In a world where governments are failing on all levels, can regenerative business be the change we need to see in the world?  Can the new wave of meaningful work create the sense of coherence and community and connectedness to the earth that we need to take us forward?  Nathalie Nahai is host of The Hive podcast, author of two books, international speaker and consultant with businesses big and small. Her clients have included Unilever, Google, Accenture and Harvard Business Review, among many others. Her most recent book,  'Business Unusual: Values, Uncertainty and  the Psychology of Brand Resilience', opens up worlds of business where profit is not the only motive, where psychological safety, meaning and solidarity are core business values and businesses are learning to walk their talk. In a world where government is failing so completely to address the many crises of our time, we spent an hour discussing whether business can fill that gap, and if so, how?  When it is such a huge part of our lives, when the entire neoliberal model seems to be predicated on a cycle of wage-slavery followed by meaningless consumption, can work bring us back to balance with ourselves, each other and the ecosystems of which we are an integral part? Links: Nathalie's website: https://www.nathalienahai.com/Business Unusual: https://wordery.com/business-unusual-nathalie-nahai-9781398602212/Values Map: https://thevaluesmap.com/B Corps UK: https://bcorporation.uk/B Corps EU: https://bcorporation.eu/B Corps Global (US) : https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us

What is the nature of being and belonging in the current world? How can we honour the rite of passage that is happening, and let go of the old ways, let them die to the past, live in the liminal space of unknowing, and step into a future that emerges from the best of who we are?   Isla McLeod is a celebrant, ritualist, walker-between-the-worlds and deep connector to spirit.  She says of herself: "I am a creator of ceremonies, ritual designer, transformational healer and companion at the thresholds. Inspired by nature, forged by my longing, devoted to remembering. Lover of moss, mushrooms, trees, wild swimming and moonlight.It is my deepest wish to inspire and support a remembrance of what is sacred in our lives and guide people back home to the natural world. To create and hold space for others to journey within and recognise their innate creativity, wisdom and the unique medicine they bring to life. Through offering a container for transformation, held with the deepest love and respect, I hope to help others access those forgotten treasures that are their gifts to share with the world." In this episode, we explore her journey through depression and addiction, to deep, grounded earth-connection - to a place where she holds rituals for others, ushering in new love and new life, or helping people to die with meaning and connection.  She unfolds the peaks and troughs of a journey that has seen her spent a year in a Buddhist retreat, two years in a yurt connecting with the cycles of the seasons and the lunar months, and now, working with and on the land, to help usher in the new emergent reality.    This is a deeply connected, connecting episode.  If you're exploring the ways you can connect with the Web of Life in a way that feels meaningful, Isla's journey is rich with experience and insight. Isla's Website: https://islamacleod.com/

How do we understand dreams in ways that make sense of 21st Century life?  How can we interpret them in ways that have meaning for us as individuals, in the complexity of our lives?  Rabbi Jill Hammer has explored the depths of dreams and dreaming with her new book - and here talks to us about what she learned, and some of the dreams that touched her most deeply.Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, is an author, scholar, ritualist, poet, midrashist, and dreamworker. She is the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish Religion, a pluralistic seminary, and cofounder of the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, a program in earth-based, embodied, feminist Jewish spiritual leadership. Her own experience of dreams as a source of deep teaching, wisdom and connection to the All That Is (however we define it) led her to a lifetime of exploring dreams and how they can guide us in ways that bypass our conscious minds.   Dreams led her to rabbinical school and then from there into the many areas of her teaching and learning life.  The depth of this book makes it one of our generation's most useful dreaming handbooks - it won't tell you how to interpret your dreams: It will help you to find their depth and mine them for all they can teach you.North American listeners can PreOrder Jill's book here: https://ayinpress.org/undertorah/UK and Europe: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Undertorah-An-Earth-Based-Kabbalah-of-Dreams-by-Jill-Hammer/9781532362002Rabbi Jill Episode 12: https://accidentalgods.life/episode-12/

How can we find joy in life again? How can we create beautiful things to wear that allow us to be the best of ourselves - and build community while we do it?  Alice Holloway is co-founder of London Urban Textiles Commons, and she's committed to finding the answers.  Join us for an inspiring, sparky exploration of how our future can be different. Alice Holloway has a degree in jewellery making from Central St Martin's and a Masters in Design for the Cultural Commons from the London Metropolitan University.  She is founder of the Little Black Pants Club, co-founder of London Urban Textiles Commons and is committed to helping people find joy and beauty in the creation of all that we need: to building a future of community and connectivity where we no longer depend on mass production or on real people being devolved into numbers. Her projects include a mobile Sweat Shop which brings a bicycle into a community so that people can power the creation of their own sweat shirts - and see the whole process, from the effort it takes to power the machine, to the machine itself, and the crafting of a garment that fits.  In this inspiring, sparky conversation, we explore the ways we can bring morality, ethics, decency together with joy, beauty and the wonder of self-expression to create a world that leaves exploitation and the accumulation of capital behind.  LinksLondon Urban Textiles Commons Elinor Ostrom: Evonomics Introduction: https://evonomics.com/tragedy-of-the-commons-elinor-ostrom/Elinor Ostrom: 8 Principles: http://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/elinor-ostroms-8-principles-managing-commmonsElinor Ostrom: Governing the Commons: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-11-01/governing-the-commons-by-elinor-ostrom-review/David Bollier Podcast: Frontiers of Commoning https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/frontiers-of-commoning-with-david-bollier/id1501085005

