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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 Wednesday

Episodes388

Newest first
  • Dec 1, 2021 · 1 hr 5 min

    Your money or our lives: Economics, Green New Deal and a post-COP world with James Meadway

    How can we shape our economies in a post-COP, decarbonising world? How can we build a way of exchanging value that actually works in favour of our planet, not against it? Dr James Meadway, former economic advisor to John McDonnell on how redistribution can take place, and how to reshape our political landscape. Dr Meadway's work has focused on developing viable alternatives to neoliberalism, and has published widely on democratic ownership, environmental economics, and automation and the digital economy. He was previously economic advisor to John McDonnell when he was Shadow Chancellor, and was chief economist at the New Economics Foundation. He is currently writing a book on the British economy after the 2008 crisis, and appears regularly on broadcast media as a commentator on UK politics. James holds a PhD in economics from the University of London, masters degrees in economics and economic history, and a BSc in economics and economic history from LSE. He has taught at SOAS, City, Cambridge and Sussex Universities. In this episode, we explore the repercussions of the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow and how the world might respond - in particular, how we might respond as individuals, and as communities. Links James in the New Statesman: Why a green state is not enough to compensate for bad capitalists: https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2021/11/is-a-green-state-the-answer-to-the-climate-crisis James just after the 2019 election: https://novaramedia.com/2019/12/17/labours-economic-plans-what-went-wrong/ Aditya Chakrobortty in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/11/green-new-deal-bad-idea-policy-left-joe-biden-john-mcdonnell

  • Nov 24, 2021 · 1 hr 3 min

    Weaving the Web of Meaning: Building Eco-Civilisation with Jeremy Lent

    How do we evolve the radical new sense of community, connectivity, mutual support - and resilience - that we need as we move into a world of climate breakdown? Jeremy Lent's book The Web of Meaning is the 2nd of 3 that build a picture of an eco-civilisation. In this week's episode, we explore the ways we can all be part of the solution. Jeremy Lent, described by Guardian journalist George Monbiot as “one of the greatest thinkers of our age,” is an author and speaker whose work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization’s existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future. Born in London, England, he received a BA in English Literature from Cambridge University, an MBA from the University of Chicago, and was a former internet company CEO. His award-winning book, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning, explores the way humans have made meaning from the cosmos from hunter-gatherer times to the present day. His new book, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe, offers a coherent and intellectually solid foundation for a worldview based on connectedness that could lead humanity to a sustainable, flourishing future. He is founder of the nonprofit Liology Institute, dedicated to fostering an integrated worldview that could enable humanity to thrive sustainably on the Earth. He lives with his partner in Berkeley, California. He writes topical articles exploring the deeper patterns of political and cultural developments at his website Patterns of Meaning. In this week's podcast, we explore his most recent paper 'The End of Capitalism' and how our entire economic structure needs to change if we're to address the demands of the moment. From there, we move to the pillars of systemic change and how a shift in the world economy to one of reciprocity over extraction/abuse must be an integral part of the transition to a flourishing, interconnected future. Drawing from indigenous wisdom, and the 'Four R's' described by LaDonna Harris as the foundations of indigenous cultures across the globe, to the concept of fractal flourishing, citizens's assemblies and the crisis in sense-making, we move ever towards a model of how our world could be if we got it right. Jeremy's Website: https://www.jeremylent.com/ Web of Meaning - book: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Web-of-Meaning-by-Jeremy-Lent/9781788165648 End of Capitalism Paper: https://patternsofmeaning.com/2021/10/11/solving-the-climate-crisis-requires-the-end-of-capitalism/ Growth mitigation paper (referenced, not by Jeremy) https://www.boell.de/sites/default/files/endf2_kuhnhenn_growth_in_mitigation_scenarios.pdf What Does an EcoCivilisation Look Like? https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/ecological-civilization/2021/02/16/what-does-ecological-civilization-look-like Podcast 38 with Accidental Gods: https://accidentalgods.life/fractal-flourishing/

  • Nov 17, 2021 · 1 hr 7 min

    Transport for a flourishing Future: Zero deaths, Zero Emissions, Zero Carbon - with John Whitelegg.

