insights Council, she also hosts The Hive Podcast, Seeking The Self and several Guardian podcasts, and contributes to national publications, television (BBC, Sky, CNN), and radio (BBC Radio 4) on the impact of technology in our lives.
From Della: Books
Podcast: Upstream Conversations that I mentioned From Manda:
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| 08 Sep 2021 | Circles of Power: Urban Micro Anaerobic Digestion with Rokiah Yaman | 00:56:01 | |
How can we embed circular thinking in our food, energy, water & waste to benefit people and the planet? LEAP Micro Anaerobic Digestion is building the systems in the UK, Nigeria, Malaysia and around the world to create local zero waste cultures that provide food and energy to their communities. Rokiah Yaman is the Project Director for LEAP Micro Anaerobic Digestion. A part of the project from the start, she coordinates the LEAP demonstration sites, oversees fundraising and planning activities, and manages infrastructure and operational logistics, helping to bring micro AD technology and the closed-loop ethos into public spaces where people can see who it works in their own communities. In this episode, Rokia talks us through the technologies involved in Micro Anaerobic Digestion, and introduces us to the projects in London, the Scottish Highlands and Islands, Nigeria and Malaysia. We find out how it works, and how we can make it work in urban and rural settings, as part of the power spectrum of the future, where circularity is embedded in the way we live and we generate our own energy closer to home, giving us autonomy and agency and cutting the mega-corporations out of the loop. As ever, our signature music comes from Caro C, but this week, we have additional music at the head and foot from Billy Surgeoner's album 'Hey Mountain Hey' - the track is The Pollen Path Leap: https://www.madleap.co.uk/ | |||
| 16 Nov 2022 | End of year round-up: Manda's favourite podcasts, fiction and non-fiction of 2022 | 00:56:08 | |
As we do each year, we've curated a list of the Accidental Gods' favourite podcast and books of 2022. Enjoy!
The Sustainable Food Trust episode with Dr Michael Antoniou Global Governance Futures with Jacqueline McGlade ITS BLOODY COMPLICATED by Compass - Episode with Byron Fay of Climate 200 Catherine Weetman Circular Economy Podcast Catherine musing on sustainabilty https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/circular-economy-podcast/id1465879853?i=1000583550758 Catherine with Simon Hombersely of Xampla https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/circular-economy-podcast/id1465879853?i=1000582020564 The rest is politics w Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart - episode w Mark Drakeford https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-rest-is-politics/id1611374685?i=1000579634739
The Club on the Edge of Town - Alan Lane https://salamanderstreet.com/product/the-club-on-the-edge-of-town-paperback/ Flourish - Sarah Ichioka and Michael Pawlyn https://www.triarchypress.net/flourish.html A People's Green New Deal - Max Ajl https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745341750/a-peoples-green-new-deal/ Our Farming Life - Lynn Cassells and Sandra Baer https://chelseagreen.co.uk/book/our-wild-farming-life/ (also A Dairy Story - David and Wilma Finlay of The Ethical Dairy) https://www.theethicaldairy.co.uk/cheese-shop/dairy-story Louis Weinstock: How the World is Making our Children Mad and What to Do about it https://louisweinstock.com/how-the-world-is-making-our-children-mad-and-what-to-do-about-it/https://www.naominovik.com/2022/09/published-today-the-golden-enclaves/ The Barn at the End of the World by Mary Rose O'Reilley The Apprenticeship of a Quaker Buddhist Shepherd https://www.amazon.co.uk/Barn-End-World-Apprenticeship-Buddhist/dp/1571312544 Novels The Kingdoms - Natasha Pulley https://natashapulley.co.uk/books/ Tuyo - Rachel Neumeier https://www.rachelneumeier.com/writing/tuyo/ Kingdom of Silence Jonathan Grimwood (also Jack Grimwood and Jon Courtenay Grimwood) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingdom-Silence-Jonathan-Grimwood-ebook/dp/B086R544MD/ Naomi Novik - The Golden Enclaves - Lesson 3 in the Scholomance Trilogy https://www.naominovik.com/2022/09/published-today-the-golden-enclaves/ The Stranger Times by CK McDonnell (also The Dublin Trilogy by Caimh McDonnell) BUNNY McGARRY https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-stranger-times-the-stranger-times-1/9780552177344 https://whitehairedirishman.com also Kevin Hearn Ink and Sigil series | |||
| 25 Oct 2023 | Becoming Intentional Gods: Claiming the future with Indy Johar of the Dark Matter Labs | 01:10:41 | |
If we're at the moment of choice between flourishing and destruction, what would you choose? We are at a moment of decision: We either step forward into our own Great Destruction, which could theoretically see us wipe out all of humanity and most of the More than Human World…Or we could step into what Indy Johar calls 'The Great Peace', claiming our birthright as the Interstitial Generation between the old paradigm of extraction, consumption and pollution—and the new one that could arise where we accept the interbecoming of all things, where we as individual humans take our place in a community of care and experience that encompasses all of the world. This is our potential, laid out in clear terms, by thought leader and evolutionary, Indy Johar of Dark Matter Labs. Indy is an architect by training and a maker by practice; he is a Senior Innovation Associate with the Young Foundation, and, amongst many other things, he co-founded Impact Hub Birmingham and Open Systems Lab, was a member of the RSA’s Inclusive Growth Commission, and was a good growth advisor to the Mayor of London. He is an explorative practitioner in the means of system change & the dark matter design of civic infrastructure finance, outcomes, and governance. Indy is a co-founder and Director of 00 and Dark Matter Laboratories - a field laboratory focused on building the institutional infrastructures for radicle civic societies, cities, regions and towns. Dark Matter Labs says, 'Around the planet, we’re feeling the consequences of outdated institutions and inadequate infrastructures incapable of coping with planetary-scale challenges. At Dark Matter, we believe in taking on these challenges via a new, civic economy.'
Both Indy and I had various viruses so there's some coughing and some rough-speaking, particularly from my end, but if you can manage that, I think this is one of those episodes that has the power to change worlds. So people of the podcast, please do welcome, Indy Johar of Dark Matter Labs.
Systems change needs Democratic change https://ddc.dk/why-systems-change-will-lead-to-democratic-renewal/# | |||
| 05 Feb 2022 | Thrutopia Masterclass: Writing our Way to a Future we can be Proud to leave as our Legacy. | 00:17:33 | |
We live on stories. We thrive on visions of futures we want - or terrify ourselves with those we definitely don't. But when it comes to our own near-term future, we don't have the stories that tell us how we got it right. So we need to write them - Urgently! One of the things that sets us apart from other species (as far as we know) is that we are forever building futures in our heads. Whenever we embark on something new: a relationship, a job, a project, a house move…it's fired and inspired by the stories we tell ourselves of how we'll feel, how others will engage with us, how our lives will be different - and often better. The futures might not pan out as we think, but we got ourselves where we need to be by our ability to shape ideas of a different reality. And yet when we're confronted by the greatest, deepest emergency our species has ever known and while we have plenty of dystopic stories of how bad it could be (think HandMaid's tale, or The Road, or even Don't Look Up), and a few utopias set in other worlds or other times or other realities, what we don't have is a big - vast - body of work showing how we could get to somewhere we'd all want to go: somewhere that future generations would look back and say of us, 'Yes, it was hard, but they did everything they could, they all pulled together, they created a vision of a flourishing world and we're building on the foundations they left us.' We need urgently to craft these stories: heroic journeys (or possibly post-heroic journeys) of how the world could be in the near term if we get it right, whatever that means. We need accurate, believable road maps of how to get from here to there. 'Here be Dragons' and big scary lines on the map doesn't cut it any more: we have to imagine things better. And it's hard. We need a whole lot of research of the things that are happening now in a whole range of fields from politics and economics to food and farming through business, work, the future of cities, education, technology, social media... and we need to explore how to stitch the ideas together into workable narratives that will draw people with them, even if they're bombarded by the 'business as usual' stories of our media. We need to give our media new stories to tell, that they will believe and want to share. And finally, we need the insights from industry professionals in publishing, film, TV, theatre… to help us get our new stories in front of the most possible people. So this is Thrutopia Masterclass. It's an Ideas Generator, a Narrative Incubator and a Dissemination Guide. It's a Think Tank and a community, a writing masterclass like nothing you've ever seen before. Come and join us! https://thrutopia.life. Or just share the link to this mini bonus podcast… | |||
| 29 May 2024 | Wild shamanic theatre and becoming embodied: with Jessica Buckler of the ALEF Trust | 01:06:46 | |
This week's guest, Jessica Bockler is one of those people who sparks every fire in my being - and i hope in yours, too. Jessica is an applied theatre practitioner and transpersonal psychologist who co-founded the Alef Trust a globally-conscious non-profit organisation offering online graduate education programmes, and open learning courses for people who want really to step into what Indy Johar so beautifully calls the emergent edge of Inter-Becoming. Jessica is integral to the Nurturing the Fields of Change Programme that brings people together from diverse walks of life to create an emerging community of practice around change - and she's Programme Director for the Trust's academic programmes in Consciousness, Spirituality and Transpersonal Psychology. She teaches on a range of topics, bringing spiritual perspectives to activism and social change - so you can begin to see why I find her work so enthralling. She stands at that nexus where transpersonal psychology meets shamanic practice, where being and becoming are an art and a practice in themselves, grounded in modern science - not the reductive, Head Mind science of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but twenty-first century science where complexity and systems thinking lie at the heart of all we do, where we recognise that only by becoming fully present in the moment, can we access the whole, vast intelligence of the All That Is and find what is ours to do. Jessica brings all this into being in social prescribing programmes, in theatre, in change facilitation, in the MSc at Liverpool John Moores University and in her daily life and she shares it in the conversation you're about to hear - including a clip of one of her own practices, that is solid podcasting gold. If you're interested in finding out how we can access our own inner intelligence and build with others to co-create the foundations of that more flourishing future we'd be proud to leave behind, then this is the podcast for you. ALEF Trust https://aleftrust.org | |||
| 22 Jul 2020 | What Humanity Wants - Moral Imagination & a new kind of change with Phoebe Tickell | 01:08:00 | |
How can we embody the change we need to see in the world? How can we find the new ways of being before we even have words to describe them? What is 'Warm Data' and how does it help us see the world as it really is? Phoebe Tickell, utopian, sense-maker and facilitator of radical change talks us through answers that will help us to change the world. Phoebe is embedded in, and embodies the new sense-making and change-making of the world. Founder of Moral Imagination and facilitator of Radical Collaborations, Phoebe works in fields as diverse as philanthropic funding at the National Lottery Community Fund, innovative governance models, holistic science curricula and the convening of courses on deep systems thinking. Here, she explores the nature of reality, how 'Warm Data' and a systems approach can help us to perceive the world as it is, as a necessary prerequisite to embodying the change we need to be. She discusses patterning and the development of flies, language and how to grow it into what we need and the psycho-technologies we need to make the best decisions possible in a world currently in systems melt. Phoebe’s website - http://www.phoebetickell.com Moral Imaginations - https://moralimaginations.com Fritjof Capra’s website: Capracourse.net Theory U- https://www.ottoscharmer.com/theoryu Liberating Structures - http://www.liberatingstructures.com Nora Bateson - https://batesoninstitute.org/nora-bateson/ Unbound Philanthropy - https://www.unboundphilanthropy.org/grants-and-co-funding | |||
| 27 Oct 2021 | COP26 and Beyond: Future strategies to keep us alive with Rupert Read | 01:07:27 | |
What is the bare minimum we need world leaders to agree at COP26 and what can we do if they fail? Rupert Read, academic philosopher, author and climate activist discusses the urgency of the moment - and how a 'moderate flank' of climate activists can grow out of the COP. Dr Rupert Read is a long term climate activist. On the day after this podcast goes out, he'll be in court on charges of Criminal Damage for pouring water soluble paint on the steps of a hard-core climate denying think tank. No stranger to action as well as thought, he is one of he nation's foremost climate philosophers and in today's episode, we explore together the nature of our current crisis, the hope (or otherwise) for international agreement at COP26 and action at an appropriate scale afterwards - and then look at how we as individuals can help foment a worldwide move towards a coherent, adaptive future, including ideas such as employee strikes mirroring the 'Fridays for Future' school strikes, the employers who are actively supporting climate action, and the ways we can begin to become more resilient and less dependent on 'business as usual'. We end by discussing the Thrutopia Masterclass, starting May 1st on which Rupert will be the inaugural speaker.
