Explore every episode of the podcast Accidental Gods - The Thrutopian Podcast
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hostage Nation Part 2 - Anything we can do, we can afford - with Jamie Driscoll of Majority | 30 Sep 2026 | 01:17:36 | |
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 of these. Not for want of money, or land, or people who know how to build. Our nation has all of that. For forty years we have outsourced that security to the global marketplace. We locked ourselves in a room and posted the key to a trading desk in New York. British government policy subservient to global winds. They call it living within our means. We call it Hostage Nation." This is the second part of our conversation with Jamie Driscoll, former Mayor of Newcastle city region, founder of Majority and now Green Council for his old Monument ward. He's also one of the authors of the Hostage Nation paper quoted above that lays out how we can shift our current economy from one that's in hock to the Vigilante Bond Markets to one that supports people and planet. Jamie's website —About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'DREAMING YOUR DEATH AWAKE' which will run on Sunday 1st November 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT (NOTE THE TIME! - We'll be out of summertime then) - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| How not to be a hostage to the vigilante Bond Markets: with Jamie Driscoll of Majority | 23 Sep 2026 | 01:46:09 | |
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 we could do now, today, within the guiderails of the existing system, with the politicians we have and the economy we have and the constraints of a world undergoing rapid geopolitical as well as geophysical change. Jamie Driscoll grew up in the north east of England, with a dad who drove a tank in the army and a mum who was a youth worker, trade unionist, and set up the first Women’s Refuge from Domestic Violence in Middlesbrough. He left school at 16, and returned to education as a mature student, gaining a degree in Engineering at Northumbria University. He went on to run his own business as a software developer and then, when kids came along, and he was married to a GP, he wound back his business and became the main carer for the children. He was 48 when he became a politician and he clearly brought the clear thought of an engineer, the empathy of a parent and the basic common sense of his upbringing to his various roles. He was elected Mayor of the Newcastle city region in May 2019, a position he served in until 2024, turning Newcastle into what the Guardian called “the capital of a new radical British politics”. In his five years in office he had to work around four different Prime Ministers, six different Chancellors, a global pandemic, Britain leaving the EU, energy price shocks, a cost of living crisis and the start of a ground war in Europe. He's one of a tiny handful of democratic socialists – as opposed to social democrats – who have experience running an arm of government in Britain. He smashed his job creation target by over 300 percent; built affordable homes to high-eco standards; ran child poverty prevention programmes; delivered skills training to thousands of people to enable them to increase earnings. For every £1 I invested, his team returned over £3 to the Treasury in increased payroll taxes from job creation. He even had a successful venture capital programme that generated profits for the team to spend on other programmes, rather than them being funnelled off into tax havens by private investors. So, of course, in 2024, the Labour party changed its own internal rules to block him from standing in what was a new Mayoral area: he was too good, too effective - too socialist for them to let him continue when their entire reason for existence was to crush the left in the party. He ran as an independent in that election and came second after the official Labour candidate, polling the second highest independent vote in British political history, and built an organizational infrastructure that has become the progressive movement called Majority. In amongst all this, he is one of the sharpest, most deeply thoughtful people I've come across in electoral politics - easily up there with Mamdani, AOC and El-Sayed in the US. And he's here today because he's brought out a new paper - 'Hostage Nation' which does something quite remarkable: it takes the existing system in the UK and with only a few well-placed tweaks - almost all of which require no new legislation - it creates a new system that works for people and planet. I cannot emphasise too highly how innovative and necessary this is. It's the beginning step to a future that works for everyone - whoever you are, if you're listening to this in the UK, it would make your life measurably better within a year, significantly better in four years and utterly transformed in a decade. If you're outside the UK, bringing the principles of this into your own nation would do the same. This is common sense politics - worked out in detail and I totally recommend that you read the website, sign up for more details and read as much of the paper as you can. Figure out what you can embrace and then tell people about it. This is how we make change. Jamie and I were scheduled to have an hour's conversation. At the end of the first hour, it became obvious that there was at least another hour - actually, closer to two. So we split the conversation: the episode is broadly about politics and how we might change it. The second focuses more deeply on the Hostage Nation paper. So here we go - please enjoy Jamie Driscoll of Majority, the Green Party and author of Hostage Nation. Jamie's website —About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'DREAMING YOUR DEATH AWAKE' which will run on Sunday 1st November 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT (NOTE THE TIME! - We'll be out of summertime then) - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Autumn Equinox Meditation | 22 Sep 2026 | 00:16:50 | |
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— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'DREAMING YOUR DEATH AWAKE' which will run on Sunday 1st November 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT (NOTE THE TIME! - We'll be out of summertime then) - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| The Stewardship Freehold Village - an idea whose time has come - with Michael Taite | 16 Sep 2026 | 01:25:33 | |
"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 2026 How do we reconcile our human need for shelter, autonomy, a sense of safety in our own homes…with the wider need for us to collaborate with the Animate Earth, to become the self conscious nodes in the Web of Life, so that we can each find what's ours to do, that only we can do and that we can do best? How can we create more homes in a Thrutopian process that shifts us from the dysfunction of our current system to something that works for people and planet? Our guest this week has just completed a Masters at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and has written his thesis addressing this very problem and today, he comes to talk to us about his concept of the 'Stewardship Freehold Village', which feels like one of those ideas that is so obvious, it's amazing nobody thought of it before - but nobody did, or at least, if they did, it is lost in the toxic chaos of a trust-less planning system that rewards the most predatory of predatory capitalists. Michael Taite started his professional life working for a huge London developer - now long gone - and towards the end was responsible for a portfolio of thirteen developments with big residential schemes in Docklands and other sites in London, Manchester and the north east of England. While there, he passed over a dozen professional exams, which, amongst other things, gave him insights into the arcane depths of planning law. Since 1996, he has been self-employed and has split his time between his business, environmental and local community concerns. So, for instance, he served 19 years as the lead operational trustee for the Environmental Law Foundation, a UK national charity which secures free legal help for communities under threat. He has also served as a parish councillor and as a trustee of his local village hall and, with his wife Gail, ran their small brand strategy agency whose signature process was a system for consulting whole organisations to secure genuine, broad stakeholder support when radical change was scary but necessary. The agency’s slogan was BRAVE = SAFE which feels genuinely Thrutopian. Having attained his Masters from SOAS, Michael is now working on progressing the concepts which emerged from that process, in the hope that they might contribute to averting some of the worst aspects of the intertwined global catastrophes that we address all the time on this podcast. Links Michael's Substack on SFV Elinor Ostrom’s 8 Rules for Managing the Commons - Williams, Jeremy. The Earthbound Report, 15 Jan. 2018 Efficient public transport for semi-rural areas New homes industry profitabilty and problems - 1 profitable? Glasgow: UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence New homes industry profitabilty and problems - 2 Housing Design Audit for England. [online] London WC1: UCL Place Alliance. Available New homes industry profitabilty and problems - 3 Letwin, Rt Hon Sir, O. (2018). Independent Review of Build Out Final Report. London SW1: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. —About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'DREAMING YOUR DEATH AWAKE' which will run on Sunday 1st November 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT (NOTE THE TIME! - We'll be out of summertime then) - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Making Glorious Trouble with Uffe Elbaek, activist, system builder and author of Doubt, Hope, Action | 09 Sep 2026 | 01:21:44 | |
"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, ACTION We talk a lot on this podcast about the need for a new system: politically, culturally, in business, media and art…in everything we do. And yet, we don't often have the opportunity to talk with someone who has set up a new political party - still less one explicitly predicated on the core values of courage, generosity, transparency, humility, humour and empathy. You'd think it would be hard to argue against these, but, as Uffe Elbaek discovered when he entered the Danish Parliament…the system doesn't always want to be courageous, or transparent, or generous, or to embody humility, humour and empathy. Nonetheless, Uffe brought all of these things and more to his time in politics, and then, with classic clear-sightedness, stepped down and went on to found The Tomorrow Collective - and to write the book, Doubt, Hope, Action, which has recently been translated into English from the original Danish and is available in all good bookshops now. So what better time to talk to someone who has been in the heart of the old system, while creating a new one? For those of you who don't (yet) know him, Uffe is a Danish social worker, educator, author, entrepreneur, and activist. In 2011 he became member of the Danish Parliament for the Social Liberal Party and was made Minister for Culture. Two years later, he left to found and lead 'The Alternative' which was based on the six values we mentioned. He didn’t run for a seat in the national election November 2022 so he remains an unbeaten politician, which is quite an achievement. Apart from this, Uffe has been city councillor - in fact, he's the first openly gay man elected to Aarhus city's council, first openly gay man as Minister of Culture and as party leader in the Danish parliament. He's former Principal of the KaosPilots international education programme and he is now part of The Tomorrow Collective, which is a social and democratic innovation lab based in Denmark. With is sense that he is an outsider with inside experience, the common thread through everything Uffe has worked on is: We can do better. And right after that: How can we strengthen the life force in each individual, organisation and society as whole? Today, he is primarily concerned with how we as a society can support the ones building the new system we all know we need. All those who – across sectors and industries – are laying the foundations of a new post-capitalist society that respects planetary boundaries and leads us to be collaborators with the natural world. He lives with his husband Jens in the family home in Copenhagen, from where he joins us for this podcast. Links Uffe's website —About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'BECOMING A GOOD ANCESTOR' which will run on Sunday 13th September 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 BST - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| "We All Came By Boat!" - exploring Ireland & Britain’s ancient myths and the world’s future mythologies with Clare Murphy | 02 Sep 2026 | 01:10:19 | |
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 consults with people like NASA, the National Theatre, Climate activists, water protectors, first responders and limbless veterans. She's a Gatherer of world mythologies who seeks out the untold tales, the ones that were covered up by the hierarchies of blandness that came after them. She finds them and blows off the dust and breathes new life into them so the rest of us can step off the beaten track with her, and find new ways of being that could take us forward. Clare's a magician with the spoken word, a fire-spinner who understands the age-old magic of our voices, and the ways a few words can shift us into new, expansive ways of seeing and being. At the time we spoke, Clare had just completed the third edit of her book (Edit-envy? Me?!) and was gearing up for her outstanding one-woman show, 'We All Came By Boat' in Bristol later in September. As you'll hear, she's one of those people who lights up any room and helps people find—and then ignite—the fire in their own heads. So prepare to be ignited - Enjoy! Links
Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'BECOMING A GOOD ANCESTOR' which will run on Sunday 13th September 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 BST - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Love, Anger and Betrayal: Stories from the front line of Climate Action with Jonathon Porritt and Daniel Knorr | 26 Aug 2026 | 01:05:32 | |
“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 Secretary
What good are science and rational persuasion if no one is paying attention? The climate crisis deepens with terrifying predictability. Meanwhile, the courageous young campaigners who seek to wake us up to the truth of this, through peaceful direct action, are silenced and stuck in prison. Daniel Knorr is one of those young people. He was 22 years old at the time the book was published, and had previously studied biochemistry at Oxford with a view to engineering plants to be more resilient to extreme weather conditions. As you'll hear, he realised this was no longer where he needed to be, and joined Just Stop Oil, whose ethos and grounding question is: what does it make to be a good person in this time of collapse - or perhaps transition? I'll let him tell you his story, but—like the stories of the other 25 young people in the book—it's humbling and inspiring in equal measure. Jonathon Porritt is well known to anyone in the Green or eco-campaigning community in the UK. He was formerly Co-Chair of the Green Party (1980-83) and Director of Friends of the Earth (1984-90). He was a Board Member of The Southwest Regional Development Agency between 1999 and 2008. He stood down as Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission in 2009, after nine years providing high-level advice to Government Ministers, and served a ten-year term as Chancellor of Keele University (2012-2022). He was awarded a CBE in January 2000 for services to environmental protection. Together, we discuss Love, Anger and Betrayal, which brings Jonathan's experience as a long time campaigner into juxtaposition with the experiences of young people one third his age who are doing their best to make the world a better place. Theirs is a generation systematically betrayed by politicians. And by all of us who allow this to continue, on our watch, year after year. What comes across in this book, though, is that while Jonathan feels the kind of white hot rage that consumes many of us, Daniel and those around him are focusing on embodying love for each other and the planet. ‘We have a choice. Collective action or collective suicide. It is in our hands.’ -António Guterres Let's explore what we can do, shall we? Links —About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'BECOMING A GOOD ANCESTOR' which will run on Sunday 13th September 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 BST - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Honouring the Web of Life - Thoughts from the Edge #5 with Manda Scott | 19 Aug 2026 | 00:35:19 | |
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 Joyful Curiosity…and then adds a fourth: Honouring all aspects of the Web of Life. How does it feel to honour everything: the things we take for granted, the things we judge as being bad or wrong, the things that disturb us, as well as the things whose loss we grieve so deeply? Manda explores the idea that shifting to a place of honouring can transform our entire worldview and help us to find meaning and purpose in a world on fire. —About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'BECOMING A GOOD ANCESTOR' which will run on Sunday 13th September 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 BST - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Building Scaleable Trust - Of Identity, Commons and Governance with Grace Rachmany of Sideways Earth | 12 Aug 2026 | 01:30:54 | |
"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 coordination mechanics for scalable trust." Grace Rachmany: Sideways Earth on Github Friend of the podcast, Grace Rachmany is a mother, a tech industry trouble shooter, author of over a hundred white papers and co-author of the book, 'So you've got a DAO: Handbook for Distributed and Connected Leadership'. She's Executive Director of the Decentralized Identity Foundation and it's this that we're exploring today. It's long been established on this podcast that the old paradigm is not fit for purpose and is, in fact, in the process of disintegrating beneath our feet. We know we need to create communities of place, purpose and passion - but if we can do this, how do we find other communities to link with so we can:
This is the missing link that is often overlooked as we craft a way forward to a world that works, and I'm so glad someone with Grace's outstanding intellect and depth of heart is exploring this. And that she's willing to come here and talk about it. So here we go: a wide, deep, full conversation on the missing link of scaleable trust. Enjoy! Links Grace's website —About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'BECOMING A GOOD ANCESTOR' which will run on Sunday 13th September 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 BST - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| The Art of Possibility - A Possitopian approach to the Earth Crisis with Bridget McKenzie of Earth Talk | 05 Aug 2026 | 01:08:01 | |
"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 people with what she calls the Earth Crisis -which is a new term to me but feels a much better fit than MetaCrisis or Polycrisis. Her career includes being Tate’s Education manager and the British Library’s Head of Learning. In 2006, she founded Flow Associates, a research consultancy in cultural learning. In the past decade, she has focused on the intersection of culture and environment, and has developed training, collectives and campaigns pushing at the radical edges of this field. This includes founding Climate Museum UK, a creative collective putting the Earth Crisis in context, and Earth Talk, a community of practice for Earth Literacy. She co-founded Culture Declares, a movement of cultural workers declaring a planetary emergency. She experiments with creative activism in her city of Norwich. And creative activism is what we're all about - how do we stretch our imaginations beyond the bounds of what we believe to be true now, to what might be true if we can only lay the foundations for something utterly outside our current capacity to imagine? This was such an inspiring conversation with someone who thinks deeply about the nature of art, creativity, culture - and the ways we can engage ourselves and each other at the deepest level. Links Bridget's Website —About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'BECOMING A GOOD ANCESTOR' which will run on Sunday 13th September 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 BST - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Creditism: Building the Ledger of Life with Remzi Bajrami of the Common Planet Foundation | 29 Jul 2026 | 01:37:08 | |
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 dilemma. In his words, Creditism is— - a new economic system designed around life instead of debt. Credit flows to people because existence itself has value — it circulates through life, then clears. It supports living without becoming a permanent claim on the future. - a non-debt economic system designed to replace extraction with flow, scarcity with access, and coercion with coordination. Where today’s money is largely created through debt and accumulated as power, Creditism reframes money as credit: a shared unit of access created through existence, earned through contribution, and dissolved when used. - the gateway to a global economy that is cleaner, fairer, and more life-aligned — one that supports human potential, community self-governance, and planetary regeneration. Creditism is the economic architecture for a species that wants to survive. There are still some unanswered questions in this, but there are always going to be until we get moving with something, test it out and reinvent it on the fly. What Remzi and his colleagues have done is to set up a system that you can join now - or at least in early August 2026 - and become a part of a network that will test this out. in the meantime, Remzi has written a series of Substacks which lay out in straightforward terms how the current system is predicated on power over, how money works - because we can't hear that one too often - and how creditism could work instead. Enjoy! Links —About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'BECOMING A GOOD ANCESTOR' which will run on Sunday 13th September 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| We Need a Victory Story: Mobilising the Silent Majority with Liam Kavanagh of the Climate Majority Project | 22 Jul 2026 | 01:36:45 | |
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 Stories' to show how we made it through. Liam is a founding Co-Director of the Climate Majority Project, an organisation that has worked since 2022 to extend climate action beyond the vocal minority of activists to the concerned but quiet majority. His social science background informs CMP’s theory of change and strategy. He began his career as an applied economist in New York and Tanzania. Motivated by questions about ideology and cognitive dissonance in political economy, he completed a PhD in Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego. In 2016, he co-founded Life Itself, a European polycrisis-response network (we spoke to Sylvie Barbier from Life Itself a few weeks ago), and has authored two books and numerous reports. His latest reports: Mobilising Silent Majorities is one of the must-reads of this year. Please do download and read the pdf - at least the executive summary. This is a long, detailed, dynamic look at how many people really do care about the polycrisis. As he says, 'Across society, many people recognise serious risks—climate disruption, inequality, instability—but these concerns often stay private. The report identifies six “silent majorities” whose hidden views could shift what feels politically possible:
When concern remains unspoken, it appears weaker than it is. And when people feel alone in their worries, silence becomes the apparently safest choice. But it doesn't have to be like this. What if we were able to speak up in our communities of place, purpose and passion and let other people know they're not alone? That we are, in fact, a huge, huge majority? What if we were able to seed ideas out into the conversations that are happening on- and off-line so that we all acknowledge the system is not fit for purpose and all have good, workable ideas of how to fix it? What if we embodied the 'Victory Stories' of this time and transformed our future? It's all to play for now, and here's someone with the ideas at his fingertips. Enjoy! Liam on LinkedIn —About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'BECOMING A GOOD ANCESTOR' which will run on Sunday 13th September 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| We Need to Talk about Tech: Exploring AI, fresh Hope…and the power of Song with Nathalie Nahai | 15 Jul 2026 | 01:30:09 | |
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 capitalism at its most rapacious. We turn this week to long-time friend of the podcast, Nathalie Nahai. Nathalie is a celebrated author, keynote speaker and host of the glorious Nathalie Nahai in Conversation podcast which enquires into our relationship with one another, with technology and with the living world. She’s author of the international best-seller Webs Of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion and, more recently, Business Unusual: Values, Uncertainty and the Psychology of Brand Resilience which has been described as “One of the defining business books of our times”. She’s a consultant, artist and the founder of Flourishing Futures Salon, a project that offers curated gastronomical gatherings that explore how we can thrive in times of turbulence and change.
Nathalie's website Books Papal Encyclical on AI PEOPLE
EVENTS
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—About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'BECOMING A GOOD ANCESTOR' which will run on Sunday 13th September 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Grown Up Politics: 2. How can Andy Burnham deliver a future that works? With Rupert Read and Clive Lewis MP | 12 Jul 2026 | 01:11:37 | |
In today's bonus episode, we're delighted to joined again by Rupert Read, Co-Director of the Climate Majority Project, and newly, by Clive Lewis, the Labour MP for Norwich South to explore the potential of this pivotal moment. We recorded on one of the hottest days of one of the hottest years in human history with the El Niño effect due to ramp up considerably in the next 12-18 months. We're at a moment of geopolitical instability engineered by the hard-right (although here in the UK we have the summer silly-season comedy interlude of Nigel Farage deciding to charge the taxpayer for an unnecessary by-election and finding himself opposed primarily by man wearing a bin on his head. Link here for non UK listeners who may find this somewhat confusing). That apart, what do we who care about a future we'd be proud to leave behind really want from our politicians? At this stage, there's all to hope for, so we talked to two deeply thoughtful, motivated people who spend all of their time working for exactly this future, thinking about how we get from where we are to a place that offers hope to future generations - and who are capable of talking eloquently, in detail - and wisely about the steps we can take to walk us through from where we are, to where we need to be. This is Thrutopian Politics in action. Enjoy!
