We are a storied species: Everything we do arises from the stories we tell ourselves and each other about ourselves and each other and our relationship with the web of life. Our current polycrisis: the accelerating annihilation of our cultures and our biosphere arises out of a particular set of stories that tell us we're isolated individuals caught in a system of separation, scarcity and powerlessness; that we can't trust anyone else and we have to do whatever it takes to get to the top of a steep-sided pyramid - that anyone who falls or fails is not worth our empathy or compassion; that the living web is a 'resource' to be exploited; that the ends of madmen always justify the means by which they steal control. This is how we end up with narratives of the 'humane genocide of non-productives' being peddled in the backwaters of the alt-right, and a world of increasing violence.
So how do we change this? How do we create visions of a world that functions differently, one where every single human thrives as an integral part of a flourishing ecosphere? One obvious route is to begin to seed stories in the various screen-based media where people engage with empathy and compassion, where our goals and values have a compassionate base, where people respond with genuine emotional literacy, as adults, instead of endlessly as adolescents.
Our guest this week is Romain Vakilitabar, founder of Pathos Labs, a non-profit laboratory focused on exploring ways in which entertainment and media can rewrite harmful narratives, and change culture. One such project is PopShift, an initiative which convenes Hollywood’s leading TV writers with the country’s leading experts to determine how television can help catalyze new prosocial behaviors and attitudes.
Romain was awarded the "Erase the Hate" fellowship from NBCUniversal in 2018 for his efforts to eradicate hatred in America. He spoke at one of the world's biggest TEDx events, has been featured in the books "2 Billion Under 20" and "Compassionate Careers", and in journals such as UC Berkeley's "Othering and Belonging".
Whether traveling between Palestine and Israel to better understand emotional relationships to the long-lasting conflict, spending weeks voluntarily homeless to empathize with the idea of "absolute need", hitchhiking thousands of miles to test the generosity of strangers, or living with conservative rural farmers in Oklahoma to better understand cultural conservatism, Romain has found that people, no matter the differences, are more alike than they imagine. Pathos Labs was born to prove it, by using the arts to dismantle systemic "othering".
Romain on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/romainvak/
Pathos Labs https://pathoslabs.org/
Pop Shift https://popshift.org/
Video from Futures Basecamp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnxKP4wecis/
The Day After Movie on IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085404/reviews/
What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's 'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.
If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
In this week's podcast I was honoured to join a four-way conversation between Giovanna and Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti and Tim Logan of Future Learning Design Podcast, to celebrate the publication of Vanessa's new book, Outgrowing Modernity.
Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti is author of Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity's Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism which we have referenced many times on Accidental Gods. She is also Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria in Canada. She is a former Canada Research Chair in Race, Inequalities and Global Change and a former David Lam Chair in Multicultural Education. She is one of the co-founders of the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures (GTDF) Arts/Research Collective, is the author of many academic papers and, with Aiden CinnamonTea, is co-author of Burnout From Humans. Most of her published articles and OpEds are available at academia.edu.
Her daughter, Giovanna de Oliveira Andreotti, is a Dancer/dance teacher, GTDF member, certified Warm Data Lab host, founder of Rewiring for Reality: Cross Generational Reckoning, and an online course facilitator/co-ordinator. She holds a Bachelor's in Psychology from UBC, postgraduate certifications in Climate Psychology and Embodied Social Justice, and currently coordinates an inquiry that maps pedagogical practices addressing complexity, complicity, collapse, and accountability.
This conversation took us deep into the complexity of what it means to be human at this moment when the old order is quite clearly in breakdown. How do we use language? How do we engage with ourselves, each other and the web of life? And what is the web in a world where the first human-created silicon life is co-evolving with us. How do we explore inter and intra-generational responses and capacity for meaning-making in a way that honours everyone, both human and beyond-human?
In a world that feels ever more precarious, it was an honour and a delight to be in the company of such bright, deep minds. Thank you to Giovanna, Vanessa and Tim - and I hope you all enjoy this as much as we did.
Vanessa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessa-andreotti-a013276/
Giovanna on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/giovanna-de-oliveira-andreotti-b77950272/
Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures https://decolonialfutures.net/
Burnout from Humans https://burnoutfromhumans.net/
Rewiring for Realities https://r4rs.org/cross-generational
Tim's podcast and website https://www.futurelearningdesign.com/
Books:
Hospicing Modernity https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Vanessa-Machado-De-Oliveira/Hospicing-Modernity--Parting-with-Harmful-Ways-of-Living/26579141
Outgrowing Modernity https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Vanessa-Machado-de-Oliveira/Outgrowing-Modernity--Navigating-Complexity-Complicity-an/31891959
What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's 'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.
If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
In the midst of the Great Transformation, one of the most exciting changes taking place is in our capacity to find what makes our hearts sing - to find our flow, to find what it is that we can do best, that we can do with all our hearts and souls—that leaves us radiant; that lets us lead with our Heart Minds, letting our Head Minds relax into service to life.
Getting here, though, is not a trivial pursuit. And finding ways for parents to lead their children into this place of discovery and switched-on joy is a critical step of our evolution as a species. So when I read the book 'Lights on Learning: a parent's blueprint for happy, fulfilled and curious kids', by Julia Black, founder of the Lights on Learning programme, I was genuinely delighted.
Julia Black of Lights on Learning is a mother of two young adults, a BAFTA and Grierson nominated documentary director, social entrepreneur, educationalist, and Master Neurocoach. She hosts an online global community for parents who want to bring the latest thinking from neuroscience, positive psychology and passion-led learning into their homes. Her vision is of a world where all children love learning, and she sees parents as the key to that future.
Julia says, 'I’m a social entrepreneur to my core, driven by a deep passion to give children the freedom to learn through their strengths. When we find that thing we were born to explore, we enter the realm of infinite possibilities. This is where I love to play with potential - beyond the edges of our comfort zone.'