    As we lurch towards irreversible climate chaos, how can we begin to pull back from the edge? This week, we look specifically at the area of transport: how can we be mobile and yet reach the 3 Zeroes of Death, Emissions and Carbon? What would it mean to live in an area with fair, free, extensive public transport? And how can we make this happen. Our lively, inspiring conversation with Dr John Whitelegg has answers. Dr John Whitelegg, BA PhD LLB, is visiting professor, School of the Built Environment, Liverpool John Moores University and was formerly professor of geography and head of department at Lancaster University and a staff member of the global science policy organisation, the Stockholm Environment Institute. He has worked with the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Energy and the Environment (Germany) and is an associate of the Kassel Centre for Mobility Culture (Germany) and a board member of the Californian organisation “Transportation Choices for Sustainable Communities”. John has edited the journal “World Transport Policy and Practice for 25 years and has written 10 books. In the most recent book Mobility, he presents an evidence-based case for a transformation of the totality of transport and mobility policy to achieve three zeroes (zero carbon, zero deaths and injuries and zero air pollution). He has also worked extensively on practical measures to achieve 100% decarbonisation of land transport. In this episode, we talk at length about what needs to happen in our transport systems to bring about the three zeroes of death, emissions and carbon. John has travelled widely and worked in Germany, Sweden, and the outer Hebrides as well as many locations in the UK. He has a coherent set of ideas of what needs to be done - and we considered some of the ways ordinary people can begin to make these happen. Foundation for Integrated Transport: https://integratedtransport.co.uk/ Center for Research into Energy Demand Solutions: https://www.creds.ac.uk/ West Oxfordshire Community Transport: https://www.woct.org.uk/ South Shropshire Climate Action Group: https://southshropshireclimateaction.org/ Trust the People: https://www.trustthepeople.earth/the-course Article on Car free cities UK - 1: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/26/city-entres-end-of-road-for-cars-brighton-bristol-york Article on Car free cities UK - 2: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/31/york-to-ban-private-cars-from-city-centre-within-three-years

  • Nov 10, 2021 · 1 hr 1 min

    New Myths for Humanity: With Alina Siegfried, author of 'A Future Untold'

    If the stories of our culture are of separation, scarcity and powerlessness, how can we build new stories, new myths, new ideas of how we can be different? Alina Siegfried has explored the deep concepts of the stories of our world, and how we can reshape them. We are the stories we tell ourselves - about who we are and where we're going. In our small day to day decisions, we think how our stories of ourselves will be enhanced by the things we do. So when all our stories have been about scarcity, separation and powerlessness, and how we can fight to gain more than those with whom we are in competition - how can we build healing, whole, healthy stories that will bring us forward to a flourishing future? Alina Siegfried is a performance poet, storyteller, and advocate for systems change. She has worked at Enspiral, in the New Zealand Government, and for the Edmund Hillary Foundation. Her book, 'A Future Untold' brings our stories to the heart of our systemic change. Alina's website: https://www.alinasiegfried.com/ Aina's TEDx Talk: https://youtu.be/PM_xnvTVyEs Introduction to Johan Rockstrom: https://youtu.be/yBjB-w5HD_M?list=PLxTt2Nm5dTv3awnK1ren4BtHNctW_v7zY Common Cause Foundation: https://commoncausefoundation.org/about/ The Long Now Foundation: https://longnow.org/ Don't Think of an Elephant: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-All-New-Dont-Think-of-an-Elephant-by-George-Lakoff/9781603585941

  • Nov 3, 2021 · 1 hr 16 min

    Untangling the Entanglements of Activism with Anthea Lawson, activist, author and organiser

    Anthea Lawson is a campaigner who’s interested in the connections between our inner lives and the world we create together. In a world of such astonishing inequity, where ever fewer people hold ever more power, how do those of us whose lives are given to change, meet the reality that we are embedded in the system? If we are an integral part of the problem, how can we live the solution into being? Is that even what we're here for? Anthea Lawson has thought about this in immense depth and with huge courage. Over two decades, she has campaigned to shut down tax havens and stop banks fuelling corruption and ecological destruction. She launched an award-winning campaign for transparency over who owns companies, which was taken up by many other organisations and has resulted in changes to the law in dozens of countries. She worked on the successful campaigns for an Arms Trade Treaty, and for the international ban on cluster bombs. She has worked for Global Witness, Amnesty International, and many other campaign groups. She's dug up Parliament Square in guerilla gardening efforts, and was arrested with Extinction Rebellion. In her writing she explores what we can learn from how we do campaigning: how our inner lives are entangled in our work to change the world. I’ve been exploring this as an associate at Perspectiva, and in her book The Entangled Activist: Learning to recognise the master's tools, to be published in spring 2021. She is interested, too, in the limits of campaigning in a time of breakdown, which I’ve been exploring through editing at the Dark Mountain Project. ​ Her book is a deep exploration of personal process that then expands so that it becomes relevant to us all - if we're activists (and frankly, if you're listening to this podcast, I imagine you're an activist at some point in your life even if you don't identify as such), then we are also an integral part of the system that is the problem - disentangling ourselves from this is not going to happen. So the question arises of how we can be the change we need to see in the world. Anthea has explored this in depth and it was such a pleasure to engage with her on this question. Anthea's website: https://www.anthealawson.uk/ Perspectiva Press: https://systems-souls-society.com/insight/perspectiva-press/ Dark Mountain Press: https://dark-mountain.net/