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| 25 Jan 2025 | Living through the Death of Democracy: Manda's thoughts on love, liberty and the continued existence of complex life on earth | 00:40:23 | |
We are living through the death of democracy and the onset of Techno-Feudalism. But this is not a time when linear systems can hold and feudalism was nothing if not linear. So how can we be part of a transformative process that will let us lay the foundations for a future we'd be proud to leave behind? Usually, on Accidental Gods, we talk to guests who seem to exemplify some aspect of the generative edge of interbecoming change that will take us towards the emergent future we need if we're not only to survive, but thrive. But once in a while it's just Manda, reflecting on the moment and offering pointers to things that might be useful to read or watch or listen to or think about. This is one of those, and it feels timely, in part because the Oxford Real Farming Conference too place recently and was immensely heartening - and partly because of the times we're in. This was recorded on Sunday 19th of January 2025 and if you're in the English speaking world listening to this podcast, then you'll be aware that basically democracy dies tomorrow. Though, as you'll also be aware, we never had true democracy of the people by and for the people, and certainly nothing that might have created a generative enhancement of the web of life. We had a kleptocracy at best, a kakiocracy at worst and all of it was working against the kind of future we want to leave as our legacy. So this is a podcast of ideas, most of which boil down to: It's time each of us committed ourselves in service to life. What does that feel like? How does it work and where will it take us? Let's find out. Oxford Real Farming Trust https://realfarming.org/programmes/land-based-wisdom/ CFOSA https://consciousfoodsystems.org/ Animate Earth Collective https://animate-earth.org The Wild with Indy Johar - the why https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/wild-with-sarah-wilson/id1548626341?i=1000677521024
And then at the macro level, Dark Matter Labs on Governance https://media.licdn.com/dms/document/media/v2/D4E1FAQFRu6lmVVqBvw/feedshare-document-pdf-analyzed/B4EZQsP1m3HAAc-/0/1735909140676?e=1738195200&v=beta&t=8kAX6cLW_kf4Lsvw8dYn2_9FG644-bWKa6SZy1QTXKk
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| 27 May 2020 | When we can't meet in person, how can we build connection? A second conversation with Sarah Schlote | 01:04:33 | |
In the midst of lockdown, how can we find resilience and emotional balance? How can we make the connections we need to feel safe -- in our bodies, in our relationships, out in the world...and on our Zoom calls? How can we feel truly alive? Therapist Sarah Schlote has much-needed answers... Life is changing and we need to find ways to keep ourselves emotionally resilient. Sarah Schlote, therapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, has spent her professional life exploring the pathways by which we find safety - in our own bodies, in our closest relationships, and out in the world. In today’s podcast, we explore the ways we can find the connection that science (and experience) tells us we need to feel safe in the presence of others. We explore ways that we can work towards safety in Zoom (or other video) calls in both one to one situations and in larger groups. We look at strategies we can all use all the time to help us navigate the novel circumstance of a global threat.
Sarah’s Healing Refuge: https://healingrefuge.com/our-team/sarah-schlote/ Equusoma: https://equusoma.com/ Sarah’s “Freesources” page - has brilliant diagrams: https://equusoma.com/freesources/ Steven Porges: https://www.stephenporges.com Peter Levine’s ‘Trauma therapist project’ https://www.thetraumatherapistproject.com/podcast/peter-levine-phd/ Book Spiritual Bypassing: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spiritual-Bypassing-Spirituality-Disconnects-Matters/dp/1556439059/ | |||
| 21 Jun 2023 | Psychedelics: the key to evolution or (yet more) big Pharma hype? With Dr Ros Watts of ACER Integration | 01:17:57 | |
We are the Accidental Gods. We didn't plan to be the ones to hold the god-like power to destroy most of the life on this planet, but here we are, at a place where one single species - ours - has the capacity to do just this. The routes to Armageddon seem to be increasing all the time, but they all have one thing in common: they're predicated on our absolute disconnection from the web of life. It is a central tenet of this podcast that, for most of our evolutionary history, humanity has existed as an integral part of this web - and that we were aware of our connectedness. Quite how we lost this is open to question and I doubt if we'll ever find concrete answers: certainly I don't think speculation is worth a lot of emotional or intellectual bandwidth - because what really matters - what can and, I think, should, take up most of our energy in whatever time we have left - is finding ways to heal the rift, to re-connect us to the living web so that we can ask of it, 'What do you want of me?' and respond to the answers in real time. If you've listened to this podcast much, you've heard me say this once or twice before. Possibly more often. If you're a part of the wider Accidental Gods community and come along to our monthly Intention Intensives, then you've heard me say it Every. Single. Time. we meet. (!) So, yes, finding ways to do this at scale is something of an obsession. I think it's the only way we're going to get through, and that if we can achieve it. we'll have made a significant shift in the evolution of our consciousness - our wisdom (the bit that AI will never be able to emulate). But one of the things from which I have steered quite clear is the field of psychedelics. There are a lot of reasons for this and we explore some of them in the podcast we're about to hear because I have found someone whose opinion I trust implicitly, who has direct experience of the use of psychedelics in a number of fields and whose integrity feels strong. Dr Rosalind Watts is a clinical psychologist who was the former Clinical Lead of the 'psilocybin for depression' trial at Imperial College, London. She also gave a ground-breaking TEDx talk in 2017, in which she opened up the results of that first trial to her peers and to the world. Since then, though, she has written a Medium post in which she points out some of the pitfalls of that trial, and opens up the concept that if we use psychedelics indiscriminately in a toxic culture, they are as likely to amplify the toxicity as they are to heal. Having realised this, and experienced some of the harm that plant medicines can do if not held within a supportive framework, Ros has gone on to found ACER Integration, a twelve month online course with monthly modules built around connections to and with trees - designed explicitly to create the supportive culture people need to integrate their experiences. So - if you're expecting us to talk about all the multi-coloured wonders of psychedelics, then forget it, that's not what this podcast is about. It's about understanding the systemic nature of mental health, of cultural experience and of the ways plant spirits can act to change this. It's inspiring and it's a call to action, as well as a profoundly important health warning as we approach the brink of yet another tipping point. ACER Integration: https://acerintegration.com/ | |||
| 14 Dec 2024 | Must Read, Must Listen, Must View: Manda's favourite books, podcasts and videos this Winter Season | 00:28:32 | |
Non-Fiction Fiction: Denise Baden 'Murder in the Climate Assembly' You can get a feel for the book here: https://www.dabaden.com/murder-in-the-climate-assembly/ Katherine Addison 'Throne of Dragons' - due March 11th US and a few days later UK https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-tomb-of-dragons-the-cemeteries-of-amalo-book-3-katherine-addison/7764905?ean=9781837864393
Podcasts Farm Gate 1 'What is Bill Gates doing to Africa's Food?' https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/farm-gate/id1490590788?i=1000675185519 | |||
| 10 Jan 2024 | Let's get rid of Money and start afresh! Dismantling the Super-Organism with Diana Finch | 01:49:22 | |
Happy New Year. It feels to me as if this year, the journey is going to be one of continual change and of challenge - that 2024 will be the year when it is impossible for anyone to pretend that the life we knew, the life we grew up believing would go on indefinitely - is going to continue. The old order is dying, but if we're to absolute collapse on a global scale (because clearly it's happening locally all over the world, usually pushed by the governments of people who are statistically most likely to be listening to this podcast) -but if we're going to avert absolute breakdown everywhere, then we need to dismantle the super-organism of the markets. Markets, globalisation, the entire neo-liberal model of free trade that was neither free nor liberal, nor particularly new... these are the common thread that perpetuates the world we know. Yes, we have to change our political systems, our power generation, our food systems..... all of these are core, but it's the markets and our concepts of value and money - the core of capitalism that keep the whole show on the road. One way or another, they are going - either there's a crash and nothing... or we succeed in managing a degrowth curve to a much simpler system that is not just less extractive, it's regenerative - it repairs some of the desperate harm we've done in recent times. So I want this podcast really to begin to look at how we could shape this downward slope - to play with ideas that could take use forward into something different - to begin to build narratives, stories, mythologies, collective heroic journeys of how we as a culture could affect the change that we need. Yes, the super-organism feels as if it has a life of its own, but it is composed of individuals and if we all change our behaviour, our expectations, our understanding of what's good and what isn't - then it will change. I still believe this is possible and I'm definitely working towards this. As is our guest this week. Diana Finch has worked in senior leadership roles in a variety of socially and environmentally focused non-profit organisations since 2001. Through this work, she became convinced that our economic system is the root cause behind the environmental and social challenges the non-profit sector is trying to address. She started to become interested in the field of new economics, and was thrilled to join the Bristol Pound team as Managing Director in 2018. She continued to be a director until the organisation was wound up in 2023. The experience helped her develop an understanding of the problems with our existing economic system, creating a determination to share what she has learned by writing a book called 'Value Beyond Money: an exploration of the Bristol Pound and the building blocks for an alternative economic system' The book is not out until September, but it I was privileged to read it early and was so struck by Diana's capacity to lay out clearly the various different ways we have begun to see money and the alternative systems that people are trying - the Bristol Pound was an astonishing endeavour and the story of how it came about and why it ended are remarkable in and of itself. But it's the ideas that come after - why did it not work and what could we do now - what could help us shift from exactly where we are, to where we need to be - these are the solid gold. We did talk for a long time. If necessary, we'll split this into two bits. I'm not sure if we're going to need to, so... we'll see. In the meantime, enjoy the ideas of how we could be different - and then if you know of anyone who could fund this, please do let us know. PreOrder Diana's book https://crowdbound.org/product/value-beyond-money/ Holochain https://www.holochain.org/ Confessions of an Economic Hitman Short Animated Version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYtb5zatgMg
