How do the stories we tell ourselves and each other about ourselves, each other and our place in the web of life shape our world?

How can we craft narratives that can shift the way we see and experience the world? Is this even the best leverage point to start off with or is there a deeper/wider/more effective acupuncture point we could explore as we evolve to become…what? 

What are we aiming for? What—who—do we want to be and how might we reach places we can't even express - and do it in the face of a world where narratives are becoming more black-and-white, more constrained by circumstances, more held by those with power?

In a week that's seen our world become both more complex, more ugly and more beautiful, we're talking to story-crafter and narrative-explorer, Paddy Loughman.

Paddy's work explores the role of narrative and communications in navigating beyond our predicament. He is curious about how we might come together to appreciate what science and wisdom traditions reveal about entangled, relational reality, and the potential of more viable, beautiful worlds. He works independently, collaborating with activists, academics, philanthropists, creatives, community organisers and more, orienting towards just, transformational change. He has also co-initiated a number of efforts, including Inter-Narratives with Ella Saltmarshe. Earlier in his career he worked as a strategist in commercial and political communications, before jumping into climate campaigning with a wide range of organisations, from the UNFCCC to grassroots activists, and once upon a time he trained as an actor.

This is my first conversation after a life-changing time away from my desk and it was a genuinely generative, consciousness-expanding conversation. I'm in the space where reality, dream and experience are overlapping seamlessly and Paddy felt like one of those people who can stand on the edge of all our spaces and look into what we might become and how we might get there.  So…with this as your baseline, please do join us in our exploration of possibility.

Links
Stories for Life https://stories.life/
Inter-Narratives https://inter-narratives.org/
Paddy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/paddyloughman/

Go Deep or Go Home Medium Post by Paddy Loughman and Ella Saltmarsh https://medium.com/inter-narratives/go-deep-or-no-home-the-essential-power-of-deep-narrative-9124e69ee2aa

'Stop Trying to Change Mindsets. Do This Instead' by Jessica Boehme https://jessicaboehme.substack.com/p/the-greatest-leverage-to-change-a

'Raging against the dying light: a systems view of human futures' by Julian Norris https://wolfwillow.substack.com/p/raging-against-the-dying-light-a

'Who is Organising the Poor White Folks' by Amhara Spence  https://amahraspence.substack.com/p/who-is-organising-poor-white-folks

Antidote Project: https://www.antidotelive.studio/
Imandeep Kaur https://civicsquare.cc/

The Dawn of Everything David Graeber and David Wengrow https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-dawn-of-everything-a-new-history-of-humanity-david-graeber/bb3d95f3af2350df

What we offer: 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 Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.
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 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

Why are we here? How do we think? What is the nature of life? What are the boundaries between ourselves and the rest of the living web—between ourselves and the rest of the universe across space and through time…and in the timeless, formless place from which everything arises?

These are the big, foundational questions of our existence, and how we answer them shapes how we see ourselves and our relationship to everything around us. If we work on a human supremacist frame, then we have no qualms about destroying the rest of the living web. If we know ourselves to be integral to it, if we can 'prove' this at a scientific level, then perhaps we can shift the way we behave.

Dr James Cooke is an author, researcher and host of the Living Mirrors Podcast which is how I got to know him. He has three degrees from Oxford, including a PhD in neuroscience. He has been conducting research into the brain basis of consciousness and at the University of London, he achieved a theoretical breakthrough that linked philosophy, the latest in cognitive neuroscience and modern secular mysticism. Outside academia, he directs the Inner Space Institute for NonDual Naturalism, a center for education and participation in topics at the intersection of science & spirituality.  It is here, it says, 'To help you engage in spiritual development in a way that is scientifically grounded.'  

Nondual Naturalism is a worldview that synthesises science and spiritual insight, centred around the recognition that we are not separate from nature and are fundamentally at home in existence and James expands on this in detail in his book, The Dawn of Mind: How matter became conscious and alive which synthesises science and contemplative insight to offer a radical solution to the Hard Problem of Consciousness and the question of our place in existence.

