Accidental Gods - The Thrutopian Podcast

Accidental Gods

Another World IS still Possible. The old system was never fit for purpose - and now it's collapsing around us. So how do we co-create a Thrutopian future that we'd all be proud to leave as our legacy?

What stories can we weave of possibility? Of transformation? What happens if we commit to a world based on generative values: compassion, courage, integrity?

What happens if we let go of the race for meaningless money and commit instead to the things that really matter: clean air, clean water, clean soil - and clean, clear, courageous connections between all parts of ourselves, between ourselves and each other, between ourselves and the Web of Life - so that we can reclaim our birthright as self-conscious nodes in the web of life?

We can do this. Some of us already are. Every week on Accidental Gods we speak with the people who are living this world into being, courageous pathfinders who are exploring the emergent edge of inter-becoming.

As a species, we have all the answers, we just haven't yet crafted all the new stories and woven them into a future that works. We have the choice now - we can choose to transform…or we can face the chaos of a failing system.

Our Choice. Our Chance. Our Future.

Accidental Gods is a podcast and membership program devoted to exploring the ways we can create a future that we would be proud to leave to the generations yet to come.

Find the membership and the podcast pages here: https://accidentalgods.life
Find Manda's Thrutopian novel, Any Human Power here: https://mandascott.co.uk
Find Manda on BlueSky @mandascott.bsky.social
On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mandascottauthor/
On FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/MandaScottAuthor

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388 episodes
Updated July 29

Episodes388

Newest first

Aug 16, 2023 · 1 hr 13 min
Spiritual Activism: Permaculture of land, heart and people with Maddy Harland
This podcast is focussed on all the ways that we can bring all of ourselves to the project of total systemic change: our minds, bodies, spirits, hearts - and the practicality of what we do. Given this, we're delighted to welcome to the podcast Maddy Harland, the Co-founder and Editor of Permaculture Magazine . Maddy, and her husband Tim, co-founded a publishing company, Permanent Publications, in 1990 and Permaculture Magazine in 1992 to explore traditional and new ways of living in greater harmony with the Earth. She is the author of Fertile Edges—regenerating land, culture and hope and The Biotime Log. Maddy and Tim, have designed and planted one of the oldest forest gardens in Britain: once a bare field, it is now an edible landscape ,a haven for wildlife, and a reservoir of biodiversity. I met Maddy first back in the early days of this millennium when the whole Permaculture team was in the south east of England. More recently, they moved to Devon in the south west, where they are retrofitting a Devon longhouse to become zero carbon and restoring an old woodland to be a sanctuary for rare species like Dormice and Pied Flyctachers - and to be a place of healing and retreat for people. Maddy has been one of the beacons of the regenerative movement for decades. She's edited one of the world's most vibrantly alive magazines for over thirty years, she's interviewed - and edited - everyone who is anyone in this field from Vandana Shiva to Satish Kumar to Patrick Whitefield hundreds, literally, of the less well known, but absolutely cutting edge, inspiring people in all corners of the world who are living the change that will take us to the future we'd be proud to leave behind. If anyone knows where we're at, and what potential there is for change, she does. So it was a joy to be able to connect and explore ideas with someone who's given their life's energy to exploring the ways that change can happen. COUPON: PERMACULTUREGODS - with this, you'll get a free copy of Maddy's book Fertile Edges, with your subscription. Please use the code at the Checkout. (NB: this is valid until 23:59 on 6th November 2023 - and works once a subscription and Fertile Edges have been added to the cart, and then the code added) Website link at which to use it: https://shop.permaculture.co.uk/collections/permaculture-magazine Permaculture Magazine Website: https://www.permaculture.co.uk/ Permaculture Books: https://www.permanentpublications.co.uk/ Free Permaculture e-books: https://shop.permaculture.co.uk/collections/free-ebooks-1 Permaculture Magazine YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PermacultureMagazine Permaculture Magazine Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/PermacultureMag Permaculture Magazine Instagram https://www.instagram.com/permaculturemagazine Permaculture Magazine Twitter https://twitter.com/PermacultureMag Plus a free Intro to Permaculture Course: https://workspace.oregonstate.edu/free-on-demand-intro-to-permaculture-open-online-resource Setsuden in Japan - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setsuden Film: In grave danger of falling food: https://www.acmi.net.au/works/80421--in-grave-danger-of-falling-foodbarefoot-economist/
Aug 9, 2023 · 53 min
This Mighty Heart: exploring the power of Heart Intelligence with Scilla Elworthy
We all know that we need to reconnect to our HeartMinds and to bring our Heart Intelligence up to meet the explosion of left brain intelligence - we just don't know how to do it. This week's guest is one of my living heroes - who does have clear, grounded ideas of how to do this. Dr Scilla Elworthy was thirteen years old when she saw the Soviet Invasion of Hungary on the television and understood the horror of what was happening. Her mother found her packing a case to go to Budapest to help and managed to persuade her to stay home by promising she'd help to train her to be what the world needed. When she was sixteen, she worked in a holiday camp for Auschwitz survivors, and sat peeling potatoes and listening to them talk of their suffering. Since then, she has been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize for her work with Oxford Research Group to develop effective dialogue between nuclear weapons policy-makers worldwide and their critics. In 2003 Scilla founded Peace Direct, to work closely with locally-led peace building initiatives throughout the world, bringing us daily experience in how to help prevent violent conflict and build sustainable peace throughout the world. She has written numerous books, given numerous TED and TEDx talks and now leads The Business Plan for Peace to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of transforming destructive conflict. She was awarded the Niwano Peace Prize in 2003 and the Luxembourg Peace Prize in 2020. She is one of the clearest, most grounded thinkers I have ever met and she's working tirelessly to create the future we'd be proud to leave behind. I was more than a little star-struck, but this was a genuinely heart-felt conversation and I hope listening to it leaves you feeling as heart-connected as it did me. The Mighty Heart https://mightyheart.co.uk/ The Mighty Heart in Business program: 18th October - 6th December 2023 https://thebusinessplanforpeace.org/the-mighty-heart-in-business/ TED Talk: Fighting with Non Violence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk3K_Vrve-E TEDx Talk: Dare to Question: Why are we so afraid of getting older https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6zenOjPC1A TEDx Talk: How do I deal with a bully without becoming a thug? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgWyolwBGgE TEDx Talk: The Future Belongs to those who can see it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWDl1PqGjqY TEDx Talk: Do something - OK, but how? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYlhHkLgBWA TEDx Talk: The Business Plan for Peace https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH1WgurH5FA Conversations in Compassion w Dr Scilla Elworthy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C5BMRDYzc8 Book: Pioneering the Possible https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/pioneering-the-possible-awakened-leadership-for-a-world-that-works-scilla-elworthy/3218709?ean=9781583948620 Books: The Mighty Heart in Action and The Business Plan for Peace https://mightyheart.co.uk/media/
