Accidental Gods

Physicist and geologist Dr. Simon Michaux discusses building a radical tomorrow through transitioning to a circular economy and advocating for sustainability. Topics cover navigating power struggles in addressing environmental realities, health issues, deceptive practices in political discourse, and the potential of thorium molten salt reactors as a clean energy source. Embracing regenerative agriculture is highlighted for sustainable solutions.

For this time around the dark nights of the winter solstice - at least in the northern hemisphere - we've been exploring more of an inner landscape - being reflexive with Nathalie and Della, and before that, exploring the living myths of our land and how we can ground them in our current reality with Angharad Wynne. And this week, we're heading inward and outward, travelling to Peru with Dr Simon Ruffell, psychiatrist, ayahuasca researcher and student of Shipobo curanderismo. Since 2016, Simon has been working closely with Indigenous communities in the Amazon basin, exploring the effects of ayahuasca and the role of ceremony and spirit in healing. As you'll hear in the conversation that follows, Simon manages to bridge between the world of western science and the older world of indigenous spirit with extraordinary integrity, humour and a grounded. commitment to the traditions he's learning that feels wholly authentic. He's experiencing the depths of ancient teaching and exploring the leading edge of modern science, delving into epigenetics, the microbiome and neuroplasticity. As we rest in the cusp of the dark nights, that time of reflection and renewal, I wanted to bring you something that felt as if it spoke deeply to the ethos of Accidental Gods, and I couldn't imagine anything better. So people of the podcast, please welcome, Dr Simon Ruffell. Simon's personal website https://www.drsimonruffell.com/Simon's Onaya website https://Onaya.ioWebsite for donations https://onaya.science ICEERS https://www.iceers.org/Simon on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-ruffell-27bba0191/Simon on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/simon.ruffell Simon on Twitter https://twitter.com/sgdruffellOnayaScience on Twitter https://twitter.com/Onaya_ScienceDreaming Awake shamanic training (with Manda and her apprentice) https://dreamingawake.co.uk 

Here is our winter solstice meditation - please create a space for yourself where you won't be disturbed and where you can feel your way into the dark, regenerative space of the longest night.  If you want to draw the curtains, switch off all the power and light a candle, this may help you to connect with the place of rest and renewal. This version is the shortest and comes with music in the background. If you'd prefer longer versions with or without music, you can find them belowand if you are in the southern hemisphere and would rather experience a meditation for the height of the sun and the bright time of the longest day, that’s at the foot of the links. Winter Solstice meditation - 17 minutes Without Music   https://media.transistor.fm/a20d6861/492c0725.mp3Winter Solstice meditation - 22 minutes With Music https://media.transistor.fm/361287b3/6bad5f45.mp3Winter Solstice Meditation: 22 minutes Without Music https://media.transistor.fm/e11c283a/d522798e.mp3Winter Solstice Meditation: 27 minutes With Music https://media.transistor.fm/4c1945ed/1ab5c80a.mp3Winter Solstice Meditation: 27 minutes Without Music https://media.transistor.fm/25cbf6e7/e9f16280.mp3