This is such an inspiring book. It's full of examples of young people and their parents who have found the ways to switch on their flow, their love of life, their gratitude, compassion and joyful curiosity. It's clearly laid out, expresses the science of neuroplasticity and flow clearly and easily and opens doors by which all of us can step into what Julia calls 'Radiance' the fullest expression of our being - and where we can see that this is one step on a spectrum and sometimes we need to step into Darkness to see where our blocks lie and to find the courage and resilience to keep pushing through the hard stuff, to find where our edges are and to step beyond them.
Lights On Learning has the core values that 'Courage Counts', 'Authenticity Rules' and 'Growth Spirals' - which feel like essential values for our time.
Lights on Learning website https://www.lightsonuniverse.com/
Lights on Learning book https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/lights-on-learning-a-parent-s-blueprint-for-happy-fulfilled-curious-kids-julia-black/7786461?ean=9781781338933
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lightsonmum/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thelightsonmum
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lightsonfamilies/
Mentions
Ron Berger 'An Ethic of Excellence'
Dr Shannon Irvine https://drshannonirvine.com/
What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's 'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.
If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
“In a world where our wildlife is becoming extinct at a frightening rate, we are setting up an oasis where animals, wild flowers and even ancient fungi can thrive.” Charlie Bennett writing of Middleton North Farm.
It's clear to most of us that the existing food and farming system is unsustainable. What's less clear is what to do about it, particularly when the behemoths of the industry put so much time, effort and money into propaganda which suggests we can't feed humanity unless we keep doubling down on the industrial systems that are destroying our soils, our watercourses and our health. Given this toxic mix of misinformation, government bureaucracy and algorithms engineered to keep us at each others' throats, it's not surprising the waters are muddied.
And yet the signposts are out there and brave pioneers across the continents are working to find ways to feed people healthy, nutritious food at prices they can afford while also building soil, increasing water uptake —which is another way of saying we're reducing flooding— and returning life to the land.
One of these glorious pioneers is Charlie Bennett of Middleton North farm in Northumbria.
I came across Charlie in the closing days of 2024 when I read his first book 'Down the Rabbit Hole' and promptly bought copies to give to all my friends. HIs writing was at once lyrical and grounded in a reality I recognised—and he was writing about regenerative farming, except he called it 'Common Sense Farming'. I wrote to him then, and we've corresponded ever since and now he's this week's guest on the podcast.
Charlie Bennett is a farmer, writer, and passionate advocate for the countryside. He is joint owner of the Middleton North estate near Morpeth, Northumberland, in North East England. Here, he and his wife Charlotte work to support existing wildlife and attract new species alongside sustainable stock farming designed to add to the diversity of wildlife in the area.
Trigger Warning: Charlie and I share a passion for the land and a deep sense of connectedness to the more than human world. We both live in a reality where humans (sometimes) eat meat so if discussions of the reality of this might be difficult for you, please skip past those bits. Otherwise, please do enjoy this exploration of how we can share our world differently with the Web of Life.
Charlie's website https://charliebennettauthor.co.uk/
Buy Charlie's books https://charliebennettauthor.co.uk/shop/p/down-the-rabbit-hole-book-fh2pk-mcey8
Middleton North Farm https://www.middleton-north.co.uk
Lit and Phil https://www.litandphil.org.uk/
What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering 'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.
If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
Water is our lifeblood and Clean Water (along with Clean Air and Clean Soil) is one of our core Three Asks, the non-negotiable baselines that underpin a flourishing future for people and life on our planet. Getting there, means everyone beginning to care at a bone-deep level, way beneath our conscious minds and having a sense of how we might get there, supported by evidence of what works (or doesn't) so that we can create positive feedback loops of growing community between the human and Beyond-Human worlds.
Living this into being is one of the core pillars of the Great Transformation and one of the groups working towards it is the River Dôn Project in Sheffield, one of the many projects overseen by Opus Independents. One of the project leads is Jonny Douglas, and he's today's guest.
Jonny imagines a world where the vast majority of people have the means and opportunity to find and fulfil their true potential. He has worked as a designer, a trainer, educator and facilitator in human skills and creativity in universities, colleges, schools and businesses. At Opus he is a Co-Founder and Network Coordinator of the UBI Lab Network and Technology Lead for the River Dôn Project, among other roles across the portfolio. He believes our only path forward is one of mutually assured flourishing and that now is the time to build those alternative realities, together.
I met Jonny last July at the Social Enterprise Network Summer Conference in Sheffield and the conversation about the River Dôn Project was one of the single most inspiring, thought -provoking I have ever had. So, with great delight, here we are, exploring routes to Mutually Assured Flourishing. Enjoy!
Jonny at Opus https://www.weareopus.org/team/jonny-douglas
Jonny on all socials: Linked in | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Bluesky
River Dôn Project website | Engagement Platform
River Dôn Project - Bluesky | Linked in | Instagram | Mailing list | Donate
Mentions in the Show
James Lock of Opus #279 https://accidentalgods.life/now-then-building-networks-of-citizen-power-with-james-lock-of-opus-in-sheffield/
Debs Grayson from Opus #283 https://accidentalgods.life/red-pill-blue-pill-green-pill-true-pill-creating-a-trustworthy-media-commons-with-debs-grayson-of-opus-independents/
Hospicing Modernity with Vanessa De Oliveira Andreotti ~ Festival of Debate, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZgq3h6pPxU
#Brilliant Minds: BONUS podcast with Kate Raworth, Indy Johar & James Lock at the Festival of Debate
Opus https://www.weareopus.org/
Festival of Debatehttps://festivalofdebate.com/
PechaKucha Sheffield
https://www.pechakucha.com/communities/sheffield
Sheffield Soup
https://sheffieldsoup.wordpress.com/what-is-soup/
Food Works
Sofar Sounds
https://www.sofarsounds.com/cities/sheffield
Dôn Catchment Rivers Trust
For a deeper dive, other links are available on a Google Doc here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/172pnHQdb14dgQmphixCoFgea5j_kapzpSOeIlgZUko8/
What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering 'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.
If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
We know that our 'democracy' is, in fact, a kleptocracy that is not fit for purpose IF that purpose is the continuation of complex life on earth. The sociopaths who have stolen control show no signs of shifting to something that works, so it's way past time that ordinary people across all walks of life embraced the tools of participatory democracy and wrought the new system that we need - a new House of the People which would, finally, accrue power to those with wisdom and enact governance of, for and by the people and the planet.