Clive's Website —About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'BECOMING A GOOD ANCESTOR' which will run on Sunday 13th September 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Healthy People=Healthy Planet=Healthy Future with Dr Amanda d'Almeida of Medicine Explained | 08 Jul 2026 | 01:21:13 | |
How do we create healthy people, intimately enmeshed in a healthy biosphere so that, together, we can co-create routes to a healthy future? Amanda d'Almeida is one of these - a truly remarkable woman. She's a family medicine doctor by training, and for most of us, going through a medical degree takes all that we've got. For Amanda, not so much. While studying medicine, she also read for a Masters in Public Health - and wrote her thesis on the role of Regenerative Agriculture in community health. At the same time, she and her partner set up Medicine Explained on Instagram and TikTok, with the intent of sharing accessible information as widely as possible - their social media accounts have 1.6 million followers, so by any measure, we could say that's succeeding. She co-founded and hosts The Nuance: a community health podcast exploring the nuance lost in today's discourse and centering narratives often not represented in media. The focus is on social and community medicine topics, specifically highlighting the intersection of human and planetary health including environmental and climate justice. She also co-founded the climate health co-op because she and her partner had been asked during multiple conferences to consult with folks on how to create engaging media, and instead created a community of healthcare professionals, artists, storytellers, professors, organizers, community members, activists, humans on this earth who are dedicated to advance climate justice, environmental justice, and health equity through multimedia content production to shift narratives and create real-world impact from social media and beyond.
And now, at the age of thirty one, Amanda has completed her Fellowship in Community Medicine. She's about to take a very well deserved 2 months off, but just ahead of going away, we sat down for this conversation. If you want reasons to hope, Amanda d'Almeida offers them in spades.
Lyla June's Paper 'Architects of Abundance: Indigenous Regenerative Food and Land Management Systems'
Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'BECOMING A GOOD ANCESTOR' which will run on Sunday 13th September 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Podcasters Unite! Thinking about systemic change with Tim Logan, Nathalie Nahai, Amit Paul, and Manda Scott | 05 Jul 2026 | 01:00:21 | |
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, Amit Paul is a former popstar and CEO of green chemicals company Paxymer AB turned systems dancer. No, he's co-founder of Innrwrks and host of World of Wisdom podcast, exploring how business can create a future we want for our kids. Amit hosts explorative conversations, facilitates group work and advices and supports companies navigating the current ecological, social and technological paradigm shifts.
Tim Logan is an education leader, connector and facilitator. Bringing his extensive learning from a global career in youth work, teaching, school leadership and consultancy, Tim has worked with prominent clients around the world to develop new and innovative approaches to learning, well-being and youth engagement. Most recently, on behalf of International Baccalaureate, Tim co-created Festival of Hope with Jennifer Bahrami, which is growing as part of a broader portfolio of IB youth initiatives. Tim is also host/producer of the Future Learning Design podcast.
—About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'BECOMING A GOOD ANCESTOR' which will run on Sunday 13th September 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Design for the Ineffable: Crafting a Flourishing world with Dr Jenna Mikus | 01 Jul 2026 | 01:06:27 | |
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 table…we'd be well on the way to the transformation we need to get us through the pinch points of the climate, cultural and technological apocalypses that are heading our way. So in today's episode, we're talking with someone who crosses many disciplines in search of eudaimonia - the concept of human flourishing, of 'finding our best self' proposed by Plato and expanded by Aristotle. Dr Jenna Mikus is an engineer and architect by training, and is now a consultant and strategic advisor who specialises in balancing architectural science with wellbeing science to promote flourishing health and wellbeing by design across a wide range of environments. As you'll hear, she did her PhD during lockdown in the ways it might be possible to help elderly people find meaning and purpose - in scientific terms, to attain self determination - in their lives. And now she is an academic and consultant who acts as an ideas "alchemist," helping companies curate environments & experiences for eudaimonia to support optimal health and wellbeing, precipitate ineffable emotions like delight & awe, promote meaning, inspire creativity, & catalyse belonging, and innovate. She's founder of the Eauda-Group and helped found the 'Flourishing by Design' (FxD) community of practice affiliated with Harvard's Human Flourishing Network. In a world where those who accumulate wealth are increasingly leaning towards mass extinction as if it were somehow going to be useful, it's so refreshing to explore the ways we can be differently human. Enjoy!
Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'BECOMING A GOOD ANCESTOR' which will run on Sunday 13th September 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| The Art of the Sacred with Sylvie Barbier of Second Renaissance and Life Itself | 24 Jun 2026 | 01:11:33 | |
"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. Our work is to inquire about what would a world that works for everyone look like?"
The Life Itself website says, 'We are pragmatic utopians, committed to practical action for a radically wiser, weller world. We create conscious coliving hubs, start businesses, do research and engage in activism to pioneer a wiser culture and plant the seeds of a second renaissance.' The Second Renaissance is an initiative of Life Itself which acknowledges that we live in a moment of potential crisis and collective rebirth and offers a home to the growing community of people who are working to make this rebirth happen. Sylvie is an artist of extraordinary scope and depth and so the role of art in that rebirth is the focus of this episode, but we ranged far and deep into the nature of healing our shadows so that we can heal the ancestral and descendant lines, so that we can become the ancestors our descendants are proud of; we explored the nature of ritual in building new beginnings and helping endings; as we did with the Brother from nearby Plum Village, we explored the nature of life and death and how we can meet our own deaths with grace and joy and hope. Above all, we explored how we can fall in love with living - with life itself - so that we might lay strong foundations for real transformation.
Sylvie's website
Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'WALKING THE PATH OF THE INNER WARRIOR' which will run on Sunday 28th June 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Mothering the Future we'd be proud to leave behind - with author and activist Zineb Mouhyi | 17 Jun 2026 | 01:14:52 | |
"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, nourishing it, teaching it to know itself, trusting it." These are the words of our guest this week, mother, writer, scholar and activist: Zineb Mouhyi in her forthcoming book series, on 'Mothering Liberation'. She defines mothering as the everyday politics - available to all people in all bodies - of tending to life and making every child ours. The book series will be made of three books. The first on mothering ourselves, the second on mothering our children, and the third on mothering the world. Zineb has been an advocate for social change through education, notably through the charitable organizations she co-founded — YouthxYouth & the Weaving Lab — and through her PhD research on the role of education in the Palestinian liberation struggle. I've been privileged to read the early chapters of her books as she is writing them (a courageous act in its own right) and can safely say that this is one of those life-changing works that could move us all to the collective tipping point we need. At a time when the world feels increasingly unstable, making a commitment to the flourishing of all life is central to the way forward. Enjoy! Links Zineb's website —About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'WALKING THE PATH OF THE INNER WARRIOR' which will run on Sunday 28th June 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Grown Up Politics: A Chance for Change - Round Table with Neal Lawson of Compass and Rupert Read of the Climate Majority Project | 10 Jun 2026 | 00:59:50 | |
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, high-bandwidth politics that ditches the toxic tribalism and instead lays the ground for a future that could actually work. We're joined this week by Neal Lawson, co-founder and Executive Director of the progressive pressure group, Compass; and Rupert Read, Co-Director of the Climate Majority Project. Neal is a member of the Labour Party, and Rupert of the Green party and we came together to discuss the forthcoming by-election in Makerfield, where Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester is standing as a candidate, with a view to standing for leadership of the Labour Party if he wins. His main challenger is the Reform party led by Nigel Farage. The Greens are newly invigorated after their recent win in the Gorton and Denton by-election in Manchester, so there has been a lot of conversation in progressive circles as to whether the Greens should step away to give Burnham a clear run. This seemed a good moment to have a vigorous conversation - to explore the possibilities and potential and the routes forward should Burnham win.
