The Long Time Academy

Right now so many of us are burnt out and overwhelmed: by the pandemic; by the uncertainty of the future; and by huge challenges like climate change, systemic racism, and inequality. The Long Time Academy is an immersive and entertaining new podcast that steps into this space with one clear message: changing the way we choose to engage with time can be life-changing, both when it comes to the problems we’re facing day to day, and to the huge threats we’re facing as a species. Celeste Headlee, Brian Eno, George The Poet and adrienne maree brown are among the 30 strong faculty who have come together to teach one of the most important classes of our time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Life is short, but time is really, really long. So long that most of us can’t really comprehend more than a few years at a time into the future. It’s time to take a longer view. In Part One, we will look at how we’ve arrived at a short-term culture that is obsessed with short-term thinking, quick fixes and instant gratification. We’ll consider how the industrial revolution reshaped our relationship with time and why getting long-term could be essential to the survival of our species. Over your time in the academy you’ll learn how thinking long term can help make you feel more present, more connected, less anxious and more hopeful about the future. Are you ready? Good. Because class is now in session. Special thanks to the contributors to this episode, Celeste Headlee, Roman Krznaric, Toby Ord, Diane Schenandoah, Michelle Schenandoah, Jamil Zaki and Finley Rainbow. RELATED LINKS thelongtimeacademy.com headspace.com scenerystudios.com thelongtimeproject.org Celeste Headlee’s book, Do Nothing How to Break Away from Overworking Overdoing and Underliving, is available HERE, and in all good local bookshops Roman Krznaric’s book, The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short-Term World, is available HERE, and in all good local bookshops Toby Ord’s Book, The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity is available here and in all good local bookshops Jamil Zaki’s book, The War for Kindness is available here and in all good local bookshops Michelle Schenandoah is the founder of Rematriation magazine - read here The Long Time Academy is produced by Scenery Studios, and brought to you by Headspace Studios and The Long Time Project. CREDITS The series was created and produced by Lina Prestwood and Ella Saltmarshe Producer are Madeleine Finlay and Ivor Manley Executive producers at Headspace Studios are Ash Jones, Leah Sutherland & Morgan Selzer Original artwork by Mavi Morais Design by Loz Ives at Fieldwork Original music and sound design by Tristan Cassel-Delavois, Scott Sorenson & Chris Murguia Queer Eye clip courtesy of Scout Entertainment, ITV Productions and Netflix. The New Women's Shuffle Dance song performed by Gaehnew Printup Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This practice has been created by Ella Saltmarshe & Hannah Smith. It is inspired by the work of deep ecologist, Joanna Macy. It enables us to walk across the generations, developing an emotional connection to the lives of past and future ancestors, read by host Ella Saltmarshe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NOTE: this episode contains discussion around death which some people may find difficult. In Part Two we learn how to stretch time! We journey back to the beginning of life on earth, and forward into the far, far future, we learn from Brian Eno himself about why he invented ambient music, and we discover how coming to terms with our own death can transform the way we live.  We dive deeper into indigenous thinking, discover how to look at the world like a geologist, and find out why you might be looking the wrong way when you think about the future … clue: it’s below you! This second episode is a time-travelling adventure through the glittering awesomeness of deep time - so buckle-up, and get ready to experience The Long Time! Special thanks to the contributors to this episode, Vincent Ialenti, Brian Eno, Alua Arthur, Kimberely Wade Benzoni, Jay Griffiths, Marcia Bjornerud, Tyson Yunkaporta and Stephan Harding. RELATED LINKS thelongtimeacademy.com headspace.com scenerystudios.com thelongtimeproject.org Jay Griffiths’s latest book How To Rebel, her book Pip Pip: A Sideways Look At Time and all her other brilliant works are available HERE More about Alua Arthur’s end of life work HERE Vincent Ialenti’s book, Deep Time Reckoning: How Future Thinking Can Help Earth Now is available here Marcia Bjornerud’s book, Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World is available here Tyson Yunkaporta’s book, Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save The World is available here The Deep Time Walk App and Field Kit is available here CREDITS The series was created and produced by Lina Prestwood and Ella Saltmarshe Produced by Ivor Manley and Madeleine Finlay Executive producers at Headspace Studios are Ash Jones, Leah Sutherland & Morgan Selzer Original artwork by Mavi Morais (instagram.com/moraismavi) Design by Loz Ives (idleletters.com) Original music, sound design and mixing by Tristan Cassel-Delavois, Scott Sorenson & Chris Murguia Track 1/1, Music For Airports (1978) by Brian Eno courtesy of Polydor Records Audio courtesy of The Deep Time Walk Project (Sound Design by Jo Hutton, directed by Jeremy Mortimer, performed by actors Chipo Chung and Paul Hilton) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Written and read by end-of-life specialist, Alua Arthur, this meditation asks us to imagine what it is like to die, in order to bring about a deeper appreciation of being alive. It’s a life-affirming practice that’s best done in its entirety, in a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. And it’s important to say, that practice isn’t recommended for those experiencing depression or having suicidal thoughts. If this is you, we gently advise not to do this meditation today. Here’s a link to a collection of mental health resources around the world for those feeling, depressed, suicidal or needing emotional support: https://www.headspace.com/mental-health-resources More about Alua Arthur’s end of life work HERE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Read by Kessonga Giscombe, this immersive and transformative meditation takes listeners back through time, and through the 4.6 billion year evolution of our living Earth. Experience a unique perspective of deep time! The Well of Deep Time was written by Stephan Harding and Robert Woodford of the Deep Time Walk Project, with thanks to Ella Saltmarshe and Lina Prestwood. The Well Of Deep Time is available in an illustrated .pdf from The Deep Time Walk Project website, alongside the Deep Time Walk App and other useful resources. The meditation was composed and sound designed by Casually Here for Scenery Studios. Audio courtesy of The Deep Time Walk Project with additional sound design elements from Jo Hutton. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Greta Thunberg famously chided world leaders for pursuing “fairytales of eternal economic growth”. In this episode we learn how short-termism is baked into our current economic story, and why we need to change this narrative. Ella meets poet, podcaster, and economics student, GEORGE THE POET and together they visit “the belly of the beast” - The Bank Of England - and begin to reimagine a new economic storyline.   We then meet people all over the world, creating the new economic systems that work for the long-term future of all inhabitants of the planet. This is economics for people who feel like economics isn’t for them! Special thanks to the contributors to this episode, George The Poet, Jason Hickel, Kate Raworth, Andy Haldane, Temuera Hall and Sandy Darity, as well as Immy Kaur, Eduard Müller, Jared Bybee and Fanny Brøholm. George the Poet’s latest project Common Ground encourages interaction with his Peabody Award-winning podcast Have You Heard George’s Podcast? Jason Hickel’s fascinating work can be found HERE Find out more about Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics in action HERE More about Temuera Hall’s work can be found HERE More about William Sandy Darity’s book From Here to Equality HERE Watch Greta Thunberg's full speech at the September 2019 UN Climate Action Summit HERE   CREDITS The Long Time Academy comes to you from Headspace Studios and The Long Time Project, and is produced by Scenery Studios. The series was created and produced by Lina Prestwood and Ella Saltmarshe Produced by Ivor Manley and Madeleine Finlay with research by Momoe Ikeda-Chelminska Executive producers at Headspace Studios are Ash Jones, Leah Sutherland & Morgan Selzer Original artwork by Mavi Morais Design by Loz Ives and Lewis Kay-Thatcher  Original music, sound design and mixing by Tristan Cassel-Delavois, Scott Sorenson & Chris Murguia Clip of Greta Thunberg at the September 2019 UN Climate Action Summit courtesy of the United Nations   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This Loving-Kindness-meditation-with-a-twist asks us to generate care for people around us today, and for those in the future who have yet to be born. Co-created by Ella Saltmarshe and Headspace teacher Dora Kamau, who also reads the meditation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How can we do politics with a Long Time lens? So often it feels like our leaders are firmly stuck in the short-term, motivated by getting re-elected every four or five years and the sway of vested interests.  