Aug 2, 2023 · 1 hr 17 min
AI: Integral to the future or existential risk? (or both) - conversations on current evolution with Daniel Thorson
How dangerous is AI? Are Large Language Models likely to subvert our children? Is Generalised AI going to wipe out all life on the planet? I don't know the answers to these. It may be that nobody knows, but this week's guest was my go-to when I needed someone with total integrity to help unravel one of the most existential crises of our time, to lay it out as simply as we can without losing the essence of complexity, to help us see the worst cases - and their likelihood - and the best cases, and then to navigate a route past the first and onto the second. Daniel Thorson is an activist - he was active in the early days of the Occupy movement and in Extinction Rebellion. He is a lot more technologically literate than I am - he was active early in Buddhist Geeks. He is a soulful, thoughtful, heartful person, who lives at and works with the Monastic Academy for the Preservation of Life on Earth in Vermont. And he's host of the Emerge podcast, Making Sense of What's Next. So in all ways, when I wanted to explore the existential risks, and maybe the potential of Artificial Intelligence, and wanted to talk with someone I could trust, and whose views I could bring to you unfiltered, Daniel was my first thought, and I'm genuinely thrilled that he agreed to come back onto the podcast to talk about what's going on right now. My first query was triggered by the interview with Eliezer Yudkowsky on the Bankless podcast - Eliezer talked about the dangers of Generalised AI, or Artificial General Intelligence, AGI, and the reasons why it was so hard - he would say impossible - to align the intentions of a silicon-based intelligence with our human values, even if we knew what they were and could define them clearly. Listening to that, was what prompted me to write to Daniel. Since then, I listened many times to two of Daniels own recent podcasts: one with the educational philosopher Zak Stein on the dangers of AI Tutors and one with Jill Nephew, the founder of Inqwire, Public Benefit Company on a mission to help the world make sense. The Inqwire technology is designed to enhance and accelerate human sensemaking abilities. Jill is also host of the Natural Intelligence podcast and has clearly thought deeply about the nature of intelligence, the human experience and the neurophysiology and neuropsychology of our interactions with Large Language Models. I've linked all three of these podcasts below and absolutely recommend that you listen to them if you want more depth than we have here. What Daniel and I tried to do today was to lay things out in very straightforward terms: it's an area fraught with jargon and belief systems and assumptions, and we wanted to strip those away where we could and acknowledge them where we couldn't, and lay out where we are, what the worst cases are, what the best case is, given that we have to move forward with technology, switching it all off seems not to be an option—and how we might move from worst to best case. With this latter in mind, I've included a link to Daniel's new project, the Church of the Intimate Web which aims to connect people with each other. I've also - because it seems not everyone listens to the very end of the podcasts - included a link to our membership programme in Accidental Gods where we aim to help people connect to the wider web of life. I definitely see these two as interlinked and mutually compatible. So - trigger warning - a lot of this is not yet impinging on public awareness and we're not yet aware of how close we are to some very dangerous edges. This podcast leads us up to the edge so we can look over. We do it as gently as we can, but still, you'll want to be resourced and resilient before you listen. The Emerge Podcast https://www.whatisemerging.com/emergepodcast Emerge with Zak Stein https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/emerge-making-sense-of-whats-next/id1057220344?i=1000610403148 Emerge with Jill Nephew https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/emerge-making-sense-of-whats-next/id1057220344?i=1000613784941 Bankless with Eliezer Yudkowsky https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/bankless/id1499409058?i=1000600575387 The Church of the Intimate Web https://tome.app/the-church-of-the-intimate-web/the-church-of-the-intimate-web-a-response-to-the-global-intimacy-disorder-clhgc8h1l1b2p5k3z9ppbitfy Accidental Gods Membership https://accidentalgods.life/join-us/ The Soul's Code by James Hillman https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-soul-s-code-james-hillman/1563087?ean=9780553506341
Jul 26, 2023 · 1 hr 19 min
Walk Deep, walk true, and listen to your dreams: wordsmithing the human spirit with Abigail Morgan Prout
Peruvian shaman Oscar Miro-Quesada says that "Consciousness creates matter, Language Creates Reality, Ritual creates relationship.” This week I'm speaking with someone who bring reality into being with words and weaves relational rituals. Abigail Morgan Prout is a poet, life coach, mother and visionary. She and I have been talking to one another for about three and a half years. We connected just before lockdown and then, as life became weirder, Abigail's daily poems were a bright flash in the whirling chaos, a doorway into a world halfway across the planet that was different in so many ways, and yet so often the same; a sense of soul connection to someone who gets it; an excoriating and sometimes intensely personal, vulnerable view into someone else's life, shared with great courage - and word-jewels of true beauty that connected me again to the wonder of the web of life, and the wonder of language. As a writer, I am always in absolute awe of the fact that we can make black marks on a white page and evoke the whole multi-dimensional, multi-sensory glory of human and More-Than-Human experience. As a prose writer, I am ever more in awe of the skill poets bring to their word-smithing, and Abigail's is beautiful, moving and inspiring at all levels. It's not just me that thinks so - Walk Deep, the collection that arose from lockdown won the 2021 Homebound Poetry Contest. So when Homebound published Walk Deep, I really wanted to bring Abigail onto the podcast - to talk about the process of writing, which is one of my more major obsessions, but also to talk about everything she brings to this -she's a life coach and a teacher of life coaches. She's a daughter and a mother and she holds ceremony in beautiful ways. We didn't touch much on this last in the main body of the podcast - but, as happens so often, as soon as I'd stopped recording, we talked about exactly this, and it seemed so profoundly important, that I hit record again and we added another ten minutes of what, to me, is not just podcasting gold, but human gold, spiritual gold; the account of someone's experience of a lifelong dream that came to life, but more than that, of the ways the web of life is so ready to connect with us and offer help if we can only open to hear it. So that's tacked on at the end, before the final credits. Abigail's website https://www.abigailprout.com/ Spiral Leadership Method https://www.spiral-leadership.com/ Accidental Gods Membership (the Intention Intensive is within the Membership) https://accidentalgods.life/join-us/ Abigail on FB https://www.facebook.com/abigail.m.prout Instagram: @Insta: abigail_Morgan_prout