—About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'WALKING THE PATH OF THE INNER WARRIOR' which will run on Sunday 28th June 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Breaking open the Story of Bread: How stories of food can change the future with Abby Rose of Farmerama | 03 Jun 2026 | 01:10:48 | |
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 the field. Then, in 2019, the co-founders, Abby Rose and Jo Barratt worked with Katie Revell to produce their first in-depth series Cereal, which looked at the process of creating bread, from seed to loaf. In April of this year, Farmerama launched a new project Cereal Revisited, looking at the real-world impact of their podcast, and how Farmerama's stories helped listeners take action, both big and small. This is a story of Thrutopia in action and we are really delighted to welcome one of the co-founders, Abby Rose to this podcast. Abby continues to lead the podcast today (the team is all women) and is both a farmer and soil health advocate. She was named one of 50 New Radicals by The Guardian and Nesta in 2018 for her work developing simple apps that help build ecology, profitability and beauty on farms around the world, and then in 2020, she was named in Code Hospitality’s Top 100 Influential Women in Hospitality. Farmerama Radio itself was named Best Investigative Work and Best Food Podcast at the Guild of Food Writers Awards 2020 and won Best Environment and Natural World podcast at the Independent Podcast Awards 2024. So for a story that really gets to the heart of the power of story, please do listen and enjoy. Links Farmerama website —About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'WALKING THE PATH OF THE INNER WARRIOR' which will run on Sunday 28th June 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Trust like the Web (of Life) trusts - Biomimicry for Social Innovation with Toby Herzlich | 27 May 2026 | 01:24:28 | |
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 life. At an intellectual level, we know we're integral nodes in the web, but we still behave as if it were other, and out there and not - yet - as if it were a source of wisdom and wonder and wholehearted support: an ancient mentor that has tried and tested enough options to know what works. So how can we bring the astonishing, creative insights of Biomimicry to the field of human inter-being? How can we shift our sense of self and other, our communities of place, purpose and passion, our businesses, our governance structures…everything that we are and do onto a different trajectory using the web of life as our template? Biomimicry for Social Innovation asks exactly these questions and in this episode, we're talking to its founder, Toby Herzlich. Toby is a facilitator, trainer, executive coach, and organizational consultant. She is a Certified Biomimicry Specialist and Founder of Biomimicry for Social Innovation, which exists to translate ecosystem intelligence and Life’s Principles into leadership and social change strategies. As you'll hear, she's part of the team that developed The Nature of Trust, and its 8-principle framework for building and maintaining trust, which is so essential in any network of sovereign individuals whether they're bees, or penguins, elks or geese - or people. Living in northern New Mexico, Toby dedicated 20 years as a Senior Trainer with the Rockwood Leadership Institute and continues to support leaders and organizations through coaching and consulting inspired by nature. Her clients include Executives at National Geographic Society, The Sierra Club, and The Cultural Conservancy. She is passionate about creating innovative approaches to collaboration, building, and guiding diverse networks including the Biomimicry Professional Certification two-year training cohorts, the Volgeneau Climate Initiative, North Carolina’s statewide progressive voter network, and the Indigenous Mycelium Gathering of 2025 - there's a link in the show notes and you will definitely want to explore that. Toby is the founding co-facilitator of the Living Systems Leadership Retreats for Women and has supported the capacity-building of women leaders in war-torn countries of the Balkans and the Middle East. There are so many richly inspiring pathways that Toby has opened as a result of bringing a social change and leadership development branch into Biomimicry - collaborating deeply with that larger movement and, at heart and core, with the Web of Life. This was one of those conversations that could have gone on forever. It didn't, we stopped at a reasonable time and are definitely planning to cycle back with each other. And the cats visited—Toby's and mine—which always makes a podcast flow with extra energy. Enjoy! The Nature of Trust toolkit (free and online) Living Systems Leadership Retreat for Women- in NM Aug 31-Sept 5 - open for registration! Intro to Biomimicry for Social Innovation - virtual 4-week workshop, starts in October Nature of Trust Co-Lab - virtual 10-week deep dive training, starts in September Toby on LinkedIn (funny, when I open this, it asks me to join LinkedIn, rather than taking me to the page) Other BSI resources: Life’s Principles Leadership Cards - a deck of 52 cards for learning and Nature Tarot! Nature Positive Practices - delivering Nature’s genius to your inbox twice a week!
Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'WALKING THE PATH OF THE INNER WARRIOR' which will run on Sunday 28th June 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| 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 | 20 May 2026 | 01:04:20 | |
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 could it and would it be like if each of us woke up every morning feeling safe, feeling confident in our ability to meet the challenges of the day in ways that would leave the world a better place? How would we feel if every moment of life was alive with a sense of meaning and purpose, of connection to all parts of ourselves, each other and the web of life? We ask these questions regularly of our guests, but once in a while, it's useful to unpick them in detail, to give ourselves the Motivation, Agency, Direction and Empowerment we need, so we can open doors for others in our communities of place, purpose and passion. Link to the Thrutopia website - what is Thrutopian thinking? —About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'WALKING THE PATH OF THE INNER WARRIOR' which will run on Sunday 28th June 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Playing the (New) Money Game - how to recreate sustainable money with Stef Kuypers of Happonomy | 13 May 2026 | 01:25:21 | |
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 Kuypers is an astonishing individual. He taught himself coding at age 14 and moved into a career in IT - but he's a complete polymath and, after working the fields of creative thinking, improvisation, and business interventions, he took a deep dive into economics, monetary systems, complexity theory and human behaviour. Today he researches how monetary systems influence both our individual behavior and how it affects the way we organize our society. He's creator of the Sustainable Money Model and works for Happonomy in Belgium. He's also aware that we don't just need a system that will work differently, we need to find ways to help people transcend the inner blocks that tell us the existing system is the only one that can work and anything else is unrealistic. So, as an avid gamer online and on tabletops, he's devised board games that help people to experience what it's like to live in worlds that work differently. And if you or anyone listening is associated with any kinds of games companies, please let us know - because regenerative gaming that models regenerative ways of living has to be one of the ways forward. That apart, we explored many routes to money and how we might handle it differently - enjoy! Links Papers on ResearchGate.net —About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'FALLING IN LOVE WITH LIFE' which will run on Sunday 17th May 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Brave Containers: Sharing stories, pushing boundaries & creating trust with the Generative Journalism Alliance | 06 May 2026 | 01:11:13 | |
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 that lets everyone feel heard and so sweeps beneath the tribal divisions to the heart of things, where we all care about a future that feels safe, and open, where we all feel confident and heard and seen, where we can bring our soul's growth to the table and be taken seriously. So how do we achieve this social sculpting? This week, we're talking to three members of the Generative Journalism Alliance to find out how they bring these very skills to disparate people in disparate places, to bring about real world changes. Tchiyiwe Thandiwe Chihana was born in Bradford to Zambian born parents, and her existence is a tapestry of migration through generations. She is a public-interest broadcaster & moderator, building civic storytelling platforms that connect institutions & communities. Managing Director, African Voices Platform (TV & DAB) and Co-Founder, Generative Journalism Alliance Peter Pula has been exploring the pathways to social evolution since founding the Grassroots Review in Canada in 1992. Since then he has been actively involved in federal politics, led a corporate communications firm and established the practice of Generative Journalism in an international arena. Jack Becher is a systems change facilitator and story weaver with a background shaped by social-ecological movements. They are the Co-Founder and Steward of the Generative Journalism Alliance, Beyond Patriarchy, Sideways, Foundations Earth and the Kinstead. This conversation opens doorways to a future where we have the wide, deep skills to move through the tribal divisions that our current system stokes so effectively, towards a place where we discover what matters to us most, and find ways to give everyone a sense of agency, of meaning and purpose, of being and belonging. This is how change happens, one conversation at a time and the Generative Journalism Alliance is hosting those conversations with deep integrity. Tchiyiwe on LinkedIn —About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'FALLING IN LOVE WITH LIFE' which will run on Sunday 17th May 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Collective Effervescence - ReDefining a Democracy that Works with Isabella Roberts of ANTIPARTY | 29 Apr 2026 | 01:12:07 | |
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 chaos, the death cult of predatory capitalism. These are so interlinked, we won't fix one unless we fix them all. So how do we do it? This week, I'm talking to someone who spends her life reflecting on, teaching and researching this. Isabella Roberts started off in the Big Four, Private Equity and Investment Banking, then switched from the private markets into politics at the start of 2021 as a candidate for the London Assembly elections. Against the backdrop of the UK's first year out of the EU and in the depths of the COVID pandemic, she was inspired to take a stand and be the change she wanted to see in the governance of the UK's capital. She then took on a Masters in Digital Politics and Sustainable Development. Her thesis in 2023 focused on How Collective Intelligence Can Enhance Democracy, which resulted in the initiation of SAAFE which stands for: Space for Silent Contemplation and Reflection, Active Listening and Feeling Heard, Ability to Change One's Mind, Feeling Connected as Part of the Whole, Epistemic Growth and Epistemic Humility - and which uses human-centred design principles for empowering participants in tech-enabled deliberation. This is an inquiry into what it means to be human in a digital age, in line with systems change towards a more deliberative democracy, and it has manifested in a multi-stakeholder project supported by the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton, bringing together democratic practitioners and the developers of deliberative technologies. Meanwhile, Bella is the independent evaluator of two deliberative processes: the Birmingham Museums Trust Citizens' Jury, and currently the National Gallery's Citizens' Assembly (NG Citizens). Bella has explored the depth and breadth of what works, so that together, we can create a democracy that empowers ordinary people to help fix their communities and the wider world. Like previous podcast guests, Matt Golding of Antidote and Dylan McGarry of Empatheatre, Bella understands the sense of meaning and purpose and involvement that is so transformative - which was why this conversation was so rich and so deep. Enjoy! Links Books —About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'FALLING IN LOVE WITH LIFE' which will run on Sunday 17th May 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Zen and the Age of Celtic Buddhism with Brother Phap Linh from Plum Village Monastery | 22 Apr 2026 | 01:46:56 | |
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, and if we have one central crisis in our world today, it's one of meaning-making. Even more than our failure to make sense of anything, is our search for a sense of meaning and purpose that must, surely, underlie everything. Where we fall down is in thinking that what we can see, hear, taste, smell, feel is the sum total of all there is: if we can't sense it - if we can't measure it - then it isn't there - and it doesn't matter. This is the kind of frame that underlies the entire death cult of predatory capitalism; it's the core of how we have made the world work…and it's falling apart under our feet and in front of our eyes. Which makes it a really good time indeed to talk to someone who spends their entire life contemplating the nature of reality, in finding ways to be fully present and then being this in a way that ripples out to anyone and everyone nearby, human and more than human. Brother Phap Linh, also known as Brother Spirit, is a Buddhist monk from Plum Village, the Zen monastery founded by the late Thich Nhat Hanh near Bergerac in south west France. Brother Phap Linh is someone who radiates presence, that sense of inter-being or inter-becoming that arise when we are fully present. As you'll hear, he began life as a musician and mathematician and then, in searching for the nature of reality, found Plum Village and his teacher. He and Thich Nhat Hanh planned a book: Wonder: Where Zen meets Science. It's being published later next year and we'll have another conversation explicitly about the book, but today, we wanted to explore the routes towards a way of being that all of us can follow. This was a wide, deep conversation and felt absolutely right for the chaos of these times. Please share the calm with us, and the joy of discovery.