Reference books Less is More: How Degrowth can save the world by Jason Hickel https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/less-is-more-how-degrowth-will-save-the-world-jason-hickel/364774 | |||
| 03 Jul 2024 | How the System is Slaying Us - and What to Do About It: Getting Healthy in Toxic Times with Dr Jenny Goodman | 01:48:05 | |
How does our increasing destruction of the earth's biosphere also impact our health? What diseases are we seeing in almost pandemic proportions and how much younger are the people in whom we're seeing them? Above all, what can we do to step away from the system that's extracting everything from us - our health, our futures and our potential to be good ancestors? Our guest this week is Jenny Goodman who is a doctor - and also an author. Her first book, Staying Alive in Toxic TimesL A seasonal guide to lifelong health is a fascinating look at how we can stay well, but it's her second that we're going to explore today, partly because at the time of recording, it's just about to be launched. 'Getting Healthy in Toxic Times: an ecological doctor's prescription for healing your body and the planet' is a mind-bending read. I really did think I knew this stuff, but there are large parts of this book that have blown all my fuses, not just for the health impacts - particularly on children and young people (did you know we're seeing Alzheimer's now in teenagers?) but for the cold-blooded way it's been allowed to happen. Every part of this book is essential reading - not just because it shows us how we're being poisoned by our food, our water, the air that we breath, the things around us that we can't even see - but more importantly because it details how we can get healthy again and help restore the integrity of our soils, our water, our air…the whole world we live in. As you'll hear, Dr Jenny Goodman is a medical doctor, lecturer and broadcaster. She qualified in Ecological Medicine with British Society for Ecological Medicine and practiced this for over two decades, giving rise to many of the case studies in her books. Jenny has appeared with Terry Pratchett in ITV’s documentary What’s in Your Mouth? and has been featured on the Victoria Derbyshire show, BBC One’s Inside Out and numerous other TV and radio shows. 00:00 Introduction to Microplastics in Clothing Pre-Order Jenny's book here: Jenny's website | |||
| 23 Aug 2023 | The Art of Living Well - A Creative Life on the Land with Elisa Rathje of AppleTurnover TV | 01:13:47 | |
In this week's episode I'm talking to someone I met on last year's Thrutopia Masterclass: someone who was there to explore and share ideas about how we might get through to that flourishing future we'd be proud to leave behind. Elisa Rathje is an artist, a filmmaker, a podcaster, a writer, an unschooling parent - and a homesteader whose life is an expression of her philosophy that we need to live closer to, and in harmony with, the land. She and her family farm one and a half acres on Saltspring Island off the west coast of Canada between Vancouver and Vancouver island where she makes her appleturnover TV channel for Youtube, with short films showing the ways she's rediscovering, or in some cases, creating anew, ways to grow and thrive on and with the land. We've had some pretty hardcore conversations recently on the podcast, and I thought it was time for something inspiring, less of how we fix the broken structures at national level, and more how we can each live different lives, tell ourselves different stories of who we are and how we are... get into the detail of composting toilets and community buses and how to keep chickens and geese and sort the water... all the things we're really going to need to learn, or relearn or otherwise bring into being as we shift forward into the small farm future that Chris Smaje was talking about last week. So this is a regenerative episode, about regenerating our souls as we heal the land.
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| 26 Feb 2020 | Healing Our Selves and the World: an Interview with Della Duncan | 00:50:21 | |
If we can open our eyes and look in the mirror of the world, we can open ourselves to the InterBeing that allows Active Hope as we face the chaos of our world. In this interview, Della Duncan, Renegade economist, host of the Upstream podcast, and practitioner of Joanna Macy's Work that Reconnects, explores the ways to a sustainable and equitable future. Podcaster, economist, and spiritual activist, Della Duncan is deeply integrated in the movement for human and planetary change. In this deep-diving conversation, we explore what it is to 'InterBe' such that we can take our place fully in the web of consciousness. Drawing deeply on her own experience, Della explores the ceremonies that we can undertake to help us shift our consciousness to reach a place where we can open our eyes and see ourselves in the mirror of the world. As someone who has trained directly and intensively with Joanna Macy, Della teaches widely the Work that Reconnects and seeks to apply the sense of turning towards the world in every moment of life. We discuss the ways that reframing the economy can be a bridge between those seeking systemic social change and those engaged in spiritual activism, look at the 'Upstream' metaphor and how finding the source of malaise is as important as rescuing those who are being damaged by our current system. Della's website: https://www.dellazduncan.com Marianne Williamson website: https://marianne.com | |||
| 16 Jun 2021 | Behave More! Rebuilding Our World Differently with Alexandra Kurland | 00:58:36 | |
Imagine a world where we listen to the voices of the young as much as the old, the women as much as the men, all races, all abilities, all income streams - all species... where we honour difference, where compassion and empathy are our keynotes, not competition and separation. If this is the world we want, how do we get there? In this second of two parts, we explore the existential question of our time with behaviourist Alexandra Kurland. Alexandra Kurland is a horse clicker trainer, behaviourist, classical rider - and convenor of the annual (now bi-annual) Science Camp that explores the art and science of positive reinforcement. She is host of the Horses for Future podcast, co-host of the Equiosity podcast, and author of The Click that Teaches and a whole host of other books and online courses about horse training. In today's podcast - the second of two - Alex and Manda continue to dive deeply into the fundamental question of our time - how do we bring people of widely disparate political views to a point where we all pull together to create a flourishing, generative future for people and planet? We have the answers. We just need to see the possibilities and be emotionally and psychologically prepared to apply them. So this is a behavioural problem now, not a technological one. Which means it needs the brightest behavioural minds on the planet to begin to think about it. And we can start now... The Clicker Center: https://www.theclickercenter.com Equiosity: https://www.equiosity.com Horses for Future: https://kurlanda.wixsite.com/sequestercarbon Mary Hunter: PORTL shaping: https://behaviorexplorer.com/author/mary/ An Introduction to PORTL shaping: https://www.artandscienceofanimaltraining.org/tools/portl-shaping-game/ The New Climate War by Michael Mann: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-New-Climate-War-by-Michael-E-Mann-author/9781913348687 | |||
| 13 Jan 2021 | Trust The People: Creating a politics that works | 00:56:19 | |
How would our world feel if our local, regional and national politics really listened to all the people, really brought together diverse views, and knew how to listen deeply to whatever was said? How would we be if our politics brought out the best in all of us, and worked for the living planet? We talk to Trust The People, a new movement to bring this about - globally. Trust The People is a movement of community builders open to everyone sharing deliberative democratic tools to support local communities dealing with global crises. In this episode, Mags Mulowska, an activist with TTP, explores how our current system is broken, and the ways we can change it so that everyone has choice and a voice, so that everyone's voice is heard and communities build around a sense of place and of purpose. She describes the courses run by TTP and some of the ways they have led to flourishing outcomes in diverse local communities. And we discuss the May local elections in the UK and how people can join a movement of independent candidates dedicated to bringing radical inclusivity, deep listening and trust to the local process. Trust the People: https://www.trustthepeople.earth | |||
| 18 Nov 2020 | Codes for a Healthy Earth: New rules for a flourishing world with Shelley Ostroff | 00:57:38 | |
Greta Thunberg says that ‘We cannot save the planet by playing by the rules, so the rules have to be changed’. This is self-evidently true, but that leaves us with the question of what rules could we create that we could all live by. Polly Higgins has the Earth Protector law, but Shelley Ostroff has gone one step further with her Codes for a Healthy Earth and the World Water law. Together, these rules spell out our connection with the More than Human world, and leave us with agency, initiative, and a sense of genuine flourishing. Shelley Ostroff (PhD) is a planetary activist, leadership consultant, social architect, mystic and writer. She is the founder of www.togetherincreation.org, www.7days-of-rest.org, www.codes.earth and other initiatives dedicated to the healing and replenishment of the planet and all its inhabitants. Concerned by the suffering and devastation humans cause each other, other species and the planet, she dedicated herself to exploring whole-system systems dynamics and integrative healing wisdom from diverse disciplines and traditions. She has worked with people from all walks of life, from different sectors of society and across continents as a therapist, consultant, mentor, and creative partner in cultivating individual, collective and whole-system wellness. Through ongoing research and practice, she has developed a unique holistic approach to human and whole-system healing and transformation that includes evolving blueprints for a new form of holistic health-oriented global Eco-Governance.
