Episodes

  • Sit with the River, Breathe Sacred Smoke, Love with the World: Building a Bioregional world with Joe Brewer
    Jun 25 2025

    How can Bioregionalism supplant the nation state as the natural unit of civilisation? Joe Brewer is living, breathing and teaching the ways we can work together with each other and the natural flows of water and life.

    We know that the current paradigm is breaking apart in real time, but how do we become the light that shines through the cracks? How do we build ways of being that reunite us with the web of life, create new/old ways of letting value flow and become what humanity has been and could be: stewards of that massive, magical, heartbreakingly beautiful living system that is the web of life.

    This week's guest, Joe Brewer, works at the leading edge of these ideas, testing out answers on the ground in communities of place, purpose and passion around the world. Joe is a trans-disciplinary systems thinker and Earth regeneration designer who has worked in everything from agroforestry work in Bioparque Móncora to starting a Waldorf Forest School (Sueños del Bosque) to co-founding a territorial foundation called Fundación Barichara Regenerativa and starting a trust to bring more local land into the commons. He was founder of the Earth Regenerators study group, which became Design School for Regenerating Earth, and is the author of The Design Pathway for Regenerating Earth.

    Increasingly, he's becoming a leading global voice on the ways we can return to a bioregional way of living that is, as you'll here, how we have lived for over 99% of human history. It's the way that makes sense, that can heal our relationships to ourselves, each other and the living web of life. The question, always, is how we make this happen? How do we shift our entire culture out of a world where lines drawn on maps are more real than the flows of a river, back to a place where clean air, clean water, clean soil are our priorities, the non-negotiable baselines from which everything else arises? How do we shift our concept of value flows away from the accumulation of stuff in a zero-sum game to a place where human needs are trusted and met? Joe has such heart-warming, inspiring examples of how this is happening around the world: on all 5 inhabited continents, there are groups making this happen. As Joe says, this is the work of now. It's urgent. It's also the single most inspiring thing we can do.

    Bioregional Earth https://www.bioregionalearth.org/pathway/design-school
    Design School for Regenerating Earth https://www.bioregionalearth.org/pathway/design-school
    Joe's book: The Design Pathway for Regenerating Earth https://www.bioregionalearth.org/pathway/design-pathway
    Governance Futures https://governancefutures.org/
    Elinor Ostrom's work on Governing the Commons https://www.beyondintractability.org/bksum/ostrom-governing
    Sociocracy https://www.sociocracyforall.org/sociocracy/
    ProSocial World https://www.prosocial.world/
    Joe on Accidental Gods Episode #127 https://accidentalgods.life/bio-regionalism-the-design-path-for-regenerating-earth/

    What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
    If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
    If you'd like to join our next Gathering 'Becoming a Good Ancestor' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 6th July - details are here.
    If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
    If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

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    1 hr and 21 mins
  • Solstice Meditation 2025 - Sun Stands Still - by Manda Scott
    Jun 21 2025

    Here is a meditation for the Solstice – the moment when the sun stands still.

    It is suitable for Summer and Winter solstice.

    You don't have to do this at the exact moment of stillness: it’s the connection that counts, the marking of the turning point from days lengthening to shortening (or vice versa if you’re in the southern hemisphere). This is a moment of reflection and a re-affirming of our connection to the web of life.

    You don’t have to limit yourself to one pass through – please feel free to explore this more deeply than one single iteration. If you want other, similar journeys, they are a whole host in the Accidental Gods Membership Programme.


    What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
    Guided visualisation/meditations similar to this one are available in the Accidental Gods membership, which aims to offer everyone a structured route towards heart-mind connection and opening; to connect you to the Web of Life such that you can ask 'what do you want of me?' and respond to the answers in real time as a self-conscious node in the living, hyper-complex system that is the web of life.