Plum Village —About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'FALLING IN LOVE WITH LIFE' which will run on Sunday 17th May 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Wise. Just. Courageous. Temperate - Stoicism as a Living Path to Connection with Victoria Hurth | 15 Apr 2026 | 01:31:40 | |
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 to the table, with outcomes as information, ready to engage with what is, for what matters, and not to force how we think things ought to be. Imagine us working to govern this way of being so our our actions are shaped, moment by moment, day by day, year by year, decade by decade as we turn the bus that is humanity - the entire ecosphere, really - from the edge of the cliff that is mass extinction to collective enduring flourishing. This is the vision of this week's guest, Dr Victoria Hurth. Victoria was with us back in Episode #308 and I have put a link in the show notes so you can listen as she describes her new book, Beyond Profit; Purpose-Driven Leadership for a Wellbeing Economy and the ISO 37011 Standard which she is helping lead - and which is framed exactly around these philosophical concepts. Near the end of that podcast, Victoria mentioned that she is a practicing Stoic, and that she finds within its teachings, a moral philosophy compatible with our navigating the pinch point of the poly crisis. And so clearly, we had to have another conversation. This is it. As we did last time, we ranged far and wide touching on what it means to be in service to the world; how we might choose to live a purpose-driven life and what that purpose might be; what does it mean, anyway, to live a good life, and can everyone access it? We explored the difference between religion, spirituality and philosophy and ethics, how we can expand to whole systems, or see ourselves as a system and how we might live a life that is wise, just, courageous and temperate. As a bit of background, Dr Victoria Hurth is an Independent Pracademic who works in service to the world clarifying its consensus on what matters, before we lose it. She firmly believes that we need to dedicate ourselves to the long-term wellbeing of all as the ultimate shared purpose, and then co-create the outer-most governance system to frame the strategies/behaviours/outcomes that will take us there. We don’t need everyone to sign up, but we do need a critical mass of people at all levels of our organisations from government, to NGOs to industry and beyond.
To this end, Victoria co-led the five-year development of the global ISO standard in Governance of Organizations (ISO37000), was Technical Author for the first national standard in Purpose-Driven Organizations and is currently Project Leader of the development of an equivalent ISO (ISO37011). Victoria is a Fellow of the University of Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership (CISL), Director at the Soil Association Certification Ltd and advises Planet Mark, and UnaTerra Venture Capital. She has over 25 years’ global experience in business transformation and is a full time Associate Professor of Marketing and Sustainable Business. Alongside all this, she is also a practicing Stoic. Links Episode #308 Victoria’s website Purpose-Driven Organisations– community Books —About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'FALLING IN LOVE WITH LIFE' which will run on Sunday 17th May 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Sculpting Invisible Materials: Expanding Empathy in the Hot Mess of Now with Dylan McGarry of Empatheatre | 08 Apr 2026 | 01:11:12 | |
“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 McGarry Empathy 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 generosity of spirit we'd like others to bring to us, wide as the sky, deep as the oceans, so that we can see through their eyes as the best of who they are. Obviously, we can do this with other people, but we can do it too, with whales, with elephants, with horses, and red kites and moles and spiders - and mountains and trees and landscapes… empathy is the spark that connects us to the More than Human world. There are not many people who truly understand this and fewer still who make it their life's work to open the doors in our souls with such subtlety that we only know afterwards that we've stepped beyond the boundaries of who we think we are. Our guest this week, Dr Dylan McGarry, is one of these people. Dyl works across the fields of Education, Sociology, Ecology, and the Arts. An Educational Sociologist, Cultural Ecologist, multimedia artist, artivist, curator, theatre and filmmaker, Dyl's work spans disciplines with many tentacles touching the world. Dyl holds a PhD in Environmental Education and Art, as well as degrees in Marine Science, Environmental Science, and Sustainable Rural Development. As co-founder of Empatheatre, their praxis draws from the power of public storytelling, theatre, film, and animation, as a tool for regenerative community building, proactive justice, active empathy and meaning making. Their artwork and creative practice are particularly focused on empathy, working with imagination, listening and empathy as actual sculptural materials. They are developing pedagogies for empathy, in the context of ecological citizenship, and exploring the sculptural potential of empathy, attentiveness, intuition and learning. Dyl is an astonishingly prolific, and inspiring pracademic, with a host of published papers in topics that I could easily dive into for years - like hydro-feminism... but it's the work of Empatheatre that we're really looking at today. This is a theatre-based approach to transgressive social learning, and an extra-legal alternative to democratising policy change. This in itself is mind-blowing - the plays are developed over months or years in collaboration with the communities affected by the concepts - and then when the play tours, the cast and crew facilitate conversations after each event that turn into tribunals or citizen's assemblies and the mere fact of having experienced the deep emotions of the play, had a sense of how things land with other people, can open doors that were previously closed. I've been searching for longer than this podcast has been live for people who are crafting paradigm shift in ways that are sticky, that will land and last - and this is it. Dylan says that empathy has three components: Imagination, attentiveness, and intuition. And just hearing this opens whole new ways of being for me, and I hope for you. This was such a heart-filling, generative conversation and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. People of the podcast, please welcome Dylan McGarry from Empatheatre, and so much more.
Empatheatre on YouTube https://youtu.be/e3tUrfUXgsw?si=tQRxPTSLHgkDwckG Isitha Sabantu Teaser South African Puppet Company: The Herds The play: Isitha Sabantu - review
Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'FALLING IN LOVE WITH LIFE' which will run on Sunday 17th May 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Towards the Symbiocene: Building an Eco-Civilisation with thought-leader, Jeremy Lent | 01 Apr 2026 | 01:13:18 | |
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 of Meaning and now to his latest in this seminal trifecta: Ecocivilization: Making a World That Works For All. We spoke to Jeremy back in Episode #301 to lay the foundations of the book, to explore the ways the current system is not fit for purpose and then to leave the door open for this episode, which is timed so that you can pre-order the book in plenty of time - it's out on the 26th of May in the US and the 28th in the UK. This is a genuinely Thrutopian book in that it lays out pathways - route maps - towards a future we'd be proud to leave behind. Nobody is pretending these are the only routes, but I think we are all agreed that the values and beliefs underpinning the new system will have to be coherent in the same way the values of power-over and beliefs in separation, scarcity and powerlessness are core to what Jeremy called Wendigo Inc. and we tend to call the Death Cult of Predatory Capitalism. I'm sure Jeremy needs no introduction to anyone in this field, but there's always someone for whom this is the first podcast - you're so welcome here, thank you - and so for those to whom some of the people and ideas are new, Jeremy Lent was born in London, has a BA in English Literature from Cambridge University, an MBA from the University of Chicago, and was a former internet company CEO. Now, he is an author, speaker and founder of the Deep Transformation Network, a global community exploring pathways to an ecological civilization. He is the author of the three books we mentioned, and is helping to co-create an EcoCivilisation Visioning Forum and various other umbrella seed-banks to help bring his ideas into being. He is one of those people who has given his life to the emerging of a system that will work for all life. Jeremy's Website: https://www.jeremylent.com TOUR DATES: [] Guardian article on global tipping point https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/13/coral-reefs-ice-sheets-amazon-rainforest-tipping-point-global-heating-scientists-report
—About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'FALLING IN LOVE WITH LIFE' which will run on Sunday 17th May 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| The Joy of Becoming Lost: Maps, Myths and Navigating the meta-crisis with Sam Crosby of Recalling Fire | 25 Mar 2026 | 01:25:42 | |
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 we do from picking a career to moving house, from finding our life's co-creator(s) to choosing what to have for lunch is underpinned by stories of who we are and how the world works. Often, we take these stories so much for granted that we don't even recognise they are stories - we genuinely believe the world works like this. But then once in a while, someone comes along with such great heart and deep, compassionate fluency in the many layers of our myths that they can weave magic wild enough to turn the bus that is humanity from the edge of the cliff - or at the very least, they can help us imagine what it is to be something entirely other, with no bus and no cliff. This week's guest, Sam Crosby, is one such myth-weaver. Sam is founder of Recalling Fire, the oral storytelling practice bringing ancient courage to modern leadership challenges. Guided by the work of Dr Martin Shaw at the School of Myth, fellow of the Bio-Leadership Project, mentor for A Band of Brothers and Alumnus of the Dartington College of Arts, he works with individuals and organisations all around the world, helping us to weave, re-weave the stories of our lives. Of this process, he says, '…after sharing reverential space and stories with hundreds of people as an oral storyteller and hundreds of thousands more as a consultant for culture, I believe stories and careful word choice have what it takes to guide us further down.' This conversation was rich and deeply layered. We explored Arthurian Legend (fwiw, I think A Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff remains the best Arthurian book, though Mary Stewart's Crystal Cave trilogy was my introduction to the whole genre and while I could never bring myself to read the third book, the first two were stellar), through a story of choice and agency, through the nature of grief and gratitude, love, loss and death as a Rite of Passage to the nature of story in modern politics: everything was here in a truly generative long-hour's conversation. Enjoy!
Sign up here for Sam's next event in May https://www.recallingfire.com/tristan-and-isolde-2026
—About Accidental Gods— Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'FALLING IN LOVE WITH LIFE' which will run on Sunday 17th May 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Pull from the heart, don't push from the head: Spreading Stories that Work with Matt Golding of Antidote | 18 Mar 2026 | 01:28:42 | |
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 can shape new narratives. Since the early days of the internet, Matt has been breaking rules and breaking new ground. He's a strategist, writer & filmmaker using story to excite people about the possible future that's emerging all around us - that works better for the majority. He believes the stories we share shape the culture we inhabit, and with a background in viral campaigns, he's fascinated with how we can use creativity, heart and humour to shape stories people share - that unlock a more positive future. As director of impact and social change studio, Rubber Republic, he was as the forefront of a movement that used shareable content campaigns to engage mass audiences with a better future. Historically, he worked with brands like Disney, eBay, Channel 4, BBC, Fiat and Yorkshire Tea, but since 2019 he has committed only to work with organisations 100% committed to creating a future that functions for all. He's the founder of ANTIDOTE - a positive storytelling platform sharing stories of collective action by ordinary people that are changing our world for the better. Matt says that it's 'an experiment in reshaping how we find and tell collective action stories to see if we can get them more mainstream traction and appeal, and make them more invitational so we can get more people to be inspired into action.' Which is as Thrutopian as it gets. And, on top of all this, he's co-host of the recently launched - and absolutely brilliant - podcast 'Screw This, Let's Try Something Else...' sharing stories of ordinary communities creating extraordinary change. And then finally, on top of all of this, there's a postcode search tool, so you can get involved in transformative things wherever you are (in the UK - though at some point, someone will stretch it worldwide) In a crazy-making world, join us for a dose of inspiring sanity, creativity and hope. Links Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/screw-this-lets-try-something-else/id1863391095 Postcode Search Tool (find collective action near you): https://www.antidotelive.studio/near-you Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattgolding/ Substack: https://mattgolding.substack.com/ Rubber Republic https://www.rubberrepublic.com/
Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'FINDING YOUR SOUL'S PURPOSE' which will run on Sunday 22nd March 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Open Mind, Open Heart: Evolving the nature of Eldering with Alain Gauthier of the Regenerative Elder Process | 11 Mar 2026 | 01:06:02 | |
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 co-founder and coordinator of the Regenerative Elder Process at the Elders Action Network. With John Izzo, he is co-host of The Way Forward Regenerative Conversations podcast and over his long life, he has been an international consultant, facilitator, coach, researcher-educator, and author. His book Actualising Evolutionary Co-Leadership: To Evolve a Creative and Responsible Society was published in 2014 - and is only available on Kindle (sorry) - but it is nonetheless a fascinating and inspiring read. A graduate from HEC (Paris), with an MBA from Stanford University, Alain was once a senior consultant at McKinsey & Company, As you'll hear, a life-changing experience led him to co-found Core Leadership Development in Oakland, California and to focus his professional work on developing co-leadership, partnering and coaching capabilities. Now in his eighties and as an elder, he devotes his time to co-creating conditions for elders to explore how they can live a regenerative life and collaborate with younger generations in transforming education and community life.