This is the fourth year of our now-traditional Winter Solstice podcast get-together in which Nathalie Nahai, Della Duncan and I sit around our virtual dark-nights fire to reflect on the podcasting year just gone and explore what has changed for us since the last time the seeds of new beginnings were grounded in the heart of what has passed.  This is becoming one of the highlights of my podcasting year  - a chance to range far and wide and deep in the company of two women whose podcasts never fail to touch me deeply, and whose opinions on life, the universe and everything are always inspiring and enlightening. 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 'Dreaming Your Year Awake' which takes place on Sunday the 7th of January.  This is our chance really to delve deeply into the year just gone, and look ahead at how we want to shape our attention and intention for the year that's coming. After all the  outward connection of the holiday season, this is a time to go inwards, to be kind to ourselves, to explore all that we can be and want to be. 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.  I've put a link in the show notes and it's also on the website accidentalgods.life under the 'Gatherings' tab. And now, People of the Podcast, please welcome Della Duncan, co-host of the Upstream podcast and Nathalie Nahai, host of the Nathalie Nahai podcast, and me. LinksSummer Solstice Meditation - Essence  https://chrt.fm/track/8F5463/media.transistor.fm/6f621f9a/7a43d63f.mp3Summer Solstice Meditation with Birdsong With Birdsong https://chrt.fm/track/8F5463/media.transistor.fm/6f621f9a/7a43d63f.mp3Poem: The Invitation by Oriah Mountain DreamerTheory: Two Loop Theory by Meg Wheatley and Deborah Frieze Conversation: Marxism & Buddhism with Breht O'Shea on the Upstream Podcast Conversation: A Marxist Perspective on Elections with August Nimtz on the Upstream PodcastConversation: Beyond the Clock with Jenny Odell on the Upstream PodcastOrganization: California Doughnut Economics CoalitionRiversimple: Future Guardian Governance https://www.riversimple.com/governance/Planet Local Summit https://planet-local-summit.localfutures.org/about/Podcast: The way out is in: Grief and Joy on a Planet in Crisis: Joanna Macy on the Best Time To Be Alive (Episode #12)(https://plumvillage.org/podcast/grief-and-joy-on-a-planet-in-crisis-joanna-macy-on-the-best-time-to-be-alive-episode-12)Flourishing Futures Salon: https://www.ffsalons.comPre-order Any Human Power https://linktr.ee/anyhumanpower

This week, as we head down towards what, in the northern hemisphere at least, is the long nights, the dark nights, I wanted to explore our heritage, the way we celebrate the solstice in this land, the land of Britain. I'm aware that quite a lot of you listening are from the southern hemisphere where you're heading up to your long sun and your fires burn differently. I recorded a summer solstice meditation at our long days in June and when we get to the meditation - after the podcast with Della Duncan and Nathalie Nahai, I'll put that up. In the meantime, I hope this conversation with Angharad Wynne helps open doors to reconnection wherever you are in the world. Angharad is a story-teller, a placemaker, a myth-creator holder of tribe and of the land. A native of Wales, she is deeply connected to the land there, and holds retreats and workshops designed to help people connect with the living spirits of the land. In the podcast you're about to hear, she describes her 3 year "Dadeni" training which helps to create the deep tribe-connections, community-connections we speak about in the podcast. If you're interested in this, applications are open until 21st January and the link is in the show notes. I'd also like to remind you that if you have ideas of previous podcast guests - including Angharad, or anyone you've heard over the years - that you'd like us to invite for one of our Sunday evening 'Cutting Edge' events please click the link in the show notes, or go to the podcast section of the website and find the button there and let us know. this is your chance to talk to people, to ask the questions I didn't get around to asking, but you wish I had. And then afterwards, there'll be a chance to connect with other people in breakout rooms, to share your thoughts and ideas and ways of grounding what you've heard in everyday life. So, it's the dark month, the time when we rest, and regather and recoup. The time when we light the fire and invite our tribe to join us. In the spirit of connection, people of the podcast, please welcome, Angharad Wynne, a bard of Wales. Angharad's site https://www.angharadwynne.com/Dadeni Programme https://www.dadeni.org/Dreaming the Land https://www.dreamingtheland.com/aboutThree Degrees of Influence - https://exploringyourmind.com/impact-the-three-degrees-of-influence-theory/

Rachel Donald, host of Planet: Critical podcast, discusses the global crisis, challenging carbon credits, navigating power dynamics, revolutionizing systems, and legal challenges with ISDS. She emphasizes the need for systemic change through collaboration, sustainability, and building a transnational Green Party.