Jul 19, 2023 · 1 hr 20 min
A Green New Deal that Works for People and Planet with Max Ajl
Our guest this week is Max Ajl, who is an associate researcher with the Tunisian Observatory for Food Sovereignty and the Environment and a postdoctoral fellow with the Rural Sociology Group at Wageningen University. He has written for multiple journals and is an associate editor at Agrarian South & Journal of Labor and Society. It was his 2021, his book, 'A People's Green New Deal', published by Pluto Press, that brought Max to my attention. If you've been listening to the podcast for any length of time, you'll know that one of our regular contributors, Simon Michaux, is adamant that the material flows for the various posited Green New Deals don't exist - that they are logistical impossibilities. But what Max argues strongly and with brilliant clarity in his book and elsewhere, is why these things should not happen even if they could: why they are better viewed as extensions of the Giant Vampire Squid wrapped around the face of humanity (not his phrase) - and that there's a better, much more deeply green set of ideas and ideals based in actual earth connection, the restoration of what should be fundamental human rights across the world and the widespread implementation of agro-ecological principles. His book seems to me an eco-socialist manifesto and while its values are closely aligned with the podcast, the nature of this as a political theoretical and practical concept is not something we'd previously explored on the podcast. So now we have. In the course of our early discussion, we touched on the Cochamamba Peoples' Agreement - and then never came back to it. So very briefly, I'd like to fill you in, because this agreement is both an internationally agreed document and, in itself, a statement of core ecosocialist principles. The conference from which it arose took place in April 2010, when more than 35,000 people from 140 countries gathered in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and developed a consensus-based document reflecting substantive solutions to the climate crisis. Two things arise immediately. First, thirteen years on, we would call it the climate, ecological and cultural crisis. Second, and more important than the semantics - much though they matter - was the ways this agreement came into being. There were 17 working groups, and a lot of effort was put into consensus building - working out what mattered and what worked, or could be imagined to work - not the failed COP process of deleting anything that offends a member state until you have a basically meaningless document. I've attached links in the show notes and I really recommend you follow them, because it is profoundly important. It is, in fact, the framework we need to work towards. What's distressing is that it's over 13 years old and hardly anyone in the hegemonic nations of what Max Ajl calls the core - as opposed to the periphery - has heard about it and still fewer care. So we need to change that. If you do one thing after this podcast, as Max says, it'll be to join an organisation. If you do two things, the second will be to tell people about the Cochabamba People's Agreement. And Max's book. The sound quality was not the best. but Alan has woven his production magic and I hope your ears will accept the result as a price worth paying for the ideas we explore here. A People's Green New Deal https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745341750/a-peoples-green-new-deal/ Cochabamba People's Climate Agreement https://www.climateemergencyinstitute.com/uploads/Peoples_climate_agreement.pdf and https://archive.globalpolicy.org/social-and-economic-policy/the-environment/climate-change/49253-need-for-recognition-of-cochabamba-peoples-agreement-in-un-climate-negotiations.html Landworkers' Alliance https://landworkersalliance.org.uk/ La Via Campesina https://viacampesina.org/en/ Colin Duncan The Centrality of Agriculture https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-centrality-of-agriculture-between-humankind-and-the-rest-of-nature-colin-a-m-duncan/3518385?ean=9780773513631 Selimah Vaiani Rethinking Unequal Exchange: the global integration of nursing labour markets https://utorontopress.com/us/rethinking-unequal-exchange-4 ORGANISATIONS SUGGESTED BY LISTENERS Compass https://www.compassonline.org.uk/ #DemocratizingWork https://democratizingwork.org/ Doughnut Economics https://doughnuteconomics.org/ Eco-socialists in Australia https://socialist-alliance.org/ New Economy Network Australia https://www.neweconomy.org.au
Jul 12, 2023 · 1 hr 5 min
Becoming a Stag Beetle! Living the Interspecies Treaty of Finsbury Park with Ruth Catlow
In this week's episode, we have a return guest to the podcast. Ruth Catlow has taken the amazing work she did in lockdown and held live festivals in the park where people get to become one of the seven core species: a dog, a Canada goose (just visiting!) a tree, grass… and, yes, a stag beetle. What they're not being, are people. So they're looking at the world through new eyes, hearing it with new ears, smelling, tasting, sensing in all ways - and the whole experience of what it is to live in this place as home, instead of just dropping in…becomes deeper, and more complex and more alive. And then each of the species can put forward ideas for the Interspecies Treaty of Finsbury Park which will make it a much better place for everyone - including the people. And then - because Ruth's enthusiasm and expertise range widely over the ways things can be made more fair and equitable, as well as work better, she's designed the app that allows a much fairer voting system, so the people-become-MoreThanHumans can vote on the seven ideas put forward for the Treaty in ways that allows more nuance than simply ranking them. This last became a whole other hour of conversation on voting systems and how we can create a decent democracy - so that's the bonus... well worth a listen! The Treaty of Finsbury Park https://treaty.finsburypark.live/ CultureStake App https://culturestake.org/ Episode #163 https://accidentalgods.life/cultures-of-commoning/ Experiences of the Interspecies Festival https://www.islingtontribune.co.uk/article/now-we-know-how-trees-in-the-park-feel Nordic LARP https://nordiclarp.org/ Quadratic Voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadratic_voting
Jul 12, 2023 · 37 min
Voting our way to a fairer future: Contemplations on quadratic voting with Ruth Catlow
This is the part of the podcast where we talk about voting systems, specifically the quadratic voting on the blockchain that Ruth has made into an app that's in use in the Park. Then we moved into her work with Government ministries and big corporations, bringing the aliveness and liveliness, and special insight of Live Action Role Play into politics and industry to help people see things from a wider context. This is how we change the world: one new idea at a time...