Over the last seven years, he has been an active member of the Elders Action Network (EAN), where he initially led a visionary planning process and now co-leads the Regenerative Elder Process (REP) – which, this April (2026) is offering for the seventh time an in-depth exploration called Embodying Regenerative Worldviews. He co-leads the REP Community and is a member of the Advisory Council of Elders Rising, EAN’s educational arm. Links Peter Senge's Centre for Systems Awareness https://systemsawareness.org/person/peter-senge/ About Accidental Gods - What we offer. If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme, it's 'FINDING YOUR SOUL'S PURPOSE' on Sunday 22nd March 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Call to Adventure! Crafting an Integral Altruism with Jonas Søvik | 04 Mar 2026 | 01:18:31 | |
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 feels in circles I would otherwise never reach. Jonas and I have been exploring all this together for the past 18 months and every conversation leaves me buzzing with the potential of new doors opening and new senses unfolding, and how could we not share something so rich? And so here we are, a day after his 27th birthday, with Jonas now in Blackpool, working at the Effective Altruism Hotel, which is, in itself, a significant step outside the predatory capital model. Jonas Søvik is a coach, self-exploration and wisdom enthusiast, currently serving on the board of EA Denmark, and at the EA Hotel, helping to restructure and expand the organization/community to serve the EA community and the wider world. He is also building courses to help us all gain more control of our screen time. This was one of those conversations where we were both freewheeling, thinking in real time, asking questions as they arose. It's alive, and electric and takes us both to new places. I hope it leaves you feeling as optimistic as it did me. Enjoy!
About Accidental Gods - What we offer. If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme, it's 'FINDING YOUR SOUL'S PURPOSE' on Sunday 22nd March 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls. Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Honouring Fear as Your Mentor: Thoughts from the Edge - Manda Scott | 01 Mar 2026 | 00:40:36 | |
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 can do the work to free up the stuck parts inside so that we can be fully present, fully able to respond to the needs of every moment as it arises. Nobody is suggesting this is easy work, but it is absolutely the work of this moment. If we can all free up our stuck places so that our connections between all parts of ourselves, ourselves and each other, ourselves and the Web of Life are free and fluid - then we can begin to step into what's ours to do in the moment, rather than rehashing old stories of old hurts - that may not be ours, but may be inherited from the generations that have gone before. We need not to pass them on, but more than that, we need to be able to connect in real time with all that's around us in an ever-changing world. Manda's recommended reading from the Winter Solstice 2025 https://accidentalgods.life/word-magic-2025-accidental-gods-pick-of-fiction-non-fiction-poetry-and-podcasts-through-the-year/ Nature and Neuroscience - 'mouse/almond blossom study' https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.3594
We offer three strands all rooted in the same soil, drawing from the same river: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass Honouring Fear as our Mentor was the February Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme. If you'd like to join us in future, our next Gathering is 'FINDING YOUR SOUL'S PURPOSE' which will be held on Sunday 22nd March 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer 121 Mentoring Calls. Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Co-ordiNations vs the Network State: Greenland and the Schism in Global Vision - with Dr Andrea Leiter | 25 Feb 2026 | 01:19:02 | |
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 or enslaved (I'll leave you to work out which you think is worse) - because as with any fascist enterprise, there will be the in-group that is protected but not constrained and the out-group that is constrained but not protected and if you're listening to this podcast, the chances of your being in the in-group are vanishingly small. So we ended up discussing Balaji Srinivasan's concepts of the Network State - and no, I have not linked to the book or the website in the show notes: if you want them, you can search. I have, however, linkedto the ideas of the Co-ordiNations put forward by Primavera de Filippi and, of course, there's the ongoing Bioregional work being conducted by Joe Brewer and others: the merging of these two feels to me a good way forward if we're to get rid of the current Hobbesian concepts of a Nation State - which is, for sure, pretty outdated. For those who want background, Andrea works at the intersection of law, digital transformation, and economic innovation. Director of Amsterdam Center for International Law, she’s deeply aware of, and involved in, Transnational Law, Digital Economies & Institutional Innovation, all things crypto – as well as being a Social Justice Entrepreneur. She currently leads a Dutch Research Council-funded VENI project on Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) and their potential to reshape economic governance from below. So here we go: a radical ride through the forest of nationhood: what it is, why it matters and how we could craft something so much better than what we have now - without the nightmare of fascist police states.
Primavera de Filipi https://pdefilippi.com/ ExoCapitalism ExoCapitalism: Economies with Absolutely No Limits by Marek Poliks & Roberto Alonso Trillo About Accidental Gods - What we offer. If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme, it's 'FINDING YOUR SOUL'S PURPOSE' on Sunday 22nd March 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer 121 Mentoring Calls. Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Tracking the Wild Things, Inside and Out - with Jon Young of Living Connection 1st | 18 Feb 2026 | 01:16:50 | |
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 into our birthright, to opening the doors of what we might call Nature Connection, but is so much deeper than this - so that anyone, of any age or circumstance can step forward into whatever it is that our birthright becomes in the twenty-first century. Our guest this week does just this. I've known of Jon Young for decades, heard of his 8 Shields practice and have friends who have trained in his Art of Mentoring, but it was only this last September that we met in person and I was struck by the deep inner stillness he brings to everything he does, the sense that his awareness stretches out across space and through time and he's listening to layers upon layers of meaning. Jon Young is a deep nature-people-self connection researcher, mentor, naturalist, wildlife tracker, author, consultant, and storyteller. Mentored by his grandmothers, Tom Brown, Jr., and a host of elders and experts, he has spent over 40 years leading the field of nature-based community building. His work explores the impact of nature on mentoring, human intelligence, spirituality, well-being, and development, influencing tens of thousands worldwide. He is the author and co-author of seminal works such as What the Robin Knows and Coyote's Guide to Connecting to Nature, and has appeared in documentaries including The Animal Communicator. In 2016, he received the Champion of Environmental Education Award for his innovative and globally impactful contributions to the nature connection movement. So, with all of this as our baseline, it was an honour and a delight to dive deep with Jon into the history and lineages of his learning, of his views of where we are now, and of how we can best navigate this moment of collapse and renewal. https://www.livingconnection1st.net/ Sign up for the Living Connection 1st newsletter Karl Direske's site https://wildernessfusion.com/
If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme, it's 'FINDING YOUR SOUL'S PURPOSE' on Sunday 22nd March 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. Manda and Louise both offer 121 Mentoring Calls. Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here. | |||
| Water, Water Everywhere and none of it fit to drink! With Claire Kirby of Up Sewage Creek - ahead of World Water Day | 11 Feb 2026 | 01:18:42 | |
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 the hellscapes of Industrial Agriculture. One day, we'll talk about Clean Air. Today, we're talking about water, that utterly essential part of our biological and spiritual lives. It should be clean. It should be safe to drink, to swim in, for us and all the species with whom we share our beautiful blue pearl of a watery planet. As we all know… it's not. It's not because our system values profit over the vibrancy of life. It's not because people in suits have found that if they treat our rivers as open sewers and our oceans as waste dumps they can get away with it. It's not because for too long, we've believed the stories that say there is no alternative and this is the way the world has to be. But the masks are coming off and activism is increasingly being seen as an act of radical, necessary resistance that can bring people together, bridging across the false, toxic cultural divides that the establishment creates so that we fight ourselves instead of working towards a world founded on different values. The push for clean water is one of the most unifying drives we have. It doesn't matter where you are on the political spectrum, you don't vote for sewage to be poured into the rivers, for the dead zones in the oceans to grow and join up, for the rain to be full of forever toxins so that some suit in a company C-suites can buy themselves a new private jet and an invitation to Jeffrey Epstein's private parties. In the UK, we're in an almost unique position because back in the 80s, Margaret Thatcher saw Pinochet privatising the water and sewage companies in Chile and decided this was a fine idea and imported it wholesale to the UK. Our water and sewage companies were privatised at a steal in 1989 and pretty much everyone is agreed this is an incredibly bad idea. Except successive governments. So people got together and formed their own activist groups based around the rivers near them - there's always at least one - and they are conducting citizen science, holding people's assemblies and generally making enough of a nuisance of themselves that those in power have to take notice. All this being the case, it's World Water Day on March 22nd every year and this year - we're recording in 2026 for those of you who listen years later - we're talking to Claire Kirby co-founder of Up Sewage Creek and a member of the Sewage Campaign Network. I first met Claire when my last dog was young - so nearly 20 years ago. She has a degree in Environmental Science from King's College London and then went on to become a Pet Behaviour Specialist who used to run rather wonderful puppy training classes. In 2020, following an episode of this podcast, she undertook a training with Trust the People and went on to co-found Up Sewage Creek, an activist group based around the River Severn in Shrewsbury on the borders between England and Wales. More recently, she has become an active part of the Sewage Campaign Network and is actively campaigning against the latest Government White Paper on the Water Industry which as much of a greenwash/whitewash as you'd expect. This was a lively conversation, a lot of it focussed on the situation in England, mainly because we live here and it's pretty bad. But wherever you are in the world, you have water somewhere near you and I guarantee it's not clean - and there will be people around you who care that it become cleaner. Clearly if you're in a war zone, even if it's an as-yet undeclared civil war, this is not your highest priority and I really do want to honour the people of Minnesota, Maine and Oregon who are taking to the streets in freezing weather to face the Terrorist gangs unleashed by the US government. You have other things to think about than the quality of your water, though not far away in Flint, Michigan, there is one of the most egregious failures of local politics ever to express itself in the quality of the water, so this is clearly a universal problem. We each do what we can. For those of us not facing pepper spray, uniting our communities so that nobody is ever prepared to join up to the government's shock troops might be the front line. If testing water is your thing, please do it. And to find out how and why to connect and converge, let's talk to Claire Kirby of Up Sewage Creek.