Our guest this week is Hugo Spowers, Company Architect of Riversimple, whose purpose is 'To pursue, systematically, the elimination of the environmental impact of personal transport.' Modernity demands that we have personal transport and the thought of giving it up is one of the many sticking points when people try to imagine a way through to a regenerative future: nobody wants to be limited to their immediate vicinity for work, leisure or social connection. At the same time, we're becoming increasingly aware of the limitations of electric vehicles - Simon Michaux has explained in detail the logistical limitations to rare earth batteries, and the environmental catastrophe created by their miningWhich is what makes the Riversimple's hydrogen fuel cell car so transformative. They've gone right back to the basics of what makes a car in the first place and then how could it be made better - not just lighter and more efficient and fuelled by something that doesn't create greenhouse gases - but how could it be made so that the aims of the manufacturer and the customer are aligned - and both are aiming for a habitable planet. On its own, this would be inspiring - but Riversimple doesn't stop there. The company is structured with the innovative - and I genuinely believe transformative - 'Future Guardian Governance model' - Hugo describes this in near the end of the podcast so I won't go into it here, but it seems to me that if every company in the world shifted to this model tomorrow, by the day after, we'd be on our way to healing many aspects of the meta-crisis. So with this in mind, sit back and prepared for a fundamental shift in how we see our role in the world and how we could move towards the future we need, with Hugo Spowers of Riversimple. Riversimple https://www.riversimple.com/RIversimple Subscription model https://www.riversimple.com/subscription/Riversimple Future Guardian governance model https://www.riversimple.com/governance/Invest in Riversimple here https://www.riversimple.com/investment/Paul Hawken 'The Ecology of Commerce' https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-ecology-of-commerce-revised-edition-a-declaration-of-sustainability-paul-hawken/883510?ean=9780061252792

Words have the power to change worlds.  Powerful words, powerfully written can open doors to the future.  Beautiful words, beautifully written, can give us hope . Richard Wain's new collection of poetry is doing all of these, with panache, and heart and soul.We all know by now that we need total systemic change - and a central thesis of this podcast is that we'll get there best by creating narratives that build this - both highlighting the need for it and exploring possible paths through.  What's becoming clear is that this is an emotional and spiritual journey long before it's a logistical one.  So we need to find ways to reach beyond people's head-minds into their heart-minds and spirit-minds.  With this in mind, our guest this week is a poet, an entrepreneur and an artist.  Richard Wain is founder and director of the digital marketing agency Vu Online, and of the Positive Nature Network, both committed to creating networks of businesses that can support each other in the move towards a regenerative, flourishing future.  He is also a poet with a commitment to celebrating openness and vulnerability and he has now written a beautiful, generative book of poetry called Beyond the Brink is the Beginning.I met Richard when he came to our 6 month Thrutopia Masterclass back in May of 2022 - and was struck by his capacity to grasp the big ideas.  Then I began to read the poems that arose out of our classes and was really in awe of his capacity to take these big, complex ideas, find the emotional spark at their core and weave it into something that could open hearts and help others to understand what really matters.  We've been planning this podcast for ages, but his book is coming out soon, so now is the time - though in the end, as always happens, we roamed far and wide beyond the book, to the positive nature network and how small businesses and their owners, who are often their founders and may well be the sole employee, can begin to be part of the solution.  As ever, we approached our own edges, which, a bit like poetry, is what this kind of medium is all about.  Richard's book will launch on 27th November 2023 at The Barrel House in Totnes.  Go along if you can!Here's the event link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/beyond-the-brink-is-the-beginning-book-launch-tickets-74349440076Buy the Book here: https://www.beyondthebrinkbook.com/Positive Nature Network https://www.positivenaturenetwork.co.uk/Vu Online https://vuonline.co.uk/Richard on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@richardwainpoet

Sophia Parker, Emerging Futures Director at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, discusses exploring paradigm shifts, challenging late stage capitalism, and supporting regenerative alternatives. They delve into trauma culture versus initiation cultures, address urgent poverty issues, and emphasize the importance of engaging the wider population to create a regenerative future. A call to action for immediate change is made.

Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy, authors of "Post-Capitalist Philanthropy: Healing Wealth in the Time of Collapse," discuss the transition from trauma culture to initiation culture. They critique capitalism, explore wealth concentration, and emphasize the need for decolonization. They also delve into the mind-body connection, the importance of reclaiming history, and choosing our role in this crisis. The episode ends with a suggestion for a transformative book and gratitude towards the production team.