Accidental Gods

How much do you know about AI, blockchain and Web 3.0? If you're like us, the answer is probably very little. But these techs are going to change our world out of all recognition and while there is the potential for catastrophe, in the right hands, the same technology has the potential to help us shape the future we'd all be proud to leave behind and this is what this podcast is about. Monty is one of the founders of ReFi DAO.  Monty is working deeply and effectively at the cutting edge of emergence, a change-maker working on many different scales to build a future we'd be proud to leave behind. He is helping to build a global network of regenerative communities and start-ups and then taking those ideas out into the world as a public speaker and evangelist for ReFi & Regeneration. His public work includes a TEDx talk titled 'Can Crypto Regenerate the World?'. He has an undergraduate and Master's degree in Management & Innovation, with specialism in sustainability, digital technologies, blockchain, and design & systems thinking.This conversation ranged across landscapes from the nature of greenwashing to the potential for borderless nations, from the way financial markets currently underpin the existing structures, to how they could be tilted to  underpin a whole new regenerative paradigm. We explored the difference between what's sustainable and what's regenerative - and discovered what's actually happening now, that you could be involved with in your communities of place, purpose and passion.  I say the word, 'inspiring' way too often in this podcast, and I apologise in advance, but it's true: knowing that this is happening is one of the bright points of this year and I am genuinely thrilled to be able to share it with you.ReFi DAO https://www.refidao.com/ReFi podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/refi-podcast/id1609683147ReFi blog https://blog.refidao.com/Monty's TEDx 'Can Crypto Change the World?'  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-4HW3iPtfoEcological Benefits Framework https://canyouchangethefuture.org/Toucan https://toucan.earth/Celo https://celo.org/Cosmolocalism explained https://www.cosmolocalism.eu/publications/Julia Hailes MBE https://juliahailes.com/

Anne Biklé, a biologist and expert on soil microbial life, and David Montgomery, a geomorphology professor and musician, share insights on the deep connection between soil health and human well-being. They explore the vital links between gut microbiomes and soil ecosystems, emphasizing the impacts of farming practices on nutrition. Hear about the significance of regenerative agriculture, the importance of cow diets on food quality, and the transformative potential of urban farming. Their passion for improving food systems shines through in this enlightening conversation.

Here at Accidental Gods, we are increasingly of the opinion that our most urgent need as we face the polycrisis is to find a sense of being a belonging that changes our life's purpose. We all know we're not here just to pay bills and die, but knowing what we're not here for is not enough: we need to feel at the deepest level what we are here for, to rebuild the deep heart connections to the web of life such that we can take our place in the web with integrity and authenticity and a true sense of coming home. As we head into our sixteenth season, our third century of episodes, this is our baseline. The membership is here to delve deep into the practice and to give the time and the space to building the connections and the podcast exists to outline the theory and to give a voice to other people on this path. And with that in mind, it is my great pleasure to introduce you to this week's guest, the narrative strategist, Ruth Taylor. I came across Ruth when she published a Medium post entitled 'To UnPathed Waters and Undreamed Shores' - and just that title alone was enough to get me to read it. And then I was blown away by the ideas Ruth put forward, by her theories of narrative change, which are clearly at the heart of all we do, and by the clarity of her thinking and writing. I've put the link in the show notes so you can read it for yourself. In the 6 months since she agreed to come onto the podcast, she's published several other posts and a long paper called Transforming Narrative Waters, which delves even more deeply into the need for, and practice of, narrative change. Ruth works for the Common Cause Foundation which I first came across when I was at Schumacher College and had my eyes opened to the emotional intelligence behind it, and the astonishing work it's been doing in the world. Ruth is particularly interested in narrative change and writes a regular newsletter called In Other Words that collates the latest thinking in this field so she was an ideal person to explore the nature of framing, and story and how we can get to grips with changing the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and why we're here and how our relationships to each other and the world can still shift us away from the cliff's edge.CCF is a not for profit that works at the intersection between culture change and social psychology. Over the past ten years, it has pioneered a new way of inspiring engagement through catalysing action that strengthens and celebrates the human values that underpin the public's care for social and environmental causes. Its work is centered on the research findings that, 1) people are more likely to support environmental and social change when they place importance on their intrinsic values, such as equality, curiosity, broadmindedness and community, and 2) that the majority of people in the UK place importance on these values, but are constantly having their more extrinsic values primed due to the consumerist culture in which we live. With this in mind CCF offers training and support to a range of organisations on how to develop messaging and campaigning strategies that engage with people’s intrinsic values in order to rebalance the value norms in our societies.Ruth on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruth-taylor-14747173/To Unpathed Waters and Undreamed Shores https://commoncausefoundation.org/to-unpathed-waters-undreamed-shores/Transforming Narrative Waters https://ruthtaylordotorg.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/transforming-narrative-waters.pdfCulture and Deep Narratives blog (Medium) https://medium.com/inter-narratives/culture-deep-narratives-and-whac-a-mole-16cc1ecfc0a9Online Course: Values 101: Creating the Cultural Conditions for Change https://www.tickettailor.com/events/commoncausefoundation/820814?Global Action Plan https://www.globalactionplan.org.uk/Internarratives https://inter-narratives.org/The Common Cause Foundation https://commoncausefoundation.org/HumanKind Book https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/humankind-a-hopeful-history-rutger-bregman/4969515?ean=9781408898956CultureHack https://www.culturehack.io/Narrative Initiative https://narrativeinitiative.org/about-us/The Culture Group https://theculturegroup.org/Parents for Future https://parentsforfuture.org.uk/