    If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
    If you'd like to join our next Gathering 'Becoming a Good Ancestor' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 6th July - details are here.
    If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
    If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

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    23 mins
  • Thoughts from the Solstice Edge: Turning the Page on a Dying System with Manda Scott
    Jun 21 2025
    As we head into the solstice- that moment when the sun stands still—whether you're in the northern hemisphere where we have the longest day, or the southern, where it's the longest night—this solstice feels like a moment of transformation. The world is turning over, turning a page. The old system is visibly—palpably—breaking apart. A new system will arise from the ashes, because there is always going to be a system. The question is what it looks like, works like, feels like. We are a prosocial, communitarian species, but our culture has shattered from our knowing of our integral place in the All That Is, so it's possible we might end up with a system predicated on hatred, underpinned by fear, where a small number of incredibly frightened people let their traumatised parts run a scorched earth policy in an effort to hold back everything of which they are most afraid, but I am increasingly hopeful that what we're seeing in places is the extinction burst of the old system: its death throes if you like. As I record this, there has been an estimated turnout in the US for the No Kings rallies of between ten and twelve million. This is an astonishing number. If it's true, it's well within shouting distance of the 3.5% of the total population that was considered a tipping point in previous social movements in our recent history: the abolition of slavery in the UK, the civil rights movement in the US, gay marriage in too many nations to count. The difference is that these numbers are based on a pre-internet age. We genuinely don't know what happens when people can see the images on their phones and realise how many of the people around them share the common values of decency, compassion, integrity, generosity-of-spirit. So if this is potentially a turning point in the making in the US, how do we make this bigger, grander, more of a global movement? We know we need total systemic change, but how do we make it happen? How do we create lasting change in our ways of organising everything from food to water to shelter to education. How do we sort our mess of a governance system so we can find those with the greatest wisdom and give them as much power as they need and no more, at all the levels of our culture? As ever, I think the answer lies in our narratives - when ideas become common currency, then we begin to build them into our visions of how the world is and has been and could be. If we can become bold, evolutionary imagineers and craft stories of a different way of organising, loving, relating, caring…then we can live it into being. Which means we need to know in the marrow of our bones what this feels like. Imagination begins in our perception of the possible and part of the horror of the Trauma culture is the systematic stifling of possibility. From our books to our movies to our TV to our TikTok videos, so much is predicated on Trauma Culture narratives of scarcity, separation and powerlessness. We are told this is the way the world is. That it is human nature to lack all morality and engage in zero sum strategies that belittle, disempower and crush everyone around us. Which it isn't. Nonetheless, predatory Capitalism is designed to keep us from imagining things differently. If we're stressed about earning enough to survive while at the same time being hooked on the things we absolutely have to have to feel better, and are being steadily more sedated by the incessant dopamine drips of social media…then we literally cannot step out into other ways of being. So this is our task now - to wean ourselves off the stuff we neither need nor (really) want; off the dopamine drips, and onto things that make our hearts sing so we can build new stories predicated on connection, agency and sufficiency; stories where we are self-conscious nodes in the web of life, and it's our job to ask 'What do you want of me?', listen to the answers, then carry them out to the best of our ability. That's it. Easy to say. Harder to do. But we can boil things down to 9 basic concepts:Three Values: Integrity, Compassion, Generosity-of-SpiritThree Baselines: Clean Air, Clean Water, Clean Soil Three ReWoven Connections: between all parts of Ourselves; ourselves and Each Other; Ourselves and the Web of Life. What happens if every single thing we think or do or say or dream is based in these three sets of three? How would our days change? This isn't going to happen overnight, but we can make the commitment to live by them now. Here. This moment. It's not going to be easy: changing behaviours never is. But we have baselines to work from. And we might focus on one at a time. What happens if Clean Water is our priority? How does it change how we live? What happens if we make Integrity the heart and soul of every interaction through our days - beginning with ourselves? What does it feel like to commit to re-weaving clean, clear, courageous, compassionate connections between all parts of ourselves, ourselves and...
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    27 mins
  • Falling in Love with the Future - with author, musician, podcaster and futurenaut, Rob Hopkins
    Jun 18 2025

    Our guest this week, Rob Hopkins, is a towering figure in the world of regenerative change. Co-founder of Transition Network and of Transition Town Totnes, he is host of the podcast 'From What if to What Next', stars in the groundbreaking French film 'Demain', speaks at TED Global and TEDx events and most recently, has created a collaborative music project with artist Mr Kit, ‘Field Recordings from the Future‘ which will be released on 17th of May 2025, alongside his new book,‘How to Fall in Love with the Future’.

    With the subtitle, 'A Time Traveller's Guide to Changing the World', this book does what it says on the tin - it offers a radical, moving, deeply inspiring dive into the people and movements throughout history who have used visions of the future to inspire positive change on a large and dramatic scale. From the life and writings of musician Sun Ra and the history of Black utopian movements to the latest neuroscience on what goes on in our minds—and hearts—when we travel through time, Rob brings essential new thinking to anyone overwhelmed with dread and anxiety for the future. He asks us to consider: what would the world look like if we all got to work imagining—and then building—a world we were deeply in love with?

    So this is our invitation to you: Listen to Rob now, then read his book, then explore what a genuinely flourishing future would feel like for you. And then together, let's make this happen.

    Rob's website https://www.robhopkins.net/
    Rob's book on Hive Books https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Rob-Hopkins/How-to-Fall-in-Love-with-the-Future--A-Time-Travellers-Gu/31447799

    What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
    If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
    If you'd like to join our next Gathering 'Becoming a Good Ancestor' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 6th July - details are here.
    If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
    If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here

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    1 hr and 19 mins
  • ReWilding our Water: From Rain to River to Sewer and back with Tim Smedley, author of The Last Drop
    Jun 11 2025
    If you listen to this podcast for any length of time, you'll know that I believe the way forward is predicated on our finding shared values—I'd go for integrity, compassion, courage and generosity of spirit as the baselines—and then a suite of clear asks in the outer world and needs in the inner world. In logistical terms, at an absolute baseline, we need Clean Air, Clean Water, Clean Soil. These are non negotiable and the fact that we currently have none of these is a grim indictment of how much we live in an economy that sucks the life out of everything rather than a society that grows. But we do have people who are working flat out to change the narrative on exactly these topics and this week's guest, Tim Smedley, is one of these. Tim is an award-winning sustainability journalist who has worked with the BBC, the Guardian, Sunday Times and Financial Times. He is also a celebrated non-fiction writer. His first book, Clearing the Air: The Beginning and the End of Air Pollution, was shortlisted for the UK's Royal Society Science Book Prize. His latest: The Last Drop: Solving the World's Water Crisis was a Times Book of the Year and has been described as 'Smart, Sobering and Scholarly' which it certainly is.This is one of those books that's both terrifying, utterly compelling and—I'm glad to say—ultimately inspiring. Yes, the world's water is in a desperate state. Yes, it has been horribly mismanaged almost everywhere by the kleptocracy that masquerades as a democracy in our modern world. But yes, we do have responses that will work, they have been carefully explored and water is one of those unifying elements that brings people together across tribal boundaries. We all need clean water and getting there means we need to find common principles by which we can live. Spoiler alert: turning water into a for-profit commodity is not a part of the solution. Regenerative agriculture, re-Wilding our waters, beavers (yay!) and sane water saving/sparing practices definitely are. Tim is so knowledgeable and his books are both brilliantly researched and utterly personal. He goes to the places he writes about and his first-hand experiences are priceless. I have put links in the show notes for both of his books, plus the Medium article on DeGrowth which is where I first came across his work. Please do explore afterwards. Tim's website https://www.timsmedleywriter.com/Medium on Degrowth: https://medium.com/the-new-climate/we-need-to-talk-about-degrowth-part-ii-4d71c44067b9Article in Prospect Magazine https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/environment-news/climate-change/70022/why-isnt-it-raining-extreme-weatherTim on LinkedIn https://uk.linkedin.com/in/timsmedleyTim on Medium https://medium.com/@tjsmedleyTim on BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/timsmedley.bsky.socialTim's BooksClearing the Air https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/clearing-the-air-shortlisted-for-the-royal-society-science-book-prize-tim-smedley/1246586?ean=9781472953339The Last Drop https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-last-drop-solving-the-world-s-water-crisis-tim-smedley/7544965?ean=9781529058178What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to join our next Gathering 'Becoming a Good Ancestor' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 6th July - details are here.If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
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    1 hr and 34 mins
  • This is how we build the future: Teaching Regenerative Economics at all levels with Jennifer Brandsberg-Engelmann
    Jun 4 2025
    How do we let go of the sense of scarcity, separation and powerlessness that defines the ways we live, care and do business together? How can we best equip our young people for the world that is coming - which is so, so different from the future we grew up believing was possible? This week's guest, Jennifer Brandsberg-Engelmann is an educator, regenerative - and I would say renegade - economist who is Project Lead at the Regenerative Economics for Secondary Schools and Lead Author of the online textbook of the same name. Jennifer has taught economics for nearly thirty years, but as you'll hear, the Global Financial Crash led her to rethink the rules and structures of the system and now she's one of the world's leading thinkers on Regenerative Economics - how we can refocus away from business, markets and the structures of neoliberalism towards ways of being that are grounded in reciprocity, respect and responsibility, in the realities of being human in the twenty-first century. In 2023, Jennifer stopped working as a teacher and is now focused full time on shifting the paradigm in the education system and beyond, moving us away from the toxic mindset of scarcity, competition and the rise of oligopolies, towards an understanding of our place as integral nodes in the web of life. Her new two year curriculum is one of the most ambitious I've ever seen. It builds a solid, damning critique of the old paradigm and offers credible, structured routes through to a new one that would allow us all to flourish within a thriving ecosystem, to have not just an economy, but a way of being that is predicated in reciprocity, care, sharing and the kinds of lives we yearn to lead, but don't yet know how.Truly, this is evolutionary and if we can spread these ideas far enough, wide enough and root them deep enough in all that we are and do, I genuinely believe this is at least part of the key to the continuation of complex life on earth. Because, yes, we are that close to extinction. And yes, there is still time to veer from the cliff's edge.So if you do nothing else this week, please share this conversation and the links within it to anyone and everyone you know who cares about shifting the paradigm - or even is involved in the education system at any level. Enjoy.Jennifer on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-brandsberg-engelmann/Regen Economics on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/regenerative-economics-for-secondary-schools/Regenerative Economics for Secondary Schools - Project website (including online textbook with a creative commons license). 