Jul 5, 2023 · 1 hr 16 min
Five Insights for Avoiding Global Collapse with economist Gaya Herrington
What does it take to avoid global collapse? Is there still time? And if so, what are the societal, social, cultural and goal-oriented changes that we need to make to get there? This week's guest is one of the new generation of super-thinkers who have the capacity, individually and collectively, to bring into being that better future our hearts know is possible. Gaya Herrington received her first master’s degree in Econometrics from the Liberal University of Amsterdam and her second master’s in Sustainability from Harvard University. In between she worked for KPMG, for the Dutch Government as a regulator and then back to KPMG in the US, where she now lives. She is a member of the Transformational Economics Commission of the Club of Rome, a recurring guest lecturer at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and works at Schneider Electric as Vice-President of ESG Research. She wrote her thesis for her second Masters on the seminal Limits To Growth work that first came out in 1972. The paper she wrote as a result of this went viral - and she expanded it into a book called Five Insights for Avoiding Global Collapse. She has made this freely available by download and I have put a link in the show notes - because this is absolutely essential reading for anyone on this path. The take home message though, as you'll hear, is that if we all work together, there is still time. Which should be a fairly familiar idea to those of you who have listened to other guests. But this time, we'll really unpick the data and concepts behind it in the company of someone who has worked hard at the coal face of the old system and has seen how to change it. Gaya's book https://mdpi-res.com/bookfiles/mono/6206/Five_Insights_for_Avoiding_Global_Collapse.pdf?v1682069789 Gaya's paper at KPMG https://advisory.kpmg.us/articles/2021/limits-to-growth.html Manfred Max-Neef https://gaiafoundation.org/the-barefoot-economist-manfred-max-neef/ Club of Rome: Earth for All https://www.clubofrome.org/publication/earth4all-book/
Jun 28, 2023 · 1 hr 21 min
Exploding the Myth of a Farm-Free Future (and fake meat!) with Chris Smaje
How do we make the case for a fully ecological farming system, that can feed all of us, while restoring the bio-sphere and providing affordable, nutritious food. How can we become a good keystone species - and what does that mean. This second episode with Chris Smaje, explores his new book, 'Saying No to a Farm Free Future: The Case for an Ecological Food System and against Manufactured Foods.' Chris was last a guest on the podcast in the spring of this year (2023), in episode 166, in which we explored his book 'A Small Farm Future' - what it meant, how he came to write it, and what a Small Farm Future might look and feel like. At the time, we veered toward the topic of the Eco-Modernist manifesto and in particular their concept that 'Precision Fermentation' is necessary to feed the world's population - and would enable us to dispense with farming, which they regard as the author of all the world's ills. Chris said then that he was writing something that would address this more directly and suggested he come back when it was ready. And now his new book is ready, and he has come back to talk about it. The book absolutely does what it says on the tin, and does it well. Chris has a background in academia and his capacity for critical thinking shines through the text as he examines the good and the bad of the Eco-Modernist agenda, and in particular the new kid on the Eco-Modernist block, George Monbiot and his latest tract, Regenesis. He really dives deeply into the assertions that are made, takes them apart and shows the (many) places where they don't stack up. At the end, he makes a heartfelt, grounded, and I think rather beautiful plea for us to rediscover our human place as a good keystone species, instead of feeling we have to wall ourselves up in concrete boxes eating manufactured food. Chris's Book: Saying NO to a Farm Free Future https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/saying-no-to-a-farm-free-future-the-case-for-an-ecological-food-system-and-against-manufactured-foods-chris-smaje/7448082?ean=9781915294166 Chris’s website smallfarmfuture.org.uk Chris's blog https://chrissmaje.com/blog/ Chris on Twitter https://twitter.com/csmaje Previous Accidental Gods episode https://accidentalgods.life/living-in-a-post-carbon-post-capital-post-urban-world/ Tyson Yunkaporta Sand Talk https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/sand-talk-how-indigenous-thinking-can-save-the-world-tyson-yunkaporta/3904066?ean=9781925773996
Jun 21, 2023 · 1 hr 17 min
Psychedelics: the key to evolution or (yet more) big Pharma hype? With Dr Ros Watts of ACER Integration
We are the Accidental Gods. We didn't plan to be the ones to hold the god-like power to destroy most of the life on this planet, but here we are, at a place where one single species - ours - has the capacity to do just this. The routes to Armageddon seem to be increasing all the time, but they all have one thing in common: they're predicated on our absolute disconnection from the web of life. It is a central tenet of this podcast that, for most of our evolutionary history, humanity has existed as an integral part of this web - and that we were aware of our connectedness. Quite how we lost this is open to question and I doubt if we'll ever find concrete answers: certainly I don't think speculation is worth a lot of emotional or intellectual bandwidth - because what really matters - what can and, I think, should, take up most of our energy in whatever time we have left - is finding ways to heal the rift, to re-connect us to the living web so that we can ask of it, 'What do you want of me?' and respond to the answers in real time. If you've listened to this podcast much, you've heard me say this once or twice before. Possibly more often. If you're a part of the wider Accidental Gods community and come along to our monthly Intention Intensives, then you've heard me say it Every. Single. Time. we meet. (!) So, yes, finding ways to do this at scale is something of an obsession. I think it's the only way we're going to get through, and that if we can achieve it. we'll have made a significant shift in the evolution of our consciousness - our wisdom (the bit that AI will never be able to emulate). But one of the things from which I have steered quite clear is the field of psychedelics. There are a lot of reasons for this and we explore some of them in the podcast we're about to hear because I have found someone whose opinion I trust implicitly, who has direct experience of the use of psychedelics in a number of fields and whose integrity feels strong. Dr Rosalind Watts is a