To do this, we need people who are intimately aquainted with these tools, who live them, breathe them, find joy and creativity in them and know how to share them in ways ordinary people understand. Our House is a collective that exists to do exactly this and in today's episode, we're talking to Katy Rubin and Oli Whittington, two of its core team, to find out what it does and how and why - and, crucially, where it could take us if we all jump on board.
Katy Rubin is a Legislative Theatre practitioner and strategist based in the UK. She is founder of The People Act hub for creative civic practice. She works in partnership with local and national governments, advocacy organizations, and community groups to co-create equitable and innovative public policy through participatory processes that are joyful, creative, and inclusive. Katy is also a member of the Our House UK collective, a Senior Fellow with People Powered: Global Hub for Participatory Democracy, and a Senior Atlantic Fellow at London School of Economics, as well as former executive director of Theatre of the Oppressed NYC. Her Legislative Theatre work with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority was awarded the International Observatory of Participatory Democracy’s 2022 award for Best Practice in Citizen Participation.
Oli Whittington is the initiator and co-lead of Our House, drawing on his background in participatory design and democracy. Oli’s work has focused on unpacking and addressing the concentration of power, including leading democratic innovation at Nesta, Shift Design’s participation practice, and as a participatory designer in Arup’s urban innovation studio.
Together, they are working around all four nations of the UK to help bring the tools of participatory democracy to communities of place, purpose and passion. They are helping to facilitate local participatory processes with a view to creating National Charters for each Nation and then bringing people together to decide whether we want a united Charter for the whole of the UK or remain separate.
To me, creating a governance system that is fit for purpose is absolutely essential to our moving forward through the pinch point of the Great Transition. If we can't find coherent, constructive, compassionate, courageous ways to work together, we're sunk—and while there might be courageous, compassionate people within the current system, the overall system is not any of these. So I dearly hope that by the end of this, you'll want to become involved. And if you're listening to this podcast as it goes out on the 16th of July 2025, you should know that there's an online event on the 18th which in an open invitation to anyone, anywhere who wants to start building an open democracy. Please do sign up, there's a link in the show notes.
Our House website https://ourhouseuk.org/
Our House Event on 18th July 2025 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/power-to-the-people-shaping-a-peoples-charter-tickets-1415315900959
Movement Mapping https://movementecology.org.uk/2025/04/27/mapping-participatory-democracy-movement.html
East Marsh United https://eastmarshunited.org/
Legislative Theatre Resource Hub https://www.thepeopleact.org/
Charter 88 and the Constitutional Reform Movement https://academic.oup.com/pa/article-abstract/62/4/537/1538934?
What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering 'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.
If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
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, indigenous languages of these islands. Listening to him is a genuinely fabulous experience in the truest sense of the word in that it lifts us to the place of myth and fable where our oldest stories are held, and we can reconnect with the bones of who we are so that we can carry our knowing forward into who we could yet be: who we will have to be, I'd say, if we're going to make it through the current pinch point; and who we will love being.
Diarmuid is co-owner of Wild Irish Retreats and Nature of Man. He is a former Wexford hurling captain and a host on the Irish Newstalk's flagship sports programme 'Off the Ball'. With Wild Irish Retreats he is part of a team that is focused on the rejuvenation of the Irish language in relation to nature reconnection. With Nature of Man he runs retreats and online programmes with men that creates a space for them to do their own internal spiritual work. He also takes teams/groups of all kinds to the woods for overnight camps that focus on connection; to self, teammate and place.
In all of this, Diarmuid is uncovering in people a previously hidden energy source that benefits the individual, the society and the web of life - and he does it with such authenticity, integrity and a really humble sense of what it is to be human in the world at this moment, that I found this whole conversation a genuinely magical exeperience. I hope you do too.
Diarmuid's Fundrazr https://fundrazr.com/wildirish
Diarmuid's website https://www.diarmuidlyng.ie/
Diarmuid's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/diarmuid-lyng-54931928/
Diarmuid's Substack https://diarmuidlyng.substack.com/
Diarmuid on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/diarmuid.lyng
John Moriarty and Tommy Tiernan on YouTube https://youtu.be/m6kfo4FahM0?si=PDrgpag33IAvG7cP
Peia - Blessed We Are (lie down, eyes closed, breathe and listen https://open.spotify.com/track/6lZnYjOFaoBVNFD0rf9kYl?si=KZe4cx0YRxS6RGhFu-Xgnw
This is hurling https://youtu.be/9aqRRvcyAgE?feature=shared
The myth of Cú Chulainn https://www.wildernessireland.com/blog/irish-folklore-cuchulain-hound-ulster/
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 genuinely grounded set of resources to feel this at a cellular, bone-deep level so that it can become the foundation for a life of authentic practice.
Dan's main focus in all of his work is to really double down on the process and practice of finding our Ground. He's been working with people to really explore the physiological, psycho-emotional and existential layers of grounding as a holistic approach to a stabilised embodied sense of safety and connection. This is just so foundational to any possibility of responding to a world in which all the ground has been ripped up, and we are literally laying each cobblestone at a time before we dare take the next step. This feels a central Thrutopian capacity - to him, and to me.
Dan is a friend of the podcast. We talked last on Episode 263, where we explored his concepts of embodied learning. This time around, as we watch the death throes of the old system grow ever more violent, his experiences with the Calmer Farmer programme, his Being Earthbound Practice Circle and What's Here Now meditations feel like exactly what we all need.
Dan's Website https://Earthbound.fi
Dan's Embodied Permaculture Course https://earthbound.fi/embodied-permaculture-course
Dan's Substacks
Calmer Farmer https://calmerfarmer.substack.com/
Being Earthbound Practice Circle https://beingearthbound.substack.com/p/earthbound-practice-circle
What's Here Now https://beingearthbound.substack.com/p/whats-here-now
Dan on Episode #263 of Accidental Gods https://accidentalgods.life/avoiding-burn-out-fall-out-drop-out-and-freak-out-with-dan-mctiernan/
ALEF trust https://www.aleftrust.org/
What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
If you'd like to join our next Gathering 'Becoming a Good Ancestor' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 6th July - details are here.