James' website: https://www.drjamescooke.com/

The Inner Space Institute: https://www.innerspaceinstitute.org/
The Dawn of Mind Book https://uk.bookshop.org/book/9781633889927
Living Mirrors Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/living-mirrors-with-dr-james-cooke/id1516523741
James on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DrJamesCooke

What we offer: 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 Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.
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 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

Our western (Trauma Culture) economies run on two falsehoods - we might go so far as to call them lies.

The first is that economies have to grow to be 'successful'.  The second is that government spending is limited by the tax take.  That is, they need to take money in as taxes in order to spend it out into the economy.  Both of these are untrue, and understanding that they are untrue, and the political forces of ignorance and mendacity that keep them in place, is essential to our moving forward into a future that works. We cannot continue to maintain the death cult of predatory capitalism. We cannot continue with a Zombie economy that extracts, consumes, destroys and pollutes as if there were no consequences. 
So what do we do? Both ecological economics and Modern Monetary Theory have been around for a while.  Degrowth theory is more recent, but it's being taken more seriously. What I haven't seen up till now is a fusion of these: a set of policy ideas worked out in which we acknowledge how money actually works, and look at how a national -or global - economy could be structured to lead us forward into a world where people and planet flourish together. I don't think this is the final destination, but it's definitely a step on the way.

Our guest this week is someone particularly well positioned to answer these questions.  Colleen Schneider is a Doctoral student in Social-Ecological Economics & Policy in Vienna. Her key research areas: Ecological Economics, Environmental Justice, Monetary and Financial Systems in a Post-Growth Economy, Climate Policy.  She says, "I take a sociological and anthropological approach to understanding money as fundamentally a social relation. Money, and the monetary system (as with our economic system) are things we've created, and can create otherwise. I draw on historical examples to help understand how the institutional structure of the monetary system and our ideas about money came to be what they are, and to challenge those. [I seek to] de-naturalize money and point to ways to structure the monetary system as democratized, and (at least somewhat) localized -to realize money as a public good. I focus more specifically on how monetary and fiscal policy can be directed toward meeting human needs within environmental limits, while maintaining macroeconomic stability."

So this is the focus of today's conversation.  This is a field about which I am passionate - I absolutely believe that if everyone understood how money actually works in our current world, a lot of the power inequities that we currently experience would end.  We have endeavoured to minimise the use of jargon, though we did talk about monetary and fiscal policy and I wanted to make it clear that Monetary Policy is about keeping prices stable - about using interest rates to influence inflation, that kind of thing . Fiscal policy is about the spending decisions - do we have austerity or don't we, do we fund social goods or don't we, do we decide to pour money into the military, or don't we… and the nature of taxation - what rates do we levy, what are the bands and what loopholes do we leave wide open so our friends can escape paying taxes altogether - while everyone continues to pretend that government spending is limited by the tax take. Which is nonsense. Taxation is about levelling the playing field. It's not about paying for the NHS.

So there we go. Colleen spends her entire life working in this field, producing fascinating papers and a chapter in a forthcoming book that completely blew me away. So she speaks to these things far more eloquently and intelligently than I can.  Enjoy!

Colleen on LinkedIn

Colleen's papers:
How to Pay for Saving the World - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800923002318

Democratizing the Monetary Provisioning System - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15487733.2024.2344305

On universal public services to end the cost of living crisis - https://www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/economic-growth/cost-of-living-crisis/2023/01/state-end-cost-of-living-crisis-climate-change

Papers by others:

The political response to Inflation: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/mexico/governments-survived-inflation

Workshops:

Public Money for Public Good: Why MMT Matters | Vienna
September 27th and 28th 
Gleis 21, Bloch-Bauer-Promenade 22, 1100 Wien, Austria

https://events.humanitix.com/public-money-mmt-vienna

Public Money for Public Good: Why MMT Matters | Sheffield

(Colleen is not a part of this one, but says that wonderful people are running it!)