Together in Creation: www.togetherincreation.org Seven Days of Rest https://www.7days-of-rest.org/
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| 08 Apr 2020 | Shaman: A conversation with visionary and healer Chris Luttichau | 01:04:04 | |
Visionary, healer and author of two books on ancient indigenous and contemporary shamanic practice, Chris Luttichau is a beacon of grounded integrity in this time of upheaval. In this week's podcast, we explore how the indigenous peoples' view this time, and how we can respond to the challenges of the moment. This was recorded on the third day of lockdown in the UK. Our world is changing and we're feeling things we've never felt. Or feeling them more deeply. Or strangely. If ever there was a time to re-connect with our heritage, to re-discover the ancient teachings of the indigenous shamanic peoples of every continent, that time is now. In this podcast, Chris Luttichau shares the teachings of the Inner and Outer Minds, of the Four Attentions, and offers a meditation to help us to become grounded in our own Heart Minds. Chris Luttichau's website is here: Northern Drum | |||
| 14 Sep 2022 | The Meat Paradox: Ethics, morality and shamanic spirituality: exploring the politics of protein with Rob Percival | 01:12:40 | |
We are human because for most of our evolutionary history, we have eaten meat whilst treating animals as relations and giving thanks to them. We held these the two sides of this paradox in tension. But in the past decades, we have created hells on earth in our industrialised farming and abattoirs so that eating from them is no longer remotely ethical. How do we resolve the paradox? Is global veganism the answer or are there other ways to create a generative relationship with our humanity and the food we eat? With Rob Percival, author of The Meat Paradox. For hundreds of thousands of years, we lived as forager-hunters, our lives intimately entwined with the lives - and then deaths - of the animals that we ate. And then we cut that link and now we eat meat in plastic packages with cute pictures on the front to remove our awareness of the death that has arisen. And yet at our deepest levels, we know that meat is murder. How do we resolve this paradox? Rob Percival is a writer, campaigner and food policy expert. His commentary on food and farming has featured in the national press and on prime time television, and his writing has been shortlisted for the Guardian's International Development Journalism Prize and the Thomson Reuters Foundation's Food Sustainability Media Award. He works as Head of Food Policy for the Soil Association. The Meat Paradox is his first book and it's one of the best, deepest, and most genuinely engaging that I've read of the many that seek to address the huge cultural divide that surrounds our consumption of meat. This is a book that delves into neuroscience (denial, cognitive dissonance and the lies we tell ourselves), indigenous spiritual/shamanic practice, ancient ancestral practice as depicted in cave paintings that were created over a span of 30,000 years (that's a long time for an art form) and the actual experience of what it is to stand in an abbatoir and make eye contact with a cow as she walks into the stun cage. Reading this book will change your life. Talking to Rob on the podcast was a joy and an inspiration and we ranged across all of these subjects and more. We didn't get to the last-line dedication to Odin, which I had thought would be the core of the podcast, but then I discovered in the pre-recording conversations that Odin is a rescue dog (which is wonderful, but not quite the backbone of a shamanic/spiritual podcast that I'd imagined). Nonetheless, this is a deeply felt, deeply touching podcast that delves deep into the very meat of our identities in the modern world. The Meat Paradox: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-meat-paradox-brilliantly-provocative-original-electrifying-bee-wilson-financial-times/9781408713815 Web: rob-percival.com https://rob-percival.com/ Twitter: @rob_percival_ https://twitter.com/Rob_Percival_ | |||
| 14 Jun 2023 | The Sacred Depths of Nature: exploring the interface of science, spirituality and religion with Ursula Goodenough | 01:28:52 | |
Sometimes the synchronicity of this podcast leaves me very happy. About six months ago, I was thinking that I wanted to talk to someone who really lived at the interface between science and spirituality, where I could begin to sand down some of the rough edges of my own thinking. And that afternoon, I discovered that the 2nd edition of Professor Ursula Goodenough's book 'The Sacred Depths of Nature' was due to be published in the first half of this year. So we set up a podcast and then it turned out that my calendar management was haywire and I'd booked it for the day after teaching one of the most challenging of the shamanic dreaming courses. Normally I'd give myself several days to come back to something approaching consensus reality. You may think I don't spend a lot of time in CR as it is, and you'd be right, but there are degrees of my untethering and the day after a dreaming course is not my most tethered. But in the end, it was magical - really good to re-read Ursula's book in the evening and then have a quiet day reflecting and exploring things that snagged my attention. And so here we are: Ursula is a Professor of Biology Emerita at Washington University. She has discussed religious naturalism in essays, college classes, and as part of blogs and television and radio productions. She participated in conversations with the Dalai Lama sponsored by the Mind and Life Institute. She is author of the book, “The Sacred Depths of Nature” which, examines cosmology, evolution, and cell biology, celebrates the mystery and wonder of being alive, and suggests that this orientation might serve as the basis for “planetary ethic” that draws from both science and religion. And on the basis of this concept, in 2014, Ursula was part of the founding of the Religious Naturalists Association. And now comes the second, updated, edition, that looks into epigenetics and pandemics and generally updates both the science and the moving reflections that each scientific section evokes. It's beautiful, thoughtful, and inspiring. Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass said of it, “At once expansive and intimate, empirical and immanent, analytical and intuitive, material and spiritual, science and poetry get to dance joyfully together in these pages.” What better encouragement would we need to explore more deeply with the author? So People of the Podcast, please welcome Professor Ursula Goodenough, author of The Sacred Depths of Nature In 2023, Ursula was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
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| 16 Aug 2023 | Spiritual Activism: Permaculture of land, heart and people with Maddy Harland | 01:13:41 | |
This podcast is focussed on all the ways that we can bring all of ourselves to the project of total systemic change: our minds, bodies, spirits, hearts - and the practicality of what we do. Given this, we're delighted to welcome to the podcast Maddy Harland, the Co-founder and Editor of Permaculture Magazine . Maddy, and her husband Tim, co-founded a publishing company, Permanent Publications, in 1990 and Permaculture Magazine in 1992 to explore traditional and new ways of living in greater harmony with the Earth. She is the author of Fertile Edges—regenerating land, culture and hope and The Biotime Log. Maddy and Tim, have designed and planted one of the oldest forest gardens in Britain: once a bare field, it is now an edible landscape ,a haven for wildlife, and a reservoir of biodiversity. I met Maddy first back in the early days of this millennium when the whole Permaculture team was in the south east of England. More recently, they moved to Devon in the south west, where they are retrofitting a Devon longhouse to become zero carbon and restoring an old woodland to be a sanctuary for rare species like Dormice and Pied Flyctachers - and to be a place of healing and retreat for people. Maddy has been one of the beacons of the regenerative movement for decades. She's edited one of the world's most vibrantly alive magazines for over thirty years, she's interviewed - and edited - everyone who is anyone in this field from Vandana Shiva to Satish Kumar to Patrick Whitefield hundreds, literally, of the less well known, but absolutely cutting edge, inspiring people in all corners of the world who are living the change that will take us to the future we'd be proud to leave behind. If anyone knows where we're at, and what potential there is for change, she does. So it was a joy to be able to connect and explore ideas with someone who's given their life's energy to exploring the ways that change can happen. COUPON: PERMACULTUREGODS - with this, you'll get a free copy of Maddy's book Fertile Edges, with your subscription. Please use the code at the Checkout. (NB: this is valid until 23:59 on 6th November 2023 - and works once a subscription and Fertile Edges have been added to the cart, and then the code added) Website link at which to use it: https://shop.permaculture.co.uk/collections/permaculture-magazine
Permaculture Books: https://www.permanentpublications.co.uk/ Free Permaculture e-books: https://shop.permaculture.co.uk/collections/free-ebooks-1 Permaculture Magazine YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PermacultureMagazine Permaculture Magazine Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/PermacultureMag Permaculture Magazine Instagram https://www.instagram.com/permaculturemagazine Permaculture Magazine Twitter https://twitter.com/PermacultureMag Plus a free Intro to Permaculture Course: https://workspace.oregonstate.edu/free-on-demand-intro-to-permaculture-open-online-resource Setsuden in Japan - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setsuden
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| 01 Dec 2021 | Your money or our lives: Economics, Green New Deal and a post-COP world with James Meadway | 01:05:40 | |
How can we shape our economies in a post-COP, decarbonising world? How can we build a way of exchanging value that actually works in favour of our planet, not against it? Dr James Meadway, former economic advisor to John McDonnell on how redistribution can take place, and how to reshape our political landscape. Dr Meadway's work has focused on developing viable alternatives to neoliberalism, and has published widely on democratic ownership, environmental economics, and automation and the digital economy. He was previously economic advisor to John McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor, and was chief economist at the New Economics Foundation. He is currently writing a book on the British economy after the 2008 crisis, and appears regularly on broadcast media as a commentator on UK politics.
In this episode, we explore the repercussions of the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow and how the world might respond - in particular, how we might respond as individuals, and as communities. Links James in the New Statesman: Why a green state is not enough to compensate for bad capitalists: https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2021/11/is-a-green-state-the-answer-to-the-climate-crisis James just after the 2019 election: https://novaramedia.com/2019/12/17/labours-economic-plans-what-went-wrong/ | |||
| 06 Apr 2022 | Down to Earth Derby: Growing a city Green from the inside out | 01:00:55 | |
As our world balances on the edge of transformation, how do we rewild ourselves and our inner cities? How do we build communities of place and of purpose that work, that give us resilience, life, hope - and a deep, enduring, magical connection to the earth? Jamie Quince-Starkey and Ross Nicholson of Down to Earth Derby describe the utterly inspiring work they are doing to achieve exactly this. Jamie Quince-Starkey has worked with planes, trains and automobiles, but he found himself most at at home in himself, and at peace with the world when he had his hands in the soil, growing thing to eat. Many of us might resonate with this, but Jamie took it a step further and set up Down to Earth Derby, a life-changing project that, as he says, "is an idea born out of conflict; the conflict of living life in the modern-day and the realisation of the negative impact we have on this planet. - to make living with nature a part of our everyday lives.
If you enjoy this, check them out - and see what you can do in your local community.
Eden Project Ross Nicholson's website | |||
| 08 May 2024 | No such thing as Waste, No such place as 'Away'! - Composting our way out of the meta-crisis with Nicky Grady Scott | 01:12:12 | |
Join us on a deep dive into the transformative world of composting with Nicky Grady Scott, a master composter and educator whose expertise is revolutionizing our approach to waste and regenerative cycles. In this enlightening episode, Nicky shares his journey from a passionate 16-year-old working with compost to the establishment of community-led recycling projects that have evolved into thriving businesses. Discover the science and simplicity behind composting, the importance of soil health, and how we can all contribute to a flourishing future by turning our "wasted resources" into rich, living soil. Whether you live in a high-rise or have acres of land, Nicky's insights offer practical guidance on creating compost, understanding soil's water retention, and the alchemy of air, water, and fire in the composting process. Tune in to learn how you can be part of this global movement towards sustainability, food security, and job creation. Get ready to be inspired to transform your food scraps into a force for regenerative change!
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| 29 Mar 2023 | Bonus: Exploring the banking crash with Grace Rachmany - in which I ask all the questions I never asked before... | 00:46:26 | |
Following our podcast with Grace Rachmany, we stayed online and talked about the banking crash. At the time of recording, we only knew about Silicon Valley Bank - Credit Suisse hadn't gone down yet - but we talked about the nature of finance, of cryptocurrencies, of the totally unsustainable nature of the economy. This is the kind of conversation that I often have with guests after the podcast is over. Usually it happens off-air and I wish we'd captured it. And this time, we did. So if you're interested in the two of us riffing in a rather less structured way than the usual podcast, this is it. | |||
| 28 Jan 2021 | Everybody Now: A PodBoom on The Climate and Ecological Emergency | 01:47:09 | |
Everybody Now Climate Emergency and Sacred Duty
We’ve caused a turning point in the Earth’s natural history. Everybody Now is a podcast about what it means to be human on the threshold of a global climate emergency, in a time of systemic injustice and runaway pandemics. Scientists, activists, farmers, poets, and theologians talk bravely and frankly about how our biosphere is changing, about grief and hope in an age of social collapse and mass extinction, and about taking action against all the odds.