If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
How 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 us with the web of life, create new/old ways of letting value flow and become what humanity has been and could be: stewards of that massive, magical, heartbreakingly beautiful living system that is the web of life.
This week's guest, Joe Brewer, works at the leading edge of these ideas, testing out answers on the ground in communities of place, purpose and passion around the world. Joe is a trans-disciplinary systems thinker and Earth regeneration designer who has worked in everything from agroforestry work in Bioparque Móncora to starting a Waldorf Forest School (Sueños del Bosque) to co-founding a territorial foundation called Fundación Barichara Regenerativa and starting a trust to bring more local land into the commons. He was founder of the Earth Regenerators study group, which became Design School for Regenerating Earth, and is the author of The Design Pathway for Regenerating Earth.
Increasingly, he's becoming a leading global voice on the ways we can return to a bioregional way of living that is, as you'll here, how we have lived for over 99% of human history. It's the way that makes sense, that can heal our relationships to ourselves, each other and the living web of life. The question, always, is how we make this happen? How do we shift our entire culture out of a world where lines drawn on maps are more real than the flows of a river, back to a place where clean air, clean water, clean soil are our priorities, the non-negotiable baselines from which everything else arises? How do we shift our concept of value flows away from the accumulation of stuff in a zero-sum game to a place where human needs are trusted and met? Joe has such heart-warming, inspiring examples of how this is happening around the world: on all 5 inhabited continents, there are groups making this happen. As Joe says, this is the work of now. It's urgent. It's also the single most inspiring thing we can do.
Bioregional Earth https://www.bioregionalearth.org/pathway/design-school
Design School for Regenerating Earth https://www.bioregionalearth.org/pathway/design-school
Joe's book: The Design Pathway for Regenerating Earth https://www.bioregionalearth.org/pathway/design-pathway
Governance Futures https://governancefutures.org/
Elinor Ostrom's work on Governing the Commons https://www.beyondintractability.org/bksum/ostrom-governing
Sociocracy https://www.sociocracyforall.org/sociocracy/
ProSocial World https://www.prosocial.world/
Joe on Accidental Gods Episode #127 https://accidentalgods.life/bio-regionalism-the-design-path-for-regenerating-earth/
What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
If you'd like to join our next Gathering 'Becoming a Good Ancestor' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 6th July - details are here.
If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
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 of our connection to the web of life.
You don’t have to limit yourself to one pass through – please feel free to explore this more deeply than one single iteration. If you want other, similar journeys, they are a whole host in the Accidental Gods Membership Programme.
What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
Guided visualisation/meditations similar to this one are available in the Accidental Gods membership, which aims to offer everyone a structured route towards heart-mind connection and opening; to connect you to the Web of Life such that you can ask 'what do you want of me?' and respond to the answers in real time as a self-conscious node in the living, hyper-complex system that is the web of life.
If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
If you'd like to join our next Gathering 'Becoming a Good Ancestor' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 6th July - details are here.
If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
As we head into the solstice- that moment when the sun stands still—whether you're in the northern hemisphere where we have the longest day, or the southern, where it's the longest night—this solstice feels like a moment of transformation.
The world is turning over, turning a page. The old system is visibly—palpably—breaking apart. A new system will arise from the ashes, because there is always going to be a system. The question is what it looks like, works like, feels like. We are a prosocial, communitarian species, but our culture has shattered from our knowing of our integral place in the All That Is, so it's possible we might end up with a system predicated on hatred, underpinned by fear, where a small number of incredibly frightened people let their traumatised parts run a scorched earth policy in an effort to hold back everything of which they are most afraid, but I am increasingly hopeful that what we're seeing in places is the extinction burst of the old system: its death throes if you like.
As I record this, there has been an estimated turnout in the US for the No Kings rallies of between ten and twelve million. This is an astonishing number. If it's true, it's well within shouting distance of the 3.5% of the total population that was considered a tipping point in previous social movements in our recent history: the abolition of slavery in the UK, the civil rights movement in the US, gay marriage in too many nations to count. The difference is that these numbers are based on a pre-internet age. We genuinely don't know what happens when people can see the images on their phones and realise how many of the people around them share the common values of decency, compassion, integrity, generosity-of-spirit.
So if this is potentially a turning point in the making in the US, how do we make this bigger, grander, more of a global movement? We know we need total systemic change, but how do we make it happen? How do we create lasting change in our ways of organising everything from food to water to shelter to education. How do we sort our mess of a governance system so we can find those with the greatest wisdom and give them as much power as they need and no more, at all the levels of our culture?
As ever, I think the answer lies in our narratives - when ideas become common currency, then we begin to build them into our visions of how the world is and has been and could be. If we can become bold, evolutionary imagineers and craft stories of a different way of organising, loving, relating, caring…then we can live it into being.
Which means we need to know in the marrow of our bones what this feels like. Imagination begins in our perception of the possible and part of the horror of the Trauma culture is the systematic stifling of possibility. From our books to our movies to our TV to our TikTok videos, so much is predicated on Trauma Culture narratives of scarcity, separation and powerlessness. We are told this is the way the world is. That it is human nature to lack all morality and engage in zero sum strategies that belittle, disempower and crush everyone around us. Which it isn't.
Nonetheless, predatory Capitalism is designed to keep us from imagining things differently. If we're stressed about earning enough to survive while at the same time being hooked on the things we absolutely have to have to feel better, and are being steadily more sedated by the incessant dopamine drips of social media…then we literally cannot step out into other ways of being. So this is our task now - to wean ourselves off the stuff we neither need nor (really) want; off the dopamine drips, and onto things that make our hearts sing so we can build new stories predicated on connection, agency and sufficiency; stories where we are self-conscious nodes in the web of life, and it's our job to ask 'What do you want of me?', listen to the answers, then carry them out to the best of our ability. That's it.
Easy to say. Harder to do. But we can boil things down to 9 basic concepts:
Three Values: Integrity, Compassion, Generosity-of-Spirit
Three Baselines: Clean Air, Clean Water, Clean Soil
Three ReWoven Connections: between all parts of Ourselves; ourselves and Each Other; Ourselves and the Web of Life.