September 20th and 21st 

https://events.humanitix.com/public-money-mmt-sheffield

Regenerative Economy Lab - Money and Finance Workshop

Vienna, October 23rd and 24th

https://www.regenecon.eu/

Online masters program on which Colleen teaches - grounded jointly in ecological economics and modern monetary theory: https://www.torrens.edu.au/studying-with-us/employability/industry-led-learning/co-delivery-partners/modern-money-lab

Documentary 'Finding the Money'. https://findingmoneyfilm.com/

MMT group based in the UK : https://modernmoneylab.org.uk/

What we offer: 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 Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.
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 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

As the old system is splitting apart, a few brave souls are already working to hospice this old system, acting as Death Doulas to the Great Dying—as well as helping people to awaken the seeds of a new world within.  One of these is our guest this week. Sara McFarland is a Soul Initiation and Wild Mind Mentor and Guide, Artist of Consciousness and a Death Doula for the Great Dying.

Their website says, 'I believe Earth is always moving towards transformation and renewal—to our eyes, it may look like rupture or being stuck, a dead end or a tragedy. And, like Earth, we are always Whole, regardless of the part we are currently stuck in. Resiliency is part of (our) nature. I do not offer the solution to your "problem" - what are often labeled problems, I understand as symptoms of disconnection from the Web of Life and the Trauma of Civilization. Both blessing and curse, they are the place where our gold is buried and shaped. I use all of the tools-physical, energetic and spiritual- I have learned and received, to support you towards wholeness and the building of inner resources in order to reduce your stress level, to learn to love yourself and to stand in your power. '

I came to know Sara earlier this year when I was invited onto the Starter Culture podcast.  We talked for an hour and it felt like about 3 minutes and that we could have talked all day and not run out of avenues to explore, rabbit holes to excavate. Our conversation today took entirely different routes but was felt just as generative to me. Sara lives right at the emergent edge of the transformation of our world, helping to midwife the Soul Initiations of people who are called to ask them for help, and stepping into the Mystery at all its levels to act as a guide, mentor, healer in a world in transition. 

Sara's website https://www.saramcfarland.com/

What we offer: 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 Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.
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 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

Our Trauma Culture has spread across the globe with terrifying speed and ghastly efficiency.  But the tide is turning and people of good heart in many nations are beginning to understand that what we need now is a move towards a 21st Century Initiation Culture. The language is often different, but at heart, this is where we need to go.

Our guest this week, Hilary Giovale, is a mother, writer, facilitator and community organiser who lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.  As an active reparationist, she seeks to follow Indigenous and Black leadership in support of human rights, environmental justice, and equitable futures.  She is the author of the award-winning book Becoming a Good Relative: Calling White Settlers toward Truth, Healing, and Repair.

Descended from the Celtic, Germanic, Nordic, and Indigenous peoples of Ancient Europe, she is a ninth-generation American settler.  For most of her life these origins were obscured by whiteness.  After learning more about her ancestors’ history, Hilary began emerging from a fog of amnesia, denial, and fragmentation.  For the first time, she could see a painful reality: her family’s occupation of this land has harmed Indigenous and African peoples, cultures, lands, and lifeways.  This realisation changed her life and part of this change was writing this moving, deeply important book.  Supported by local First Peoples, she undertook four years of fasting ceremonies, and began to engage differently, more deeply and with a new, raw authenticity with those whose ancestors had been most damaged by the Trauma Culture's colonisation of the land.

Her book is essential reading for anyone in white culture, wherever we live in the world. It's a raw, unflinching step into discomfort, but it's also a deeply moving memoir of Hilary's journey inward, to dreams, to genuine visionary connection with the land, to the power of heartfelt apology to heal at least some of the generational horror of the Trauma Culture. 

So, you'll definitely want to read this. If you're in North America, you can get hard copies easily. If you're elsewhere, you may only be able to get an e-book, but either way, Hilary returns all income she receives from book sales to Decolonizing Wealth Project and Jubilee Justice.  