clinical psychologist who was the former Clinical Lead of the 'psilocybin for depression' trial at Imperial College, London. She also gave a ground-breaking TEDx talk in 2017, in which she opened up the results of that first trial to her peers and to the world. Since then, though, she has written a Medium post in which she points out some of the pitfalls of that trial, and opens up the concept that if we use psychedelics indiscriminately in a toxic culture, they are as likely to amplify the toxicity as they are to heal. Having realised this, and experienced some of the harm that plant medicines can do if not held within a supportive framework, Ros has gone on to found ACER Integration, a twelve month online course with monthly modules built around connections to and with trees - designed explicitly to create the supportive culture people need to integrate their experiences. So - if you're expecting us to talk about all the multi-coloured wonders of psychedelics, then forget it, that's not what this podcast is about. It's about understanding the systemic nature of mental health, of cultural experience and of the ways plant spirits can act to change this. It's inspiring and it's a call to action, as well as a profoundly important health warning as we approach the brink of yet another tipping point. ACER Integration: https://acerintegration.com/ Ros on Medium: https://medium.com/@DrRosalindWatts/can-magic-mushrooms-unlock-depression-what-ive-learned-in-the-5-years-since-my-tedx-talk-767c83963134 Ros on Newsnight https://headtopics.com/uk/psilocybin-calls-to-ease-restrictions-on-magic-mushroom-drug-39313183 Ros on Twitter https://twitter.com/drrosalindwatts Ros on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-rosalind-watts/ Ros Paper on Psychedelic link to Biophilia https://www.mdpi.com/2813-1851/2/2/12 ACER integration on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/acer-integration/ Psypan https://www.psypanglobal.org/ DoubleBlind paper https://doubleblindmag.com/colonialism-by-another-name/ Film - Psychedelic Chronicles https://psychedelicchronicles.earth/ Ros's TEDx talk https://youtu.be/8kfGaVAXeMY The Hive w Camila Moreno https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-hive-podcast/id1387510537?i=1000612916498
Jun 20, 2023 · 22 min
Summer Solstice Meditation with Manda Scott
It's the summer solstice, the longest day and the shortest night. What matters now in our world is that we reconnect with the rhythms of the living web. This meditation is designed to help you connect to the rising sun on this day of longest light. This version of the summer solstice meditation has periods of silence in which you can explore your own feelings and observe the focus of your awareness. As with all meditations, please find a safe, quiet place where you can be completely undisturbed for the duration of the meditation - and a short while afterwards.
Jun 20, 2023 · 22 min
Summer Solstice Meditation - with Manda Scott (with birdsong behind)
It's the summer solstice, the longest day and the shortest night. What matters now in our world is that we reconnect with the rhythms of the living web. This meditation is designed to help you connect to the rising sun on this day of longest light. This version of meditation has birdsong overlaid so there is no silence. As with all meditations, please find a safe, quiet place where you can be completely undisturbed for the duration of the meditation - and a short while afterwards.
Jun 20, 2023 · 51 min
Manda - Summer Solstice Roundup, Reading and Listening
At the halfway point of the year, Manda looks back on what's been on the podcast, forward at (some of) what's to come, thoughts on where we're at as a world, and explores the books and podcasts that have stood out in the past six months. Non fiction A People’s Green New Deal by Max Ajl https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/a-people-s-green-new-deal-max-ajl/5731783?ean=9780745341750 Building Tomorrow by Paddy Le Fluffy https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Building-Tomorrow-by-Paddy-Le-Flufy/9781739345204 Spinning Out By Charlie Herzog Young https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Spinning-Out-by-Charlie-Hertzog-Young/9781804440315 Saying No to a Farm Free Future by Chris Smaje https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/saying-no-to-a-farm-free-future-the-case-for-an-ecological-food-system-and-against-manufactured-foods-chris-smaje/7448082?ean=9781915294166 Two Lights by James Roberts https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/two-lights-james-roberts/7366651?ean=9781912836178 Post-Capitalist Philanthropy: Healing Wealth in a time of collapse by Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Post-Capitalist-Philanthropy-by-Alnoor-Ladha-Lynn-Murphy/9798986531007 Fiction Black Water Sister by Zen Cho https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/black-water-sister-zen-cho/6464196?ean=9781509800018 The Grief Nurse – Angie Spoto https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-grief-nurse-angie-spoto/7230526?ean=9781914518171 Now She is Witch by Kirsty Logan https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/now-she-is-witch-a-witch-story-unlike-any-other-from-the-author-of-the-gracekeepers-kirsty-logan/7387771?ean=9781529116113 Habitat Man by DA Baden https://www.dabaden.com/habitat-man/ The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-First-Fifteen-Lives-of-Harry-August-by-Claire-North/9780356502588 Frankie Boyle, Meantime https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/meantime-frankie-boyle/6521254?ean=9781399801157 Podcasts Bankless Episode w Eliezer Yudkowsky https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/bankless/id1499409058?i=1000600575387 Planet Critical – particularly the episode w Alastair Campbell https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/planet-critical/id1545009586?i=1000615243292 David Bollier’s Frontiers of Commoning, particularly the episode with Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/frontiers-of-commoning-with-david-bollier/id1501085005?i=1000615201925 Your Undivided Attention https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/your-undivided-attention/id1460030305 The Great Simplification https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-great-simplification-with-nate-hagens/id1604218333
Jun 14, 2023 · 1 hr 28 min
The Sacred Depths of Nature: exploring the interface of science, spirituality and religion with Ursula Goodenough