What happens if every single thing we think or do or say or dream is based in these three sets of three? How would our days change?
This isn't going to happen overnight, but we can make the commitment to live by them now. Here. This moment. It's not going to be easy: changing behaviours never is. But we have baselines to work from. And we might focus on one at a time. What happens if Clean Water is our priority? How does it change how we live? What happens if we make Integrity the heart and soul of every interaction through our days - beginning with ourselves? What does it feel like to commit to re-weaving clean, clear, courageous, compassionate connections between all parts of ourselves, ourselves and each other, ourselves and the More than Human world?
Clearly I think the inner work is the foundation of everything, though I am aware that this isn't the case for everyone: if you work better in the outer world, if you'd rather lead with head than heart, that's fine, truly. Go for it. Find the Values that speak to you and the Baselines you can work with and go for it.
If the Inner Work speaks more to you then know that we in the west need to heal ten thousand years of Trauma Culture in half a decade. It's been at least that long for some of us since our ancestors knew themselves to be an integral part of the web of life. This is the work of the spiritual warrior. It's going to take astonishing levels of courage and commitment. Nobody is pretending this is easy. But it is essential.
And because this is the water I swim in, I'd like to share the basics of how we might get there.
It starts with Grounding - with having a clear sense of our physical presence in the world, the flesh and the bones and the teeth of who we are; with sensing the solid earth beneath us as support, containment, holding, as the reality of who and what we are. When our feet are on the earth, there is nowhere left to fall. When we have a sense of roots going down into the earth, we have connection, holding and an open path from the heart of the earth to our heart. If we connect it on up to the heart-mind of the Universe, we have the three hearts in alignment. Just doing this is huge.
But then, as we begin really to live in our bodies, so we can begin to recognise the places where trauma sits; the frozen places, the stuck places, the parts of ourselves that leap to our own defence - and are brilliant and wonderful and creative - but who are probably defending against threats that occurred decades ago, if not longer. We carry generational trauma, civilisational trauma. And the healing is ours to do: the good news is that there's a lot of help out there - that just as we really need it, we're beginning really to get to grips with how healing can happen. One to one work is good if you have the means: the time and the money, but many of us don't - and that doesn't mean we can't do the work. If you'd like to work in groups there's a huge amount. We offer Gatherings and the Membership, but there's Listen to Thomas Hübl Mystic Cafe — I'll link to his podcast Point of Relation in the show notes —Tara Brach, Michael Meade, Bill Plotkin, Jon Young…a host of others are offering online work that helps you to reconnect to yourself and the land. You have to find out what helps you best, but there's a lot out there.
So we do the inner work. And in doing it, we become the still point in the whirling world that...
Our guest this week, Rob Hopkins, is a towering figure in the world of regenerative change. Co-founder of Transition Network and of Transition Town Totnes, he is host of the podcast 'From What if to What Next', stars in the groundbreaking French film 'Demain', speaks at TED Global and TEDx events and most recently, has created a collaborative music project with artist Mr Kit, ‘Field Recordings from the Future‘ which will be released on 17th of May 2025, alongside his new book,‘How to Fall in Love with the Future’.
With the subtitle, 'A Time Traveller's Guide to Changing the World', this book does what it says on the tin - it offers a radical, moving, deeply inspiring dive into the people and movements throughout history who have used visions of the future to inspire positive change on a large and dramatic scale. From the life and writings of musician Sun Ra and the history of Black utopian movements to the latest neuroscience on what goes on in our minds—and hearts—when we travel through time, Rob brings essential new thinking to anyone overwhelmed with dread and anxiety for the future. He asks us to consider: what would the world look like if we all got to work imagining—and then building—a world we were deeply in love with?
So this is our invitation to you: Listen to Rob now, then read his book, then explore what a genuinely flourishing future would feel like for you. And then together, let's make this happen.
Rob's website https://www.robhopkins.net/
Rob's book on Hive Books https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Rob-Hopkins/How-to-Fall-in-Love-with-the-Future--A-Time-Travellers-Gu/31447799
What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
If you'd like to join our next Gathering 'Becoming a Good Ancestor' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 6th July - details are here.
If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
If you listen to this podcast for any length of time, you'll know that I believe the way forward is predicated on our finding shared values—I'd go for integrity, compassion, courage and generosity of spirit as the baselines—and then a suite of clear asks in the outer world and needs in the inner world. In logistical terms, at an absolute baseline, we need Clean Air, Clean Water, Clean Soil. These are non negotiable and the fact that we currently have none of these is a grim indictment of how much we live in an economy that sucks the life out of everything rather than a society that grows. But we do have people who are working flat out to change the narrative on exactly these topics and this week's guest, Tim Smedley, is one of these.
Tim is an award-winning sustainability journalist who has worked with the BBC, the Guardian, Sunday Times and Financial Times. He is also a celebrated non-fiction writer. His first book, Clearing the Air: The Beginning and the End of Air Pollution, was shortlisted for the UK's Royal Society Science Book Prize. His latest: The Last Drop: Solving the World's Water Crisis was a Times Book of the Year and has been described as 'Smart, Sobering and Scholarly' which it certainly is.
This is one of those books that's both terrifying, utterly compelling and—I'm glad to say—ultimately inspiring. Yes, the world's water is in a desperate state. Yes, it has been horribly mismanaged almost everywhere by the kleptocracy that masquerades as a democracy in our modern world. But yes, we do have responses that will work, they have been carefully explored and water is one of those unifying elements that brings people together across tribal boundaries. We all need clean water and getting there means we need to find common principles by which we can live. Spoiler alert: turning water into a for-profit commodity is not a part of the solution. Regenerative agriculture, re-Wilding our waters, beavers (yay!) and sane water saving/sparing practices definitely are.
Tim is so knowledgeable and his books are both brilliantly researched and utterly personal. He goes to the places he writes about and his first-hand experiences are priceless. I have put links in the show notes for both of his books, plus the Medium article on DeGrowth which is where I first came across his work. Please do explore afterwards.
