Accidental Gods

What does it mean to (re)orient our entire culture around the power of love?  To answer this, we have to understand the nature of love and of power and how both of these have many meanings in our culture, some of them essential to moving forward - and some of them so toxic they turn the entire concept into a poisoned cue. This week's guest is friend of the podcast, Jamie Bristow. We spoke to him back in episode #274, recorded at the start of this year, and there, we consider what it was to be a Spiritual Warrior in our times - a concept to which Jamie has given the past 16 years of his life. Jamie is someone who lives and breathes at the intersection between spirituality - specifically Buddhism - and international policy in the realm of what is still called sustainability but which must, now, be shifting towards systemic change. 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 around the world. 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 and now is working with Professor Rebecca Henderson on an initiative which is currently called the ReWeaving Project and it's in this area that we focussed our attention. There are many ways these conversations go. Often, I'm exploring a particular body of work and am asking questions to which, broadly, I have a sense of the answer - 'tell me about [x] that is squarely in your field'.  Sometimes, though, I'm talking with someone I know well enough, and where we share enough of a common grounding, that I can ask questions to which I don't know the answer. Where we can find the places where our Theories of Change meet but perhaps don't overlap, and explore the fertile, liminal spaces of uncertainty.  Jamie is one of these people and this was one of those conversations - where we explored love and power and game theory and how we get from where we are, through a nexus of power that is arrayed firmly around the Dark Triad of Narcissism, Psychopathy and Sadism (and I know that's slightly different to other Dark Triads that have Raw Cunning as the third one and sadism as an afterthought, but I think the cunning is in there with Psychopathy and the Sadism is, as we're seeing around the world, an essential part of the performative power-over that the wounded egos need to tell themselves they're safe). Anyway - we explored all the things that matter - and still only scratched the surface. So Jamie will definitely be coming back for another conversation, but in the meantime, here we are, delving deep into what it is to be human, and to be striving for emergence into a new, generative, kin-centric and flourishing system at this moment of total transformation. LinksRebecca Henderson https://rebeccahenderson.com/Jamie’s website Jamie’s substack Jamie on LinkedIn Mindfulness Initiative Mindfulness initiativeUN IDG Inner Development GoalsLife Guild lifeguild.earthJamie in Episode #274 https://accidentalgods.life/becoming-spiritual-warriors-exploring-a-politics-of-radical-compassion-with-jamie-bristow/What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's  'Dreaming Your Year Awake' (you don't have to be a member) on Sunday 4th January 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are hereIf you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

Do you love the dark?  Do you yearn for sunset and the amber glow of a fire with the night growing deeper, more inspiring all around you?  Most of us don't - though our ancestors through all of history have lived by firelight, moonlight, starlight... until the modern era of light at the flick of a switch.  But there's a world out there of sheer, unadulterated magic that is only revealed when we put aside the lights and the phones and the torches and step out into the night  - as this week's guest has done. Leigh Ann Henion is the New York Times bestselling author of Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark and Phenomenal: A Hesitant Adventurer’s Search for Wonder in the Natural World. Her writing has appeared in Smithsonian, National Geographic, The Washington Post, Backpacker, The American Scholar, and a variety of other publications. She is a former Alicia Patterson Fellow, and her work has been supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Henion lives in Boone, North Carolina.  Wall Street Journal says of this book. "Lovely…truly inspired…and very clever…An appreciation of nature’s nocturnal organisms can help us reset our relationship with the night…That’s the gift of Night Magic: It may make you think differently about the night."Leigh Ann's Website https://leighannhenion.com/Night Magic book (UK): https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/night-magic-leigh-ann-henion/7832118What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's  'Dreaming Your Year Awake' (you don't have to be a member) on Sunday 4th January 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are hereIf you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

This week's guest, Andrea Leiter, is one of those polymaths who brings not just breadth, but astonishing depth to the work of bridging the worlds of technology, biodiversity and international law; bringing them together in service of a new way of being built from the ruins of collapse. Andrea works at the intersection of law, digital transformation, and economic innovation. Director of Amsterdam Center for International Law, she's deeply aware of, and involved in, Transnational Law, Digital Economies & Institutional Innovation, all things crypto - as well as being a Social Justice Entrepreneur. She holds a jointly awarded PhD in Law from the University of Melbourne and the University of Vienna, where her dissertation examined the historical foundations of international investment law and the legal architectures of global capital. Her resulting manuscript titled ‘Making the World Safe for Investment: The Protection of Foreign Property 1922-1959’ was published with Cambridge University Press. She is a junior faculty member at the Institute for Global Law and Policy at Harvard Law School. As legal scholar and strategist, her expertise lies in transnational law, private ordering, the governance of digital economies, and the design of new institutional forms for just and sustainable futures.  I came across her when she was a guest on the Blockchain Socialist podcast - one of my must-listens - and heard that she was co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of the Sovereign Nature Initiative (SNI), a venture which aimed to 'merge nature with digital ecosystems and introduce online communities to ecological stewardship whilst developing novel funding mechanisms for vital biodiversity protection and restoration'.  you'll hear more about this in the conversation that follows, but I want to emphasise that the SNI team designed and implemented the Decentralised Ecological Economics Protocol (DEEP), which demonstrated how blockchain infrastructure can serve biodiversity goals. Over two years, SNI developed and distributed more than one million digital collectibles, activating new models of ecological value creation.Currently, Andrea leads a Dutch Research Council-funded VENI project on Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) and their potential to reshape economic governance from below. She also serves as Acting Director of Research at the Amsterdam Center for International Law, where she guides strategic research planning and foster interdisciplinary collaboration. She also co-developed and launched an Advanced LLM in Technology Governance with a public purpose orientation, an effort that included curriculum design, funding acquisition, and stakeholder engagement.One of Andrea's superpowers is the ability to take complex concepts and make them comprehensible to ordinary people: blockchain, cryptocurrency, the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum, the potential for technology to be used to heal as well as the many ways it is already being used to harm, so we spent the first half of our conversation exploring the baselines of where we are and what's happening in the world. I refer to Andrea's blog post, 'Who gets to bet on the future?' which first appeared on her Transformative Private Law Blog and is linked in the show notes. She mentioned several books and I've linked those in the show notes too, because they were new to me, and completely mind blowing.  I found ExoCapitalism as a pdf where you decide what you pay - this is the value of small presses that actually get what their books are discussing - and Protocols for Post Capitalist Expression is open source - you can read it and engage in the process with others in the Economic Space Agency. Links Sovereign Nature Initiative https://sovereignnature.com/Andrea on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-leiter/Amsterdam Centre for Intenational Law https://acil.uva.nl/VENI project https://www.nwo.nl/en/researchprogrammes/nwo-talent-programme/projects-veniTransformative Private Law Blog "Who gets to bet on the future?" https://transformativeprivatelaw.com/who-gets-to-bet-on-the-future/Andrea on Blockchain Socialist Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-blockchain-socialist/id1501607045?i=1000660699306Between Gaia and Ground: Four Axioms of Existence and the Ancestral Catastrophe of Late Liberalism by Elizabeth A. Povinelli https://dukeupress.edu/between-gaia-and-groundExoCapitalism: Economies with Absolutely No Limits by Marek Poliks & Roberto Alonso Trillo https://goodpress.co.uk/products/exocapitalism-economies-with-absolutely-no-limits-by-marek-poliks-roberto-alonso-trilloPROTOCOLS FOR POST CAPITALIST EXPRESSION by Dick Bryan, Jorge López & Akseli Virtanen https://postcapitalist.agency/What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's  'Dreaming Your Year Awake' (you don't have to be a member) on Sunday 4th January 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are hereIf you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