Sometimes the synchronicity of this podcast leaves me very happy. About six months ago, I was thinking that I wanted to talk to someone who really lived at the interface between science and spirituality, where I could begin to sand down some of the rough edges of my own thinking. And that afternoon, I discovered that the 2nd edition of Professor Ursula Goodenough's book 'The Sacred Depths of Nature' was due to be published in the first half of this year. So we set up a podcast and then it turned out that my calendar management was haywire and I'd booked it for the day after teaching one of the most challenging of the shamanic dreaming courses. Normally I'd give myself several days to come back to something approaching consensus reality. You may think I don't spend a lot of time in CR as it is, and you'd be right, but there are degrees of my untethering and the day after a dreaming course is not my most tethered. But in the end, it was magical - really good to re-read Ursula's book in the evening and then have a quiet day reflecting and exploring things that snagged my attention. And so here we are: Ursula is a Professor of Biology Emerita at Washington University. She has discussed religious naturalism in essays, college classes, and as part of blogs and television and radio productions. She participated in conversations with the Dalai Lama sponsored by the Mind and Life Institute. She is author of the book, “The Sacred Depths of Nature” which, examines cosmology, evolution, and cell biology, celebrates the mystery and wonder of being alive, and suggests that this orientation might serve as the basis for “planetary ethic” that draws from both science and religion. And on the basis of this concept, in 2014, Ursula was part of the founding of the Religious Naturalists Association. And now comes the second, updated, edition, that looks into epigenetics and pandemics and generally updates both the science and the moving reflections that each scientific section evokes. It's beautiful, thoughtful, and inspiring. Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass said of it, “At once expansive and intimate, empirical and immanent, analytical and intuitive, material and spiritual, science and poetry get to dance joyfully together in these pages.” What better encouragement would we need to explore more deeply with the author? So People of the Podcast, please welcome Professor Ursula Goodenough, author of The Sacred Depths of Nature In 2023, Ursula was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Sacred Depths of Nature http://sacreddepthsofnature.com/ Order Ursula's book here http://sacreddepthsofnature.com/order-book/ Religious Naturalist Association https://religious-naturalist-association.org/welcome/ National Academy of Sciences https://source.wustl.edu/2023/05/goodenough-mckinnon-elected-to-national-academy-of-sciences/ Terence Deacon - The Symbolic Species https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/733691.The_Symbolic_Species Bitch by Lucy Cooke https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/bitch-a-revolutionary-guide-to-sex-evolution-and-the-female-animal-lucy-cooke/6532317?ean=9781804990919
Jun 11, 2023 · 1 hr 16 min
Reality Check: Less Quantity, More Quality in a Future that will Work, Part 4 of our series w Simon Michaux
This is the fourth of our ongoing series with Dr Simon Michaux. As ever, we ranged far and wide, but this time within the remit of 'what does the world look like in 2050 if we make good choices now?' Specifically, how do we construct and power our civilisation beyond the emergence of the new system. And yes, that's impossible to predict exactly, but it's not overly hard to make some basic observations - that we'll have phased out fossil fuels; that we'll reduce our inputs and outputs; that we'll live more simple, but higher quality lives. Specifically, we narrowed down on possible energy sources, and Simon proposed something which has been known for decades, but not put into practice, once again, with his trademark data to support his thesis. This one is genuinely hopeful - though of course we’ll have to completely rearrange our entire value system to put the living biosphere (current and future) ahead of profit - but we do know this... Enjoy! Confessions of an Economic Hitman - Animated Short version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYtb5zatgMg Naomi Klein Shock Doctrine https://naomiklein.org/the-shock-doctrine/
Jun 7, 2023 · 1 hr 8 min
Lifeboats and Volcanoes: part 3 of our series with Simon Michaux
This week's guest is fast becoming a friend of the Podcast. In the first part of what is now an ongoing series, Dr Simon Michaux outlined for us the nature of the materials crisis - the fact that there is simply not enough stuff, not enough copper or cobalt or lithium to continue to manufacture at the levels we have been - and there's not even enough to make the renewable (or, as Nate Hagens would call them, rebuildable) technology to replace the fossil fuel power we're going to have to stop using. If you haven't listened to these two, please do, because lot of this conversation is predicated on that one, and on our second podcast where we looked at Michaux's hierarchy of needs and really delved into power generation in more depth. I had planned that we'd look more at the remaining five of Simon's hierarchy of needs in this conversation, but - like most of these podcasts - the plan went out of the window when I asked how he was doing and it was clear that he'd been having some really interesting conversations. And so we went with this - because it seems to me that if the people who get it are multiplying, then it's useful for us to know this - we can support the narratives that unpick the 'business as usual' dynamics and begin to look forward to what will work. That's the core of this podcast - what can we do, how can we do it - and how can we ensure that enough people get this to create a global movement. We had to cut off faster than we'd like, so there will be (at least) a podcast four! Simon Michaux Podcast 1 https://accidentalgods.life/transforming-industry-to-create-a-genuine-green-revolution/ Simon Michaux Podcast 2 https://accidentalgods.life/drawing-humanity-out-of-the-cave-with-dr-simon-michaux/ Gail Tverberg 'Our Infinite World: https://ourfiniteworld.com/ William Rees: https://www.postcarbon.org/our-people/william-rees/ GOES REPORT http://goesfoundation.com/news/posts/2021/june/plastic-and-toxic-chemical-induced-ocean-acidification-is-causing-a-plankton-crisis-and-will-devastate-humanity-in-the-next-25-years/
May 31, 2023 · 1 hr 10 min
Primary Strategy: Growing a new voting paradigm in the South Devon Primary