Tim's website https://www.timsmedleywriter.com/
Medium on Degrowth: https://medium.com/the-new-climate/we-need-to-talk-about-degrowth-part-ii-4d71c44067b9
Article in Prospect Magazine https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/environment-news/climate-change/70022/why-isnt-it-raining-extreme-weather
Tim on LinkedIn https://uk.linkedin.com/in/timsmedley
Tim on Medium https://medium.com/@tjsmedley
Tim on BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/timsmedley.bsky.social
Tim's Books
Clearing the Air https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/clearing-the-air-shortlisted-for-the-royal-society-science-book-prize-tim-smedley/1246586?ean=9781472953339
The Last Drop https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-last-drop-solving-the-world-s-water-crisis-tim-smedley/7544965?ean=9781529058178
What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
If you'd like to join our next Gathering 'Becoming a Good Ancestor' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 6th July - details are here.
If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
How do we let go of the sense of scarcity, separation and powerlessness that defines the ways we live, care and do business together? How can we best equip our young people for the world that is coming - which is so, so different from the future we grew up believing was possible?
This week's guest, Jennifer Brandsberg-Engelmann is an educator, regenerative - and I would say renegade - economist who is Project Lead at the Regenerative Economics for Secondary Schools and Lead Author of the online textbook of the same name. Jennifer has taught economics for nearly thirty years, but as you'll hear, the Global Financial Crash led her to rethink the rules and structures of the system and now she's one of the world's leading thinkers on Regenerative Economics - how we can refocus away from business, markets and the structures of neoliberalism towards ways of being that are grounded in reciprocity, respect and responsibility, in the realities of being human in the twenty-first century.
In 2023, Jennifer stopped working as a teacher and is now focused full time on shifting the paradigm in the education system and beyond, moving us away from the toxic mindset of scarcity, competition and the rise of oligopolies, towards an understanding of our place as integral nodes in the web of life. Her new two year curriculum is one of the most ambitious I've ever seen. It builds a solid, damning critique of the old paradigm and offers credible, structured routes through to a new one that would allow us all to flourish within a thriving ecosystem, to have not just an economy, but a way of being that is predicated in reciprocity, care, sharing and the kinds of lives we yearn to lead, but don't yet know how.
Truly, this is evolutionary and if we can spread these ideas far enough, wide enough and root them deep enough in all that we are and do, I genuinely believe this is at least part of the key to the continuation of complex life on earth. Because, yes, we are that close to extinction. And yes, there is still time to veer from the cliff's edge.
So if you do nothing else this week, please share this conversation and the links within it to anyone and everyone you know who cares about shifting the paradigm - or even is involved in the education system at any level. Enjoy.
Jennifer on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-brandsberg-engelmann/
Regen Economics on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/regenerative-economics-for-secondary-schools/
Regenerative Economics for Secondary Schools - Project website (including online textbook with a creative commons license). 5/7 topics have been published + a Topic on systems thinking. https://www.regenerativeeconomics.earth/home
Reimagining Economics: Five Transformative Shifts for Secondary Schools (Version for England) - A discussion paper to help curriculum authorities consider key changes to economics curricula. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R8e3wRmHYzqPl0Mfvv34oHv610F2RH8xveQ79xoZzYs/
Regen Economics online Textbook https://www.regenerativeeconomics.earth/regenerative-economics-textbook/about-the-book
Regen Economics Open Letter on D.E.A.L https://doughnuteconomics.org/stories/open-letter-for-a-course-in-regenerative-economics
Doughnut Economics book https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Kate-Raworth/Doughnut-Economics--Seven-Ways-to-Think-Like-a-21st-Century-Economist/21739630
Teach the Future - Curriculum for a Changing Climate (Track Changes) Project
Where the Regenerative Economics for Secondary Schools got its start
https://www.teachthefuture.uk/tracked-changes-project
How captured economics stole our climate — and how we can reclaim it (Part 4/4)
Katy Shields' article in Medium with a brilliant causal loop diagram showing the reinforcing feedback loops that prevent change in the economics discipline
Katy is also the co-producer of the Tipping Point podcast, a true-crime style podcast about the Limits to Growth report and how it was undermined by economists https://tippingpoint-podcast.com/
David Bollier, the expert support for Topic 2: Commons, recently released the second edition of his book Think Like a Commoner
https://thinklikeacommoner.com/
What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
If you'd like to join our next Gathering 'Becoming a Good Ancestor' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 6th July - details are here.
If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
We are honoured to bring to Accidental Gods, a recording of three of our generation's leading thinkers in conversation at the Festival of Debate in Sheffield, hosted by Opus.
This is an unflinching conversation, but it's absolutely at the cutting edge of imagineering: this lays out where we're at and what we need to do, but it also gives us roadmaps to get there: It's genuinely Thrutopian, not only in the ideas as laid out, but the emotional literacy of the approach to the wicked problems of our time.
Now we have to make it happen.
Kate Raworth is a renegade economist, author of the groundbreaking book, Doughnut Economics: 7 ways to think like a 21st Century Economist and founder of the Doughnut Economics Action Lab which is seeing companies, cities and nations around the world working towards an economy that prioritises flourishing of people and planet ahead of growth for growth's sake. Kate is a Senior Teaching Fellow at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, where she teaches on the Masters in Environmental Change and Management. She is also Professor of Practice at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.
Indy Johar is an architect, co-founder of 00 on behalf of which he cofounded multiple social ventures from Impact Hub Westminster to Impact Hub Birmingham. He has also co-led research projects such as The Compendium for the Civic Economy, whilst supporting several 00 explorations/experiments including the wikihouse.cc, opendesk.cc. More recently he founded Dark Matter Labs - a field laboratory focused building the institutional infrastructures for radicle civic societies, cities, regions and towns. Dark Matter works with institutions around the world, from UNDP (Global), Climate Kic, McConnell (Canada), to the Scottish Gove to Bloxhub (Copenhagen). Indy has taught at various institutions from the University of Bath, TU-Berlin; Architectural Association, University College London, Princeton, Harvard, MIT and New School.