What is the true vow of your life, the one it would kill you to break?  This phrase comes from the poem 'All The True Vows' by David Whyte, but there can be no better introduction to this week's guest, who knows how to help people - ordinary, every-day people from our culture -  build true, heart-felt connections with the web of life such that we come to know what we are here for, our unique gift to the world, the promise is would kill us to break, what it feels like to be so heart-explodingly in love with the sheer wonder of being alive that we can step out of the world we thought we knew, into the world as it really is, alive with connection to all parts of ourselves, each other and the whole of the more than human world. Bill Plotkin is one of those who has found what he's here for. He's been a Thrutopian activist and cultural catalyst since long before those were buzzwords in our firmament.  Over the years, he has been a research psychologist, professor of psychology, psychotherapist, rock musician, and whitewater river guide. Now, I would say he is a visionary, a mystic and an elder. More importantly, he's a map-maker, a way-breaker, a trail-leader of the routes we will have to take to walk out of this moment of dissolution, into a world of remembering and creating anew. Back in the early 80s, Bill founded the Animas Valley Institute, whose central purpose is to assist people through the initiatory process that leads to visionary leadership and cultural artistry. Its primary work is with those ready to undergo the joys and challenges of the underworld descent to soul, which flowers into a life of meaningful service and abundant fulfilment — or a deepening for those already on the journey.In other words, Animas Valley Institute supports people in our culture to find what they're here for, to undergo, in his words, the journey of soul initiation. To embark on this journey requires that people break out of the perpetual early adolescence of modernity and endure the ecstatic initiations of late adolescence and that eventually result in true adulthood and perhaps, for a few, genuine elderhood. Bill offers maps and models for his work in depth and detail. He has four books to date and I encourage you to read them all in order from Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche, through Nature and the Human Soul, to Wild Mind and finally, The Journey of Soul Initiation.  He writes a blog, Soulcraft Musings, which I also recommend, because we could have explored the basics of Bill's models of human evolution and what it means for people of our culture, who have been subject to what he calls 'systemic human developmental oppression' for many hundreds of generations… and in the long conversation that follows, we did explore the basics of this, but in the days before recording, Bill shared the early draft of a paper called 'A Map to the Next World' and this lit all kinds of fires in my heart and mind and soul—because Bill's capacity to write lucidly the things this podcast is all about  is beautiful and sharp and perfect.  He writes: 'We need a map to the next world because our current world is clearly in its death throes…We need a map to the next world, a way to navigate the long trail from here to cultures that we will be proud to leave for the future ones — of all species. And nature, as always, including human nature, provides this map, or at least templates for creating one. And we need to translate the map into a contemporary language that we can understand — and act on — even though the journey is necessarily through realms of great mystery. We won’t find our way using the maps of other peoples or of other times. We must make our own map.'As and when his paper on the Map becomes available, I'll put it in the show notes.  In the meantime, I have included the poem by David Whyte, because truly, it is one of the guiding lights of our movement, and I've included Joy Harjo's poem, also called 'A Map to the Next World' both as a YouTube recording of her speaking it, and the poem, and the book of the same name from which it came. Please do explore these. And now, let's head into the ways we can change our world, with Bill Plotkin. LinksAnimas Valley Institute https://www.animas.org/Soulcraft Musings (https://www.animas.org/books/bill-plotkins-soulcraft-musings/Bills Books Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche (an experiential guidebook), Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World (a nature-based stage model of human development through the entire lifespan), Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche (an ecocentric map of the psyche — for healing, growing whole, and cultural transformation)The Journey of Soul Initiation: A Field Guide for Visionaries, Evolutionaries, and Revolutionaries (an experiential guidebook for the descent to soul). AG #302 The Crisis and the Call with Sara McFarland https://accidentalgods.life/the-crisis-and-the-call-journeys-through-species-wide-soul-initiation-with-sara-mcfarland/David Whyte  'All The True Vows' https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/W/WhyteDavid/AllTrueVows/index.htmlDavid Whyte website https://davidwhyte.com/Joy Harjo 'A Map to the Next World' on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4ab9vOC4PoJoy Harjo 'A Map to the Next World' text https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49621/a-map-to-the-next-worldJoy Harjo 'A Map to the Next World' book https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/a-map-to-the-next-world-poems-and-tales-joy-harjo/b45e39c2525e82e5Joy Harjo website: https://www.joyharjo.com/The Parable of the Tribes by Andrew Bard Schmookler  https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-parable-of-the-tribes-the-problem-of-power-in-social-evolution-second-edition-andrew-bard-schmookler/7823092What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Wr...