As you'll know by now, one of our core motivators in creating this podcast was the realisation that the 'democratic' systems of the world are largely broken and are not a useful way to affect change. I used to be a political activist. I thought I'd given all that up, but today's conversation has definitely re-awakened my political instincts because today I'm talking with two of the people who set up South Devon Primary: a group committed to changing the political system in the UK. So the first thing to say for those of you who live elsewhere is that this episode is focused on the need for change in the Westminster Parliament. But the issues are worldwide and whatever your political system, it could probably do with being shaken up. We need to share best practice across the globe and what Simon Oldridge, Anthea Simmons and Ben Long have created feels like a template that could be replicated not just throughout the UK but across the world. The principles are basic and while it's not going to take us to full democracy in one giant leap, it's definitely a step in the right direction. If adopted around the nation (and the world) it could see us move away from the politics of hatred, fear and resentment to something a great deal more generative. To look at these three in more depth and so understand where they're coming from: Simon Oldridge was an accountant with Ernst and Young and then CEO of a manufacturing company. More recently, his awareness of the climate and ecological crisis has led him to engage with a group endeavouring to put forward a Climate and Ecology Bill to the UK parliament (he talks about this in the podcast) and to set up the South Devon Primary campaign which you'll hear about in much more depth. Anthea Simmons is Editor in Chief of the progressive online paper, West Country Voices, speaker for Devon for Europe and author of a number of books, including one for young climate activists. Before that, rather like Simon, she worked in financial asset management. She's a passionate advocate for the South Devon Primary and invented the Democracy Meter, which you're also hear about in the conversation. Ben Long is an author and educator and currently helps his partner run her ceramics business in Devon. He didn't join us on the podcast - partly because I think two extra voices is enough to contend with - but he's a core part of the work of South Devon Primary. And that work is practical, active, really intelligently targeted and if it were taken up around the country, could do more, I think, to shape the outcome of the next general election than anything else I've found. Listen, enjoy - and then make this happen as near to wherever you live as you can. South Devon Primary Website https://www.southdevonprimary.org/ Zero Hour https://www.zerohour.uk Anthea Simmons on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/antheasimmons/ West Country Voices on Twitter https://twitter.com/WCountryVoices Simon Oldridge on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-oldridge-17207a206/ Simon on Twitter https://twitter.com/SiOldridge South Devon Primary on Twitter https://twitter.com/SDevonPrimary Ben Long on Twitter: https://twitter.com/benwhlong Simon - Twitter thread w Local MP https://twitter.com/SiOldridge/status/1641713280967213056
May 24, 2023 · 1 hr 16 min
No More Fairy Stories: Writing the way through, one tale at a time - with Denise Baden
If you've listened to this podcast at all recently, you'll know that I'm in the editing phase of the new book - the phase where we 'carve it into tiny pieces, throw significant chunks of it in the recycling (because words are never wasted and text storage is basically free) and rebuild the rest into something shinier, sharper and generally more succinct.' And I'm telling you this because this week's guest is a fellow writer who knows what it's like to stare at a blank page until your forehead bleeds - but in this case, she's also an academic psychologist who has the data to back up the value of Thrutopian writing. Dr Denise Baden is a Professor of Sustainable Practice at the University of Southampton, and she says, that 'working in sustainability and climate change, the more you know the scarier it is. Like the sun, you can’t look too closely at it, but face to one side, you make your way, because in fact, it’s easy to put everything right. All the solutions are right here, they just have to catch on. Walking lightly and mindfully upon the earth is so doable. I started writing as therapy, with green solutions as the main ingredient, stories to soothe my soul. Then my characters and their stories took over centre stage, leaving the green solutions to season the stew.' Denise is one of those people who sees a problem and starts creating real world solution. in 2018, she set up the series of free Green Stories writing competitions to inspire writers to create positive visions of what a sustainable society might look like, and to tell stories that showcase solutions, not just problems because her data show that's what we need. In the process she continued to research what works in terms of fiction and climate communication - as a result of which, she has written a novel, Habitat Man, and she compiled an anthology of short stories called No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save Our Planet. which she had ready by COP27 so there was a copy for every delegate to read. Magnificently, she is on the Forbes list of Climate Leaders: https://www.forbes.com/sites/solitairetownsend/2023/03/19/68-climate-leaders-changing-the-film-and-tv-industry/ Denise Website https://www.dabaden.com/ Green Stories website https://www.greenstories.org.uk/ NEXT NOVEL PRIZE DEADLINE IS 26th JUNE Denise on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DABadenauthor Denise publications and academic record https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5wzjrb/professor-denise-baden Sustainable HairCare project: https://ecohairandbeauty.com/ Details of the project with Bafta and Albert https://www.greenstories.org.uk/climatecharacters/ Key hashtags are #ClimateCHaracters and #HotOrNot. The survey is here (please go an complete it!) bit.ly/433n71w The images were designed by https://www.rubberrepublic.com/ (check out their website – the first and third especially are hilarious and the one about the old XR protestor is incredibly moving. Thrutopia website https://thrutopia.life Books mentioned by other authors Carbon Diaries by Saci Lloyd https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4935015-the-carbon-diaries-2015 The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-ministry-for-the-future-kim-stanley-robinson/2164043
May 17, 2023 · 1 hr 18 min
Meeting the Ocean: Rekindling our deepest connections through art and science with Markus Reymann