  • Oct 27, 2021 · 1 hr 7 min

    COP26 and Beyond: Future strategies to keep us alive with Rupert Read

    What is the bare minimum we need world leaders to agree at COP26 and what can we do if they fail? Rupert Read, academic philosopher, author and climate activist discusses the urgency of the moment - and how a 'moderate flank' of climate activists can grow out of the COP. Dr Rupert Read is a long term climate activist. On the day after this podcast goes out, he'll be in court on charges of Criminal Damage for pouring water soluble paint on the steps of a hard-core climate denying think tank. No stranger to action as well as thought, he is one of he nation's foremost climate philosophers and in today's episode, we explore together the nature of our current crisis, the hope (or otherwise) for international agreement at COP26 and action at an appropriate scale afterwards - and then look at how we as individuals can help foment a worldwide move towards a coherent, adaptive future, including ideas such as employee strikes mirroring the 'Fridays for Future' school strikes, the employers who are actively supporting climate action, and the ways we can begin to become more resilient and less dependent on 'business as usual'. We end by discussing the Thrutopia Masterclass, starting May 1st on which Rupert will be the inaugural speaker. Rupert Read web site: https://rupertread.net/ Rupert's Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/GreenRupertRead 10 Tests for COP: https://greenworld.org.uk/article/10-tests-cop26 Ocean Tipping Point Paper: https://tinyurl.com/2e25nm8s Perspective Article on Moderate Flank: https://systems-souls-society.com/what-next-on-climate-the-need-for-a-moderate-flank/ New Statesman Article on employers allowing climate action: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2019/09/can-your-employer-stop-you-joining-climate-strike Similar article on Employers from Ian McGregor: https://theconversation.com/everyones-business-why-companies-should-let-their-workers-join-the-climate-strike-122976 Tech workers global climate strike: https://www.wired.com/story/tech-workers-global-climate-change-strike/ Companies who are participating in the climate strike: https://www.fastcompany.com/90403903/these-are-all-the-companies-participating-in-the-climate-strike

  • Oct 20, 2021 · 54 min

    Be What you Love: total systemic change, one fractal conversation at a time: with Dr Anna Birney of Forum for the Future

    If we are going to meet the challenges of the climate, ecological and cultural crisis, we're going to have to change the systems that surround us: Education systems, health care systems, food systems, economic systems... ultimately systems of government. How can we do so peacefully and kindly without leaving vast numbers of people in freefall? The systems around us have grown up in a world that assumed them impervious to change. But - as Greta has said - change is coming. So how do we navigate it, and shape it to a flourishing future? How can we be part of the bigger change the world needs to see? Dr Anna Birney is Director of the School for System Change at the Forum for the Future. She is author of Cultivating System Change: A Practitioner's companion, and she is 'passionate about designing and facilitating systems change programmes that support people, communities and organisations to transform their practice'. Anna started facilitating multi-stakeholder processes around the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. At WWF-UK she ran a six-year education programme on system change which included setting up 56 communities of practice to knit together innovative practices. This experience supported her to develop practical system change frameworks for WWF-UK and Forum for the Future as well as organisations including Unilever, Nike, Shell Foundation, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Innovate UK and the NHS, through the System Innovation Lab - experimenting and learning how to develop different practices. This led onto setting up the School of System Change where as well as overseeing the learning and curriculum, Anna now coaches on a wide number of projects and initiatives including the Marine CoLab, the #Oneless project and Oxfam’s System Innovation in Woman’s Economic Empowerment. She is the author of Cultivating System Change: A practitioner’s companion which is based on her PhD. “Having cultivated the School since 2016 it gives me great pleasure to continue to engage and learn from participants, contributors and partners to evolve what we offer. I am most excited about how we can grow the number and diversity of facilitators and the diversity of learning, exploring what systems change practice might look like in different contexts and geographies.” Links: Forum for the Future: https://www.forumforthefuture.org/ School for System Change: https://www.forumforthefuture.org/school-of-system-change YouTube Video for the BaseCamp Course: https://youtu.be/B-oqDQkQ54U Anna's Medium page: https://annasquestions.medium.com/ Anna's Book: https://www.waterstones.com/book/cultivating-system-change/anna-birney/9781910174098 Cultivating the Future: Medium blog: https://medium.com/school-of-system-change/cultivating-system-change-a-practitioners-companion-e05e541c1726 The Presencing Institute: https://www.presencing.org/