With contributions from:
Dr. Gail Bradbrook - scientist and co-founder of Extinction Rebellion Prof. Kevin Anderson - Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester Dámaris Albuquerque - works with agricultural communities in Nicaragua Dr. Rowan Williams - theologian and poet, and a former Archbishop of Canterbury Pádraig Ó Tuama - poet, theologian and conflict mediator Rachel Mander - environmental activist with Hope for the Future John Swales - priest and activist, and part of a community for marginalised people Zena Kazeme - Persian-Iraqi poet who draws on her experiences as a former refugee to create poetry that explores themes of exile, home, war and heritage Flo Brady - singer and theatre maker Hannah Malcolm - Anglican ordinand, climate writer and organiser Alastair McIntosh - writer, academic and land rights activist David Benjamin Blower - musician, poet and podcaster
Funding and Production:
This podcast was crowdfunded by a handful of good souls, and produced by Tim Nash and David Benjamin Blower
Permissions:
The song Happily by Flo Brady is used with permission. The song The Soil, from We Really Existed and We Really Did This by David Benjamin Blower, used with permission. The Poem The Tree of Knowledge by Pádraig Ó Tuama used with permission. The Poem Atlas by Zena Kazeme used with permission. The Poem What is Man? by Rowan Williams from the book The Other Mountain, used with permission from Carcanet Press. | |||
| 01 Mar 2023 | Be Kind, Be Useful, Create Giants in the Sky: transforming community with Alan Lane of Slung Low | 01:06:31 | |
The Accidental Gods podcast exists to set the conditions for emergence into a new system: to bring a critical mass of us to a place where emergence into a new system is a rewarding reality. To get there, we bring to you some of the many astonishingly creative, compassionate, switched-on people who are working at the leading edge of change. Alan is also the author of the book 'The Club on the Edge of Town' which is subtitled 'A Pandemic Memoir' but is so, so much more - this is the story of how Slung Low arose, how it came to be entered in the oldest Working Mens' Club in England (unable to change the name), and ultimately became a Food Bank during the pandemic. It's the story of standing in the rain, of keeping promises, of integrity and grit and sheer bloody-minded tenacity. Most of all, it's a story of how a small group of committed people made a huge difference to the lives of their neighbours and community. It is also the story of the culture clash that you'll hear more about in the podcast, and that led, ultimately, to Slung Low moving elsewhere in Leeds. Since then, their transformation to being part of the team that put on the utterly magical opening event of the Leeds Year of Culture 2023, where the city's most famous pop star spoke to a god - is the stuff of legend. In their new world, their core purpose is to make Awe and Wonder happen - and they are doing it with commitment, integrity, enthusiasm and raw inspiration. In this episode, Alan tells the story that led from standing in the rain in Nottinghill to creating technical magic on a stage in Leeds. We explore the power of story to change people's lives and the value of commitment to the things we believe in. We dig deep into Alan's absolute moral imperatives and his compassion for the people around him, people he values, people he teaches to value themselves in a world that, in his words, 'teaches us we're cogs in a machine and we're scum' is heartbreakingly wonderful. Truly, if the whole world was inspired as Leeds is being inspired, we'd be in a different place. (And the god that rose out of the river was a world first: made with drones, everyone said it was impossible. And Alan and the team made it happen anyway. How good of a metaphor is that for what we have to do now in our emerging new system?)
In 2019 the company took over management of the oldest working men’s club in Britain, The Holbeck in South Leeds. Initially, they ran this venue as a Pay What You Decide creative and community space, but during lockdown, they transformed into one of the only non-means-tested Food Banks in the country. Their work there was transformative and Alan wrote the book 'The Club on the Edge of Town' out of their experiences there. Slung Low https://www.slunglow.org/ | |||
| 02 Dec 2020 | Breaking the Rules to save the world: How to be More Pirate, with Alex Barker | 01:01:54 | |
How can we take the radical, renegade, rule-breaking, revolutionary ideals of the golden age of Pirates and transmute them to gold in our world? Alex Barker, author of 'How to be More Pirate' lays out the maps to the treasure of change. The concept of radical, renegade, revolutionary insurgency based on the model created in the Golden Age of Pirates was given wings by Sam Conniff's best selling book, BE MORE PIRATE. In the wake of its success, Sam needed to find ways to help the many people the book inspired. And for that he needed help. Enter Alex Barker, Primary Pirate, visionary, breaker of rules and maker of gatherings on and offline. Alex and Sam between them have steered Pirate groups from industries as far apart as car manufacturing (Mercedes), Social Media Mega-Giants (Google) and nationally owned health care providers (the UK's NHS). But we can go deeper than simply breaking the old, fossilised structures of industries... we can change the entire system. Because, as Sam says, 'problems will not be fixed by fixing the problems... what's really needed is an overhaul of the engine that's causing the problems. In other words, the business model.' The book: https://www.bemorepirate.com/the-book As we said at the end of the podcast, Mike Raven and Ross Thornley of AQAI have kindly agreed to let Accidental Gods subscribers and members access their Adaptability Quotient test. The link is here: | |||
| 06 Oct 2021 | Towards a Progressive Future: politics and activism in the world of climate change with Jeremy Gilbert | 01:01:18 | |
How can we build a progressive political movement that spans the world and that will take us to where we need to be: a future we can be proud of and towards which all of us will want to work? Taking politics, activism, progressive ideals with Jeremy Gilbert, Professor of Cultural and Political Theory at the University of East London. This is one of our most nakedly political conversations - because politics is the language of power and those who rule over us do so with at least the vestige of a democratic mandate. To understand how to affect change, we need to understand how to shift the levers of power on a worldwide scale. But change always begins at home, so in this week's episode, we're talking about political activism in the UK and where it might go in the near term. Our guest is someone really well placed to discuss this:
His next book, Hegemony Now : How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World , co-authored with Alex Williams, will be published in 2022.
He has been involved with both mainstream party politics and extra-parliamentary activism throughout his adult life, having been an active participant in the social forum movement of the early 2000s, a member of the founding national committee of Momentum (the controversial organisation established to support Corbyn's leadership of Labour), and being a former elected member management committee of Compass, a pluralist left-wing think tank and lobby group. Jeremy is an an advisor to and participant in a range of ongoing projects such as The World Transformed and the New Economy Organisers Network. He has also participated in many cultural projects, particularly connected with music and sonic culture, and is a founder member of Lucky Cloud Sound System and Beauty and the Beat, two successful and respected collectives that have been organising regular dance parties in East London since the early 2000s, at many of which he still regularly DJs. Jeremy also maintains a lifelong commitment to public education outside the academy, currently hosting Culture, Power, Politics, a regular series of free open seminars and lectures. Links: Jeremy's website: https://www.jeremygilbert.org | |||
| 12 Jul 2023 | Voting our way to a fairer future: Contemplations on quadratic voting with Ruth Catlow | 00:37:40 | |
This is the part of the podcast where we talk about voting systems, specifically the quadratic voting on the blockchain that Ruth has made into an app that's in use in the Park. Then we moved into her work with Government ministries and big corporations, bringing the aliveness and liveliness, and special insight of Live Action Role Play into politics and industry to help people see things from a wider context. This is how we change the world: one new idea at a time... | |||
| 24 Jan 2024 | On Nature, Culture and The Sacred with Elder and Visionary, Nina Simons | 01:05:46 | |
"Consciousness creates matter, Language Creates Reality, Ritual creates relationship' - Oscar Miro-Quesada quoted by Nina Simons in her book ’Nature, Culture and the Sacred’ One of the extraordinary privileges of hosting a podcast like this is that I get to talk to some of my heroes, to ask questions, to have a conversation about the things that really matter. This week's guest is one of these. Nina Simons is an author, a leader - and we'll hear how that word was imposed on her and then she learned to embody it, she's a visionary in the deepest sense, and I would say, in a world that is crying out for the wisdom of elders, she is an elder, a wisdom-bearer, someone who has brought deep humility and authenticity to the whole of her life. In more outward terms, in 1990, she co-founded Bioneers, which started off as a conference and has grown into one of the foremost trailblazers of the movement for a whole and healed earth. On the website it says 'We act as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges.'
Nina's website https://www.ninasimons.com/ | |||
| 20 Sep 2024 | Autumn Equinox meditation 2024 | 00:16:50 | |
Here is an Autumn Equinox Meditation to help set you up for the shift from the long days to the long nights. For those in the Southern Hemisphere, there's a Spring Equinox Meditation here. | |||
| 07 Jun 2023 | Lifeboats and Volcanoes: part 3 of our series with Simon Michaux | 01:08:06 | |
This week's guest is fast becoming a friend of the Podcast. In the first part of what is now an ongoing series, Dr Simon Michaux outlined for us the nature of the materials crisis - the fact that there is simply not enough stuff, not enough copper or cobalt or lithium to continue to manufacture at the levels we have been - and there's not even enough to make the renewable (or, as Nate Hagens would call them, rebuildable) technology to replace the fossil fuel power we're going to have to stop using. I had planned that we'd look more at the remaining five of Simon's hierarchy of needs in this conversation, but - like most of these podcasts - the plan went out of the window when I asked how he was doing and it was clear that he'd been having some really interesting conversations. And so we went with this - because it seems to me that if the people who get it are multiplying, then it's useful for us to know this - we can support the narratives that unpick the 'business as usual' dynamics and begin to look forward to what will work. That's the core of this podcast - what can we do, how can we do it - and how can we ensure that enough people get this to create a global movement. We had to cut off faster than we'd like, so there will be (at least) a podcast four! Simon Michaux Podcast 1 https://accidentalgods.life/transforming-industry-to-create-a-genuine-green-revolution/ | |||
| 01 Nov 2023 | Power to the People: Changing the way things work with Simon Oldridge | 01:21:51 | |
We all know the climate and ecological tipping points are terrifyingly close. What can we do - as individuals and collectively? Simon Oldridge has ideas that answer both of these. Simon first joined us back in episode #182 when he joined his colleague Anthea Simmons and they spoke eloquently about the strategies of the South Devon Primary group which are aimed at raising one progressive candidate in borderline constituencies in the UK, so that the hard right doesn't swan through the middle on a minority of the votes because the anti-Tory vote has been split (again). Getting progressive politicians into power is their primary aim, but they also want to make sure the candidates who become MPs understand the concerns of their constituents and are prepared to act as independent-minded individuals in the House of Commons, not simply lobby fodder. So that was a fun and sparky conversation, but it seemed to me at the time that we could have delved down a lot more deeply into SImon's broader work to find politically viable ways to address the climate and ecological emergency, particularly his work with Zero Hour, the campaign for the Climate and Ecology Bill and which has produced a number of detailed and fascinating reports, including one about the Ambition Gap we have as we head for Net Zero and another entitled, 'Creating a Nature-Rich UK'. Hence, we came back for another conversation - because apart from anything else, it's so enlivening to talk with someone else who spends their entire life thinking about these things: and if I can't have fun on the podcast, what's the point? I am well aware that many of you listening are not in the UK - and that politics is a very siloed space: we all have our own rules to work within and our own levels of bureaucracy and kleptocracy masquerading as democracy that we're trying to reform. So I hope that some of the ideas we explore, particularly the bigger ones of global power systems and routes to net zero and nature-based solutions strike home far outside the boundaries of this island. And yes, I still have Covid, so I apologise in advance for the state of my voice. Target Seats suitable for replicating South Devon Primary https://www.politicalprimary.org/target-map South Devon Primary on Twitter https://twitter.com/sdevonprimary CREDS - https://low-energy.creds.ac.uk/ Stanford study: https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/3539703-no-miracle-tech-needed-how-to-switch-to-renewables-now-and-lower-costs-doing-it/ Climate and Ecology Bill:https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/2943 | |||
| 07 Oct 2020 | Grief Walker and Fire Keeper: Medicine woman Fiona Shaw speaks of Trust, Grief and Emotional Authenticity | 00:55:48 | |
If we gather in ceremony, sitting on the land, with a fire-keeper who understands the holding and has trained in the ways of the fire, there is so much healing. Fiona Shaw is one of those people, trained in great depth and absolute integrity, to connect to the spirits of this land, and to hold the space for others to re-connect to the fire, the water, the land, the guides, gods and guardians of our ways. Here, she talks about the new depths and challenges - and, yes, opportunities, of this time. And how we can find authenticity in our grief. And new ways of being. Fiona's Website: http://birthingthesoul.co.uk/ | |||
| 05 Feb 2025 | Find the Others! Beyond the Death of Democracy lies Citizen Power - with Jon Alexander of the Citizen Collective | 01:17:01 | |
Democracy is breaking around us in real time and a small percentage of those in power would like us to become - at best - obedient subjects in a world dedicated to the destruction of ecosystems and the annihilation of compassion, empathy and all that makes us thrive. Clearly, we are better than this. So how can we harness the astonishing wonder of human co-creation in service to life and a world where humanity thrives as part of a flourishing web of life? This week's guest, Jon Alexander started off his professional life as a highly successful advertising executive - until the inherent contradictions in the Consumer narrative led him on a new path, to seeing people as Citizens in his words, 'people who actively shape the world around us, who cultivate meaningful connections to our community and institutions, who can imagine a different and better life, and who create opportunities for others to do the same.' This quotation comes from his book, Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us. It's is a genuinely Thrutopian view of possibility from one of the sharpest minds, and biggest hearts in this space of all potential and I wholeheartedly encourage you to read it - knowing that it came out three years ago - and the world has changed since then.