What is an eco-civilisation? What are its values and what are the frames within which it works? Why do we need it in the first place and what will the Establishment do to maintain business as usual? Most importantly, what can each of us do to live an eco-civilisation into being?This week's guest, Jeremy Lent, explores these ideas in depth in his forthcoming book, Ecocivlization: Making a World that Works, which is due out in May of 2026.  We've talked to Jeremy twice before, first in episode #38 about his award-winning book, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning, and then in #102 about his second book in the series, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe. Ecocivlisation is the third book in this trifecta and I was privileged to read the pre-proof draft, so I can tell you that it's one of the few genuinely Thrutopian books I've read. It that lays out the iniquities and downright horror of the imperial/colonial system of the Trauma culture - termed Wendigo Inc. in the book - and then brings Jeremy's trademark meticulous research and fluent prose to bear on the ways through to a system in which we all live and thrive and work towards the wellbeing of the entire ecosphere.   Given that there is such detail, I wanted to talk to Jeremy now, so that we could explore some of the foundations - the nature of the existing narratives of Business as Usual, of TINA: There is No Alternative  - and why this is so ubiquitous in spite of being self-evidently untrue.  Then I wanted to look at the broader frame of the Theory of Change proposed here so that next spring we can go into more detail ahead of the book's publication. For those of you who don't yet know him, Jeremy was born in London, has a BA in English Literature from Cambridge University, an MBA from the University of Chicago, and was a former internet company CEO. Now, he is an author, speaker and founder of the  Deep Transformation Network, a global community exploring pathways to an ecological civilization. He is also founder of the nonprofit Liology Institute, dedicated to fostering an integrated worldview that could enable humanity to thrive sustainably on the Earth. Jeremy's Website: https://www.jeremylent.comJeremy's Blog https://patternsofmeaning.comJeremy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-lent-ba153017/Jeremy's YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@JeremyLentDeep Transformation Network https://deeptransformation.network/feedGuardian article on global tipping point https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/13/coral-reefs-ice-sheets-amazon-rainforest-tipping-point-global-heating-scientists-reportBooksThe Patterning Instinct https://www.jeremylent.com/the-patterning-instinct.htmlThe Web of Meaning https://www.jeremylent.com/the-web-of-meaning.htmlEcoCivilization https://mhpbooks.com/books/ecocivilizationPrevious Episodes#102 - Weaving the Web of Meaning  https://accidentalgods.life/weaving-the-web-of-meaning/#38 - Fractal Flourishing https://accidentalgods.life/fractal-flourishing/What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's  'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.The next one after this is 'Dreaming your Year Awake' on Sunday 4th January 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are hereIf you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

How do we heal ourselves from the 'lost-ness' that afflicts our culture? How do we move on from the strange—and wholly untrue— belief our culture holds that we are separate from the natural world, that our cycles of exploitation, extraction, destruction, pollution are the way the world is, that this is the natural order and there's nothing we can do to change it, individually or collectively? Knowing that our sense of separation is an illusion is one thing, but genuinely feeling it deep in the marrow of our bones is quite another.  Which is where this week's guest comes in.  Kelly Wendorf is an executive and personal coach,  spiritual mentor, disruptor, and socially responsible entrepreneur.  As you'll hear, her book 'Flying Lead Change: 56 million years of Wisdom for living and leading' offers a unique answer to these questions. Kelly is founder and CEO of EQUUS whose central question is, 'What are you Yearning for?' and whose central offer is: 'We create conditions for your transformation'. As the name suggests, she and her team do this, by engaging the generous spirits of a herd of horses as mirrors to the people who come to EQUUS for coaching - and, although this is often not why they think they're coming, for healing.  Kelly's childhood experience with a whole-hearted man in Ethiopia, and later, with one of the First Nations people in Australia, taught her a way of listening, of being fully present, fully in her heart mind and body mind, in the present moment, and this is what she helps others to find with the help of the horses who often just don't engage if we're not congruent, not present, not fully embodied. She has been called a ‘corporate shaman’ and a ‘CEO whisperer’, but as we crash through the boundaries of the Great Transformation, it seems to me that Kelly's work opens doors for us all. We may not have access to a herd of free-living, re-wilding horses, but even reading about the experiences of her clients can melt some of the concrete around our hearts. And with this, we can always step outside, stand still, let the living world teach us. So this was a deeply moving read, and a fascinating conversation, at the end of which, Kelly offered our community coupons for two of her forthcoming online courses - the first 'Breaking the Loop, Transforming Habits that hold you back' is on Saturday 1st November at 10-11:30 am Mountain Time and she's offered 50% off that one.  The second is nearly a year from now: How to lead a Transformative Life' takes place over two Saturdays, for two hours each at 10am - 12 noon Mountain Time and this one has a base cost of $457, but Kelly is offering it to our Accidental Gods community for free.  So please do go and check out the show notes for the links and the coupon codes. LinksEQUUS Inspired website https://www.equusinspired.com/Kelly's Book: https://www.equusinspired.com/flcCOURSES2025 - BREAKING THE LOOP: Transforming Habits that hold you backSaturday 1st November 10-11:30am Mountain Time  Coupon for 50% off - EQUUS50KW (full cost $97 - 50% =$48.50)2026 How to Lead a Transformative LifeSeptember 26th, 2026 | 10:00am-12:00pm MTOctober 3rd, 2026 | 10:00am-12:00pm MTCOUPON  for 100% off - EQUUS100KW (original cost $457 - coupon cost = Free )Podcasts mentioned: #297 Charlie Bennet https://accidentalgods.life/otterly-amazing-common-sense-farming-can-feed-us-all-with-charlie-bennett/#288 Abel Pearson https://accidentalgods.life/farm-as-church-land-as-lover-community-farming-and-food-with-abel-pearson-of-glasbren/#273 Daniel Firth Griffith Kin Centric ReWilding https://accidentalgods.life/farm-as-church-land-as-lover-community-farming-and-food-with-abel-pearson-of-glasbren/What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's  'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.The next one after this is 'Dreaming your Year Awake' on Sunday 4th January 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are hereIf you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

'Each of us was put on this earth at this time to personally determine the fate of humankind.  Do you think you were put here for something less?' Chief Arvol Looking Horse. We exist in a world where the ultra-rich are getting richer, powered by a system we call 'the economy' which is serving to funnel power and value up to an ever-shrinking core of wounded individuals who then project their trauma out on the rest of the world in a doomed attempt to feel better about being caught in a system that doesn't promote human wellbeing. So far, so very obvious.  The system is clearly dysfunctional and the cost of failure is the sixth mass extinction. The stakes could not be higher.  So how do we create the unity and clarity we need to coalesce around a common cause? Explicitly, how do we create a system that aims for the longterm wellbeing for all - where 'all' is not just all of humanity now and for generations to come in perpetuity, but all of the web of life, the human and the more than human worlds? How, in fact, do we persuade at least a critical mass of our existing system, that we as humans exist to transform our selves and our world for the flourishing of all? This weeks' guest has wrestled with these questions for all her adult life.  Victoria Hurth is an Independent Pracademic who works at the cutting edge of theory and practice to help the world clarify its consensus on foundational issues.  As you'll hear, she firmly believes that we need to agree that our goal is the longterm wellbeing of all, and then co-create the governance system to frame the strategies that will take us there.  We don't need everyone to sign up, but we do need a critical mass of people at all levels of our organisations from government, to NGOs to industry and beyond.  To this end, Victoria co-led the five-year development of the global ISO standard in Governance of Organizations (ISO37000), was Technical Author for the first national standard in Purpose-Driven Organizations and is currently Project Leader of the development of an equivalent ISO (ISO37011). Victoria is a Fellow of the University of Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership (CISL), Director at the Soil Association Certification Ltd and advises Planet Mark, UnaTerra Venture Capital, and formerly Creatives for Climate Collective and SACE – Italy’s national export credit agency. She advised the UN on the SDG methodology for the business reporting target 12.6.1 and has over 25 years’ global experience in business transformation and as a full time Associate Professor of Marketing and Sustainable Business.   Alongside all this, she is a practicing Stoic. How inspiring is that?  She is also co-author of a new book called 'Beyond Profit' which is one of those potentially world-changing books that lays out in explicit detail why the old system is dead, how slight tweaks to make it 'more sustainable' are never - were never - going to work - and how instead we might craft a new system of governance that allows us to step forward into a world that does prioritise the longterm wellbeing of all life. Beyond Profit book https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/beyond-profit-purpose-driven-leadership-for-a-wellbeing-economy-lorenzo-fioramonti/7895496Victoria's website https://victoriahurth.comVictoria on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-victoria-hurth/'Beyond Profit' Book Community https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13085230/ISO37011 (Purpose-Driven Organisations) community  https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13091442/What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's  'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