  • Oct 13, 2021 · 38 min

    The Future is Farming - Part 2 of 2 with Ffinlo Costain

    As we understand more of the climate and ecological emergency, it becomes increasingly clear that Regenerative Agriculture needs to be one of the mainstays of our plans for systemic change. Part 2 of 2 with Ffinlo Costain of Farmwel and the Farm Gate podcast. We live in an era of empty food, vast food miles and a burgeoning ecosystem emergency that is largely pushed by a chemical-based agriculture system that is poisoning waterways, oceans, and soil, destroying the biodiversity of our land and waters and harming the health of humanity. A regenerative farming system that works, in Ffinlo's words 'with nature rather than in spite of nature' can do so much to improve our health, bring us back into relationship with the living earth, restore our devastated ecosystems, restore the water cycle - and draw down CO2 into the earth so that as we build soil, we heal our climate. With so much to go right, why are we not doing this everywhere? That's one of the questions I ask Ffinlo Costain, host of the FarmGate podcast and Founder and CEO of Farmwel, a company dedicated to helping generate momentum towards sustainable mainstream agriculture and aquaculture, focussing on the environment, people's livelihoods, and farm animal health and welfare. Ffinlo is in the almost-unique position of understanding the problems, having solutions and having the ear of people in power. So if anyone's going to help us change, it's him. Join us for a fascinating, detailed, inspiring pair of podcasts. Farmwel: https://www.farmwel.org.uk/ FarmGate podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/farm-gate/id1490590788 UNFCCC NDC calculations: https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2021_08_adv_1.pdf Soil Health Report will be released Oct 20th 2021 - available here: www.foodandsecurity.net

  • Oct 6, 2021 · 1 hr 1 min

    Towards a Progressive Future: politics and activism in the world of climate change with Jeremy Gilbert

    How can we build a progressive political movement that spans the world and that will take us to where we need to be: a future we can be proud of and towards which all of us will want to work? Taking politics, activism, progressive ideals with Jeremy Gilbert, Professor of Cultural and Political Theory at the University of East London. This is one of our most nakedly political conversations - because politics is the language of power and those who rule over us do so with at least the vestige of a democratic mandate. To understand how to affect change, we need to understand how to shift the levers of power on a worldwide scale. But change always begins at home, so in this week's episode, we're talking about political activism in the UK and where it might go in the near term. Our guest is someone really well placed to discuss this: Jeremy Gilbert is Professor of Cultural and Political Theory at the University of East London. His most recent publications include Twenty-First-Century Socialism (Polity 2020) the translation of Maurizio Lazzarato's Experimental Politics and the book Common Ground: Democracy and Collectivity in an Age of Individualism. His next book, Hegemony Now : How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World , co-authored with Alex Williams, will be published in 2022. He writes regularly for the British press (including the Guardian, the New Statesman, open Democracy and Red Pepper) and for think tanks such as IPPR and Compass, is routinely engaged in debates and discussion on Labour Party policy and strategy, and has appeared on national television as a spokesperson for Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party. He has been involved with both mainstream party politics and extra-parliamentary activism throughout his adult life, having been an active participant in the social forum movement of the early 2000s, a member of the founding national committee of Momentum (the controversial organisation established to support Corbyn's leadership of Labour), and being a former elected member management committee of Compass, a pluralist left-wing think tank and lobby group. Jeremy is an an advisor to and participant in a range of ongoing projects such as The World Transformed and the New Economy Organisers Network. He has also participated in many cultural projects, particularly connected with music and sonic culture, and is a founder member of Lucky Cloud Sound System and Beauty and the Beat, two successful and respected collectives that have been organising regular dance parties in East London since the early 2000s, at many of which he still regularly DJs. Jeremy also maintains a lifelong commitment to public education outside the academy, currently hosting Culture, Power, Politics, a regular series of free open seminars and lectures. Links: Jeremy's website: https://www.jeremygilbert.org Jeremy's blog: https://jeremygilbertwriting.wordpress.com/2021/06/04/2020-analysis/ Jeremy's papers on Open Democracy: https://jeremygilbertwriting.wordpress.com/2021/06/04/2020-analysis/ Guardian review of Jeremy's book 'Twenty First Century Socialism': https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/06/twenty-first-century-socialism-by-jeremy-gilbert-review Jeremy at Novara Media: https://novaramedia.com/tag/jeremy-gilbert/ Compass: https://www.compassonline.org.uk/ The World Transformed: https://www.theworldtransformed.org/ Momentum: https://www.theworldtransformed.org/