Manda's Equinox meditation focuses on finding our sense of balance as the tilt of the world balances between summer and winter, light and dark, day and night.  And from that, finding a stable place with the three pillars of our heart minds: joyful curiosity, gratitude and compassion. The meditation is available with Birdsong and with MusicBirdsong https://media.transistor.fm/66b6845b/79a1c49b.mp3Music https://media.transistor.fm/8284fc49/d9bae6ab.mp3

As we head into winter in the northern hemisphere, as the tilt of the world hangs in balance, we reached our 200th episode.  So this is a time to look back and look forward: to look at where we've been, where we are and where we might go. From our origins as an adjunct to the Accidental Gods Membership, explaining the neurophysiology and neuropsychology behind what we're doing, and then then the spiritual grounding of connecting to the web of life... we moved into talking to people who live at the edge of the new system.  In doing so, we discovered the magic of podcasts as a way to nudge our whole system towards change. If it is the case, as Ilya Prigogine says, that 'when a system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos can move it to a higher order', then Accidental Gods aims to be one of the small islands of coherence.  We are here to show the potential in the wonder of our world and humanity's place in it - and to be utterly clear how far we still are from that potential.  Above all, we're here to help map the routes through to the new system that can yet emerge from the transition and transformation of our times. Accidental Gods https://accidentalgods.life/join-us/Thrutopia Masterclass https://thrutopia.life/ 

André Tranquilini, estate manager at Waltham Place, is a biodynamic farming expert with experience across Brazil and Europe. He shares his fascinating journey from urban Brazil to sustainable agriculture, intertwining spirituality with farming practices. André delves into the interplay of microbiomes and health, contrasting biodynamic methods with industrial agriculture. He emphasizes the transformative power of hands-on education for youth, the importance of preserving biodiversity, and the spiritual connections we can foster with the land through holistic practices.

"Grasping the Nettle' is at the heart of the film. Making a dress this way is a mad act of will and artistry but also devotional, with every nettle thread representing hours of mindful craft. Over seven years Allan is transformed by the process just as the nettles are. It's a kind of alchemy: transforming nettles into cloth, grief into beauty, protection and renewal. A labour of love, in the truest sense of the phrase, The Nettle Dress is a modern-day fairytale and hymn to the healing power of nature and slow craft."This week is our one hundred and ninety ninth episode of the Accidental Gods podcast. It's been quite a ride, and to celebrate the end of our second century, my partner, Faith, has come to join me as host, and we have two guests, textile designer Allan Brown and Dylan Howitt who is a filmmaker with over 20 years of making documentaries and features for the BBC, Netflix, Sky, Discovery - if you've heard of them, Dylan's worked with them. Allan was exploring how we could feed and clothe ourselves as we head towards a world of localism and increasing self reliance. A journey that began with a simple question - namely 'how can we clothes ourselves?' -  led to his spending seven years of his life making a a dress from the fibres of the nettles that grew locally. He harvested them in his local wood, made the fibre, spun over fourteen thousand feet of it, hand wove it, and then made it into a truly beautiful dress for his daughter. It was an extraordinary process of experimentation, discovery and ensoulment - a journey into possibility that would be hard to match in our current, frenetic world. And we know about this: the patience of it, the wonder, the loss, the grief, the resilience, the alchemy… the sheer magic, because Dylan made a film, 'The Nettle Dress' which also took 7 years and is also a process of emergence and ensoulment and magic and discovery. The film is one of the most profoundly moving I've seen in a long time: it's deep time brought into being, it offers connection and profound attention and intention as it follows Al's profound intention and attention. It's so, so different from what we normally see, so grounding - and when we had the chance to talk to Al and Dylan, it made sense for Faith to join me: she's the maker in our partnership, she's been a textile maker and designer and she thinks differently than I do in many ways. So this is a joint endeavour and all the stronger for it. Dylan Howitt Bio  Dylan Howitt is a filmmaker with many years of experience telling compelling stories from all around the world, personal and political, always from the heart. Twice BAFTA-nominated he’s produced and directed for BBC, Netflix, ITV and Channel 4 amongst many others. His latest feature documentary, The Nettle Dress, follows textile artist Allan Brown on a seven-year odyssey making a dress from the fibre of locally foraged stinging nettles. Allan Brown Bio Allan Brown (Hedgerow Couture) is a textile artist from Brighton, East Sussex, in the UK. Working primarily with sustainable natural fibres like nettles, flax, hemp and wool, Allan takes these raw materials and transforms them into beautiful cloth with the aim of creating functional, durable clothing that draws lightly from the land, reflecting the fibres and colours of the landscape he lives and works in.  Dylan's website www.dylanhowitt.comDylan on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylan-howitt-babb3395/Watching The Nettle Dress https://www.nettledress.org/watchNettles for Textiles on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/1648679398499874Hedgerow Couture on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hedgerowcoutureSimon and Ann at Flaxland https://www.flaxland.co.uk/contactGillian Edom from sting to spin https://gillianedomsbook.blogspot.com/