What is humanity for?  What happens if we rethink not just the way we plan buildings, but our entire role as beings on a living planet?  These are the central questions driving Michael Pawlyn's third edition of the life-changing book, Biomimcry in Architecture.  Michael Pawlyn is an architect, the founding director of Exploration Architecture Ltd and is a ground-breaking pioneer, not just of biomimicry as the design foundation of architecture and the built environment, but of the ways we might redesign humanity. Before setting up his own practice, Michael was central to the team that radically re-invented horticultural architecture for the Eden Project. In 2018 he jointly initiated Architects Declare a Climate and Biodiversity Emergency which has since spread to 28 countries with over 8,000 companies signed up to a declaration of action. In addition to his architectural work he advises companies and governments on how to make the shift from sustainable to regenerative design. He lectures widely and his and his TED talk has been viewed over 2 million times, which gives you a sense of the scale and scope of the possibilities he opens up.  With Sarah Ichioka, he co-wrote the book 'Flourish' and we spoke to Sarah back in episode #147, but now Michael is back with the third edition of Biomimicry in Architecture, which came out on 1st September, and my goodness, this book has the capacity to change our world.  If every key decision-maker on the planet had a copy of this book, and was given time to read it, our world would be a different place, because over and over again, Michael shows the ways that the natural world has designed things that are more efficient, stronger, more resilient than anything humanity has created - but that we can make things with them that the natural world has not imagined.  More than anything this book re-iterates the fact that we are an integral part of the web of life and that by using our astonishing creativity, our capacity to see the design of an abalone shell, or the way a mussel roots in the seabed, or the ways palm leaves roll up in a hurricane or any of a thousand other almost-miraculous things—and then applying them in different contexts, we can create everything from surgical drills that can bend round corners to whole tidal lagoons that create and store power and offer whole new biomes.  If we set the flourishing of all life as our goal, we can co-create miracles. As will be obvious in the conversation you're about to hear, this book lit up so many parts of my heart and my mind - there is so much we can do if we bring the best of ourselves to the table and Michael Pawlyn is one of those thought-leaders who has ranged right to the edge of what we know and what we can do and brought the results to the rest of us in a way that's intriguing, inspiring and invigorating.  Whatever else you do this year, you need to read this book. Buy it, share it, tell your friends.  This is how we change the world.  So, with that endorsement ringing in your ears... Book - Biomimicry in Architecture https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/biomimicry-in-architecture-michael-pawlyn/1341162TED talk - using Nature's Genius in Architecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QZp6smeSQABiomimicry Talk at UNITE summit https://youtu.be/XZbv9tc3Prc/Episode #147 with Sarah Ichioka on 'Flourish' which she co-wrote with Michael: https://accidentalgods.life/flourish-designing-new-paradigms/‘Human Layers’ workshop developed by The Long Time Project based on Joanna Macey’s work https://www.thelongtimeacademy.com/toolkitSurvival of the Fittest: From ESG to Competitive Sustainability - paper from Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership https://www.cisl.cam.ac.uk/files/from_esg_to_competitive_sustainability.pdfWhat we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's  'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

Let the Wild Gods Rise.  Easy to say and harder to do - but if you were offered a portal, a way to step into the other-worlds, to reconnect with all that we have been and could be, would you take it? If you're listening to this, you are likely steeped in the mechanical world of our culture - but it doesn't have to be like this.  The other worlds are alive, present…wild—and just within reach. All we need are doorways, places where the veils between the worlds grow thinner and then route maps to take us to—and through—them. There are many of these: some of us have places where we go to sit, day after week after month after year; places we walk where the lapwings fly or the toads grumble or the lichens coat the rocks. Some of us dance, or sing, or hold spaces for each other to find the endless re-creation of the web in the inter-becoming moment, the dependent co-arising of the magic of life. Many of us go to books and it's one of these we're visiting today: Wild Folk by Jackie Morris and Tamsin Abbott is a work of art, a delight on so many levels—and it's explicitly a portal to the wild at the heart of the world. I'm fairly sure I don't need to introduce these two amazing women, but just in case: Jackie Morris is an artist, illustrator and wordsmith. Alone or in collaboration has written & illustrated over forty books, including classics such as The Snow Leopard, Song of the Golden Hare, and East of the Sun, West of the Moon. More recently, she and Robert Macfarlane co-created The Lost Words, and The Lost Spells, and I'm delighted to say they are working on new book on birds, which is due to come out soon.Tamsin Abbott has been creating painted stained-glass panels for over twenty years. Herwork is influenced by this ancient land and how we are connected to it: the hills, the woods, the plants, birds and animals that live alongside us and the world of myths and fairytales that we have spun around it. She has appeared on BBC Countryfile, appeared in many of this country's foremost magazines and exhibited in our leading galleries. As you'll hear, Jackie and Tamsin had been friends for many years before the seed of Wild Folk finally took root at a residency in the wilds of Exmoor. The result is a work of pure magic.  Come along with us and let's explore the what and the how and the where and the who of this astonishing act of co-creation. Where you'll find WILD FOLK in the UK https://www.jackiemorris.co.uk/where-the-wild-folk-books-are/Tamsin's website https://www.tamsinabbott.co.uk/Tamsin on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/tamsintheshed/Tamsin on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Tamsin-Abbott-260979701880/Jackie's website https://www.jackiemorris.co.uk/Jackie on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jackiemorrisartist/Jackie on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/JackieMorrisPaints/What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's  'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