Hilary's website: https://www.goodrelative.com
Becoming a Good Relative https://www.goodrelative.com/book
E-book here: on Barnes and Noble  and on Kobo

Guide to Making a Personal Reparations Plan https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G-ufl_8ixdquMGrDziiBUBAANYKXrN7eHtjiE5aKTfw/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.1kvofvfw6wns

What we offer: 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 Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.
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 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

We are a storied species: Everything we do arises from the stories we tell ourselves and each other about ourselves and each other and our relationship with the web of life.  Our current polycrisis: the accelerating annihilation of our cultures and our biosphere arises out of a particular set of stories that tell us we're isolated individuals caught in a system of separation, scarcity and powerlessness; that we can't trust anyone else and we have to do whatever it takes to get to the top of a steep-sided pyramid - that anyone who falls or fails is not worth our empathy or compassion; that the living web is a 'resource' to be exploited; that the ends of madmen always justify the means by which they steal control. This is how we end up with narratives of the 'humane genocide of non-productives' being peddled in the backwaters of the alt-right, and a world of increasing violence.

So how do we change this? How do we create visions of a world that functions differently, one where every single human thrives as an integral part of a flourishing ecosphere?  One obvious route is to begin to seed stories in the various screen-based media where people engage with empathy and compassion, where our goals and values have a compassionate base, where people respond with genuine emotional literacy, as adults, instead of endlessly as adolescents. 

Our guest this week is Romain Vakilitabar, founder of Pathos Labs, a non-profit laboratory focused on exploring ways in which entertainment and media can rewrite harmful narratives, and change culture. One such project is PopShift, an initiative which convenes Hollywood’s leading TV writers with the country’s leading experts to determine how television can help catalyze new prosocial behaviors and attitudes.

Romain was awarded the "Erase the Hate" fellowship from NBCUniversal in 2018 for his efforts to eradicate hatred in America. He spoke at one of the world's biggest TEDx events, has been featured in the books "2 Billion Under 20" and "Compassionate Careers", and in journals such as UC Berkeley's "Othering and Belonging".  

Whether traveling between Palestine and Israel to better understand emotional relationships to the long-lasting conflict, spending weeks voluntarily homeless to empathize with the idea of "absolute need", hitchhiking thousands of miles to test the generosity of strangers, or living with conservative rural farmers in Oklahoma to better understand cultural conservatism, Romain has found that people, no matter the differences, are more alike than they imagine. Pathos Labs was born to prove it, by using the arts to dismantle systemic "othering".

Romain on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/romainvak/
Pathos Labs https://pathoslabs.org/
Pop Shift https://popshift.org/
Video from Futures Basecamp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnxKP4wecis/

The Day After Movie on IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085404/reviews/

What we offer: 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 Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.
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 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

In this week's podcast I was honoured to join a four-way conversation between Giovanna and Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti and Tim Logan of Future Learning Design Podcast, to celebrate the publication of Vanessa's new book, Outgrowing Modernity.

Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti is author of Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity's Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism which we have referenced many times on Accidental Gods.  She is also Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria in Canada. She is a former Canada Research Chair in Race, Inequalities and Global Change and a former David Lam Chair in Multicultural Education. She is one of the co-founders of the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures (GTDF) Arts/Research Collective, is the author of many academic papers and, with Aiden CinnamonTea, is co-author of Burnout From Humans. Most of her published articles and OpEds are available at academia.edu.

Her daughter, Giovanna de Oliveira Andreotti, is a Dancer/dance teacher, GTDF member, certified Warm Data Lab host, founder of Rewiring for Reality: Cross Generational Reckoning, and an online course facilitator/co-ordinator. She holds a Bachelor's in Psychology from UBC, postgraduate certifications in Climate Psychology and Embodied Social Justice, and currently coordinates an inquiry that maps pedagogical practices addressing complexity, complicity, collapse, and accountability.

This conversation took us deep into the complexity of what it means to be human at this moment when the old order is quite clearly in breakdown.  How do we use language? How do we engage with ourselves, each other and the web of life? And what is the web in a world where the first human-created silicon life is co-evolving with us.   How do we explore inter and intra-generational responses and capacity for meaning-making in a way that honours everyone, both human and beyond-human?

In a world that feels ever more precarious, it was an honour and a delight to be in the company of such bright, deep minds.  Thank you to Giovanna, Vanessa and Tim - and I hope you all enjoy this as much as we did.