  • Sep 29, 2021 · 58 min

    Medicine Woman Speaks: Deena Metzger, elder, wisdom-keeper, poet and visionary brings 19 Ways to a Viable Future

    How can we embrace our humanity and use it in service to the earth and all that lives? How can we bring the best of ourselves to the best of the Web of Life in full understanding of the chaos of the moment, with full and open hearts? Deena Metzger has given her life to finding answers - and shares them here. From her experience at three years old when she saw the spirit of her grandmother at the foot of her crib, Deena Metzger's life has been devoted to the exploration of the worlds of spirit and of humanity, combined, in search of an answer to the question: What is your Calling? Working as a poet, novelist, therapist, healer and visionary, she has brought together Nineteen Ways to a Viable Future - a route by which all of humanity can become the best of ourselves and thus be what the web of life needs of us. In this conversation, we explore some of those Ways and the routes by which Deena reached them, together with her thoughts of the present and future as we move into the time of crisis. In her own works, Deena Metzger is a poet, novelist, essayist, storyteller, teacher, healer and medicine woman who has taught and counseled for over fifty years, in the process of which she has developed therapies (Healing Stories) which creatively address life threatening diseases, spiritual and emotional crises, as well as community, political and environmental disintegration. Deena has spent a lifetime investigating Story as a form of knowing and healing. As a writer, she asks: Who do we have to become to find the forms and sacred language with which to meet these times? She conducts training groups on the spiritual, creative, political and ethical aspects of healing and peacemaking, individual, community and global, drawing deeply on alliance with spirit, indigenous teachings and the many wisdom traditions. One focus is on uniting Western medical ways with indigenous medicine traditions. Deena's website: https://deenametzger.net/

  • Sep 22, 2021 · 59 min

    Thresholds to Truth: Conversations on Climate Change with younger generations with Louis Weinstock

    In a world of uncertainty, transformation and potential catastrophe, how can we find our own truth and, from there, speak with authenticity to the children and young people in our lives about the world that is coming? Louis Weinstock is a celebrated psychotherapist who finds ways to help people of all ages connect with their own truth and share it. In this episode, we explore our attitudes to death, loss - and the climate emergency - and how we can hold the conversations that need to happen. Louis Weinstock is a remarkable man - a deeply committed therapist who does his best to make his skills available to as many children and young people as need them - and so many do. He focuses on grief and loss, initially around death and diagnoses of fatal illness, but increasingly the existential grief of our dying ecosystem and the despair, rage and frustration at a world that is not acting as it could or should. In this profoundly moving podcast, we talk in depth about how all of us can exist with our grief and despair, how we can hold them tenderly, and how, from these places of resilience and strength, we can hold the conversations that need to happen in our widening circles. About Louis: Louis works with children, and the child inside us all, the one that wants to be loved, the one that wants to cry, the one that knows what it wants, the one that really does dance like no-one’s watching, the one that spends timeless hours looking at bugs under a piece of bark, the one that keeps getting back up no matter how many times they fall down. He helps people find a light in the darkness, especially in grief, in the shadow, in the things that are unseen, unheard, unspoken. Her sees death as our greatest teacher, and avoidance of it our biggest mistake. He made an audio course all about death and life here: it will help you become more fully alive in your everyday existence. He runs Magic Power of Grief circles at festivals, and in other spaces and places. He believes the body is deeply intelligent, and our ‘symptoms’ are just fragments of our soul seeking wholeness. Rumi once said “What is the body? That shadow of a shadow of your love, that somehow contains the entire universe”. He loves using design, collaboration and creativity to solve big, meaningful problems. One way he does this is by helping to run a charity – Apart of Me – that helps kids transform their grief into compassion. This project also has two side projects which are focused on helping younger children grow into emotionally empowered leaders: Earthlings and Bounce Works. Making a home for experience in words is his favourite spiritual craft. You can check out some of his writing here. His book about How The World Is Making Our Children Mad And What To Do About It - is available now. See also Episode 131 of the podcast where we talk to Louis about it. Louis Weinstock: https://louisweinstock.com/ A Part of Me https://www.apartofme.app/ Wider Horizons Summer Festival: https://widerhorizons.events/

  • Sep 15, 2021 · 57 min

    Sounds like Magic: a journey into the wild magic of sound with Caro C

    How can sound edge us closer to the centre of ourselves, bring us closer into connection with our own authenticity and with the heart of the earth? Caro C has produced the Accidental Gods Podcast since its inception. Here, she talks about the wild magic of sound in all its forms. Caro C has been described as a Soul Enchantress (BBC Radio 3) and a 'One Woman Electronic Avalanche' (BBC Introducing), she's a composer and musician, a sound engineer and a solo performance artist. She's a rock climber and a dreamer, a creator of magic with all things sound. She created the music that is our signature at the head and foot of the podcast and she's been our engineer and producer for nearly two years, weaving miracles with technology and weaving our conversations in ways that bring them to coherence while always being a balm to the ears. As she launches her new album, Electric Mountain, we talk about her journey into sound, her experience of earth-connection and conscious evolution and how she weaves all of these into into a deeply connected, dream-woven life. Links: Caro's Page: https://carosnatch.com/ Caro on Bandcamp: https://carosnatch.bandcamp.com/