James Lock is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Opus Independents Ltd, a not-for-profit social enterprise, working in culture, politics and the arts. Opus works to encourage and support participation, systemic activism and creativity with project strands that include Now Then Magazine & App, Festival of Debate. Opus Distribution, the River Dôn Project and Wordlife.
James was on the podcast quite recently - in episode #279 - and we talked about the upcoming Festival of Debate and the fact that, amongst many other outstanding conversations, he'd be talking with Kate and Indy who are easily up their in my pantheon of modern intentional gods. Afterwards, James and I discussed the possibility of our bringing the recording of that conversation to the podcast - and here we are. Enjoy!
Opus Independents https://www.weareopus.org/
Festival of Debate https://festivalofdebate.com/
Kate Raworth https://www.kateraworth.com/
Doughnut Economics Action Lab https://doughnuteconomics.org/
Doughnut Economics book https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Kate-Raworth/Doughnut-Economics--Seven-Ways-to-Think-Like-a-21st-Century-Economist/21739630
Indy Johar https://about.me/indy.johar
Indy's blog at DML https://provocations.darkmatterlabs.org
Dark Matter Labs https://darkmatterlabs.org/
Indy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/indy-johar-b440b010/
Indy on Substack https://indyjohar.substack.com/
James Lock on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-lock-964a8014/
Rob Shorter of the Doughnut Economics Action Lab on Accidental Gods #41 https://accidentalgods.life/doughnut-economics-action-lab/
Indy on Accidental Gods #205 https://accidentalgods.life/becoming-intentional-gods-claiming-the-future-with-indy-johar-of-the-dark-matter-labs/
James on Accidental Gods #279 https://accidentalgods.life/now-then-building-networks-of-citizen-power-with-james-lock-of-opus-in-sheffield/
What we offer - Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership. This is where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
If you'd like to come along to an Ask Manda Anything hour on Sunday 8th June, you do have to be a member (but you can join for £1 and then leave again!)
If you'd like to join our next Gathering 'Becoming a Good Ancestor' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 6th July - details are here.
If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
We all know the future rests upon us building heart-grounded, spirit-led communities that link humanity to the Web of Life. We know that the key to this is building reciprocal relationships with our food and the land from which it comes. Doing this is…harder. So this week, we're speaking with Abel Pearson of Glasbren. Abel is a friend of the podcast - we last spoke in the depths of the pandemic when he was farming 3 acres and beginning to feed the local community in ways that helped the people in a ten mile radius really to connect with the spirit of the land on which their food was grown. Now, Abel and the team are farming 138 acres of National Trust property, and still producing food for people in the local area - but so much more than that, they are building communities of place, passion and purpose, centred on the land and the cycles of the seasons and the ways we can build authentic relationship, full of reverence for the many, many layers of life in, on and under it the soil. He says that everything he does now is for his young son and the children to come, in the hope that they might yet enjoy abundant foodscapes, clean rivers and regenerative cultures.
Glasbren https://www.glasbren.org.uk/
Support the Farm https://www.glasbren.org.uk/farm-supporter
Glasbren courses https://www.glasbren.org.uk/courses
Episode #25 with Abel https://accidentalgods.life/nurturing-our-bodies-and-souls/
If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership.
If you'd like to join our next Gathering (you don't have to be a member) it's on 6th July - details are here.
And if you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work, you'll find us here.
We've known for decades that the 'yell and tell' strategy of belittling people, endeavouring to cajole—or shame—them into some kind of change doesn't work - in fact it can't work. It's not how we're wired. Cognitive neuroscience has been telling us this for decades but it's only recently that people have begun to listen. One of those who has been speaking in the wilderness for a long time—and is now finally being heard—is this week's guest, Renée Lertzman.
Dr. Renée Lertzman is a researcher, advisor and strategist who translates relational psychology to change our approach to our planetary crisis. Applying her graduate training as a psychosocial researcher, she designs frameworks and methods, grounded in public health, clinical psychology and neurosciences, that guide people to take action and create impact on climate and sustainability issues.
Over the past two decades, Renée has worked with global leaders, startups, governments, and mission-driven companies—including Google, IKEA, the California Academy of Sciences, and WWF—helping them navigate the emotional complexities of climate engagement. She’s also the founder of Project InsideOut, an initiative that equips changemakers with psychologically grounded resources for collective transformation.
This is the key to our survival. We need to learn how to engage ourselves and each other in ways that will transform ourselves and each other. We need to bring serious emotional literacy to the table so that we can create the containers, and attune to the anxieties and aspirations of people around us. We need, above all, to equip people to make sustained and sustainable change. This is the core of Renée's work and hearing her talk about it in depth is the first step to making it happen. Enjoy!
Learn more at reneelertzman.com and projectinsideout.net.
Renée on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/reneelertzman/
Renée's TED talk https://www.ted.com/talks/renee_lertzman_how_to_turn_climate_anxiety_into_action
Our world is more magical than we know - more than we can know. Increasing numbers of us are realising that the 'citadel theory of mind' where we see ourselves as isolated units within the boundaries of our own skulls is not how the world works. But if it isn't, then how do we make sense of the worlds beyond consensus reality? How do we engage with the web of life and all that's around it in ways that are respect, reciprocal and generative?
Robert (Bob) Falconer is a long time IFS practitioner and trainer. He is the author or co-author of many books, including Many Minds, One Self which he co-wrote with Dick Schwartz, who is credited with founding Internal Family Systems Therapy. For me, this is the form of therapy that leans closest into spiritual work, particularly into shamanic work, and Bob's book, The Others Within Us: Internal Family Systems, Porous Mind and Spirit Possession is a ground-breaking work that blows open the fallacies of the citadel mind model and opens us to a wide spectrum of other realities in other cultures, all of which acknowledge the existence of non-human, non-embodied energies that have at least a degree of agency and that can interact with human beings in ways that are either to our benefit or our detriment. Very few are neutral.
So as we hurtle towards the edge of a cliff, pushed by our culture's endemic inability to engage with our own traumas, talking to Bob seemed pretty much essential. We talk quite a lot about IFS, which is Internal Family Systems therapy and at the start, we open up more of what that's about, though I do encourage you to read the book Bob co-wrote with Dick Schwartz. We also - and this is a trigger warning - explore some of Bob's own life history of harrowing sexual and physical abuse so if this is likely to trigger parts of you, then please only listen when you're feeling grounded and well resourced. Beyond that, we range far, wide and deep across the boundaries where science meets spirituality and philosophy meets psychotherapy, all of which is squarely in the area that I think needs most work, for all of us.