In this episode we meet the people changing this both from within government and outside it, with their imaginative and innovative - yet highly realistic - Long Time approaches to politics and law. We travel to ancient Greece, hear from teenagers suing their governments, ministers creating new laws to care for future generations, academics in Japan who are using theatrical methods to enable policymakers to feel into the future, and indigenous wisdom-keepers whose oldest living democracy on the planet shows us what a political system that cares for all future earth-dwellers looks like.  Special thanks to the contributors to this episode, Roman Krznaric, Michelle Schenandoah, Mama Bear, Tatsuyoshi Saijo, Jane Davidson, Julia Olson and Levi Draheim.  Leave us a voice note here telling us how listening to this series is making you feel about the present and the future - we listen to all your messages and would love to include some in future episodes.  Irish referendum clips courtesy of Courtesy of The Citizens Assembly - Youtube Channel and ITV News Julia Olson in court audio courtesy the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Official YouTube Channel, December 11th 2017 Welsh devolution referendum results Courtesy of BBC News, 1997 Kurt Vonnegut clip from NOW October 2005 courtesy of PBS Sophie Howe, Welsh Future Generations Commissioner clip courtesy of Senedd Cymru/ Welsh Parliament, September, Youtube, September 2019 CREDITS The Long Time Academy comes to you from Headspace Studios and The Long Time Project, and is produced by Scenery Studios.   The series was created and produced by Lina Prestwood and Ella Saltmarshe Produced by Ivor Manley and Madeleine Finlay  Executive producers at Headspace Studios are Ash Jones, Leah Sutherland & Morgan Selzer Original artwork by Mavi Morais Design by Loz Ives & Lewis Kay-Thatcher Original music, sound design and mixing by Tristan Cassel-Delavois, Scott Sorenson & Chris Murguia Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A gift to the students of the Academy from Mama Bear, Bear Clan Mother for the Mohawk Nation Council. This traditional Haudenosaunee practice expresses gratitude and empathic connection to all of creation. Usually delivered whenever people gather to make a decision, it can also be done as an individual practice first thing in the morning - “ideally before your feet hit the floor” - or last thing at night. With a great many thanks to Mama Bear and Michelle Schenandoah. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whose imagination are we living in, and how does that feel? The last few years have highlighted the raw urgency of the struggle to ensure the future is not dominated by white-supremecy. But what do visions of an alternative future look like? This episode explores how historically, inequalities in the present have been projected into the future, both in terms of how the future has been portrayed, and how it comes to be realised. We look at the impacts of colonialism in the past, present and future, meeting the people changing this on the ground - from activists, to artists, to sci-fi fans.  Whatever the future holds, it is in our hands. Paying attention to the patterns of our time reveals the importance of embracing and cultivating diversity now, and for the long time. Special thanks to the contributors to this episode, Alisha B Wormsley, adrienne maree brown, Safiya Noble, Jay Griffiths, Joshua Virasami, Annauk Olin, Lonny Avi Brooks & Ahmed Best  Find out more about Alisha B Wormsley’s work here Find adrienne maree brown’s most recent book, Grievers here, and listen to her Octavia’s Parables podcast here Get Joshua Virasami’s book, How to Change it: Make a Difference, here and in all good local bookshops. Find Safiya Noble’s book Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism here and in all good local bookshops Jay Griffiths’s latest book How To Rebel, her book Pip Pip: A Sideways Look At Time and all her other brilliant works are available HERE and in all good local bookshops Here more about Annauk Olin’s work here Listen to Lonny Brooks’ & Ahmed Best’s The Afrofuturist Podcast here and find out more about the Afro-rithms from the Future game here CREDITS The Long