How do the stories we tell ourselves and each other about ourselves, each other and our place in the web of life shape our world?How can we craft narratives that can shift the way we see and experience the world? Is this even the best leverage point to start off with or is there a deeper/wider/more effective acupuncture point we could explore as we evolve to become…what?  What are we aiming for? What—who—do we want to be and how might we reach places we can't even express - and do it in the face of a world where narratives are becoming more black-and-white, more constrained by circumstances, more held by those with power? In a week that's seen our world become both more complex, more ugly and more beautiful, we're talking to story-crafter and narrative-explorer, Paddy Loughman. Paddy's work explores the role of narrative and communications in navigating beyond our predicament. He is curious about how we might come together to appreciate what science and wisdom traditions reveal about entangled, relational reality, and the potential of more viable, beautiful worlds. He works independently, collaborating with activists, academics, philanthropists, creatives, community organisers and more, orienting towards just, transformational change. He has also co-initiated a number of efforts, including Inter-Narratives with Ella Saltmarshe. Earlier in his career he worked as a strategist in commercial and political communications, before jumping into climate campaigning with a wide range of organisations, from the UNFCCC to grassroots activists, and once upon a time he trained as an actor.This is my first conversation after a life-changing time away from my desk and it was a genuinely generative, consciousness-expanding conversation. I'm in the space where reality, dream and experience are overlapping seamlessly and Paddy felt like one of those people who can stand on the edge of all our spaces and look into what we might become and how we might get there.  So…with this as your baseline, please do join us in our exploration of possibility. LinksStories for Life https://stories.life/Inter-Narratives https://inter-narratives.org/Paddy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/paddyloughman/Go Deep or Go Home Medium Post by Paddy Loughman and Ella Saltmarsh https://medium.com/inter-narratives/go-deep-or-no-home-the-essential-power-of-deep-narrative-9124e69ee2aa'Stop Trying to Change Mindsets. Do This Instead' by Jessica Boehme https://jessicaboehme.substack.com/p/the-greatest-leverage-to-change-a'Raging against the dying light: a systems view of human futures' by Julian Norris https://wolfwillow.substack.com/p/raging-against-the-dying-light-a'Who is Organising the Poor White Folks' by Amhara Spence  https://amahraspence.substack.com/p/who-is-organising-poor-white-folksAntidote Project: https://www.antidotelive.studio/Imandeep Kaur https://civicsquare.cc/The Dawn of Everything David Graeber and David Wengrow https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-dawn-of-everything-a-new-history-of-humanity-david-graeber/bb3d95f3af2350dfWhat we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's  'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

Why are we here? How do we think? What is the nature of life? What are the boundaries between ourselves and the rest of the living web—between ourselves and the rest of the universe across space and through time…and in the timeless, formless place from which everything arises?These are the big, foundational questions of our existence, and how we answer them shapes how we see ourselves and our relationship to everything around us. If we work on a human supremacist frame, then we have no qualms about destroying the rest of the living web. If we know ourselves to be integral to it, if we can 'prove' this at a scientific level, then perhaps we can shift the way we behave. Dr James Cooke is an author, researcher and host of the Living Mirrors Podcast which is how I got to know him. He has three degrees from Oxford, including a PhD in neuroscience. He has been conducting research into the brain basis of consciousness and at the University of London, he achieved a theoretical breakthrough that linked philosophy, the latest in cognitive neuroscience and modern secular mysticism. Outside academia, he directs the Inner Space Institute for NonDual Naturalism, a center for education and participation in topics at the intersection of science & spirituality.  It is here, it says, 'To help you engage in spiritual development in a way that is scientifically grounded.'  Nondual Naturalism is a worldview that synthesises science and spiritual insight, centred around the recognition that we are not separate from nature and are fundamentally at home in existence and James expands on this in detail in his book, The Dawn of Mind: How matter became conscious and alive which synthesises science and contemplative insight to offer a radical solution to the Hard Problem of Consciousness and the question of our place in existence.James' website: https://www.drjamescooke.com/The Inner Space Institute: https://www.innerspaceinstitute.org/The Dawn of Mind Book https://uk.bookshop.org/book/9781633889927Living Mirrors Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/living-mirrors-with-dr-james-cooke/id1516523741James on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DrJamesCookeWhat we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's  'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

Our western (Trauma Culture) economies run on two falsehoods - we might go so far as to call them lies. The first is that economies have to grow to be 'successful'.  The second is that government spending is limited by the tax take.  That is, they need to take money in as taxes in order to spend it out into the economy.  Both of these are untrue, and understanding that they are untrue, and the political forces of ignorance and mendacity that keep them in place, is essential to our moving forward into a future that works. We cannot continue to maintain the death cult of predatory capitalism. We cannot continue with a Zombie economy that extracts, consumes, destroys and pollutes as if there were no consequences.  So what do we do? Both ecological economics and Modern Monetary Theory have been around for a while.  Degrowth theory is more recent, but it's being taken more seriously. What I haven't seen up till now is a fusion of these: a set of policy ideas worked out in which we acknowledge how money actually works, and look at how a national -or global - economy could be structured to lead us forward into a world where people and planet flourish together. I don't think this is the final destination, but it's definitely a step on the way. Our guest this week is someone particularly well positioned to answer these questions.  Colleen Schneider is a Doctoral student in Social-Ecological Economics & Policy in Vienna. Her key research areas: Ecological Economics, Environmental Justice, Monetary and Financial Systems in a Post-Growth Economy, Climate Policy.  She says, "I take a sociological and anthropological approach to understanding money as fundamentally a social relation. Money, and the monetary system (as with our economic system) are things we've created, and can create otherwise. I draw on historical examples to help understand how the institutional structure of the monetary system and our ideas about money came to be what they are, and to challenge those. [I seek to] de-naturalize money and point to ways to structure the monetary system as democratized, and (at least somewhat) localized -to realize money as a public good. I focus more specifically on how monetary and fiscal policy can be directed toward meeting human needs within environmental limits, while maintaining macroeconomic stability."So this is the focus of today's conversation.  This is a field about which I am passionate - I absolutely believe that if everyone understood how money actually works in our current world, a lot of the power inequities that we currently experience would end.  We have endeavoured to minimise the use of jargon, though we did talk about monetary and fiscal policy and I wanted to make it clear that Monetary Policy is about keeping prices stable - about using interest rates to influence inflation, that kind of thing . Fiscal policy is about the spending decisions - do we have austerity or don't we, do we fund social goods or don't we, do we decide to pour money into the military, or don't we… and the nature of taxation - what rates do we levy, what are the bands and what loopholes do we leave wide open so our friends can escape paying taxes altogether - while everyone continues to pretend that government spending is limited by the tax take. Which is nonsense. Taxation is about levelling the playing field. It's not about paying for the NHS. So there we go. Colleen spends her entire life working in this field, producing fascinating papers and a chapter in a forthcoming book that completely blew me away. So she speaks to these things far more eloquently and intelligently than I can.  Enjoy! Colleen on LinkedInColleen's papers: How to Pay for Saving the World - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800923002318Democratizing the Monetary Provisioning System - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15487733.2024.2344305On universal public services to end the cost of living crisis - https://www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/economic-growth/cost-of-living-crisis/2023/01/state-end-cost-of-living-crisis-climate-changePapers by others:The political response to Inflation: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/mexico/governments-survived-inflationWorkshops:Public Money for Public Good: Why MMT Matters | ViennaSeptember 27th and 28th Gleis 21, Bloch-Bauer-Promenade 22, 1100 Wien, Austriahttps://events.humanitix.com/public-money-mmt-vienna Public Money for Public Good: Why MMT Matters | Sheffield(Colleen is not a part of this one, but says that wonderful people are running it!)September 20th and 21st https://events.humanitix.com/public-money-mmt-sheffieldRegenerative Economy Lab - Money and Finance WorkshopVienna, October 23rd and 24thhttps://www.regenecon.eu/Online masters program on which Colleen teaches - grounded jointly in ecological economics and modern monetary theory: https://www.torrens.edu.au/studying-with-us/employability/industry-led-learning/co-delivery-partners/modern-money-labDocumentary 'Finding the Money'. https://findingmoneyfilm.com/MMT group based in the UK : https://modernmoneylab.org.uk/What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's  'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