How can we be the best possible stewards of the future for our children?  How can we meet their eco-anxiety and teach them resilience, adaptation and give them the skills of systemic thinking that will help them navigate the uncertainties to come?   Eva Bishop is mother of two young children, as well as being a long-term a climate activist and current communications director for the Beaver Trust.  She is dedicated to finding ways that we can all create emotional and practical resilience in the face of the climate emergency - but in particular, how parents and care-givers can help young people develop the skills they will need to navigate a world that is undergoing total transformation - while at the same time, helping to be part of the change we need to see. In this broad-ranging, deep, challenging conversation, we explore the ways we can all be part of the solution, touching on: emotional resilience strategies; growing food and exploring the whole food system; education: what it is for, how it functions, and what it needs to become.  Eva shares her 'Collective Human' strategies and 'MyActionMatters'.  If anyone feels moved to help with these, there is room for a team, to bring funding together to expand them. We are all part of the solution. We just need to find what we're best at.  Go for it. LinksEpisode 88 - Eva talking about the work of the Beaver TrustThe Beaver Trust Jo McAndrews You Tube: Eco-Anxiety: A Call to Action Restoring Shropshire Verges Project: https://middlemarchescommunitylandtrust.org.uk/guest-blogs/restoring-shropshires-verges-project-rsvp/Guardian article on city allotments

What is Power?  How do we use it: both power over each other, and the power that fuels the world?  How could we use it better? In this, our ninth season (and third year), we are aiming to look more deeply into the ways we might create a flourishing future that we would be proud to leave to the generations that follow us. With that in mind, our first guest of this new season is Richard Heinberg, author of the magesterial, 'Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival' which came out in September 2021.  Richard  is Senior Fellow-in-Residence of the Post Carbon Institute, and is regarded as one of the world’s foremost advocates for a shift away from our current reliance on fossil fuels. He is the author of fourteen books in all, including some of the seminal works on society’s current energy and environmental sustainability crisis:His books include: Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival (September 2021) power.postcarbon.orgOur Renewable Future: Laying the Path for One Hundred Percent Clean Energy, co-authored with David Fridley (Island Press, 2016) ourrenewablefuture.orgAlso mentioned in the podcast: Fermi Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradoxPeter Turchin: https://peterturchin.com/The Evolution of Beauty by Richard Prum:  https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Evolution-of-Beauty-by-Richard-O-Prum/9780385537216

As we head down into the dark nights of the year, the quiet time of introspection, of assessing the year just gone and thinking forward to the one yet to come, Accidental Gods joins with the hosts of Upstream and The Hive podcasts: 3 women engaged in the best of change to bring the world to a flourishing future.  This is now official solstice tradition - we three explore the questions we've asked others through the year, look at what moved us in our podcast interviews and what they are pulling us towards for next year. And we offer a solstice meditation at the end, to bring you, too, to the quiet point of looks-withinNathalie Nahai is an international speaker, consultant and author of two books: the recently published Business Unusual: Values, Uncertainty and the Psychology of Brand Resilience, and business best-seller, Webs of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion. Her work explores the intersection between persuasive technology, ethics, and the psychology of online behaviour, and clients include Google, Accenture, Unilever and Harvard Business Review, among others.Through keynotes, workshops and consultancy, she teaches people how to understand the psychological dynamics behind evolving consumer behaviours, and how to ethically apply behavioural science principles to enhance their website, content marketing, product design and customer experience. In 2021 Nathalie launched TheValuesMap.com, a free tool developed in collaboration with Dr Kiki Leutner of Goldsmiths University, to help people within organisations understand, communicate and practically express the values they stand for. A member of the BIMA Human Insights Council, Nathalie also hosts The Hive Podcast, and contributes to national publications, television and radio on the impact of technology in our lives.Della Duncan is  a Renegade Economist who hosts the Upstream Podcast inviting you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics. She is also a Right Livelihood Coach, a Senior Fellow of Social and Economic Equity at the International Inequalities Institute in the London School of Economics, the Course Development Manager of Fritjof Capra’s Capra Course on the Systems View of Life, a Senior Lecturer at the California Institute of Integral Studies and Gaia Ed., Co-Founder of the California Doughnut Economics Coalition, and an Alternative Economics Consultant.Della holds a Master of Arts in Economics for Transition with Distinction from Schumacher College, a graduate certificate in Authentic Leadership from Naropa University, has completed Joanna Macy’s Work that Reconnects Intensive Program, and is a Gross National Happiness Trainer through the Gross National Happiness Center in Bhutan.The Hive: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-hive-podcast/id1387510537Upstream: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/upstream/id1082594532