Time Academy comes to you from Headspace Studios and The Long Time Project, and is produced by Scenery Studios. The series was created and produced by Lina Prestwood and Ella Saltmarshe Produced by Ivor Manley and Madeleine Finlay  Executive producers at Headspace Studios are Ash Jones, Leah Sutherland & Morgan Selzer Original artwork by Mavi Morais Design by Loz Ives & Lewis Kay-Thatcher Original music, sound design and mixing by Tristan Cassel-Delavois, Scott Sorenson & Chris Murguia East Liberty news report clip courtesy of KDKA-TV CBS Pittsburgh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This imaginative and interactive meditation exercise gives you a unique opportunity to experience elements of the Afro-rithms from the Future game with its co-creator, Ahmed Best. Feel the right hemisphere of your brain awaken with new ideas as he guides and inspires you to build and create a beautiful, decolonised world of your very own...  Written and read by Ahmed Best, with thanks to Lonny Avi Brooks.  Find out more about Afro-rithms from the Future here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In our final episode we dive into the role art and culture play in cultivating long-termism at scale.  Far from being window dressing, art and culture forms the operating systems of our world; it has the power to shift our collective identity.  Culture doesn’t just reflect societal norms, it has the power to change, iterate and manifest new ones.  We’ll meet the artists, creators and curators who are using time as both their medium and their message, and explore the role of creativity in shifting us to a long-term society. Special thanks to the contributors to this episode, Brian Eno, Bridgit Antoinette Evans, Katie Paterson, Jeremy Lent, Anab Jain and Sherri Mitchell. Discover more about Brian Eno here. Find out more about the work of Bridgit Antoinette Evans and the Pop Culture Collaborative here. Discover Katie Paterson’s work here and delve into the Future Library. Find out about Jeremy Lent’s work including The Patterning Instinct here. Experience the work of Anab Jain and Superflux here. Find out about Sherri Mitchell’s projects and writing here. If you want to delve deeper into Long Time ideas, here is a suggested reading list! NON-FICTION  Deep Time Reckoning - Vincent Ialenti FutureGen - Jane Davidson Timefulness - Marcia Bjornerud The Precipice - Toby Ord Pip Pip - Jay Griffiths The Clock of the Long Now - Steward Brand The Good Ancestor - Roman Krznaric Doughnut Economics - Kate Raworth Sandtalk - Tyson Yunkaporta The Patterning Instinct - Jeremy Lent The War for Kindness - Jamil Zaki Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall-Kimmerer Underland - Robert Macfarlane The Oldest Living Things in the World - Rachel Sussman  Sacred Instructions - Sherri Mitchell FICTION Kindred- Octavia Butler The Parable Series  - Octavia Butler The Ministry for the Future - Kim Stanley Robinson The OverStory - Richard Powers Man V. Nature - Diane Cook Love & Other Thought Experiments - Sophie Ward Barkskins - Annie Proulx Light Perpetual - Francis Spufford CREDITS The Long Time Academy comes to you from Headspace Studios and The Long Time Project, and is produced by Scenery Studios.   The series was created and produced by Lina Prestwood and Ella Saltmarshe Produced by Ivor Manley and Madeleine Finlay. This episode was also produced by Eli Block.  Executive producers at Headspace Studios are Ash Jones, Leah Sutherland & Morgan Selzer Original artwork by Mavi Morais Design by Loz Ives & Lewis Kay-Thatcher Original music, sound design and mixing by Tristan Cassel-Delavois, Scott Sorenson & Chris Murguia with additional music this episode from Eli Block and Jamie Patterson.  It’s a Sin clips courtesy of Channel 4/ HBO Max/ Red Production Company Glee clip courtesy of  Fox/ 20th Century Fox Television/ Brad Falchuk Teley-Vision/ Ryan Murphy Productions Clips from Mitigation of Shock courtesy of Superflux Future Library archive courtesy of Katie Paterson Studios Additional archive clips from xinaesthete, Astounded/Christopher J Astbury, Switzerland Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This Long Time Ritual enables you to sense into your unique location in the great web of life. Use it whenever you’d like to drop into longer, deeper time.  You’ll need a small object that represents the long time for you. It could be a pebble, an acorn, a seed … anything that connects you to the long past, the long future, or time itself. The Long Time Ritual is written and read by Ella Saltmarshe.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices