Accidental Gods - The Thrutopian Podcast
Accidental Gods 397 episodes Nov 11, 2026
Accidental Gods is a weekly podcast exploring how to move beyond a failing system toward a more just and regenerative future. It features conversations with people who are already living out new possibilities, focusing on values such as compassion, courage, and integrity. The show asks what stories we can weave to transform society and reconnect with each other and the Web of Life. It frames this imagined yet achievable future as 'Thrutopia' and invites listeners to choose transformation over chaos.
Episodes
Power Station: Generating agency with Daniel Edelstyn and Leonie Rousham
How do we empower communities to help them step away from the extractive death cult of capitalism and the fossil fuels that underpin it, while keeping warm, saving money, and expanding their own agency? Our guests this week have poured years of time, energy, passion, professional expertise - and a deep understanding of the flaws in the current system and how local people can be empowered
Jaguar Dreaming - Walking the Bridge of Perception with John Perkins of the Pachamama Alliance
How can the dream of a jaguar - or any dream - help us to overcome our own fears? This week's guest, John Perkins has written a book about this. Touching the Jaguar is a memoir of an extraordinary life, and it's an invitation to walk across what he calls the Bridge of Perception to see the world differently - in his words to remember that we are a part of nature, not apart from nature.
Crossing the Uncanny Chasm from where we are to where we need to be – Thoughts from the Edge #6 with Manda Scott
What are the actual steps we could take, from our dysfunctional political, economic, media systems and all they support - towards a future that would actually work in service to life?We ask this question all the time on the podcast - and then I went away for a weekend's planning with the core team of our Thrutopian Convergence. We played a Solar Punk Futures game (thank you Natalia!) and
Climate Popularism - Launch of the new report by Rupert Read and Caroline Lucas, interviewed by Jon Alexander
This week sees the launch of the Climate Popularism Report written for the Climate Majority Project by friend of the podcast Professor Rupert Read, co-Director of the Climate Majority Project, and Caroline Lucas, former Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales and for a long time, the sole Green party member of the UK's Parliament. We were supposed to record a podcast together earli
New Earth Dawning: Biological Elegance, the health of humanity and OriginEarth with Zach Bush, MD
What happens when someone who has trained for years in the Cartesian model of science, of medicine in particular - who has been trained to look at bodies the way a mechanic looks at a car, to take them apart and fix one thing and put it back together and get it back on the road… what happens when that person begins to question everything? This week's guest has done just this. Of all the
Dignity, Confidence and Care: The Matriarch Effect transforming lives with Dr Robyn Short
We all know we need to wake up, grow up, show up, but how do we actually do the inner work of growing into interdependence and then the outer work of healing our relationships and holding whole, generative spaces for all parts of ourselves, ourselves and each other, ourselves and the web of life? That's this week's question and our guest on this episode has written a book that absolutely
Hostage Nation Part 2 - Anything we can do, we can afford - with Jamie Driscoll of Majority
From the Hostage Nation paper: " The first and most fundamental duty of a civilised state is the safety of its people. Not just safety from overseas adversaries, or crime in the street. Economic security. A bill you can pay without going overdrawn. A house you can afford before your children have children of their own. A job that lasts long enough to plan around. Britain guarantees none o
How not to be a hostage to the vigilante Bond Markets: with Jamie Driscoll of Majority
What are the actual, practical shifts in our political economy that we could do tomorrow, that would not require extra legislation and could transform our society? This question applies to us all, wherever we are in the world and while there are many economists looking forward to an idealised system some way down the line, very few people - politicians or economists - are exploring what
Autumn Equinox Meditation
Here is an Autumn Equinox Meditation to help set you up for the shift from the long days to the long nights. For those in the Southern Hemisphere, there's a Spring Equinox Meditation here.—About Accidental Gods—We offer three strands all rooted in the same soil, drawing from the same river: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass Our next Open Gathering offer
The Stewardship Freehold Village - an idea whose time has come - with Michael Taite
"When we build, we first remove the soil and replace it with rubble, concrete and tarmac. When we grow, we exclude all life from the land bar the one crop we want. Where we belatedly recognise our ultimate dependence on nature, we confine it to intensive ‘nature only’ areas such as rewilding zones, field margins and beetle banks." Michael Taite 2026How do we reconcile our human need for s
Making Glorious Trouble with Uffe Elbaek, activist, system builder and author of Doubt, Hope, Action
"I know that a good book can move its reader. Writing a book also moves the author. That is how it was for me anyway, not least when I wrote Doubt, Hope, Action. The writing process not only made me see the world and my own life with clearer and more realistic eyes. It also set me free." Uffe Elbaek, author of DOUBT, HOPE, ACTIONWe talk a lot on this podcast about the need for a new syste
"We All Came By Boat!" - exploring Ireland & Britain’s ancient myths and the world’s future mythologies with Clare Murphy
What happens when the Fires in our Hearts become tsunamis of feeling that take us beyond the narrow imaginal cul de sacs our culture has created, and throw our doors wide open to the wonder of the past and the absolutely unknowable, glorious, constantly surprising possibilities of the future we haven't built yet? This week's guest, Clare Murphy, is an Irish Storyweaver, a storyteller who
Love, Anger and Betrayal: Stories from the front line of Climate Action with Jonathon Porritt and Daniel Knorr
“Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels. Investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure is moral and economic madness.” Antonio Guterres, UN General SecretaryWe know that the current system is not fit for purpose. We know that we're hurtling to the edge of the 6th m
Honouring the Web of Life - Thoughts from the Edge #5 with Manda Scott
In the midst of the polycrisis - or the meta crisis, depending on your point of view - what is the key to the inner change each of us can make that will help us shift our perspective so that we can begin to create the total systemic change we need? In this solo podcast, Manda explores the Three Pillars of the Heart Mind laid out in the Accidental Gods modules - Gratitude, Compassion and J
Building Scaleable Trust - Of Identity, Commons and Governance with Grace Rachmany of Sideways Earth
"The ecological movement is the largest movement in human history, yet it is fragmented because it is using the "tools of the master" for coordination, resource sharing, and conflict resolution...While many technologists have created social networking technology, they have not succeeded in creating good coordination because social networking tools do not address enough of the primary coor
The Art of Possibility - A Possitopian approach to the Earth Crisis with Bridget McKenzie of Earth Talk
"The Possitopian approach to future thinking expands the cone of the possible future, draws on geophysical realities and data, and also applies imagination to help you imagine future scenarios which are potentially worse or better than you might allow yourself to think." So says this week's guest, Bridget McKenzie. Bridget is an artist and regenerative thought leader working to engage pe
Creditism: Building the Ledger of Life with Remzi Bajrami of the Common Planet Foundation
How do we make a peaceful transition to a wholly new system when the old one is sustained by those who profit most from the self-terminating zombie of predatory capitalism?Our guest this week has spent the past decade devising an answer to this most central of our questions. Remzi Bajrami is co-founder of Common Planet Foundation and creator of Creditism, which is his answer to our dilemm
We Need a Victory Story: Mobilising the Silent Majority with Liam Kavanagh of the Climate Majority Project
If you listen to this podcast then you care about people and planet and how we make it through this potential crunch point when all our crises mash together. But what if you knew you were not alone? What if you knew that almost everyone in our culture cares about this, they just don't know what to do about it? They don't have what this week's guest, Dr Liam Kavanagh, calls the 'Victory St
We Need to Talk about Tech: Exploring AI, fresh Hope…and the power of Song with Nathalie Nahai
The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed. William Gibson We need to talk about Big Tech, and particularly AI - it's ubiquitous, it's powerful, and currently, it's unconstrained and this is not an ideal combination if we live in the real world of mass extinction where human and more-than-human communities are being destroyed to serve the death cult of predatory capital
Grown Up Politics: 2. How can Andy Burnham deliver a future that works? With Rupert Read and Clive Lewis MP