Jon is one of the people best placed to answer this. He's co-founder of the New Citizen Project which works to help organisations and businesses find ways to enhance Citizenship in all they do. And more recently, he helped found the Citizen Collective which we can all join and which holds regular online meetings to connect people who aspire to citizenship all around the world. This was a raw, honest conversation and neither of us is pretending we have all the answers. But we're exploring the ideas - and Jon brings such a wealth of experience to the table to open doors for all of us. I came away from this feeling that the routes forward are opening up. I hope you do, too.
Join here: https://airtable.com/appIlFU7nEF8NgiMf/pagsPy8sTEAMKaZpu/form Polis AI-based connection https://compdemocracy.org/ Our House https://ourhouseuk.org/ If you want to share the journey with us, we're here: | |||
| 01 Jul 2020 | Fierce Tenderness and White Horse Hill Woman: the teachings of Carolyn Hillyer | 01:09:02 | |
Musician, artist, maker-of-ceremony and guardian of the ancestors of the land, Carolyn Hillyer talks - and sings - about the three things that take care of this land: a deep honouring of the ancestors, a fierce guardianship, and the absolute heart-felt connection of tribe. Carolyn Hillyer lives on a 1,000 year old farm in the heart of Dartmoor. Her fierce, deeply spiritual guardianship of this place involves a heart-commitment to sharing the space with those who have been and those yet to come. As we near the end of (the first) Covid lockdown, she talks - and sings - of her spiritual connection to the ancestors of this land, of the ceremonial spaces she has built, of the Sami women and the bear skull that they brought in honouring - and of the remains of a Bronze Age ancestor-woman found on the hill overlooking the land, and the bear skin she was wrapped in. Carolyn's deep, heartfelt connection to the land shines through her words, her art and her songs: a shining beacon of how life can be lived for those who choose to follow. Carolyn’s website, Seventh Wave Music: https://www.seventhwavemusic.co.uk | |||
| 21 Feb 2024 | Dung Beetles, People and helping the Keystone Species with Claire Whittle, the Regenerative Vet | 01:16:39 | |
In this week's episode we delve into the intricate world of dung beetles and their critical role in regenerative farming with the passionate and knowledgeable Claire Whittle, the Regenerative Vet. Claire's journey from a conventional large animal practitioner to a fervent advocate for farming in harmony with nature is not only inspiring but also a testament to the profound impact one species can have on the environment. With her vivid and captivating storytelling, Claire brings to life the bustling ecosystem that thrives within a simple cowpat, highlighting the crucial work of dung beetles in nutrient cycling, reducing greenhouse gases, and supporting biodiversity. This conversation is a call to action for farmers, vets, and anyone interested in sustainable agriculture to reconsider the way we interact with the land and its inhabitants. Whether you're managing vast farmlands or nurturing a small garden, this episode is a treasure trove of insights on how we can all contribute to a healthier planet by stepping into our role as a positive keystone species. So, grab your headphones and prepare to be charmed by the unsung heroes of the pasture, as we explore the significance of these tiny earth-movers in shaping a regenerative future. Dung Beetles for Farmers https://www.dungbeetlesforfarmers.co.uk/ | |||
| 04 Mar 2020 | This Civilisation is Finished: a conversation with Rupert Read | 00:31:37 | |
If, as philosopher, Green party activist, University Professor and XR activist, Rupert Read is right, our civilisation is finished. We'll either collapse, or transform to the point of being unrecognisable. So... this being the case, what can we do? Rupert Read is one of our generation's greatest, and deepest green thinkers. Join us in this discussion of how we can move forward. Rupert Read is convinced that societal collapse is inevitable - and near. And that this is White Swan effect - it's not remotely surprising or coming out of left field. So this being the case, we need to act - we have a choice between crashing into extinction OR moving forward to a transformation of our culture and society so profound that what transpires bears no resemblance to the current society. Given that this is the case, what can we do? In this lively, dynamic conversation with Rupert Rea, we delve into the topic of Deep Adaptation, Transformative Adaptation and the various routes to a different future. We explore the routes Extinction Rebellion could take to avoid 'rushing the rebellion' and look forward at ways we could craft the world we need to see.
This Civilisation is Finished, by Rupert Read An Eco-Spiritual Basis for Rebellion Against Extinction - Schumacher College | |||
| 12 Aug 2020 | Growing into Relationship with the Earth: Mac Macartney, visionary, leader and teacher offers transformation | 01:10:02 | |
If you could transform your life with three questions whose answers would bring you into right relationship with yourself, the Earth and the whole web of consciousness, would you ask them? Even if they took you to the full depths of yourself? In this profoundly moving podcast, Mac Macartney guides us through. "When a human embryo is in the mother’s womb, creation whispers into their being ‘I am placing a piece of my genius inside you’. Our task then is to find it, discover it, and share it. Mac Macartney is a writer, visionary, teacher, thought leader, TED talker, founder of Embercombe and leader of The Journey. A role model for the best of masculinity, guided by his visions for a healed earth and healed humanity, Mac talks with deep, abiding compassion and authenticity of the ways we can find our way back into context with the earth. Links: Mac's site - https://macmacartney.com | |||
| 06 Dec 2023 | Braced for Impact: Cutting through the Greenwash and Lies with Rachel Donald of Planet: Critical podcast | 01:28:16 | |
Our guest this week is host of one of my must-listen podcasts - one I've been following since the spring, when Dr Simon Michaux mailed me and said, you need to listen to Rachel - and he was right. Rachel Donald is host of Planet: Critical one of the world's top-rated podcasts on the poly-crisis and systems change. She interviews some really big players on the world stage with integrity and panache - her conversation with Alastair Campbell where she never lets him off the hook is an absolute exemplar of how to hold power to account and I think we're seeing the change in real time on his podcast with Rory Stewart. When she's not podcasting, Rachel is a climate corruption journalist who investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. With world exclusives in major papers, Rachel investigates the gaslighting which props up our broken systems. She travels the world talking on - and off - the record to heads of government and oil industry executives, to the people who make our current system tick and who are often just as afraid as we are about the direction and speed of travel towards the edge of the extinction cliff. Rachel has an almost unique insight into the nature of the systemic catastrophe we've built for ourselves and therefore of the ways we might address it. This was a bracing conversation. There are no easy answers and I had some of my rosier tinted lenses broken along the way. But in the end we came to the place we often get to with this podcast - that building communities of place, purpose and passion where we value each other, and our capacity to love bravely is what might - perhaps - bring us to the emergent edge of inter-becoming that Indy Johar spoke of a few weeks ago. So brace yourselves, this is not an easy podcast, but we need to know where we're at so we can let go - again - ever more completely - of our assumptions about business as usual and do whatever we can, wherever we are, to be that emergent edge. Planet: Critical podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/planet-critical/id1545009586 | |||
| 13 Sep 2023 | Making The Nettle Dress: a journey of attention and intention and magic and loss with Allan Brown and Dylan Howitt | 01:19:25 | |
"Grasping the Nettle' is at the heart of the film. Making a dress this way is a mad act of will and artistry but also devotional, with every nettle thread representing hours of mindful craft. Over seven years Allan is transformed by the process just as the nettles are. It's a kind of alchemy: transforming nettles into cloth, grief into beauty, protection and renewal. A labour of love, in the truest sense of the phrase, The Nettle Dress is a modern-day fairytale and hymn to the healing power of nature and slow craft." This week is our one hundred and ninety ninth episode of the Accidental Gods podcast. It's been quite a ride, and to celebrate the end of our second century, my partner, Faith, has come to join me as host, and we have two guests, textile designer Allan Brown and Dylan Howitt who is a filmmaker with over 20 years of making documentaries and features for the BBC, Netflix, Sky, Discovery - if you've heard of them, Dylan's worked with them. Allan was exploring how we could feed and clothe ourselves as we head towards a world of localism and increasing self reliance. A journey that began with a simple question - namely 'how can we clothes ourselves?' - led to his spending seven years of his life making a a dress from the fibres of the nettles that grew locally. He harvested them in his local wood, made the fibre, spun over fourteen thousand feet of it, hand wove it, and then made it into a truly beautiful dress for his daughter.
The film is one of the most profoundly moving I've seen in a long time: it's deep time brought into being, it offers connection and profound attention and intention as it follows Al's profound intention and attention. It's so, so different from what we normally see, so grounding - and when we had the chance to talk to Al and Dylan, it made sense for Faith to join me: she's the maker in our partnership, she's been a textile maker and designer and she thinks differently than I do in many ways. So this is a joint endeavour and all the stronger for it.
Dylan Howitt is a filmmaker with many years of experience telling compelling stories from all around the world, personal and political, always from the heart. Twice BAFTA-nominated he’s produced and directed for BBC, Netflix, ITV and Channel 4 amongst many others. His latest feature documentary, The Nettle Dress, follows textile artist Allan Brown on a seven-year odyssey making a dress from the fibre of locally foraged stinging nettles.
Allan Brown Bio
Allan Brown (Hedgerow Couture) is a textile artist from Brighton, East Sussex, in the UK. Working primarily with sustainable natural fibres like nettles, flax, hemp and wool, Allan takes these raw materials and transforms them into beautiful cloth with the aim of creating functional, durable clothing that draws lightly from the land, reflecting the fibres and colours of the landscape he lives and works in.