Bob's website: https://robertfalconer.us/
Bob on YouTube https://robertfalconer.us/youtube-channel/
Bob's Books:
Out now: The Others Within Us: Internal Family Systems, Porous Mind, and Spirit Possession
OUT ON 22nd MAY 2025 - Opening the Inner World: Spiritual Healing, Internal Family Systems and Emanuel Swedenborg
Co-written with Dick Schwartz: Many Minds, One Self by Richard Schwartz and Robert Falconer
Other books
Thomas Zinser Soul-Centered Healing
Lloyd DeMause The History of Childhood
David Gordon White - Daemons are Forever
Dreaming Awake Contemporary Shamanic Training: https://dreamingawake.co.uk
Accidental Gods Membership https://accidentalgods.life/join-us/
Accidental Gods Gatherings https://accidentalgods.life/gatherings-2025/
We are living through a time between stories—where the old economic narratives of scarcity, extraction, and separation are crumbling, and a new one is seeking to be born. At the heart of this transition is the question: What do we truly value, and how do we express that value in ways that nourish life?
Imagine a society where every act of care, contribution, and kindness is not only appreciated but economically recognised. Schools, councils, and local businesses become part of an ecosystem where value flows back and forth amongst the people who create it. This doesn’t replace wages or public services—it enhances them.
This is a good step of the way towards a culture that's predicated on solid core values of compassion, integrity and generosity of spirit, and where we value what we care about, rather than what we can grab. So how do we build this in ways that work - and do so inside the current system?
This week's guest, Peter Kemp, calls himself a professional dot-joiner. Peter is a UK-based digital innovator and social entrepreneur whose career has spanned web technology, media production, civic engagement, and alternative economics. He was a co founder of HullCoin, and currently serves as CEO of Value Squared (V2) Ltd and the Social Value Academy, organisations dedicated to reimagining how we understand, measure, and reward social value.
As part of his work, Peter has helped to establish Citizen Coin - a digital, values-led complementary currency designed explicitly to recognise and reward social, environmental, and civic contributions that often go unpaid and undervalued in the mainstream economy.
He says, 'The current economic model—predominantly built around fiat currencies and centralised systems—is increasingly failing to deliver equitable outcomes, community cohesion, or environmental resilience. Citizen Coin offers a new approach: a digital token earned through pro-social actions—such as volunteering, participating in community initiatives, or engaging in sustainable practices. These actions are verified by local authorities, public sector bodies, or accredited third-party partners. Unlike traditional money, which is often scarce and controlled, Citizen Coins are abundant where social value is being generated.'
Crucially, Citizen Coin is not a replacement for fiat currency. Instead, it operates as a complementary economy—a parallel system that strengthens local resilience, incentivises positive behaviour, and redistributes recognition for care work and civic participation. More than a technology, this offers a shift in worldview—a move from scarcity to abundance, from extraction to contribution.
As we face overlapping crises of inequality, climate, and mental health, complementary economies like this are no longer radical—they are necessary. Citizen Coin is not just about digital infrastructure or economic reform. It is about choosing a new story—one where we honour the unseen, uplift the essential, and move from domination to stewardship. It is about birthing an economy in service to life.
Value Squared https://www.value-squared.com/#about
Citizen Coin https://www.citizencoin.uk/
If you're interested in joining us at a Gathering, or in the Membership, please follow the links below:
Accidental Gods Gatherings https://accidentalgods.life/gatherings-2025/
Accidental Gods Membership https://accidentalgods.life/join-us/
All flourishing is mutual, that's a given. And yet the schisms in our culture, the tribal divides and limbic hijack seem to grow deeper and more powerful by the day.
It doesn't have to be like this. We do have the tools of connection, of genuine listening, of offering trust to gain trust and offering respect to gain respect, we just need to know how - and when - to put them into practice. If we're going to move forward into that future we'd be proud to leave behind, we need to start practicing these skills as if the world depended on them - because it does.
This week's guest is someone who practices and teaches the deep, transformative skills of conflict resolution daily. Carm Aufderheide has a master’s degree in conflict and dispute resolution (CRES), and qualifications in positive reinforcement dog training from the Karen Pryor Professional Dog Training Academy (KPA-CTP and CPDT-KA) and in Separation Anxiety from Malena DeMartini, bringing both to her consultations in her NorthStar Training Solutions in Oregon.
Together, these put her right in the middle of quite fierce conflicts that rage around the dog training world over the various styles of dog training, most of which boil down to: do we use force or don't we? This is a perfect microcosm of the greater macrocosm of our torn and wounded world and Carm brings her dual skills to this with grace and intelligence and a fierce compassion that is a joy to encounter.
I first came across Carm on the Functional Dog Collaborative podcast and was blown away by the clarity of her thinking, and her capacity to live true to her convictions. I made contact later that day and we set up time for the podcast. That was roughly six months ago, when the world was a different place.
Now, recording on the day of the Pope's death, as our reality spirals deeper into chaos, it feels ever more essential that we learn these skills. Carm suggested a whole set of reading before we recorded and I have put a link to all the books, as well as Carm's NorthStar website in the show notes.
Northstar Training Solutions https://www.northstartraining.info/
Street Epistemology https://www.streetepistemology.com/
Albert Mehrabian's 7-38-55 Rule https://www.rightattitudes.com/2008/10/04/7-38-55-rule-personal-communication/
Carm on the Functional Dog Collaborative podcast
Carm's Recommended reading
How Minds Change by David McRaney
Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg
High Conflict by Amanda Ripley
The Book of Beautiful Questions by Warren Berger
Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
We Can Work it Out by Marshall Rosenberg
If you're interested in joining us at a Gathering, or in the Membership, please follow the links below:
Accidental Gods Gatherings https://accidentalgods.life/gatherings-2025/
Accidental Gods Membership https://accidentalgods.life/join-us/