As the old system is splitting apart, a few brave souls are already working to hospice this old system, acting as Death Doulas to the Great Dying—as well as helping people to awaken the seeds of a new world within.  One of these is our guest this week. Sara McFarland is a Soul Initiation and Wild Mind Mentor and Guide, Artist of Consciousness and a Death Doula for the Great Dying. Their website says, 'I believe Earth is always moving towards transformation and renewal—to our eyes, it may look like rupture or being stuck, a dead end or a tragedy. And, like Earth, we are always Whole, regardless of the part we are currently stuck in. Resiliency is part of (our) nature. I do not offer the solution to your "problem" - what are often labeled problems, I understand as symptoms of disconnection from the Web of Life and the Trauma of Civilization. Both blessing and curse, they are the place where our gold is buried and shaped. I use all of the tools-physical, energetic and spiritual- I have learned and received, to support you towards wholeness and the building of inner resources in order to reduce your stress level, to learn to love yourself and to stand in your power. 'I came to know Sara earlier this year when I was invited onto the Starter Culture podcast.  We talked for an hour and it felt like about 3 minutes and that we could have talked all day and not run out of avenues to explore, rabbit holes to excavate. Our conversation today took entirely different routes but was felt just as generative to me. Sara lives right at the emergent edge of the transformation of our world, helping to midwife the Soul Initiations of people who are called to ask them for help, and stepping into the Mystery at all its levels to act as a guide, mentor, healer in a world in transition.  Sara's website https://www.saramcfarland.com/What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's  'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

Our Trauma Culture has spread across the globe with terrifying speed and ghastly efficiency.  But the tide is turning and people of good heart in many nations are beginning to understand that what we need now is a move towards a 21st Century Initiation Culture. The language is often different, but at heart, this is where we need to go. Our guest this week, Hilary Giovale, is a mother, writer, facilitator and community organiser who lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.  As an active reparationist, she seeks to follow Indigenous and Black leadership in support of human rights, environmental justice, and equitable futures.  She is the author of the award-winning book Becoming a Good Relative: Calling White Settlers toward Truth, Healing, and Repair.Descended from the Celtic, Germanic, Nordic, and Indigenous peoples of Ancient Europe, she is a ninth-generation American settler.  For most of her life these origins were obscured by whiteness.  After learning more about her ancestors’ history, Hilary began emerging from a fog of amnesia, denial, and fragmentation.  For the first time, she could see a painful reality: her family’s occupation of this land has harmed Indigenous and African peoples, cultures, lands, and lifeways.  This realisation changed her life and part of this change was writing this moving, deeply important book.  Supported by local First Peoples, she undertook four years of fasting ceremonies, and began to engage differently, more deeply and with a new, raw authenticity with those whose ancestors had been most damaged by the Trauma Culture's colonisation of the land. Her book is essential reading for anyone in white culture, wherever we live in the world. It's a raw, unflinching step into discomfort, but it's also a deeply moving memoir of Hilary's journey inward, to dreams, to genuine visionary connection with the land, to the power of heartfelt apology to heal at least some of the generational horror of the Trauma Culture.  So, you'll definitely want to read this. If you're in North America, you can get hard copies easily. If you're elsewhere, you may only be able to get an e-book, but either way, Hilary returns all income she receives from book sales to Decolonizing Wealth Project and Jubilee Justice.  Hilary's website: https://www.goodrelative.comBecoming a Good Relative https://www.goodrelative.com/bookE-book here: on Barnes and Noble  and on KoboGuide to Making a Personal Reparations Plan https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G-ufl_8ixdquMGrDziiBUBAANYKXrN7eHtjiE5aKTfw/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.1kvofvfw6wnsWhat we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's  'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

We are a storied species: Everything we do arises from the stories we tell ourselves and each other about ourselves and each other and our relationship with the web of life.  Our current polycrisis: the accelerating annihilation of our cultures and our biosphere arises out of a particular set of stories that tell us we're isolated individuals caught in a system of separation, scarcity and powerlessness; that we can't trust anyone else and we have to do whatever it takes to get to the top of a steep-sided pyramid - that anyone who falls or fails is not worth our empathy or compassion; that the living web is a 'resource' to be exploited; that the ends of madmen always justify the means by which they steal control. This is how we end up with narratives of the 'humane genocide of non-productives' being peddled in the backwaters of the alt-right, and a world of increasing violence.So how do we change this? How do we create visions of a world that functions differently, one where every single human thrives as an integral part of a flourishing ecosphere?  One obvious route is to begin to seed stories in the various screen-based media where people engage with empathy and compassion, where our goals and values have a compassionate base, where people respond with genuine emotional literacy, as adults, instead of endlessly as adolescents. Our guest this week is Romain Vakilitabar, founder of Pathos Labs, a non-profit laboratory focused on exploring ways in which entertainment and media can rewrite harmful narratives, and change culture. One such project is PopShift, an initiative which convenes Hollywood’s leading TV writers with the country’s leading experts to determine how television can help catalyze new prosocial behaviors and attitudes.Romain was awarded the "Erase the Hate" fellowship from NBCUniversal in 2018 for his efforts to eradicate hatred in America. He spoke at one of the world's biggest TEDx events, has been featured in the books "2 Billion Under 20" and "Compassionate Careers", and in journals such as UC Berkeley's "Othering and Belonging".  Whether traveling between Palestine and Israel to better understand emotional relationships to the long-lasting conflict, spending weeks voluntarily homeless to empathize with the idea of "absolute need", hitchhiking thousands of miles to test the generosity of strangers, or living with conservative rural farmers in Oklahoma to better understand cultural conservatism, Romain has found that people, no matter the differences, are more alike than they imagine. Pathos Labs was born to prove it, by using the arts to dismantle systemic "othering".Romain on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/romainvak/Pathos Labs https://pathoslabs.org/Pop Shift https://popshift.org/Video from Futures Basecamp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnxKP4wecis/The Day After Movie on IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085404/reviews/What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's  'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

In this week's podcast I was honoured to join a four-way conversation between Giovanna and Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti and Tim Logan of Future Learning Design Podcast, to celebrate the publication of Vanessa's new book, Outgrowing Modernity. Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti is author of Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity's Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism which we have referenced many times on Accidental Gods.  She is also Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria in Canada. She is a former Canada Research Chair in Race, Inequalities and Global Change and a former David Lam Chair in Multicultural Education. She is one of the co-founders of the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures (GTDF) Arts/Research Collective, is the author of many academic papers and, with Aiden CinnamonTea, is co-author of Burnout From Humans. Most of her published articles and OpEds are available at academia.edu.Her daughter, Giovanna de Oliveira Andreotti, is a Dancer/dance teacher, GTDF member, certified Warm Data Lab host, founder of Rewiring for Reality: Cross Generational Reckoning, and an online course facilitator/co-ordinator. She holds a Bachelor's in Psychology from UBC, postgraduate certifications in Climate Psychology and Embodied Social Justice, and currently coordinates an inquiry that maps pedagogical practices addressing complexity, complicity, collapse, and accountability.This conversation took us deep into the complexity of what it means to be human at this moment when the old order is quite clearly in breakdown.  How do we use language? How do we engage with ourselves, each other and the web of life? And what is the web in a world where the first human-created silicon life is co-evolving with us.   How do we explore inter and intra-generational responses and capacity for meaning-making in a way that honours everyone, both human and beyond-human? In a world that feels ever more precarious, it was an honour and a delight to be in the company of such bright, deep minds.  Thank you to Giovanna, Vanessa and Tim - and I hope you all enjoy this as much as we did. Vanessa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessa-andreotti-a013276/Giovanna on LinkedIn  https://www.linkedin.com/in/giovanna-de-oliveira-andreotti-b77950272/Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures https://decolonialfutures.net/Burnout from Humans https://burnoutfromhumans.net/Rewiring for Realities https://r4rs.org/cross-generationalTim's podcast and website https://www.futurelearningdesign.com/Books: Hospicing Modernity https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Vanessa-Machado-De-Oliveira/Hospicing-Modernity--Parting-with-Harmful-Ways-of-Living/26579141Outgrowing Modernity https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Vanessa-Machado-de-Oliveira/Outgrowing-Modernity--Navigating-Complexity-Complicity-an/31891959What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's  'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

In the midst of the Great Transformation, one of the most exciting changes taking place is in our capacity to find what makes our hearts sing - to find our flow, to find what it is that we can do best, that we can do with all our hearts and souls—that leaves us radiant; that lets us lead with our Heart Minds, letting our Head Minds relax into service to life. Getting here, though, is not a trivial pursuit.  And finding ways for parents to lead their children into this place of discovery and switched-on joy is a critical step of our evolution as a species.  So when I read the book 'Lights on Learning: a parent's blueprint for happy, fulfilled and curious kids',  by Julia Black, founder of the Lights on Learning programme, I was genuinely delighted.Julia Black of Lights on Learning is a mother of two young adults, a BAFTA and Grierson nominated documentary director, social entrepreneur, educationalist, and Master Neurocoach. She hosts an online global community for parents who want to bring the latest thinking from neuroscience, positive psychology and passion-led learning into their homes. Her vision is of a world where all children love learning, and she sees parents as the key to that future. Julia says, 'I’m a social entrepreneur to my core, driven by a deep passion to give children the freedom to learn through their strengths. When we find that thing we were born to explore, we enter the realm of infinite possibilities. This is where I love to play with potential - beyond the edges of our comfort zone.'  This is such an inspiring book. It's full of examples of young people and their parents who have found the ways to switch on their flow, their love of life, their gratitude, compassion and joyful curiosity. It's clearly laid out, expresses the science of neuroplasticity and flow clearly and easily and opens doors by which all of us can step into what Julia calls 'Radiance' the fullest expression of our being - and where we can see that this is one step on a spectrum and sometimes we need to step into Darkness to see where our blocks lie and to find the courage and resilience to keep pushing through the hard stuff, to find where our edges are and to step beyond them. Lights On Learning has the core values that 'Courage Counts', 'Authenticity Rules' and 'Growth Spirals' - which feel like essential values for our time. Lights on Learning website https://www.lightsonuniverse.com/Lights on Learning book https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/lights-on-learning-a-parent-s-blueprint-for-happy-fulfilled-curious-kids-julia-black/7786461?ean=9781781338933LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lightsonmum/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thelightsonmumInstagram https://www.instagram.com/lightsonfamilies/MentionsRon Berger 'An Ethic of Excellence'Dr Shannon Irvine https://drshannonirvine.com/What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's  'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

“In a world where our wildlife is becoming extinct at a frightening rate, we are setting up an oasis where animals, wild flowers and even ancient fungi can thrive.” Charlie Bennett writing of Middleton North Farm. It's clear to most of us that the existing food and farming system is unsustainable.  What's less clear is what to do about it, particularly when the behemoths of the industry put so much time, effort and money into propaganda which suggests we can't feed humanity unless we keep doubling down on the industrial systems that are destroying our soils, our watercourses and our health.  Given this toxic mix of misinformation, government bureaucracy and algorithms engineered to keep us at each others' throats, it's not surprising the waters are muddied. And yet the signposts are out there and brave pioneers across the continents are working to find ways to feed people healthy, nutritious food at prices they can afford while also building soil, increasing water uptake —which is another way of saying we're reducing flooding— and returning life to the land. One of these glorious pioneers is Charlie Bennett of Middleton North farm in Northumbria. I came across Charlie  in the closing days of 2024 when I read his first book 'Down the Rabbit Hole' and promptly bought copies to give to all my friends. HIs writing was at once lyrical and grounded in a reality I recognised—and he was writing about regenerative farming, except he called it 'Common Sense Farming'.  I wrote to him then, and we've corresponded ever since and now he's this week's guest on the podcast. Charlie Bennett is a farmer, writer, and passionate advocate for the countryside. He is joint owner of the Middleton North estate near Morpeth, Northumberland, in North East England. Here, he and his wife Charlotte work to support existing wildlife and attract new species alongside sustainable stock farming designed to add to the diversity of wildlife in the area. Trigger Warning: Charlie and I share a passion for the land and a deep sense of connectedness to the more than human world. We both live in a reality where humans (sometimes) eat meat so if discussions of the reality of this might be difficult for you, please skip past those bits. Otherwise, please do enjoy this exploration of how we can share our world differently with the Web of Life. Charlie's website https://charliebennettauthor.co.uk/Buy Charlie's books https://charliebennettauthor.co.uk/shop/p/down-the-rabbit-hole-book-fh2pk-mcey8Middleton North Farm https://www.middleton-north.co.ukLit and Phil https://www.litandphil.org.uk/What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering 'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

Water is our lifeblood and Clean Water (along with Clean Air and Clean Soil) is one of our core Three Asks, the non-negotiable baselines that underpin a flourishing future for people and life on our planet. Getting there, means everyone beginning to care at a bone-deep level, way beneath our conscious minds and having a sense of how we might get there, supported by evidence of what works (or doesn't) so that we can create positive feedback loops of growing community between the human and Beyond-Human worlds. Living this into being is one of the core pillars of the Great Transformation and one of the groups working towards it is the River Dôn Project in Sheffield, one of the many projects overseen by Opus Independents. One of the project leads is Jonny Douglas, and he's today's guest.Jonny imagines a world where the vast majority of people have the means and opportunity to find and fulfil their true potential. He has worked as a designer, a trainer, educator and facilitator in human skills and creativity in universities, colleges, schools and businesses.  At Opus he is a Co-Founder and Network Coordinator of the UBI Lab Network and Technology Lead for the River Dôn Project, among other roles across the portfolio. He believes our only path forward is one of mutually assured flourishing and that now is the time to build those alternative realities, together. I met Jonny last July at the Social Enterprise Network Summer Conference in Sheffield and the conversation about the River Dôn Project was one of the single most inspiring, thought -provoking I have ever had. So, with great delight, here we are, exploring routes to Mutually Assured Flourishing.  Enjoy! Jonny at Opus https://www.weareopus.org/team/jonny-douglasJonny on all socials: Linked in  |  Pinterest  |  Instagram  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  BlueskyRiver Dôn Project website  |  Engagement Platform  River Dôn Project - Bluesky  |  Linked in  |  Instagram  |  Mailing list  |  DonateMentions in the ShowJames Lock of Opus #279 https://accidentalgods.life/now-then-building-networks-of-citizen-power-with-james-lock-of-opus-in-sheffield/Debs Grayson from Opus #283 https://accidentalgods.life/red-pill-blue-pill-green-pill-true-pill-creating-a-trustworthy-media-commons-with-debs-grayson-of-opus-independents/Hospicing Modernity with Vanessa De Oliveira Andreotti ~ Festival of  Debate, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZgq3h6pPxU #Brilliant Minds: BONUS podcast with Kate Raworth, Indy Johar & James Lock at the Festival of Debatehttps://accidentalgods.life/brilliant-minds-bonus-podcast-with-kate-raworth-indy-johar-james-lock-at-the-festival-of-debate/Opus https://www.weareopus.org/ Festival of Debatehttps://festivalofdebate.com/ PechaKucha Sheffield https://www.pechakucha.com/communities/sheffield Sheffield Souphttps://sheffieldsoup.wordpress.com/what-is-soup/ Food Workshttps://thefoodworks.org/ Sofar Soundshttps://www.sofarsounds.com/cities/sheffield Dôn Catchment Rivers Trusthttps://dcrt.org.uk/ For a deeper dive, other links are available on a Google Doc here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/172pnHQdb14dgQmphixCoFgea5j_kapzpSOeIlgZUko8/What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering 'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

We know that our 'democracy' is, in fact, a kleptocracy that is not fit for purpose IF that purpose is the continuation of complex life on earth. The sociopaths who have stolen control show no signs of shifting to something that works, so it's way past time that ordinary people across all walks of life embraced the tools of participatory democracy and wrought the new system that we need - a new House of the People which would, finally, accrue power to those with wisdom and enact governance of, for and by the people and the planet.  To do this, we need people who are intimately aquainted with these tools, who live them, breathe them, find joy and creativity in them and know how to share them in ways ordinary people understand.  Our House is a collective that exists to do exactly this and in today's episode, we're talking to Katy Rubin and Oli Whittington, two of its core team, to find out what it does and how and why - and, crucially, where it could take us if we all jump on board.  Katy Rubin is a Legislative Theatre practitioner and strategist based in the UK. She is founder of The People Act hub for creative civic practice. She works in partnership with local and national governments, advocacy organizations, and community groups to co-create equitable and innovative public policy through participatory processes that are joyful, creative, and inclusive. Katy is also a member of the Our House UK collective, a Senior Fellow with People Powered: Global Hub for Participatory Democracy, and a Senior Atlantic Fellow at London School of Economics, as well as former executive director of Theatre of the Oppressed NYC. Her Legislative Theatre work with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority was awarded the International Observatory of Participatory Democracy’s 2022 award for Best Practice in Citizen Participation.Oli Whittington is the initiator and co-lead of Our House, drawing on his background in participatory design and democracy. Oli’s work has focused on unpacking and addressing the concentration of power, including leading democratic innovation at Nesta, Shift Design’s participation practice, and as a participatory designer in Arup’s urban innovation studio.Together, they are working around all four nations of the UK to help bring the tools of participatory democracy to communities of place, purpose and passion.  They are helping to facilitate local participatory processes with a view to creating National Charters for each Nation and then bringing people together to decide whether we want a united Charter for the whole of the UK or remain separate.  To me, creating a governance system that is fit for purpose is absolutely essential to our moving forward through the pinch point of the Great Transition.  If we can't find coherent, constructive, compassionate, courageous ways to work together, we're sunk—and while there might be courageous, compassionate people within the current system, the overall system is not any of these.  So I dearly hope that by the end of this, you'll want to become involved. And if you're listening to this podcast as it goes out on the 16th of July 2025, you should know that there's an online event on the 18th which in an open invitation to anyone, anywhere who wants to start building an open democracy.  Please do sign up, there's a link in the show notes. Our House website https://ourhouseuk.org/Our House Event on 18th July 2025 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/power-to-the-people-shaping-a-peoples-charter-tickets-1415315900959 Movement Mapping https://movementecology.org.uk/2025/04/27/mapping-participatory-democracy-movement.htmlEast Marsh United https://eastmarshunited.org/Legislative Theatre Resource Hub https://www.thepeopleact.org/Charter 88 and the Constitutional Reform Movement https://academic.oup.com/pa/article-abstract/62/4/537/1538934?What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering 'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here