Vanessa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessa-andreotti-a013276/
Giovanna on LinkedIn  https://www.linkedin.com/in/giovanna-de-oliveira-andreotti-b77950272/
Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures https://decolonialfutures.net/
Burnout from Humans https://burnoutfromhumans.net/
Rewiring for Realities https://r4rs.org/cross-generational

Tim's podcast and website https://www.futurelearningdesign.com/

Books:
Hospicing Modernity https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Vanessa-Machado-De-Oliveira/Hospicing-Modernity--Parting-with-Harmful-Ways-of-Living/26579141
Outgrowing Modernity https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Vanessa-Machado-de-Oliveira/Outgrowing-Modernity--Navigating-Complexity-Complicity-an/31891959

What we offer: 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 Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.
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 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

In the midst of the Great Transformation, one of the most exciting changes taking place is in our capacity to find what makes our hearts sing - to find our flow, to find what it is that we can do best, that we can do with all our hearts and souls—that leaves us radiant; that lets us lead with our Heart Minds, letting our Head Minds relax into service to life.

Getting here, though, is not a trivial pursuit.  And finding ways for parents to lead their children into this place of discovery and switched-on joy is a critical step of our evolution as a species.  So when I read the book 'Lights on Learning: a parent's blueprint for happy, fulfilled and curious kids',  by Julia Black, founder of the Lights on Learning programme, I was genuinely delighted.

Julia Black of Lights on Learning is a mother of two young adults, a BAFTA and Grierson nominated documentary director, social entrepreneur, educationalist, and Master Neurocoach. She hosts an online global community for parents who want to bring the latest thinking from neuroscience, positive psychology and passion-led learning into their homes. Her vision is of a world where all children love learning, and she sees parents as the key to that future.

Julia says, 'I’m a social entrepreneur to my core, driven by a deep passion to give children the freedom to learn through their strengths. When we find that thing we were born to explore, we enter the realm of infinite possibilities. This is where I love to play with potential - beyond the edges of our comfort zone.' 

This is such an inspiring book. It's full of examples of young people and their parents who have found the ways to switch on their flow, their love of life, their gratitude, compassion and joyful curiosity. It's clearly laid out, expresses the science of neuroplasticity and flow clearly and easily and opens doors by which all of us can step into what Julia calls 'Radiance' the fullest expression of our being - and where we can see that this is one step on a spectrum and sometimes we need to step into Darkness to see where our blocks lie and to find the courage and resilience to keep pushing through the hard stuff, to find where our edges are and to step beyond them.

Lights On Learning has the core values that 'Courage Counts', 'Authenticity Rules' and 'Growth Spirals' - which feel like essential values for our time.

Lights on Learning website https://www.lightsonuniverse.com/
Lights on Learning book https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/lights-on-learning-a-parent-s-blueprint-for-happy-fulfilled-curious-kids-julia-black/7786461?ean=9781781338933

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lightsonmum/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thelightsonmum
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lightsonfamilies/

Mentions
Ron Berger 'An Ethic of Excellence'
Dr Shannon Irvine https://drshannonirvine.com/

What we offer: 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 Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.
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 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

“In a world where our wildlife is becoming extinct at a frightening rate, we are setting up an oasis where animals, wild flowers and even ancient fungi can thrive.” Charlie Bennett writing of Middleton North Farm.

It's clear to most of us that the existing food and farming system is unsustainable.  What's less clear is what to do about it, particularly when the behemoths of the industry put so much time, effort and money into propaganda which suggests we can't feed humanity unless we keep doubling down on the industrial systems that are destroying our soils, our watercourses and our health.  Given this toxic mix of misinformation, government bureaucracy and algorithms engineered to keep us at each others' throats, it's not surprising the waters are muddied.

And yet the signposts are out there and brave pioneers across the continents are working to find ways to feed people healthy, nutritious food at prices they can afford while also building soil, increasing water uptake —which is another way of saying we're reducing flooding— and returning life to the land.

One of these glorious pioneers is Charlie Bennett of Middleton North farm in Northumbria.

I came across Charlie  in the closing days of 2024 when I read his first book 'Down the Rabbit Hole' and promptly bought copies to give to all my friends. HIs writing was at once lyrical and grounded in a reality I recognised—and he was writing about regenerative farming, except he called it 'Common Sense Farming'.  I wrote to him then, and we've corresponded ever since and now he's this week's guest on the podcast.