  • Sep 12, 2021 · 1 hr 3 min

    Accidental Gods Podcast bookclub with writer and commentator, Ece Temelkuran

    Ece Temelkuran is an astonishingly astute, great-hearted writer. Joining us from Zagreb, she gave us an hour of wisdom, insight and compassion, based around her book 'TOGETHER: 10 Choices for a Better Now' - with an international audience and some cracking questions, this is our gift to you this weekend. Ece Temelkuran is an international columnist, political analyst, novelist and sharp, brilliant, astute - and great hearted - writer. Her books 'HOW TO LOSE A COUNTRY' and 'TOGETHER' have been met with great international acclaim. (she shared a stage at the Edinburgh Festival with Ed Milliband, of the outstandingly successful 'Reasons to be Cheerful' podcast. He was also something political at one point in the UK, when such things mattered...) She was our guest in podcast 74 -and on the first Sunday of September, she returned with a one hour Zoom-based Bookclub to delve deeper into the compassionate wisdom of her books.

  • Sep 8, 2021 · 56 min

    Circles of Power: Urban Micro Anaerobic Digestion with Rokiah Yaman

    How can we embed circular thinking in our food, energy, water & waste to benefit people and the planet? LEAP Micro Anaerobic Digestion is building the systems in the UK, Nigeria, Malaysia and around the world to create local zero waste cultures that provide food and energy to their communities. Rokiah Yaman is the Project Director for LEAP Micro Anaerobic Digestion. A part of the project from the start, she coordinates the LEAP demonstration sites, oversees fundraising and planning activities, and manages infrastructure and operational logistics, helping to bring micro AD technology and the closed-loop ethos into public spaces where people can see who it works in their own communities. In this episode, Rokia talks us through the technologies involved in Micro Anaerobic Digestion, and introduces us to the projects in London, the Scottish Highlands and Islands, Nigeria and Malaysia. We find out how it works, and how we can make it work in urban and rural settings, as part of the power spectrum of the future, where circularity is embedded in the way we live and we generate our own energy closer to home, giving us autonomy and agency and cutting the mega-corporations out of the loop. As ever, our signature music comes from Caro C, but this week, we have additional music at the head and foot from Billy Surgeoner's album 'Hey Mountain Hey' - the track is The Pollen Path Leap: https://www.madleap.co.uk/ Hey Mountain Hey: BillySurgeoner.BandCamp.com/track/the-pollen-path/

  • Sep 1, 2021 · 59 min

    Thresholds of Being: Connecting to the webs of land, life and death with Dr Sharon Blackie

    In a world where the only constant is change, how can we find the best of our wisdom? How can we find true connection to the spirits of the places we live so that we might learn better how to be in the transition that is coming? How, above all, can we approach death with equanimity, and even joy? This week, we explore all of this with author, mythicist - and elder - Sharon Blackie. Dr. Sharon Blackie is an award-winning writer and internationally recognised teacher whose work sits at the interface of psychology, mythology and ecology. Her highly acclaimed books, courses, lectures and workshops are focused on the development of the mythic imagination, and on the relevance of our native myths, fairy tales and folk traditions to the personal, social and environmental problems we face today. As well as writing four books of fiction and nonfiction, including the bestselling If Women Rose Rooted, her writing has appeared in the Guardian, the Irish Times, the Scotsman and more, and she has been interviewed by the BBC and other major broadcasters on her areas of expertise. Sharon is one of those rare people who walks her talk in every part of her life. Through the past decades, she has lived in each one of the Celtic lands: Scotland, then Ireland, then Wales, always in remote areas with few people and a wild, powerful landscape. Her deep roots to our mythology and to the spirits of place have left her uniquely placed to speak to and of the old ways of our ancestors - and the ways we can avail ourselves of the ancient wisdom of lineage and place to weave new ways of being that will help to guide us through the change that is coming. This week's podcast is a deep, deep dive into our shamanic past and our future. Join us and step beyond the veils. Sharon Blackie Website: https://sharonblackie.net Books: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/sharonblackie

  • Aug 25, 2021 · 59 min

    Power to the People: an Energy R-Evolution for the 21st Century with Howard Johns

    How are we going to create the power that we need in a world where fossil fuel use has to end? How can we end the central control of power and keep safe our data in a world where data-mining is a pernicious - and lucrative - as coal mining? Howard Johns has spent all his professional life finding answers. He shares them here. Howard was a climate activist on the front lines until he realised that he needed ways to say 'yes', instead of 'no'. Accordingly, he set about building solutions, eventually founding Southern Solar a national solar energy company, and Ovesco a locally owned renewable energy cooperative. At the same time he chaired the trade body representing the UK solar industry, finding himself once again a campaigner around energy policy in the process. A believer in solutions, Howard is convinced we have all the technology and money we need to implement the climate and energy solutions we need. It is now time for lots of people to get involved with making it happen. Howard TED talk: https://youtu.be/pkGAMb5sYvg Howard's website: https://www.howardjohns.net

  • Aug 18, 2021 · 1 hr 1 min

    Beaver ReWilding: Gateway to Transformation - with Eva Bishop of the Beaver Trust

    How can we begin to reverse the destruction of our countryside, the pollution of our rivers - and our disconnection from the Natural World? Beavers, of course. Eva Bishop of the Beaver Trust tells of the UK introduction of beavers and puts it in a whole-system context. The Beaver Trust is a small group of committed individuals who understand the deep interconnectedness of life. By bringing beavers back to the UK where once they flourished, they are seeing whole ecosystems grow back to life. In their work with farmers and landowners, they are able to open gateways to radical restoration of our landscapes and biodiversity, reversing the catastrophic species loss of the past five decades. Eva Bishop is their Communications Director. In this week's episode, we explore the work of the Trust and it's place in the wider systemic change we need if we're going to make it through the current bottleneck. The Beaver Trust https://beavertrust.org The Lodge Cast podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-lodge-cast/id1530950902 Twitter: https://twitter.com/BeaverTrust/ All We Can Save: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/All-We-Can-Save-by-Ayana-Elizabeth-Johnson-editor-Katharine-K-Wilkinson-editor/9780593237083

  • Aug 11, 2021 · 1 hr 3 min

    Meeting the World unmasked - with Forrest Landry

    When Forrest Landry was 16 years old, he took a vow to meet the Natural World openly, fully, without any projection or expectation on his part - he was not going to take one step and wait for the rest of the world to take 99 steps to him - he was going to go all the way. His life has been shaped by the experience - and he talks to us this week about where that has taken him. "Love is that which enables choice. Love is always stronger than Fear. Always choose on the basis of Love." – Forrest Landry You might know him as the founder and CEO of Magic Flight, a company among the first to introduce the portable vaporizer to the world, but Forrest Landry is really a philosopher, writer, researcher, scientist, engineer, craftsman, and teacher who has been studying and practicing the varied High Arts since the mid 70’s. Before creating Magic Flight, Forrest was a third generation master woodworker who found that he had a unique set of skills in large scale software systems design. This led to work in the production of several federal classified and unclassified systems, including various FBI investigative projects, TSC, IDW, DARPA, the Library of Congress Congressional Records System, and many others. This work was a fun diversion, but Forrest’s heart has always been most focused on metaphysics – the study of what is, what is the nature of being, what is the nature of knowing, and why are we all here. And, so, the most challenging system design that Forrest has tacked is his work “The Immanent Metaphysics” a decades long effort to restore legitimacy to the practice of metaphysics and construct a rigorous, coherent and precise statement of, well, everything. He talks to us this week of his experience in connecting with the world unmasked - about the considerations of life that it led to: what matters most and how we, too can connect with it. Forrest Landry TED Talk: https://youtu.be/iAmLRLc4ffk SolarPunk questions answered: https://mflb.com/civ_dev_1/solarpunk_questions_out.pdf Overall orientation to What is needed to meet the coming transformation: https://mflb.com/civ_dev_1/overall_recommendations_out.pdf Forrest Landry's technical investigations into the meaning of life: https://mflb.com/geek_index_1.html

  • Aug 4, 2021 · 1 hr 3 min

    Climate Pilgrimages converging on COP26 with Bamber Hawes and Benjamin Christie.

    COP26 takes place in Scotland in November. How can ordinary people persuade our elected Overlords that they need to change the system? Across the UK, Climate Actions are being prepared. We speak to two people involved in Pilgrimages to Glasgow about what drives them and what they hope will change. COP26 takes place in Glasgow, Scotland in November of this year. This is our best - possibly our last - chance to persuade those who govern the world that the climate and ecological emergency needs swift and radical action. So how can we get the message through to those who are driving our collective bus that they need to turn the wheel before we all hurtle over a cliff? How can we persuade them that 'business as usual' is no longer an option, or that alternatives do exist if we only had the creativity, imagination, courage and empathy to make them work? This week, we speak to two people involved in two separate Pilgrimages to Glasgow to find out what they're planning and why. Benjamin Christie is driven by the deeply held belief in the possibility of a more equitable, sustainable and harmonious world. He works to support NGOs and ethical businesses develop and achieve their goals. With a career spanning events, media and business development, Benjamin has been fortunate enough to gain experience of many different countries, environments and partnerships at first hand. He's speaking on behalf of the SPINE OF ALBION Pilgrimage which is walking from the southernmost tip of England to the northernmost tip of Scotland - through Glasgow at the time of COP26. Links to his work and activities include: http://www.listeningtotheland.com/ https://medicinefestival.com/ https://www.wisdomkeepers.earth/ Bamber Hawes says of himself that he is 'a Thing Maker'. He trained as an Industrial Designer in Sussex, then moved to London and had various companies making furniture, building sets and film props, art directing and modelmaking. In 2005, after 22 years living in Hackney just off the Murder Mile he 'ran away from his annoying media clients' to Bishop's Castle in South Shropshire, where he now is a picture framer, furniture maker, artist and Art Co ordinator for an Art Trail and is a Town Councillor. Now, he has created CLARION, a 10 foot Polar Bear made to be portable. He and Clarion will be walking from his home in Bishop's Castle to Glasgow in time for COP. Instagram: @clarion_the_bear Facebook: Clarion_the_Bear Twitter: @BearClarion His call to those who might want to join him is this: Calling anyone who would like to be part of a commitment to our living, breathing Earth and the future of all life. I am organising a Climate Crisis Pilgrimage from South Shropshire to the COP26 climate talks that starts on 1st November in Glasgow. Would you be interested in joining me for a day of walking as I progress northward?I will be doing the whole 306 mile walk which will take 22 days. Each day I will be joined by local people from the area that I have reached. The unusual thing is that I will be accompanied by a ten foot high sculpture of a polar bear, that I have made. The bear, called Clarion, is made from thin bamboo poles, willow withies and many layers of heavy duty tissue paper bonded together with waterproof PVA. He is carried on a palanquin. He ain't heavy! I am looking for people to join me for a day walking along footpaths, bridle paths, canal towpaths and B roads. The intention for this pilgrimage is to come together to walk, to talk, to connect with each other, to connect with the landscape by moving through it slowly, admiring its beauty and grandeur. To be positive and kind, and to build active hope. To smile and laugh while being serious. Walking to the climate talks will not change the world ~ but I can think of nothing better to do to show the earnestness of my belief that we must learn to talk together and build community, only in Oneness will we make a better more just world. Clarion and I will be coming through your area on these dates: DAY ONE 10th October Bishop's Castle to Longden DAY TWO 11th October Longden to Platt Lane DAY THREE 12th October Platt Lane to Bulkeley DAY FOUR 13th October Bulkeley to Kingsley DAY FIVE 14th October Kingsley to Rainhill DAY SIX 15th October Rainhill to Appleby Bridge DAY SEVEN 16th October Appleby Bridge to Middleforth DAY EIGHT 17th October Middleforth to Garstang DAY NINE 18th October Garstang to Lancaster DAY TEN 19th October Lancaster to Hincaster DAY ELEVEN 20th October Hincaster to Sadgill DAY TWELVE 21st October Sadgill to Askham DAY THIRTEEN 22nd October Askham to Calthwaite DAY FOURTEEN 23rd October Calthwaite to Cargo DAY FIFTEEN 24th October Carge to Stapleton Grange DAY SIXTEEN 25th October Stapleton Grange to Lockerbie DAY SEVENTEEN 26th October Lockerbie to Mosslands DAY EIGHTEEN 27th October Mosslands to Elvanfoot DAY NINETEEN 28th October Elvanfoot to Douglas DAY TWENTY 29th October Douglas to Strathaven DAY TWENTY ONE 30th October Strathaven to Busby DAY TWENTY TWO 31st October Day off DAY TWENTY THREE 1st November Busby to COP26 The complete itinerary will be on Facebook soon : Clarion the Bear So, please consider coming along as a treasured, intrepid pilgrim. I assure you this will not be a shouty, banner waving demonstrating rabble. This pilgrimage will be in the media, and I am sure it will be praised and vilified. If you are not a walker perhaps you would like to still be part of this by being a driver, delivering walkers at the start of the day and/or collecting them at the end. Contact me on Social media or on 07957 667 847 No small children, no dogs, no alcohol. Thank you Bamber the Human and Clarion the Bear