As we (and everyone else) predicted a whole month ago in episode #341, Andy Burnham won the Makerfield by-election for Labour and is going to be the next Prime Minister. So now the question is one we ask on this podcast all the time - how can we bring power to those with wisdom and wisdom to those with power? Specifically, how can he deliver a future that repairs the ruptures within our
Healthy People=Healthy Planet=Healthy Future with Dr Amanda d'Almeida of Medicine Explained
How do we create healthy people, intimately enmeshed in a healthy biosphere so that, together, we can co-create routes to a healthy future? Health is such an astonishingly polarised and polarising field: everyone has their triggers and there's not a whole lot of self-regulation when they've been activated. But there are some truly astonishing people out there who are fully on board with t
Podcasters Unite! Thinking about systemic change with Tim Logan, Nathalie Nahai, Amit Paul, and Manda Scott
How do we think about systemic change? Specifically, how do four podcasters who spend their entire lives thinking about this think about systemic change - what it is and how we get there? Tim Logan of Future Learning Design podcast convened a conversation with Nathalie Nahai of her eponymous In Conversation podcast, Amit Paul of the World of Wisdom podcast. So you can know them better, Am
Design for the Ineffable: Crafting a Flourishing world with Dr Jenna Mikus
How do we encourage human flourishing? How, in fact, do we make the thriving of all 8 billion humans and the More than Human World central to all that we are and do? It's a core tenet of this podcast, that if each of us were able to discover what's ours to do - and, more importantly, to be - and were supported in the inter-becoming that would arise from bringing the best of ourselves to
The Art of the Sacred with Sylvie Barbier of Second Renaissance and Life Itself
"We are a collective of artists making art to bring forth the second renaissance.We are alchemists. We create a new world through our work.We are the bridge between the dying past and the future unborn.Art is an expression of our consciousness and humanity, this is our path of transformation. Life as an art.…Our work is to create a space to be with all of it. To be with the joy, the darkn
Mothering the Future we'd be proud to leave behind - with author and activist Zineb Mouhyi
"I have come to believe something that sounds simple and is anything but: if Mothering were the axis around which we revolved, we would liberate the world. By Mothering I do not mean the biological act of giving birth, or the domestic role that has been used to confine us. I mean the practice – available to all people, in all bodies – of tending to life with full presence: protecting it,
Grown Up Politics: A Chance for Change - Round Table with Neal Lawson of Compass and Rupert Read of the Climate Majority Project
We're at a pivotal moment in world geopolitics. Increasingly the masks and the gloves are both off - but it's not a binary choice any more between two sets of suits in slightly different coloured ties: now we have the right showing its true colours - and a chance for the progressive majority in this country to find its feet and lead us towards a genuinely thoughtful, emotionally literate
Breaking open the Story of Bread: How stories of food can change the future with Abby Rose of Farmerama
Good podcasts are part of an ecosystem of ideas that have the potential to change the world - to shift us into the new system we so badly need. For a long time, Farmerama Radio has been at the leading, radical edge where food, farming and activism meet. In the early days, it was all about fostering the voices of grassroots, small-scale farming with monthly episodes featuring stories from
Trust like the Web (of Life) trusts - Biomimicry for Social Innovation with Toby Herzlich
Life has been evolving on our planet for the past 3.8 billion years. The ecosystems that thrive now have had a lot of practice at getting things right - particularly the complex web of inter-relations that allows us all to flourish. And yet, we're on the edge of the sixth mass extinction largely because we humans have forgotten how to inter-relate and inter-be with the rest of the web of
Thoughts from the Edge: Manda explores Thrutopian narratives, the building of intent and the paths to a future we'd be proud to leave behind
What are Thrutopian stories and why do we need them? How do they work? And most importantly, how can we craft them to land most effectively with ourselves and each other at scale and in time? In this solo episode, Manda walks us through the middle way between the dystopia of now, towards the utopia of a future in which humanity flourishes as an integral part of a thriving planet. What c
Playing the (New) Money Game - how to recreate sustainable money with Stef Kuypers of Happonomy