 What are the best, most readable, most inspiring and most give-able books this season?  Manda's solstice list of her favourite Fiction and non-Fiction books read in 2021. Plus a bonus handful of must-listen podcasts. Here we go, people of the podcast - the books and their links. I've linked through Blackwells, because I used to love Heffers (part of the same chain) when I was in Cambridge.  Do obviously feel free to support your local bookshop. KSR: The Ministry for the Futurehttps://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Ministry-for-the-Future-by-Kim-Stanley-Robinson/9780356508863/Cory Doctorow - Walkawayhttps://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Walkaway-by-Cory-Doctorow/978178669307/Victoria Goddard The Hands of the Emperor https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Hands-of-the-Emperor-by-Goddard-Victoria/9781988908144Mick Herron SLOUGH HOUSE - 7th Jackson Lamb thrillerhttps://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Slough-House-by-Mick-Herron/9781529378665/Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Iron-Widow-by-Xiran-Jay-Zhao/9780861542093Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Fates-and-Furies-by-Lauren-Groff/9780099592532NON-FICTION Davids Graeber and Wengrow - THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING : a new history of Humanity https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Dawn-of-Everything-by-David-Graeber-D-Wengrow/9780241402429/TAMSIN OMOND: Do/Earth: Healing strategies for humankindhttps://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Do-Earth-by-Tamsin-Omond/9781914168000/All We Can Save, edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katherine K Wilkinson https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/All-We-Can-Save-by-Ayana-Elizabeth-Johnson-editor-Katharine-K-Wilkinson-editor/9780593237083Finding the Mother Tree https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Finding-the-Mother-Tree-by-S-Simard/9780241389348/Tomorrow is too late - Grace Maddrell https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Tomorrow-Is-Too-Late-by-Grace-Maddrell/9781911648321/The Future Earth - Eric Holthaushttps://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Future-Earth-by-Eric-Holthaus/9780062883162/Recapture the Rapture - Jamie Whealhttps://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Recapture-the-Rapture-by-Jamie-Wheal/9780062905468/Mariana Mazzucato Mission Economy https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Mission-Economy-by-Mariana-Mazzucato/9780241419731PODCASTSThe Hive: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-hive-podcast/id1387510537/Upstream: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/upstream/id1082594532/Emerge: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/emerge-making-sense-of-whats-next/id1057220344/Frontiers of Commoning: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/frontiers-of-commoning-with-david-bollier/id1501085005/Outrage and Optimism: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/outrage-optimism/id1459416461/What Could Possibly Go Right: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/what-could-possibly-go-right/id1520465627/Your Undivided Attention: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/your-undivided-attention/id1460030305/EcoCiv : https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-ecociv-podcast/id1511996189/Farmerama: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/farmerama/id1031542491/Farm Gate: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/farm-gate/id1490590788/The Lodge Cast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-lodge-cast/id1530950902/Reasons to be Cheerful: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/reasons-to-be-cheerful-with-ed-miliband-and-geoff-lloyd/id1287081706/Tom and Thelma Look Left: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thelma-and-tom-look-left/id1553737688/

How can we get from the current edge-of-catastrophe to a world where we have addressed the huge issues of the climate and ecological emergency?  Only in fiction can we bring the answers together in a vision of a better world.  Author Kim Stanley Robinson talks about his 'The Ministry for the Future' - One of Barack Obama's favourite books of last year. 'If I could get policymakers and citizens everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future' Ezra Klein, Vox'A novel that presents a rousing vision of how we might unite to overcome the greatest challenge of our time' TED.com'A breathtaking look at the challenges that face our planet in all their sprawling magnitude and also in their intimate, individual moments of humanity' Booklist (starred review)'Gutsy, humane . . . a must-read for anyone worried about the future of the planet' Publishers Weekly (starred review)'A sweeping epic about climate change and humanity's efforts to try and turn the tide before it's too late' Polygon (Best of the Year)Kim Stanley Robinson is one of our foremost visionary writers.  Author of 19 novels, numerous short stories, blogs and essays, his Ministry for the Future' was one of Barack Obama's 'must-read' books of 2020.   This is one of the few genuine 'Thrutopian' novels which aims to take us from squarely where we are, through a clearly defined route (with all its pitfalls, prat-falls and fights back by the Status Quo) to a place where we have a decent chance of survival.  In today's podcast, we explore the book, the author's experience of being invited to COP26 in Glasgow, and where we might go next. Buy the book:  https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Ministry-for-the-Future-by-Kim-Stanley-Robinson/9780356508863KSR Website: http://www.kimstanleyrobinson.info/A view of KSR as one of the few contemporary novelists dealing with 'big ideas' of how we could be: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/11/kim-stanley-robinson-socialist-novelistKSR TED Talk - 'Letter from the year 2071' https://www.ted.com/talks/kim_stanley_robinson_remembering_climate_change_a_message_from_the_year_2071#t-594961Network for Greening the Financial System: https://www.ngfs.net/en

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