Dylan's website www.dylanhowitt.com
Simon and Ann at Flaxland https://www.flaxland.co.uk/contact | |||
| 15 Jul 2020 | Imagineering 2: Weaving a flourishing future with Miki Kashtan | 01:03:11 | |
In this second of two episodes, practical visionary, Miki Kashtan, lays out her visions of a flourishing, generative future based on providing for the needs of all - the human and More-Than-Human world. And how to get there. Miki Kashtan, co-founder of the Bay Area NVC and adept nonviolent communication practitioner, lays out the pathways she believes could take us towards a future where everyone flourishes. If we explore the flows of life - of need and resource, of how we interact, then we can begin to heal the patriarchal wounds of separation, scarcity and powerlessness and move into a world where mutual care and trust lead us to a state of community, empowerment and provision. Links: Miki Kashtan blog: https://thefearlessheart.org Tom Atlee: http://www.tomatleeblog.com Miki's concepts of how to structure Global governance: https://thefearlessheart.org/resources/local-to-global-collaboration/ Genevieve Vaughan - the maternal gift economy: http://gift-economy.com James Gilligan - Conference ‘the Making of Destructive Leaders’ - https://www.confer.uk.com/event/leaders.html Nonviolent Global Liberation Community - https://nglcommunity.org Collaborative Lawmaking Study: http://efficientcollaboration.org/wp-content/uploads/MinnesotaCaseStudy.pdf Books: James Gilligan: Violence: Reflections on a National Pandemic: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/60198/violence-by-james-gilligan-m-d/ Alice Miller: ‘For your own Good’ https://www.alice-miller.com/en/for-your-own-good/ Walter Wink ‘Powers that Be’ https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Powers-That-Be-by-Walter-Wink-author/9780385487528 Rebecca Solnit ‘Paradise Made in Hell’ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/301070/a-paradise-built-in-hell-by-rebecca-solnit/ Life after Covid-19 - Miki has a chapter in this - - available for pre-order here: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/life-after-covid-19 Marija Gimbutas ‘The Balts’ https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.40925 Article on the disempowerment of our ancestors: https://thefearlessheart.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/From-Obedience-and-Shame-to-Freedom-and-Belonging.pdf | |||
| 10 Apr 2024 | How do we live, when under the surface of everything is an ocean of tears? With Douglas Rushkoff of Team Human | 01:11:02 | |
Our guest this week is Douglas Rushkoff, a man whose insights and intellect have earned him a place among the world's ten most influential intellectuals by MIT. As the host of the acclaimed Team Human podcast and author of numerous groundbreaking books, including "Survival of the Richest," Rushkoff's work delves into the intricate dance between technology, narrative, money, power, and human connection. Douglas shares with us the palpable "ocean of tears" lurking beneath the surface of our collective consciousness—a reservoir of compassion waiting to be acknowledged and embraced. His candid reflections on the human condition, amidst the cacophony of a world in crisis, remind us of the importance of bearing witness to the pains and joys that surround us. He challenges us to consider the role of technology and AI not as tools for capitalist exploitation but as potential pathways to a more humane and interconnected existence. As we navigate the complex interplay of digital landscapes and social constructs, Rushkoff invites us to question the gods of our modern age—wealth, power, control—and to seek solace in the simpler, more profound aspects of life: friendship, community, and the transformative power of awe. His vision for a society that embraces these values, even as it stands on the precipice of uncertainty, offers a beacon of hope for those willing to engage with the deeper currents of change. For listeners yearning to dive into the depths of our potential for transformation, this conversation with Douglas Rushkoff is an invitation to join a chorus of voices seeking to reshape our collective destiny. Tune in to this episode of Accidental Gods and join us on a journey to redefine what it means to be human in a world teetering between collapse and rebirth. | |||
| 17 Apr 2024 | What do we really think about Food? Revolutionising what we eat with Sue Pritchard of the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission | 01:16:05 | |
We're told so often that people 'don't want the nanny state to intervene' in what we eat or drink or smoke - and often the people saying this are those who employ literal nannies to raise their children. But is it true? What would we learn if someone courageous, with vision, depth and care were to find ways to ask ordinary people what they really feel? #TheFoodConversation is huge - in scope and depth and duration - but more in terms of what it teaches us about how people actually feel, what they actually think, and the massive difference that we can make by helping ordinary people to understand more about how food could be healthy, nutritious and affordable - as opposed to how it is now. If you've listened to previous episodes of this podcast, you'll know that total systemic change is one of our foundational beliefs: it's coming whether we like it or not and we'd like to manage a just transition rather than waiting to see what arises from the ashes if we keep pushing business as usual until our entire bus dives over the edge of the biophysical cliff. And so we are always on the lookout for people who not only think systemically, but who get it; who aren't just talking the talk, but who are making things happen on the ground that will lead us all closer to the tipping points of change. Sue Pritchard is one of these people. She's the Chief Executive of the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission, leading the organisation in its mission to bring together people across the UK and the world to act on the climate, nature and health crises, through fairer and more sustainable food systems, and a just transition for rural communities and the countryside.
This conversation was sparked by the FFCC's inspiring Food Conversation - which brings together ordinary people and begins to unpick the web of deceit surrounding our food - and replaces it with something that is real and decent and nourishing on a physical and systemic level. This was such an inspiring, invigorating conversation and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. | |||
| 19 Feb 2025 | Becoming Spiritual Warriors: exploring a politics of radical Compassion with Jamie Bristow | 01:38:01 | |
In a world of turmoil where the only certainty is uncertainty, what happens if we who yearn for a future we'd be proud to leave behind began really to speak the quiet part out loud? What happens if we acknowledge the meaning crisis of our culture and state clearly that we need a world based on Love: on the raw, wild, wonder of life itself? And what happens if we shape our politics around this, instead of defensive attempts to make the death cult of predatory capitalism feel less... deathly? This week's guest, Jamie Bristow is someone who lives in the worlds where policies are made and, for the past sixteen years, he has been consciously committed to being a Spiritual Warrior with all this implies. Like Jon Alexander, Jamie started off life as an advertising executive before realising he needed to align his inner and outer worlds. Now, he's a writer and policy advisor working at the intersection of inner and outer transformation and sustainability. For eight years, he was clerk to the UK's All Party Parliamentary Group on Mindfulness and director of the associated policy institute, the Mindfulness Initiative, (where he helped to introduce mindfulness to a number of other parliaments). During this time he worked with legislators around the world to make mindfulness and compassion training serious matters of public policy and catalysts for a healthier political process. In 2023, he joined the Inner Development Goals team to lead on public narrative and policy development, emphasising the inner skills and qualities needed for a sustainable transition. His work includes influential reports such as Reconnection: Meeting the Climate Crisis Inside Out and The System Within: Addressing the inner dimension of sustainability and systems transformation. He is an associate of Life Itself, The Climate Majority Project, Mind & Life Institute and Bangor University.
SoulMaking Dharma Course https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/classes/2025-introduction-to-a-soulmaking-dharma/ If you want to share the journey with us, we're here: | |||
| 18 Oct 2023 | Courageous Conversations - talking about what matters with Rowan Ryrie of Parents for Future | 01:11:52 | |
How can we, as parents, grandparents and anyone who cares about the fate of future generations, live our lives in such a way that when our children ask us why we didn't do more, we can say with honesty that we did all that we could? How do we help them to build resilience, to feel safe in a supportive community and in connection with the natural world so that as they grow, they can face the truth about the world they have inherited? And how can we use our role as parents to create conversations that matter, not only with people with meet in our daily lives but also with those in positions of power. These are some of the core questions that prompted environmentalist and movement-builder, Rowan Ryrie to co-found Parents for Future, a fast-growing group of parents who have come together to support each other in navigating the climate crisis and trying to secure a safer, fairer world for children everywhere.
This feels to me to be right at the cutting edge of the emergent future we need to create. It's grounded in a theory of change that makes sense in the realities of overall systemic change, while at the same time, understanding that shift happens one courageous conversation at a time, and that we all feel better if we can share our fears and build hopes that work for everyone. Rowan specifically wanted me to assure everyone that Parents for Future is not only for those with young children - or any children - if you care about the world we're leaving to the generations that come after us, human and more than human, then do join. There are 28,000 members and rising, all around the world - and if there's not a physical, location-based group near you, and you want to set one up they'll help.
Social Media links Rowan, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/rowan-ryrie/ Parents for Future LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/parents-for-future-uk/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/ParentsForFutureUK/ Instagram: https://instagram.com/@parentsforfuture_uk | |||
| 22 Jun 2022 | Designing Education fit for the 21st Century with Prof David John Helfand | 00:52:29 | |
We live in a world where facts are at our fingertips and yet we increasingly live in conceptual silos where ideas are neither broad nor deep. How can we transform our ways of educating ourselves as we grow to adulthood/elderhood in a world where the ground is shifting under our feet? With Professor DJ Helfland, educator and astronomist. Professor David J. Helfand, a faculty member at Columbia University for forty-five years, served nearly half of that time as Chair of the Department of Astronomy. He also recently completed a four-year term as President of the American Astronomical Society, the professional society for astronomers, astrophysicists, planetary scientists and solar physicists in North America. He is the author of nearly 200 scientific publications and has mentored 22 PhD students, but most of his pedagogical efforts have been aimed at teaching science to non-science majors. He instituted the first change in Columbia's Core Curriculum in 50 years by introducing science to all first-year students. In 2005, he became involved with an effort to create Canada's first independent, non-profit, secular university, Quest University Canada. He served as a Visiting Tutor in the University's inaugural semester in the Fall of 2007 and was appointed President & Vice-Chancellor the following year to lead this innovative experiment in higher education. For six years in a row, Quest has been ranked #1 in North America in the National Survey of Student Engagement. He completed his term as President of Quest in the fall of 2015 and returned to Columbia to teach. His first book, "A Survival Guide to the Misinformation Age" appeared in February 2016 and came out in paperback Aug 10, 2017. In this episode, we explore the nature of higher education in a changing world and the models that could work as we move into a time when what matters is emotional literacy and resilience and the ability to garner ideas and synthesise them broadly rather than learning 'more and more about less and less until we know everything about nothing.'
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| 27 Apr 2022 | Waking Up: Power, possibility and politics in a Fractal Age with Indra Adnan | 01:00:44 | |
We all know the current system of politics and governance is utterly dysfunctional. But what will it look like - what will it feel like - to organise ourselves so that everyone has a voice, so that we come together as co-creators and build networks and movements based on our common visions and values? With Indra Adnan of The Alternative Global, author of The Politics of Waking Up. In this conversation, we delve deep into the ways we might do things differently - how does a different kind of politics and governance work? How does it feel? What are the logistics and how might we bring it about? On the way, we consider the creation of an alternative media system - one that brings people together instead of splitting them apart - and the ways that local citizens action networks (CANs) can join together to create a movement of movements with unstoppable momentum.