If the death cult of predatory capitalism is based on money as the commodification of suffering (which it is) - how do we create a monetary system that encourages people to help each other, to create communities of place, purpose and passion that are genuinely supportive and to invest where trust and hope lead, rather than simply the hoarding of ever-increasing amounts of value? Stef Kuyp
Brave Containers: Sharing stories, pushing boundaries & creating trust with the Generative Journalism Alliance
When we talk about building community, we often get stuck trying to bridge tribal divides, particularly in a media landscape designed to monetise division, amplify hatred, and draw us into cycles of righteous anger.But what if there was a different approach? One that creates a sense of individual and collective agency, that centres the gifts and strengths of everyone in the room in a way
Collective Effervescence - ReDefining a Democracy that Works with Isabella Roberts of ANTIPARTY
Can we separate politics from democracy? Our political system is wholly corrupt and no longer fit for purpose - if it ever was. What if Citizens' Assemblies could bring agency to the whole of our population, helping people to find empathy with each other, to engage in conversations in good faith and work together to solve the wicked problems of the polycrisis: social inequity, climate cha
Zen and the Age of Celtic Buddhism with Brother Phap Linh from Plum Village Monastery
Contemplatives down the centuries have expressed a sense of unity with the All That Is, the Heart Mind of the Universe, whatever we want to call it. The words may be different, but the sense of non duality, of immanence, awe and inter-being seem universal. Only in our western world do we resolutely decide that the world is made of atoms and nothing really matters. Except clearly it does,
Wise. Just. Courageous. Temperate - Stoicism as a Living Path to Connection with Victoria Hurth
Imagine a world where every one of us finds meaning in living a good life - and where 'good' means conducive to the flourishing of all beings. Imagine that this frames our every thought, sensing and action, allowing us to explore and question our triggered responses to the world we are enmeshed with in a way that is resilient and self-regulating, so that we can bring the best of ourselves
Sculpting Invisible Materials: Expanding Empathy in the Hot Mess of Now with Dylan McGarry of Empatheatre
“I think empathy is a creative act. It’s imaginal, it’s an art-making practice, where even just listening is creating a picture and a lifeworld of the other inside yourself in order to get closer to each other.” - Dylan McGarryEmpathy is a magical thing. It lets us do more than just step into another's shoes, it opens the doors for us to step into their heart and soul with the vast gener
Towards the Symbiocene: Building an Eco-Civilisation with thought-leader, Jeremy Lent
Jeremy Lent is a long time friend of the podcast. His new book, 'Ecocivilization: Making a World That Works for All' is coming out at the end of April 2026 and so we got together to discuss what an Ecocivilisation is, why we so badly need to become one, and how we might get there. These questions have animated all of Jeremy Lent's writing, from The Patterning Instinct, through The Web o
The Joy of Becoming Lost: Maps, Myths and Navigating the meta-crisis with Sam Crosby of Recalling Fire
What are the stories we tell ourselves and each other about ourselves and each other and our place in the living web of life—and how do we shape them in service to Life? This is the central question that animates Accidental Gods: the idea that we are a storied species, that humanity lives and breathes and loves and learns by the rich tapestry of stories that shape our lives. Everything
Pull from the heart, don't push from the head: Spreading Stories that Work with Matt Golding of Antidote
How do we create stories powerful enough, moving enough, inspiring enough - and grounded enough - to shift the trajectory of our culture onto a totally new pathway? This week's guest, Matt Golding, has spent his entire professional life exploring what makes stories go viral, gaining awards, big contracts and a deep instinct for how to help people see the best in themselves in ways that ca
Open Mind, Open Heart: Evolving the nature of Eldering with Alain Gauthier of the Regenerative Elder Process
In a culture where age is, at best, ignored, how do we rebuild a cohort of genuine Elders fit for the rapid transitions of the 21st Century: those who can combine the wisdom of wide boundary perspectives with the humility that allows flexibility of thinking, feeling and being? This is one of the core questions of our time and this week's guest is working to find answers. Alain Gauthier is
Call to Adventure! Crafting an Integral Altruism with Jonas Søvik
What is Integral Altruism and how could it crowd-source the answers to our meta crisis? It's a while since I learned about 'reverse mentoring': a young person mentoring someone of an older generation. The idea really took hold, so when a mutual friend connected Jonas Søvik and me, I knew I'd found someone from whom I could learn a huge amount about life, ideas, thoughts and how the world
Honouring Fear as Your Mentor: Thoughts from the Edge - Manda Scott
In this podcast Manda dives deep into the nature of fear, what it is and how we might find our own resources, resilience and capacity to work with the parts that catch our attention. Given this, it is recommended that you listen at a time and place where you can give it full attention.We believe that we are in a time of total transformation and the potential is enormous - if enough of us
Co-ordiNations vs the Network State: Greenland and the Schism in Global Vision - with Dr Andrea Leiter
What is a Network State and how does the concept matter in relation to the Trump administration's attempts to take Greenland - and their 'peace' proposals in Gaza and Ukraine? This is the question I asked the transnational legal expert Dr Andrea Leiter: Who is trying to set up legal structure that mandate for No Death, No Taxes and No Democracy? And why might the rest of us end up dead o
Tracking the Wild Things, Inside and Out - with Jon Young of Living Connection 1st
As we crest the wave of the Great Transformation, we have choices: we can crash into chaos and extinction - or we can step into our birthright as fully conscious nodes in the Web of Life, offering the astonishing creativity of humanity in service to life. We've said this on the podcast often, but it's not often that we speak with someone whose entire life is given to helping people step i
Water, Water Everywhere and none of it fit to drink! With Claire Kirby of Up Sewage Creek - ahead of World Water Day
As we move towards Total Systemic Change, shifting from the death cult of predatory capitalism towards a future we'd actually be proud to leave behind, our absolute baseline non-negotiable foundations must be Clean Air, Clean Water, Clean Soil. We talk a lot about regenerative agriculture on this podcast, and how we can rebuild living soils from the inert growing media we've created in th
Kindling Quiet Romance: Reimagining the Law for Nature - with Brontie Ansell of Lawyers for Nature
In the midst of collapse, as we watch our governments lay waste to our social agreements, it can be hard to imagine extending the franchise of legal rights to Nature and the More than Human world. And yet, if we're to transcend this moment, it must be because we have become something other than we are now - and to do this, we need the roadmaps that show us how to move through, and beyond
Healing our Fractured World: Re-Awakening Indigenous Consciousness with Marc-John Brown of the Native Wisdom Hub
As the old paradigm splinters into rage-filled, grief-stricken fragments, how can we lay the foundation for the total systemic change we so badly need?Even beyond the listeners to this podcast, it is obvious by now that there is no going back. As Oliver Kornetzke wrote in a particularly sharply written piece on Facebook back on 22nd January - before Alex Pretti was murdered by Trump's Fed
Laws of Nature, Laws with Nature: Nature on Board with Alexandra Pimor of the Earth Law Center
Across the world, our legal systems are crumbling, the rule of sane law dismantled in real time. Yet at the same time, rivers, mountains, bees are being granted legal rights in ways that would have been thought impossible even a few years ago. And in boardrooms around the planet, C-suites and businesses are increasingly looking to the natural world for guidance on how to be in ways that
What ought we be? Hope, despair and the resilience of life with Professor David Farrier
We live in an ever-changing world, but it is not always obvious what kinds of evolutionary change we are seeing in the broader web of life: in physiology, behaviour, language - and human responses to these. How plastic is the natural world? How resilient? How capable - or not - of adapting to the chaos of the climate emergency, the cascade of toxins in our air, soil and water, to the pl
Seeing Round Corners: Upgrading Democracy with Suzette Masters and Dr John Izzo
If we ever had a genuine democracy (and I would argue we never have) then it is clearly disintegrating now, along with the entire system with which it was entwined. Everyone agrees we need something new, what we don't necessarily agree on across the board is the design of this new thing. This week's guests are two people who spend their lives imagining how things might be different, par
Thoughts from the Edge: Navigating the turbulent seas of the incoming year with grace and courage (Manda solo)
Well…2025 was the year the masks came off the old system: nobody is pretending it's there to help us, or that those who have stolen the reins of power have any intention of 'saving the planet', still less resolving the horrors of inequity or anything at all but feeding the ravenously hungry ghost of capitalism. So how do we bring power to those with wisdom and wisdom to those with power?
Change is Coming! Solstice Reflections with Della Duncan, Nathalie Nahai and Manda Scott
At the end of a turbulent year that has seen the masks come off the death cult in ways that were probably predictable, but still shocking, we reconvene our December Solstice Traditional conversation. Manda is joined by Della Duncan of the Upstream Podcast and Nathalie Nahai of 'Nathalie Nahai in Conversation' to explore the things that have stood out for each of us in our explorations thi
December Solstice meditation - suitable northern and southern hemispheres
Here's our December Solstice Meditation for 2025 - please find a place and time where you can relax, take space for yourself, and build the connections to the web of life that will carry us forward. Details of 3iATLAS https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/comets/3i-atlas/3i-atlas-facts-and-faqs/
Wild new stories: Weaving New Myths for a New Way of Being with Ally Kingston of Agency for Nature
How do we create the stories that will bring a whole new generation back to the web of life, that will help people find hope again, and lean into their heart's yearning for connection, relationship, being and belonging? This week's guest, Ally Kingston, is a creative facilitator and strategy lead at Purpose Disruptors, where she co-developed the breakthrough Agency for Nature, a pop-up ag
Word Magic 2025 - Accidental Gods' pick of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and podcasts through the year
Here's Manda's round up of (some of) the best books, poetry and podcasts she's come across this year. Most of the links are to Bookshop.org in the UK where you can link to an independent bookshop of your choice. In some cases, we've linked to the authors' website. FictionRachel Neumeier - Rihasi, Marag, Sekaran, Hedesa - all four are part of the TUYO series. 8 Doors from Dawn to Midnig
Barefoot Economics in a world of Hobnailed Boots with storyteller Inez Aponte
If we are to build systems that meet our real needs we have to first understand what those needs are and start growing the stuff that will allow us to thrive: good food from healthy soils, safe and supportive homes and communities, space to develop and express our creativity, opportunities to increase our capacity for co-operation and kindness. As much as these, though, we need to unders
Roots to Health - building Food Resilience at all Scales with Daphne du Cros of the Shropshire Good Food Partnership
We all know by now that plants grown in living, thriving, life-filled soil, give us living, thriving, life-filled food... but the steps to getting there in the face of a multinational industry devoted to toxic, nutritionally empty, addictive - and highly profitable - ultra-processed 'food-like substances' are harder to see. This week's guest, Daphne du Cros, spends her life deep in the m
Dance of the Spiritual Warrior: Balancing Love and Power with Jamie Bristow
What does it mean to (re)orient our entire culture around the power of love? To answer this, we have to understand the nature of love and of power and how both of these have many meanings in our culture, some of them essential to moving forward - and some of them so toxic they turn the entire concept into a poisoned cue. This week's guest is friend of the podcast, Jamie Bristow. We spoke
The Magic of Darkness: learning to love life in the night with author Leigh Ann Henion
Do you love the dark? Do you yearn for sunset and the amber glow of a fire with the night growing deeper, more inspiring all around you? Most of us don't - though our ancestors through all of history have lived by firelight, moonlight, starlight... until the modern era of light at the flick of a switch. But there's a world out there of sheer, unadulterated magic that is only revealed w
Starting in the Ruins: Of Lions and Games with Crypto-Advocate and Changemaker Andrea Leiter
This week's guest, Andrea Leiter, is one of those polymaths who brings not just breadth, but astonishing depth to the work of bridging the worlds of technology, biodiversity and international law; bringing them together in service of a new way of being built from the ruins of collapse. Andrea works at the intersection of law, digital transformation, and economic innovation. Director of Am
Walking the wild, mythic Edge of Being with visionary elder and soul initiator Bill Plotkin
What is the true vow of your life, the one it would kill you to break? This phrase comes from the poem 'All The True Vows' by David Whyte, but there can be no better introduction to this week's guest, who knows how to help people - ordinary, every-day people from our culture - build true, heart-felt connections with the web of life such that we come to know what we are here for, our uni
Eco-Civilisation: the future we deserve and how we will get there with Jeremy Lent
What is an eco-civilisation? What are its values and what are the frames within which it works? Why do we need it in the first place and what will the Establishment do to maintain business as usual? Most importantly, what can each of us do to live an eco-civilisation into being?This week's guest, Jeremy Lent, explores these ideas in depth in his forthcoming book, Ecocivlization: Making a
ReWilding our Horses, Rewilding our Souls with Kelly Wendorf of the EQUUS
How do we heal ourselves from the 'lost-ness' that afflicts our culture? How do we move on from the strange—and wholly untrue— belief our culture holds that we are separate from the natural world, that our cycles of exploitation, extraction, destruction, pollution are the way the world is, that this is the natural order and there's nothing we can do to change it, individually or collectiv
Building the roots of a world that will work - with Victoria Hurth, co-author of Beyond Profit
'Each of us was put on this earth at this time to personally determine the fate of humankind. Do you think you were put here for something less?' Chief Arvol Looking Horse. We exist in a world where the ultra-rich are getting richer, powered by a system we call 'the economy' which is serving to funnel power and value up to an ever-shrinking core of wounded individuals who then project th
Of Beetles' wings and Brittlestars: using Biomimicry to co-create a flourishing future with Michael Pawlyn
What is humanity for? What happens if we rethink not just the way we plan buildings, but our entire role as beings on a living planet? These are the central questions driving Michael Pawlyn's third edition of the life-changing book, Biomimcry in Architecture. Michael Pawlyn is an architect, the founding director of Exploration Architecture Ltd and is a ground-breaking pioneer, not just
Let the Wild Gods Rise! Bridging Between the Worlds with Jackie Morris and Tamsin Abbott
Let the Wild Gods Rise. Easy to say and harder to do - but if you were offered a portal, a way to step into the other-worlds, to reconnect with all that we have been and could be, would you take it? If you're listening to this, you are likely steeped in the mechanical world of our culture - but it doesn't have to be like this. The other worlds are alive, present…wild—and just within rea
The Magic in the Tales we Tell: Living new Stories in Service to Life with Paddy Loughman
How do the stories we tell ourselves and each other about ourselves, each other and our place in the web of life shape our world?How can we craft narratives that can shift the way we see and experience the world? Is this even the best leverage point to start off with or is there a deeper/wider/more effective acupuncture point we could explore as we evolve to become…what? What are we aimi
A Dawning Mind: Exploring the science of spirituality with Dr James Cooke
Why are we here? How do we think? What is the nature of life? What are the boundaries between ourselves and the rest of the living web—between ourselves and the rest of the universe across space and through time…and in the timeless, formless place from which everything arises?These are the big, foundational questions of our existence, and how we answer them shapes how we see ourselves and
Step by Radical Step: The Route to a Flourishing New Economy with Colleen Schneider
Our western (Trauma Culture) economies run on two falsehoods - we might go so far as to call them lies. The first is that economies have to grow to be 'successful'. The second is that government spending is limited by the tax take. That is, they need to take money in as taxes in order to spend it out into the economy. Both of these are untrue, and understanding that they are untrue, an
The Crisis and the Call: Journeys through Species-Wide Soul Initiation with Sara McFarland
As the old system is splitting apart, a few brave souls are already working to hospice this old system, acting as Death Doulas to the Great Dying—as well as helping people to awaken the seeds of a new world within. One of these is our guest this week. Sara McFarland is a Soul Initiation and Wild Mind Mentor and Guide, Artist of Consciousness and a Death Doula for the Great Dying. Their w
Dreams as a Way of Life - Becoming a Good Relative with author Hilary Giovale
Our Trauma Culture has spread across the globe with terrifying speed and ghastly efficiency. But the tide is turning and people of good heart in many nations are beginning to understand that what we need now is a move towards a 21st Century Initiation Culture. The language is often different, but at heart, this is where we need to go. Our guest this week, Hilary Giovale, is a mother, wri
PopShift: Changing the global Narrative on all our screens with Romain Vakilitabar of Pathos Labs
We are a storied species: Everything we do arises from the stories we tell ourselves and each other about ourselves and each other and our relationship with the web of life. Our current polycrisis: the accelerating annihilation of our cultures and our biosphere arises out of a particular set of stories that tell us we're isolated individuals caught in a system of separation, scarcity and
Co-Evolving Humanity: Outgrowing Modernity with Vanessa and Giovanna Andreotti - and Tim Logan
In this week's podcast I was honoured to join a four-way conversation between Giovanna and Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti and Tim Logan of Future Learning Design Podcast, to celebrate the publication of Vanessa's new book, Outgrowing Modernity. Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti is author of Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity's Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism which we have ref
From Darkness to Radiance: Lights On Learning with Julia Black
In the midst of the Great Transformation, one of the most exciting changes taking place is in our capacity to find what makes our hearts sing - to find our flow, to find what it is that we can do best, that we can do with all our hearts and souls—that leaves us radiant; that lets us lead with our Heart Minds, letting our Head Minds relax into service to life. Getting here, though, is not
Otterly Amazing! Common Sense Farming can feed us all with Charlie Bennett
“In a world where our wildlife is becoming extinct at a frightening rate, we are setting up an oasis where animals, wild flowers and even ancient fungi can thrive.” Charlie Bennett writing of Middleton North Farm. It's clear to most of us that the existing food and farming system is unsustainable. What's less clear is what to do about it, particularly when the behemoths of the industry p
Be like Water: Becoming Nature Again with the River Dôn Project and Jonny Douglas
Water is our lifeblood and Clean Water (along with Clean Air and Clean Soil) is one of our core Three Asks, the non-negotiable baselines that underpin a flourishing future for people and life on our planet. Getting there, means everyone beginning to care at a bone-deep level, way beneath our conscious minds and having a sense of how we might get there, supported by evidence of what works
People's Charter for People Power - with Katy Rubin and Oli Whittington of Our House
We know that our 'democracy' is, in fact, a kleptocracy that is not fit for purpose IF that purpose is the continuation of complex life on earth. The sociopaths who have stolen control show no signs of shifting to something that works, so it's way past time that ordinary people across all walks of life embraced the tools of participatory democracy and wrought the new system that we need -
Dancing the Path of the Inner Warrior with Diarmuid Lyng of Wild Irish Retreats
We're on the edge of a cliff and the way out is through - through the obfuscations and extractive values and downright lies of predatory capitalism. Through to authenticity, and integrity and finding language for how we can be who we really are, what our souls yearn to be. And that language is not always English. This week's guest, Diarmuid Lyng, speaks Irish - one of the older, indigen
Still In the Eye of the Storm: Finding Calm and Stable Roots with Dan McTiernan of Being EarthBound
Our priority now is to find -and then embody - a sense of grounded stability, a sense of safety, a sense of embodied connection to the Web of Life... This is the single most important thing we can be doing to create a world we'd want to leave behind, and this week's guest, Dan McTiernan, is one of those who is leading courses, trainings and embodied meditations that give people a genuinel
Sit with the River, Breathe Sacred Smoke, Love with the World: Building a Bioregional world with Joe Brewer
How can Bioregionalism supplant the nation state as the natural unit of civilisation? Joe Brewer is living, breathing and teaching the ways we can work together with each other and the natural flows of water and life. We know that the current paradigm is breaking apart in real time, but how do we become the light that shines through the cracks? How do we build ways of being that reunite
Solstice Meditation 2025 - Sun Stands Still - by Manda Scott
Here is a meditation for the Solstice – the moment when the sun stands still.It is suitable for Summer and Winter solstice. You don't have to do this at the exact moment of stillness: it’s the connection that counts, the marking of the turning point from days lengthening to shortening (or vice versa if you’re in the southern hemisphere). This is a moment of reflection and a re-affirming
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