Left Foot Forward Article https://leftfootforward.org/2026/01/public-ownership-of-water-is-the-only-way-to-deliver-security-efficiency-investment-and-value-for-money/ National Security Briefing on BioDiversity Loss in the UK https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nature-security-assessment-on-global-biodiversity-loss-ecosystem-collapse-and-national-security Other Accidental Gods water-related podcasts
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| Kindling Quiet Romance: Reimagining the Law for Nature - with Brontie Ansell of Lawyers for Nature | 04 Feb 2026 | 01:19:06 | |
Links https://immersives.pioneerspost.com/lawyers-leading-nature/index.html | |||
| Healing our Fractured World: Re-Awakening Indigenous Consciousness with Marc-John Brown of the Native Wisdom Hub | 28 Jan 2026 | 01:30:33 | |
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? White Americans are not witnessing the collapse of something noble. They’re witnessing the unveiling of what has always been true. The rot now visible is not a flaw in the foundation. Rather, it is the foundation. It was poured with concrete, inscribed into laws, and baked into the American mythos. The violence, the inequality, and the selective application of “justice”—none of it is a betrayal of the American promise. It is the American promise, applied unevenly by design. For centuries, Black, Indigenous, and other marginalized communities have lived under the weight of this system—disenfranchised, disappeared, surveilled, caged, and killed. They were told to be patient, to be peaceful, to vote harder, to “work within the system.” And when they told the unvarnished truth—that the system is the violence—they were mocked, criminalized, and ignored. Now the machinery begins to grind down those it once served, and only now does the shock begin to register. But this isn’t the system breaking. It’s merely the mask coming off. The laws of this land protects power and wealth. It has always protected power and wealth. The state defends itself. And democracy here has always been ornamental—used to sanctify what power had already decided. The rule of law is not impartial. It’s a weapon, a performance, a convenience afforded to the privileged. The pageantry of justice is reserved for those never meant to feel its weight. What you’re seeing now is not the end of the American dream. It is the truth of the American reality, finally uninterested in disguising itself. The empire is simply turning inward. Many will not want to read this. They will flinch, deflect, and rationalize. They will call me divisive, bitter, and extreme. They will attack, argue, and dismiss. And in doing so, they will only prove the point by choosing their comfort over clarity, and their denial over responsibility. Because that, too, is by design: the privilege of ignoring the truth until it shows up at your own door.
But we need a spiritual base to this. I genuinely think we get through only if we can lift ourselves out of our Trauma Culture and into a new way of being - an Initiation Culture fit for the twenty first century. We talk about this a lot on the podcast, and sometimes, we talk to other people who get this, and who are working explicitly towards a shift in consciousness of the whole human race. Today's episode is one of those. Our guest is Marc-John Brown who describes himself with characteristic humility, as an integration coach, transpersonal life coach, and spiritually-oriented business coach. Since 2019, he has been an apprentice of the Shipibo-Konibo tribe of the Peruvian Amazon Jungle and an ally and collaborator among multiple other living indigenous peoples. Having met him, I'd say that Marc-John is deeply connected with the spirits of the land in a way that is both profoundly wise, and deeply grounded. He is one of those who comes to Elderhood at a young age, moving through the world with dignity and humility, helping others to reach the core of what it is to be human at this moment of total transformation. Born and raised in Scotland, he has a deep spiritual connection to south America and to the indigenous peoples of that land. With his wife, Erika Huarcaya a native Peruvian of the Chanka peoples, Marc-John runs the Native Wisdom Hub, which seeks to bring people of our culture - the white, western culture that is currently eating itself alive - into authentic, enduring connection with the web of life such that we can all begin to change the way we are in the world. On a recent Substack post, Marc-John says, 'We believe that, in large part, healing happens through nervous system co-regulation between indigenous wisdom keepers and modern seekers. Building healthy relationships. Creating psychological safety. Allowing trust to grow where mistrust has festered.'
Oliver Korntezke on FB https://www.facebook.com/okornetzke
Details below: If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme, it's 'Honouring Fear as your Mentor' on Sunday 8th February 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. | |||
| Laws of Nature, Laws with Nature: Nature on Board with Alexandra Pimor of the Earth Law Center | 21 Jan 2026 | 01:19:30 | |
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 heal the web of life. Our guest this week, Alexandra Pimor is Director of the Nature Governance Agency (NGA) within the Earth Law Center. Increasingly, she is acting as a proxy for the Voice of Nature in corporations and organisations, in professional practice, project management and organisational cultural evolution. For many years a legal scholar and academic, her practice, studies and research are anchored in a quantum-based ecology of law paradigm, espousing a critical, reflective and multidisciplinary approach. She has a deep passion for people and planet, and, as you'll hear, she now sees it as her mission to promote the facilitation of conscious governance and leadership, at individual, collective and organisational levels, to advance the emergence of an anthropo-eco-logical system of harmonious living. In our conversation, she lays out what it means to take Death - and Life - as our Witness; to evolve a Sacred No and a Sacred Yes; to speak as the web of life, not for it or to it. She walks the fine line between Two-Eyed Seeing - from a Western, Trauma Culture viewpoint as well as from the perspective of an Indigenous, Initiation Culture - and we explore how boardrooms can see ripples of change as we strive to turn the bus that is humanity away from the cliff edge of the 6th mass extinction. Onboarding Nature Toolkit ( developed in partnership between ELC, B Lab Benelux and Nyenrode Business University) Bio-leadership fellowship (a mycelium of regenerative and curious change makers) Thinking like Gaia cards (Ally invites these cards into board conversations when the time, space and dynamics are right)
Details below: If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme, it's 'Honouring Fear as your Mentor' on Sunday 8th February 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. | |||
| What ought we be? Hope, despair and the resilience of life with Professor David Farrier | 14 Jan 2026 | 01:31:19 | |
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 plastics, heavy metals and other detritus we throw out into the world as if the entire planet were one vast sewer for waste we forget about as soon as we've had the dopamine drip that acquiring it evoked? How thin is the ice on which we are skating? And how can we change the ways we do things so we don't fall into the void of extinction. Our guest this week spends his life exploring these questions. David Farrier is Professor of Literature and the Environment at the University of Edinburgh. David’s first book, Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils, looked at the marks we are leaving on the planet and how these might appear in the fossil record in the deep future. It was named by both The Times and Telegraph as a book of the year, earned praise from Robert Macfarlane and Margaret Atwood, and has been translated into ten other languages. His most recent book is the one we're going to be exploring today - Nature’s Genius: Evolution's Lessons for a Changing Planet is one of the few non-fiction books I've come across that is capable both of going deep into the science of the anthropocene - the full genetic, chemical, noise-pollution havoc of it and going deep into how we can engage with indigenous cultures, languages and ways of thought so that we in the western trauma culture might become something new. As he says early in the book, 'We pollute because we see ourselves as separate from the rest of the living world, but…learning to coordinate our time with nature's rhythms…could revolutionise our politics.' The whole quote is in the episode. What you need to know now is that this is a genuinely ground-breaking, mind-opening book and I cannot imagine better reading as we step into 2026. If you need to know I'm not alone in thinking this, it has been shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing, and the Saltire Award (Scotland's national book awards) for non-fiction. For the New Scientist and Waterstone's bookshop, it is 'Best popular Science Book of 2025'. You do need to read this. And in the meantime, enjoy a conversation that left me buzzing for long after we stopped recording.
David on BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/david-farrier.bsky.social If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme, it's 'Honouring Fear as your Mentor' on Sunday 8th February 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here You don't have to be a member -but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. | |||
| Seeing Round Corners: Upgrading Democracy with Suzette Masters and Dr John Izzo | 07 Jan 2026 | 01:29:22 | |
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, particularly in the US, where even the pretence of democracy has been abandoned. Dr John Izzo is a friend of the podcast. Once an ordained Minister in a Presbyterian Church, he’s now a bestselling author, speaker, and thought leader focused on social responsibility and intergenerational integration. He’s a a Distinguished Fellow at The Stimson Center in Washington DC, and a Board Member of the Elders Action Network and the Elders Climate Action group. Most notably in terms of what we're talking about here, he's co-host of The Way Forward Regenerative Conversations Podcast on which I heard him speaking to our other guest, Suzette Brooks Masters. Suzette describes herself as a sometime Cassandra who sees around the corner; a serial social entrepreneur, and a thought leader and strategist in the fields of democracy, governance and futures. She has degrees in Economics from Amherst College and Cambridge University, and a Law degree from Harvard. She has spent much of her working life as a strategist working on immigration, inclusion and democracy. She is currently Senior Fellow and Director of Democracy Innovation at the Democracy Funders Network and Co-Founder of the Federal Foresight Advocacy Alliance. So listen in for a 3-way conversation on the nature of power, community and change as we move into the new year.