How do good people create systems of oppression?  What is Health? What is unHealth? And how do we move from the latter to the former in ways that mean good people create systems of co-creation, inter-being and connection?  This week, we explore all these questions with Sophy Banks, Founder and Lead Facilitator of Healthy Human Culture. This week's guest is a remarkable woman who was one of the shining lights amongst those who came to teach us at Schumacher college, before the pandemicSophy Banks has been an engineer, a footballer, and a therapist. She was deeply involved in the Transition movement from its inception, finding ways to balance inner and outer work, to keep heart-focused in a world where a lot of outward-focused action can so easily lead to burnout. I met Sophy as she was moving away from that role, moving into Inner Transition as a new movement and also working deeply with Grief Tending workshops inspired by her time with Sobonfu and Patrice Malidoma Some from Burkino Faso. That was back in 2017 and clearly the world has moved on since then and Sophy has moved with it. She is now Founder and Lead Facilitator of the Healthy Human Culture movement where she brings together the deep learning and experience of the past decades in a system of online learning journeys and other workshops which offers a vision for a world in which societies, communities, workplaces, families and individuals can thrive. It's a journey of healing and understanding and exploration and it feels absolutely core to where we are going, could go, need to go as people and as a culture. It is always an honour, a delight, and a deeply thought-provoking, moving experience to talk with and learn from Sophy. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. Healthy Human Culture https://healthyhumanculture.com/Grief Tending  https://grieftending.org/Sophy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophy-banks-uk/

We're on the edge of so many tipping points it's hard to know where to start.  But paralysis isn't useful and so we need to talk to the people who are still moving forward - and who have ideas of how we can carry more and more people with us.   With that in mind, this week's guest is a many-time friend of the podcast: someone completely aligned with our aims and ideals and whose energy, activism - and capacity to write and publish books that are right on the nail - leave me awestruck. Professor Rupert Read is an associate professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia. With a first degree from Oxford and a doctorate from Rutger's, he has a polished academic pedigree and he's certainly written a lot of philosophical texts and papers. But it's as an activist, thought-leader and fearless advocate for truth that he really stands out. Rupert's books 'This Civilisation is Finished', 'Parents For a Future' and, most recently 'Do you want to know the Truth' are all hard-hitting examinations of exactly where we are and how we could move forward in ways that will at least begin to acknowledge the truths of the meta crisis. It's not all writing, though, Rupert, was one of the core founders of Extinction Rebellion and has been arrested for his actions on behalf of our future. He went on to co-found the Moderate Flank and is now one of the key thinkers and figureheads of the Climate Majority Project. He appears almost daily on television and radio in the UK and around the world and I am really grateful that he's made the time to join us here at Accidental GodsRupert's website https://rupertread.net/books/The Climate Majority Project https://climatemajorityproject.com/IF you want to help - the CROWDFUNDER is here:  https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/power-climate-action

In this week's episode I'm talking to someone I met on last year's Thrutopia Masterclass: someone who was there to explore and share ideas about how we might get through to that flourishing future we'd be proud to leave behind. Elisa Rathje is an artist, a filmmaker, a podcaster, a writer, an unschooling parent - and a homesteader whose life is an expression of her philosophy that we need to live closer to, and in harmony with, the land. She and her family farm one and a half acres on Saltspring Island off the west coast of Canada between Vancouver and Vancouver island where she makes her appleturnover TV channel for Youtube, with short films showing the ways she's rediscovering, or in some cases, creating anew, ways to grow and thrive on and with the land. We've had some pretty hardcore conversations recently on the podcast, and I thought it was time for something inspiring, less of how we fix the broken structures at national level, and more how we can each live different lives, tell ourselves different stories of who we are and how we are... get into the detail of composting toilets and community buses and how to keep chickens and geese and sort the water... all the things we're really going to need to learn, or relearn or otherwise bring into being as we shift forward into the small farm future that Chris Smaje was talking about last week. So this is a regenerative episode, about regenerating our souls as we heal the land. appleturnover TV https://appleturnover.tv/The Journal of Small Work https://appleturnover.tv/farm/journal/Miraculous Abundance https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/miraculous-abundance-one-quarter-acre-two-french-farmers-and-enough-food-to-feed-the-world-perrine-herve-gruyer/1935503?ean=9781603586429Feminism and the Mastery of Nature https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/feminism-and-the-mastery-of-nature-val-plumwood/825976?ean=9780415068109Attachment Parenting https://attachmentparenting.co.uk/Hold onto your kids by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/hold-on-to-your-kids-why-parents-need-to-matter-more-than-peers-gabor-mate/739814?ean=9781785042195