5/7 topics have been published + a Topic on systems thinking. https://www.regenerativeeconomics.earth/homeReimagining Economics: Five Transformative Shifts for Secondary Schools (Version for England) - A discussion paper to help curriculum authorities consider key changes to economics curricula. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R8e3wRmHYzqPl0Mfvv34oHv610F2RH8xveQ79xoZzYs/Regen Economics online Textbook https://www.regenerativeeconomics.earth/regenerative-economics-textbook/about-the-bookRegen Economics Open Letter on D.E.A.L https://doughnuteconomics.org/stories/open-letter-for-a-course-in-regenerative-economicsDoughnut Economics book https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Kate-Raworth/Doughnut-Economics--Seven-Ways-to-Think-Like-a-21st-Century-Economist/21739630Teach the Future - Curriculum for a Changing Climate (Track Changes) ProjectWhere the Regenerative Economics for Secondary Schools got its starthttps://www.teachthefuture.uk/tracked-changes-projectHow captured economics stole our climate — and how we can reclaim it (Part 4/4)Katy Shields' article in Medium with a brilliant causal loop diagram showing the reinforcing feedback loops that prevent change in the economics disciplinehttps://medium.com/@katyrshields/how-captured-economics-stole-our-climate-and-how-we-can-reclaim-it-part-4-4-6de66f5255afKaty is also the co-producer of the Tipping Point podcast, a true-crime style podcast about the Limits to Growth report and how it was undermined by economists https://tippingpoint-podcast.com/David Bollier, the expert support for Topic 2: Commons, recently released the second edition of his book Think Like a Commonerhttps://thinklikeacommoner.com/What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to join our next Gathering 'Becoming a Good Ancestor' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 6th July - details are here.If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
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    1 hr and 21 mins
  • Brilliant Minds: BONUS podcast with Kate Raworth, Indy Johar & James Lock at the Festival of Debate
    May 31 2025
    We are honoured to bring to Accidental Gods, a recording of three of our generation's leading thinkers in conversation at the Festival of Debate in Sheffield, hosted by Opus. This is an unflinching conversation, but it's absolutely at the cutting edge of imagineering: this lays out where we're at and what we need to do, but it also gives us roadmaps to get there: It's genuinely Thrutopian, not only in the ideas as laid out, but the emotional literacy of the approach to the wicked problems of our time. Now we have to make it happen. Kate Raworth is a renegade economist, author of the groundbreaking book, Doughnut Economics: 7 ways to think like a 21st Century Economist and founder of the Doughnut Economics Action Lab which is seeing companies, cities and nations around the world working towards an economy that prioritises flourishing of people and planet ahead of growth for growth's sake. Kate is a Senior Teaching Fellow at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, where she teaches on the Masters in Environmental Change and Management. She is also Professor of Practice at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.Indy Johar is an architect, co-founder of 00 on behalf of which he cofounded multiple social ventures from Impact Hub Westminster to Impact Hub Birmingham. He has also co-led research projects such as The Compendium for the Civic Economy, whilst supporting several 00 explorations/experiments including the wikihouse.cc, opendesk.cc. More recently he founded Dark Matter Labs - a field laboratory focused building the institutional infrastructures for radicle civic societies, cities, regions and towns. Dark Matter works with institutions around the world, from UNDP (Global), Climate Kic, McConnell (Canada), to the Scottish Gove to Bloxhub (Copenhagen). Indy has taught at various institutions from the University of Bath, TU-Berlin; Architectural Association, University College London, Princeton, Harvard, MIT and New School. James Lock is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Opus Independents Ltd, a not-for-profit social enterprise, working in culture, politics and the arts. Opus works to encourage and support participation, systemic activism and creativity with project strands that include Now Then Magazine & App, Festival of Debate. Opus Distribution, the River Dôn Project and Wordlife. James was on the podcast quite recently - in episode #279 - and we talked about the upcoming Festival of Debate and the fact that, amongst many other outstanding conversations, he'd be talking with Kate and Indy who are easily up their in my pantheon of modern intentional gods. Afterwards, James and I discussed the possibility of our bringing the recording of that conversation to the podcast - and here we are. Enjoy!Opus Independents https://www.weareopus.org/Festival of Debate https://festivalofdebate.com/Kate Raworth https://www.kateraworth.com/Doughnut Economics Action Lab https://doughnuteconomics.org/Doughnut Economics book https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Kate-Raworth/Doughnut-Economics--Seven-Ways-to-Think-Like-a-21st-Century-Economist/21739630Indy Johar https://about.me/indy.joharIndy's blog at DML https://provocations.darkmatterlabs.orgDark Matter Labs https://darkmatterlabs.org/Indy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/indy-johar-b440b010/Indy on Substack https://indyjohar.substack.com/James Lock on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-lock-964a8014/Rob Shorter of the Doughnut Economics Action Lab on Accidental Gods #41 https://accidentalgods.life/doughnut-economics-action-lab/Indy on Accidental Gods #205 https://accidentalgods.life/becoming-intentional-gods-claiming-the-future-with-indy-johar-of-the-dark-matter-labs/James on Accidental Gods #279 https://accidentalgods.life/now-then-building-networks-of-citizen-power-with-james-lock-of-opus-in-sheffield/What we offer - Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership. This is where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to come along to an Ask Manda Anything hour on Sunday 8th June, you do have to be a member (but you can join for £1 and then leave again!)If you'd like to join our next Gathering 'Becoming a Good Ancestor' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 6th July - details are here.If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
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    1 hr and 53 mins
  • Farm as Church, Land as Lover: Community. farming and food with Abel Pearson of Glasbren
    May 28 2025