The Way Forward Regenerative Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-way-forward-regenerative-conversations/id1651941803 Suzette on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzette-brooks-masters-0614981b If you'd like to support us, there is a Patreon page, but we're not going to link to it, because, honestly, the best way is to come and join the Accidental Gods Membership: that way you can share in the ideas, the programme that will help you connect to the Web of Life in ways that will last—and you can come to the Gatherings half price. Or if that doesn't appeal, come along to one of the Gatherings. Or buy a subscription/Gathering for a friend... do something that feels like a good exchange of energy and minimises our connection with old economic paradigm. Remember that if any of this is difficult, contact us and we'll find something that works for you. Details below: If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme, it's 'Honouring Fear as your Mentor' on Sunday 8th February 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member -but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. | |||
| Thoughts from the Edge: Navigating the turbulent seas of the incoming year with grace and courage (Manda solo) | 31 Dec 2025 | 00:47:00 | |
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. In this solo episode, Manda Scott, host of the Accidental Gods podcast, reflects on the year just gone and looks ahead to the one that's coming and lays out ideas for how we can be the change we need to see in the world. Join us for New Year's eve and let's find ways we can step into 2026 with grace, courage, bringing the best of ourselves in service to life.
If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's 'Dreaming Your Year Awake on Sunday 4th January 2025 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here You don't have to be a member -but if you are, all Gatherings are half price. | |||
| Change is Coming! Solstice Reflections with Della Duncan, Nathalie Nahai and Manda Scott | 24 Dec 2025 | 01:14:54 | |
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 this year—and to look forward to the year about to begin for what will be our baselines. Della Z Duncan is a Renegade Economist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a co-host of the Upstream Podcast, a Right Livelihood Coach, a faculty member at the California Institute of Integral Studies, a Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics, a founding member of the California Doughnut Economics Coalition, and the designer and co-facilitator of the Cultivating Regenerative Livelihood Course at Gaia Education. Nathalie Nahai is an author, keynote speaker and host of the Nathalie Nahai in Conversation podcast enquires into our relationship with one another, with technology and with the living world. She’s author of the international best-sellers Webs Of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion and, more recently, Business Unusual: Values, Uncertainty and the Psychology of Brand Resilience which has been described as “One of the defining business books of our times”. She’s a consultant, artist and the founder of Flourishing Futures Salon, a project that offers curated gastronomical gatherings that explore how we can thrive in times of turbulence and change. Before we head into the conversation, I want to invite you to our transformative online course, Dreaming Your Year Awake, which takes place on Sunday the 4th of January from 16:00 - 20:00 UK time (GMT). This is a time to go inwards, to be kind to ourselves, to explore all that we can be and want to be. It's your chance really to delve deeply into the year just gone, and look ahead at how you want to shape your attention and intention for the year that’s coming, for each of us, individually and together to ask ourselves how we are going to navigate all the coming turbulence with grace and courage? This, too, is part of our Accidental Gods tradition and we have people who’ve come year after year to give themselves the gift of time and space and the company of people who share the journey. So please do come along, we would love to share this time with you. What we offer in more detail: 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 Year Awake' (you don't have to be a member - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price) on Sunday 4th January 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here | |||
| December Solstice meditation - suitable northern and southern hemispheres | 20 Dec 2025 | 00:22:31 | |
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 | 17 Dec 2025 | 01:25:10 | |
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 agency bringing nature into youth culture. A former advertising strategist, she is curious about how creativity intersects with myth, meaning, consumerism and desire, and how we might design new cultural infrastructures that seed fresh possibilities for how to live.
In this wide-ranging episode, we explore the nature of advertising and how an industry that has been so deeply embedded in the death cult of predatory capitalism can turn all the wild, creative magic in service of life; how the skills that push us to buy the pseudo-satisfiers can instead remind us of our original connections, and turn us towards co-creation, connection and belonging. We talk too, about grief and how learning to compost the old system is a key to the new growth we need and want. Ally is so multi-talented, it was a joy to explore so many ways we can bring our world back into love with life, into balance, into each of us being part of the solution and letting go of the parts of the problem. Purpose Disruptors https://www.purposedisruptors.org/ ALLY is co-guiding a deep dark creative winter journey with Dan Burgess and co, Into the Dark, in January: https://www.becomingcrew.com/intothedark
If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's 'Dreaming Your Year Awake' (you don't have to be a member - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price) on Sunday 4th January 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here | |||
| Word Magic 2025 - Accidental Gods' pick of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and podcasts through the year | 14 Dec 2025 | 00:32:34 | |
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. Fiction Rachel Neumeier - Rihasi, Marag, Sekaran, Hedesa - all four are part of the TUYO series. 8 Doors from Dawn to Midnight is a stand alone. Natasha Pulley - The Hymn to Dionysus Antonia Hodgson- The Raven Scholar + Katherine Addison - The Tomb of Dragons Amal El Mohtar - The River has Roots Jacqui Morris and Tamsin Abbott - Wild Folk Wild Gods Rising - Podcast with the authors (WILD FOLK is being published anew by Chelsea Green in time for the Spring Equinox of 2026 and here in the US https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/828350/wild-folk-by-jackie-morris/ ) Richard Morgan Altered Carbon Becky Chambers A Long Way to A Small Angry Planet Poetry: You better be Lightning by Andrea Gibson A Map to the Next World: Poems and Tales by Joy Harjo (YouTube Interview on the Power of Poetry) Non Fiction
Richard Schwartz and Thomas Hübl - Releasing our Burdens: A Guide to Healing Individual, Ancestral and Collective Trauma Julie Brams The Nature Embedded Mind: How the Way We Think Can Heal Our Planet and Ourselves Tristan Gooley How to Read a Tree: Clues and Patterns from Roots to Leaves Justine Afra Huxley and Anna Kovasna Co-creating with a Living Intelligent Earth: Pathways towards Kincentric Leadership Eliezer Yudkowsky & Nate Soares If Anyone Builds it, Everyone Dies: The case against superintelligent AI PODCASTS Nate Hagens The Great Simplification: If Anyone Builds it, Everyone Dies: How Artificial SuperIntelligence Might Wipe Out our Entire Species w Nate Soares Your Undivided Attention: Feed Drop: “Into the Machine” with Tobias Rose-Stockwell Upstream - A World out of Balance: Introducing Doughnut 3.0 w Andrew Fanning Point of Relation with Thomas Hübl: Becoming an Ally of Life Love and Philosophy by Andrea Hiott: Moving Beyond Binaries in Eduction: Andrea Hiott in Conversation with Tim Logan of Future Learning Design Future Learning Design What’s Love Got to Do with Education? A Conversation with Dr Laura Penn, Khadija Shahper Backthiar, Jamie Bristow and Andrea Hiott Step Outside, Stand Still Pauline Leitch Magazine Permaculture Magazine Subscriptions
If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's 'Dreaming Your Year Awake' (you don't have to be a member) on Sunday 4th January 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here | |||
| Barefoot Economics in a world of Hobnailed Boots with storyteller Inez Aponte | 10 Dec 2025 | 01:11:15 | |
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 understand what an economy is for - why it does what it does. And while we're all clear that the death cult of Predatory Capitalism exists to enrich the few at the expense of the rest of the living web, it's not always clear what a flourishing economy might look like. So we're going to explore exactly this with our guest today. Inez Aponte is a self-described 'Dissident of Capitalism', she's an educator, storyteller, and consultant who's spent 15 years bridging mainstream economics with human-scale alternatives. Using the Human Scale Development Approach (Barefoot Economics), she helps professionals see the economic system itself, and imagine what comes next. Barefoot Economics (also known as Human Scale Development) was developed by Manfred Max-Neef and colleagues in Chile as a response to the predations of the colonial capital system. It reframes economic thinking away from endless wants and towards nine fundamental needs: Subsistence, Freedom, Participation, Understanding, Affection, Creation, Idleness, Protection and Identity. We are wealthy when our needs are satisfied, regardless of our income. This means we can also be poor in multiple ways, even when we have a ‘healthy’ bank balance. Inez has built this forward into a framework for the 21st century. Her 'Beautiful Economies Learning Lab' breaks people out of mainstream economic thinking to explore how we can build systems that meet real needs while healing ourselves, communities, and the Earth. So this is our deep dive. Let's go. https://www.beautifuleconomies.com/
If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's 'Dreaming Your Year Awake' (you don't have to be a member) on Sunday 4th January 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here | |||
| Roots to Health - building Food Resilience at all Scales with Daphne du Cros of the Shropshire Good Food Partnership | 03 Dec 2025 | 01:03:04 | |
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 mycelial networks of food and farming systems, bringing both into genuinely regenerative balance. Daphne is a food policy researcher, educator, and farmer. She holds a PhD in Food Policy at the Centre for Food Policy at City St. George's University of London, and a Master's in Environmental Science and Management from Toronto Metropolitan University in Canada. She is Director and Coordinator at Shropshire Good Food Partnership; Director at Light Foot Enterprises; Project Lead at Food Forward BC (where BC stands for Bishop's Castle, not British Columbia or any of the other potential options) - and she's co-owner of Little Woodbatch CIC, a farm just outside BC that hosts the Bishop's Castle Community Seed Bank. She is the author of the town's Community Food Resilience Strategy - the only such policy in Shropshire. Daphne and I are relatively near neighbours, we have swapped seeds - her more than me - and share ideas about systems thinking and how we might evolve our world. She's deeply involved at every level from actual growing up to governmental meetings trying to get those in power to find some wisdom when it comes to food resilience, food security and all the other things we say as we try to get them to move away from the corruption innate in our system towards something that actually works in service to life.
Shropshire Good Food Partnership: https://www.shropshiregoodfood.org/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shropshiregoodfood/ Soil Ed UK: https://www.instagram.com/soil_ed_uk/ Gaia Foundation Seed Sovereignty Network: https://www.seedsovereignty.info/
Civil Food Resilience Report: https://nationalpreparednesscommission.uk/publications/just-in-case-7-steps-to-narrow-the-uk-civil-food-resilience-gap/ Little Woodbatch Farm https://www.littlewoodbatch.co.uk/
If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering offered by our Accidental Gods Programme it's 'Dreaming Your Year Awake' (you don't have to be a member) on Sunday 4th January 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here | |||