Thrutopia: https://thrutopia.life | |||
| 27 Dec 2023 | Plant Spirit Teachers: learning from the Elder Plants with Dr Simon Ruffell | 01:16:51 | |
For this time around the dark nights of the winter solstice - at least in the northern hemisphere - we've been exploring more of an inner landscape - being reflexive with Nathalie and Della, and before that, exploring the living myths of our land and how we can ground them in our current reality with Angharad Wynne. And this week, we're heading inward and outward, travelling to Peru with Dr Simon Ruffell, psychiatrist, ayahuasca researcher and student of Shipobo curanderismo. Since 2016, Simon has been working closely with Indigenous communities in the Amazon basin, exploring the effects of ayahuasca and the role of ceremony and spirit in healing. As you'll hear in the conversation that follows, Simon manages to bridge between the world of western science and the older world of indigenous spirit with extraordinary integrity, humour and a grounded. commitment to the traditions he's learning that feels wholly authentic. He's experiencing the depths of ancient teaching and exploring the leading edge of modern science, delving into epigenetics, the microbiome and neuroplasticity. As we rest in the cusp of the dark nights, that time of reflection and renewal, I wanted to bring you something that felt as if it spoke deeply to the ethos of Accidental Gods, and I couldn't imagine anything better. So people of the podcast, please welcome, Dr Simon Ruffell.
Simon on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-ruffell-27bba0191/ Dreaming Awake shamanic training (with Manda and her apprentice) https://dreamingawake.co.uk | |||
| 04 Dec 2024 | Avoiding Burn Out, Fall Out, Drop Out (and Freak Out): Practical Routes to a whole, healed future with Dan McTiernan of Earthbound | 01:16:35 | |
How do we become the change we need to see in the world? What are the actual, practical steps to grounding, connecting and resonating with the world? We're on the brink of cataclysmic change. Knowing this, we have choices: we can either fold into despair, terror, rage…whatever rises up in us as we watch the whole biosphere hurtle towards irrevocable tipping points. Or we can become the change we need to see in the world: each of us. This is a cliché by now, but that doesn't stop it being true. Here are others: we are the people we have been waiting for and if not us, now then who and when? We've been saying these for a long time and if you're listening to this podcast, then you're already on board, at least intellectually. You know there is no going back, that ideology cannot win out over biophysical reality and avoiding ecosystem collapse doesn't just mean moving to regenerative farming or buying second hand clothes or even changing all the narratives of all the world's media systems - good though each of these things would be. But there's been a gap between what we know and how we behave, between where our better selves might push us and the behaviours that are locked into the core of our being, our firmware, if you like. But now - this minute now - we're hitting the buffers where the old paradigm is so obviously not fit for purpose that we need something new. The core questions are what? And how? And this is where we're going with the podcast just now - After Dr John Izzo of the Elders Action Network reminded us of our purpose on the earth, and Andrea Hiott of Waymaking helped us embrace paradox - now we're talking to someone who can help guide us into the embodied reality of a different way of being. He is currently working with Alef Trust and the A Team Foundation to deliver an innovative project supporting farmers and growers in the UK with a programme of embodied wellbeing known as Calmer Farmer which will be launched in January 2025. As you'll hear, Dan is working at the leading edge of the change we need to embody. He has straightforward practices that any of us can do to help us with grounding, attunement, opening and integration so that we can be the nodes in the web of life. This is key people: we need to stop trying to think our way out of this with our head minds. It doesn't work. It's not going to work. We need to come into our physical bodies, find that truly calming place of peace - and then find connections we can trust with the wider web. This is what we're here for. And Dan has routes to get there. For more information about this coaching approach, to book a 1-1 appointment or to find out more about Earthbound’s courses and practice group: www.earthbound.fi For more information about Calmer Farmer: www.calmerfarmer.org To read more about Dan’s work and to listen to the Being Earthbound podcast: www.beingearthbound.substack.com If you want to share the journey with us, we're here: | |||
| 07 Feb 2024 | Growing a Public Chorus for Change: reshaping democracy with Alex Lockwood of the Humanity Project | 00:46:03 | |
We don't have a democracy, we have a kleptocracy that elevates to positions of power those amongst us who are most comfortable with leaning into their inner Dark Triad of Psychopathy, Narcissism and basic low cunning. Then, when they get there, we're surprised that they go on to wreak havoc with all that we believe to be good and right and beautiful. Doing the same thing time after time is the very definition of insanity - clearly we need a new way of connecting, of communicating, of articulating our needs and wants that give us a sense of connection, agency and sufficiency, that bring out the best of us, not our own inner dark triads. We need a new means of governance that works from the ground up and works for a thriving future for the human and more-than human world. This week's guest is absolutely immersed in the questions of how we transform our governance. More than this, he is immersed in actually making it happen. Alex Lockwood was a Senior Lecturer in Professional and Creative Writing at Sunderland University and he practiced what he taught - because he's also the author of a novel, The Chernobyl Privileges and a non-fiction memoir, The Pig in Thin Air. More recently, he was actively involved in Animal Rebellion, a kindred organisation to Extinction Rebellion and then that evolved into becoming a founder member of The Humanity Project, an astonishing, life-affirming, inspiring collective movement for change. At the times when the news about climactic tipping points and the loss of sulphur particles and the impact of el Nino combines with the horrors of political destruction around the world, it's really good to remember there are highly motivated, highly intelligent people getting together to create visions for change that will work and to which we will all look forward. This podcast rekindled my belief in a future that can work. I hope it does the same for you.
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| 30 Sep 2020 | The Doughnut Economics Action Lab explained by Rob Shorter | 01:01:28 | |
Doughnut Economics is a new, groundbreaking model that lets us see how we can embrace the needs of all within the means of a living, thriving planet. Rob Shorter, Communities Lead, of the Doughnut Economics Action Lab explains what it is, how it works and how we can embrace it at all levels in our communities of people and place and purpose. The imagination needs mental and emotional space to enable us to create a vision of the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. Rob Shorter wrote his dissertation at Schumacher on how we cultivate our imagination and change the cultural narrative towards the thinking that Doughnut Economics embodies. and Rob shares a song. Listen just for that... Links: Doughnut Economics Action Lab: https://doughnuteconomics.org/ | |||
| 02 Oct 2024 | Of Reindeer, Donkeys and the verb that is Water. Stories of climate-healing with Judith Schwartz, author of The Reindeer Chronicles | 01:12:30 | |
How do we move beyond our myopic focus on carbon/CO2 as the index of our harms to the world? What can we do to heal the whole biosphere? And what role is played by water-as-verb, forest-as-verb, ocean-as-verb? This week's guest is an environmental journalist and author who has answers to all of these questions - and more. Judith Schwartz is an author who tells stories to explore and illuminate scientific concepts and cultural nuance. She takes a clear-eyed look at global environmental, economic, and social challenges, and finds insights and solutions in natural systems. She writes for numerous publications, including The Guardian and Scientific American and her first two books are music to our regenerative ears. The first is called 'Cows Save the Planet' and the next is 'Water in Plan Sight'. Her latest, “The Reindeer Chronicles”, was long listed for the Wainwright Prize and is an astonishingly uplifting exploration of what committed people are achieving as they dedicate themselves to earth repair, water repair and human repair. Judith was recently at the 'Embracing Nature's Complexity' conference, organised by the Biotic Pump Greening Group which offers revolutionary new insights into eco-hydro-climatological landscape restoration. She's a contributor to the new book, 'What if we Get it Right?' edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, who was one of the editors of All We can Save. Judith has been described as 'one of ecology's most indispensable writers' and when you read her work, you'll understand the magnificent depth and breadth of her insight into who we are and how we can help the world to heal. Judith's website https://www.judithdschwartz.com/ | |||
| 15 Apr 2020 | Conscious Evolution: The time is now. A conversation with Rob Cobbold | 01:12:41 | |
Rob Cobbold is founding editor of consciousevolution.co.uk. He's a critical thinker, a program manager for the Green Schools partnership and is studying for a Masters in Sustainable Leadership. He's a key mover in the world of conscious evolution and here, he describes why consciousness is the next evolutionary step and how we might get there. I haven't often had the pleasure of speaking with someone else whose life revolves around the concept of conscious evolution: what it is, why its time is now (with increasing urgency) and how we might move the great, hypercomplex, super-connected web of humanity towards it. Rob has both a materialist and a spiritual perspective on the ways we might reach conscious evolution so this was a particularly interesting deep dive into what it will take to reach our critical mass. Rob's website is https://www.consciousevolution.co.uk He recommends Charles Eisenstein's 'New and Ancient Story' podcast which is here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-new-and-ancient-story-the-podcast/id1047290956 He refers to ‘This View of Life’ by David Sloan Wilson - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/246844/this-view-of-life-by-david-sloan-wilson/ I mentioned 'The Listening Society' by Hanzi Freinacht, which is here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Listening-Society-Metamodern-Politics-Guides-ebook/dp/B074MKQ4LR/ref=sr_1_2 ...and he recommended that I talk to John Stewart, and Daniel Schmachtenberger... both of which have been invited to feature on the podcast. | |||
| 20 Sep 2024 | Thoughts at the Autumn Equinox 2024 - how, what, when, where and why | 00:21:51 | |
This is our regular September bonus episode - a brief look at where we're at - how I (Manda) see things just now as we head deeper into the moment of transformation. | |||
| 10 Feb 2021 | The Subtle Shaman: Chris Taylor, living our purpose and the Tao of R-evolution | 00:59:07 | |
How does it feel to know we're really living our purpose? What's the felt sense inside that tells us to keep going in a particular direction? Or to stop? Radical evolutionary, Chris Taylor explores the pathways to right being that will let us transform what it is to be human. Chris Taylor, author of 'The Tao of Revolution' is a Tai Chi teacher, regenerative farmer, musician, performance poet, facilitator-of-change and author - who describes himself as a revolutionary mystic. Or mystical revolutionary. His book is described as 'A field guide for Global Transformation, - a book on climate and societal change that isn't about the coming chaos, but about how we learn to live with the future. The system will not be over-thrown, it will be overgrown - here's how.' In this heart-warming, thought-provoking podcast we move through Immanuelle Wallerstein, Quaker philosophy and Mellissa Etheridge to the Green New Deal, QAnon and Taoism, to how we can live deeply connected to the land that feeds us. Ultimately, we explore the opportunities and gifts of our times and the ways that we can each find the margins of ourselves, find the things that make our hearts sing and find the ways to do them - so that together, we are building a world based on connection, coherence and empowerment. Chris Taylor's book: The Tao of Revolution: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Tao-of-Revolution-by-Chris-Taylor-author/9781939269973 | |||
| 02 Sep 2020 | Hearing our Calling - exploring the world of our soul’s true calling with Gill Coombs | 00:58:03 | |
How can we shape a world where everyone has found and is following their soul’s calling? Gill Coombs, author of The Trembling Warrior and ‘Hearing your Calling’ on ways to discover our soul’s true path. Gill is a writer, facilitator, coach and activist. In 2011/12 Gill studied Holistic Science at Schumacher College, and then wrote her first book Hearing our Calling. In 2015 she stood as a Parliamentary Candidate for the Green Party, and the following year published The Game: Life vs the Dark Powers. Gill was arrested twice during 2019 with Extinction Rebellion, and as a member of the Visioning Circle, helped to establish XR’s Eldership Circle. She has written three life changing books - today we are exploring ‘Hearing your Calling’ - and how we can bring that into the world. Gill’s link and book: https://www.gillcoombs.co.uk/books Schumacher Collage PostGraduate Courses: https://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/postgraduate-courses-2020 Reciprocoach: https://reciprocoach.com | |||