    We all know the future rests upon us building heart-grounded, spirit-led communities that link humanity to the Web of Life. We know that the key to this is building reciprocal relationships with our food and the land from which it comes. Doing this is…harder. So this week, we're speaking with Abel Pearson of Glasbren. Abel is a friend of the podcast - we last spoke in the depths of the pandemic when he was farming 3 acres and beginning to feed the local community in ways that helped the people in a ten mile radius really to connect with the spirit of the land on which their food was grown. Now, Abel and the team are farming 138 acres of National Trust property, and still producing food for people in the local area - but so much more than that, they are building communities of place, passion and purpose, centred on the land and the cycles of the seasons and the ways we can build authentic relationship, full of reverence for the many, many layers of life in, on and under it the soil. He says that everything he does now is for his young son and the children to come, in the hope that they might yet enjoy abundant foodscapes, clean rivers and regenerative cultures.

    Glasbren https://www.glasbren.org.uk/
    Support the Farm https://www.glasbren.org.uk/farm-supporter
    Glasbren courses https://www.glasbren.org.uk/courses
    Episode #25 with Abel https://accidentalgods.life/nurturing-our-bodies-and-souls/


    If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership.
    If you'd like to join our next Gathering (you don't have to be a member) it's on 6th July - details are here.
    And if you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work, you'll find us here.

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    1 hr and 17 mins