How do we really create systemic change? How do we shift narratives towards a generative future? How do we bring artists, scientists, policy makers, educators, conservationists, journalists, and all the different siloed tribes together in ways that let them genuinely communicate and listen to the web of life? This week's guest is someone who is actively working on so many levels to change all these things. As you'll hear, Markus Reymann is a Director of a European Arts foundation, which doesn't sound nearly as exciting as it is. Because this is an arts foundation with a difference. TBA21 says of itself that it is a leading international art and advocacy foundation and it stewards the TBA21 Collection and its outreach activities, which include exhibitions, educational offers, and public programming. The TBA21–Academy, which Markus helped set up, is the foundation’s research center, 'fostering a deeper relationship with the Ocean and other bodies of water by working as an incubator for collaborative inquiry, artistic production, and environmental advocacy. For more than a decade, the Academy has catalyzed new forms of knowledge emerging from the exchanges between art, science, policy, and conservation in long-term and collaborative engagement through fellowships and residency programs. All activity at TBA21 is fundamentally driven by artists and the belief in art and culture as a carrier of social and environmental transformation.' We talk a lot about social and environmental transformation on this podcast: it's what we're here for and what we believe is essential not just to creating that future we'd be proud to leave behind, but to creating any liveable future at all for most of the species on the planet. We talk a lot, too, about systemic thinking, about paradigm shifts and about our capacity as a species to let go of our dominant narratives, and the need for someone, somewhere to bring together the scientists, the artists, the policy makers, the journalists, the educators…and do it in a way that breaks down the barriers, lets them actually understand each other - and then shows them other cultures that think differently, that have different value systems than ours ,so they can see that there are different ways of doing things that will work. And this, is what Markus is doing. Here is someone who understands systemic thinking and who is applying it with depth and breadth and great heart. Bio: Markus Reymann is Director of TBA21–Academy, a non-profit cultural organization he co-founded in 2011 that fosters interdisciplinary dialogue and exchange surrounding the most urgent ecological, social, and economic issues facing our oceans today. Markus leads the Academy’s engagement with artists, activists, scientists, and policy-makers worldwide, resulting in the creation of new commissions, new bodies of knowledge, and new policies advancing the conservation and protection of the oceans. In March 2019, the Academy launched Ocean Space, a new global port for ocean literacy, research, and advocacy. Located in the restored Church of San Lorenzo in Venice, Italy, Ocean Space is activated by the itinerant Academy and its network of partners, including universities, NGOs, museums, government agencies, and research institutes from around the world. Reymann also serves as Chair of Alligator Head Foundation, the scientific partner of TBA21–Academy. Alligator Head Foundation established and maintains the East Portland Fish Sanctuary, and oversees a marine wet laboratory in Jamaica. TBA21 https://tba21.org/ TBA21–Academy: https://tba21.org/tags/?tag=tba21_academy Ocean Space in Venice https://tba21.org/tags/?tag=ocean_space Walid Raad https://www.walidraad.com/ Anthropocene Observatory https://www.territorialagency.com/anthropocene Woods Hole Oceanographic Observatory https://www.whoi.edu/
May 10, 2023 · 1 hr 17 min
Proudly Mad: exploring mental health and the climate emergency with Charlie Hertzog Young
How did one man make the shift from Not wanting to live in this world, to refusing to live in this world? If you've listened to this podcast for any length of time, you'll know that I did the Masters in Regenerative Economics at Schumacher college in 2016-17. It was a genuinely life changing experience not least because I met some of the most inspiring people I could imagine - young, motivated and incredibly bright. And of them all, Charlie was the brightest. Even before we met, he'd studied economics at Harvard and SOAS which for those of you not in academia, are both hardcore and supremely activist. And while doing the MA, he was acting as researcher for one of our best known non-fiction journalists and writers. What I didn't know was that he was already an award-winning activist who, over the course of his career has worked for the New Economics Foundation, the Royal Society of Arts, the Good Law Project, the Four Day Week Campaign and the Centre for Progressive Change, as well as the UK Labour Party under three consecutive leaders. Charlie has spoken at the LSE, the UN and the World Economic Forum and written for The Ecologist, The Independent, Novara Media, Open Democracy and The Guardian. I should have guessed most of that. What I perhaps also ought to have understood better was that he was bipolar - he now says of himself that he's proudly mad which I love - and how deeply it influenced who he was and what he did. So when he contacted me a while ago with news that he'd written a book, I wasn't remotely surprised. What was slightly surprising was that he is now a double amputee, and that his book is written about the interface between mental health, the climate emergency and what we now call eco-anxiety but which I think needs a rather stronger name than that implies. But definitely, this is something I wanted to talk about on the podcast - the edges to which our awareness of this time brings us, the frustration that arises out of living in a culture that still, broadly, gaslights all of us and does its best to rob us of the power to bring about change. Note that I don't think it's succeeding, and Charlie's book is a testament to the not-succeeding of the dominant culture, to the resilience of people around the world who are living with the reality of the climate, ecological and societal crisis and are forging paths through the chaos. Spinning Out: Climate Change, Mental Health and Fighting for a Better Future is an extraordinary book. It approaches head on the things we often turn away from, and we did this too, in the podcast - so this is a potential trigger warning. We do discuss Charlie's suicide attempt and how he ended up with two prosthetic legs, so if this is going to be hard for you, please tap into whatever are your resources before you listen. And then sit back and enjoy, because Charlie's brought his astonishing capacity for humanity, deep thought, and huge emotional intelligence to this and I loved it. Charlie's website https://charliehertzogyoung.cargo.site/ Charlie on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlie-hertzog-young-frsa-40b50b162/?originalSubdomain=uk Charlie's book, Spinning Out https://footnotepress.com/product/spinning-out/ Charlie at Hay on Wye https://www.hayfestival.com/p-20173-charlie-hertzog-young-and-mya-rose-craig-talk-to-areeba-hamid.aspx