Charlie Bennett is a farmer, writer, and passionate advocate for the countryside. He is joint owner of the Middleton North estate near Morpeth, Northumberland, in North East England. Here, he and his wife Charlotte work to support existing wildlife and attract new species alongside sustainable stock farming designed to add to the diversity of wildlife in the area.

Trigger Warning: Charlie and I share a passion for the land and a deep sense of connectedness to the more than human world. We both live in a reality where humans (sometimes) eat meat so if discussions of the reality of this might be difficult for you, please skip past those bits. Otherwise, please do enjoy this exploration of how we can share our world differently with the Web of Life.

Charlie's website https://charliebennettauthor.co.uk/
Buy Charlie's books https://charliebennettauthor.co.uk/shop/p/down-the-rabbit-hole-book-fh2pk-mcey8
Middleton North Farm https://www.middleton-north.co.uk

Lit and Phil https://www.litandphil.org.uk/

What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass

If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering 'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.
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 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

Water is our lifeblood and Clean Water (along with Clean Air and Clean Soil) is one of our core Three Asks, the non-negotiable baselines that underpin a flourishing future for people and life on our planet. Getting there, means everyone beginning to care at a bone-deep level, way beneath our conscious minds and having a sense of how we might get there, supported by evidence of what works (or doesn't) so that we can create positive feedback loops of growing community between the human and Beyond-Human worlds. 

Living this into being is one of the core pillars of the Great Transformation and one of the groups working towards it is the River Dôn Project in Sheffield, one of the many projects overseen by Opus Independents. One of the project leads is Jonny Douglas, and he's today's guest.

Jonny imagines a world where the vast majority of people have the means and opportunity to find and fulfil their true potential. He has worked as a designer, a trainer, educator and facilitator in human skills and creativity in universities, colleges, schools and businesses.  At Opus he is a Co-Founder and Network Coordinator of the UBI Lab Network and Technology Lead for the River Dôn Project, among other roles across the portfolio. He believes our only path forward is one of mutually assured flourishing and that now is the time to build those alternative realities, together.

 I met Jonny last July at the Social Enterprise Network Summer Conference in Sheffield and the conversation about the River Dôn Project was one of the single most inspiring, thought -provoking I have ever had. So, with great delight, here we are, exploring routes to Mutually Assured Flourishing.  Enjoy! 

Jonny at Opus https://www.weareopus.org/team/jonny-douglas
Jonny on all socials: Linked in  |  Pinterest  |  Instagram  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Bluesky

River Dôn Project website  |  Engagement Platform 

River Dôn Project - Bluesky  |  Linked in  |  Instagram  |  Mailing list  |  Donate

Mentions in the Show

James Lock of Opus #279 https://accidentalgods.life/now-then-building-networks-of-citizen-power-with-james-lock-of-opus-in-sheffield/
Debs Grayson from Opus #283 https://accidentalgods.life/red-pill-blue-pill-green-pill-true-pill-creating-a-trustworthy-media-commons-with-debs-grayson-of-opus-independents/
Hospicing Modernity with Vanessa De Oliveira Andreotti ~ Festival of  Debate, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZgq3h6pPxU 

#Brilliant Minds: BONUS podcast with Kate Raworth, Indy Johar & James Lock at the Festival of Debate

https://accidentalgods.life/brilliant-minds-bonus-podcast-with-kate-raworth-indy-johar-james-lock-at-the-festival-of-debate/

Opus https://www.weareopus.org/
Festival of Debatehttps://festivalofdebate.com/ 

PechaKucha Sheffield 

https://www.pechakucha.com/communities/sheffield 

Sheffield Soup
https://sheffieldsoup.wordpress.com/what-is-soup/ 

Food Works

https://thefoodworks.org/ 

Sofar Sounds

https://www.sofarsounds.com/cities/sheffield 

Dôn Catchment Rivers Trust

https://dcrt.org.uk/ 

For a deeper dive, other links are available on a Google Doc here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/172pnHQdb14dgQmphixCoFgea5j_kapzpSOeIlgZUko8/

What we offer: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass

If you'd like to join our next Open Gathering 'Dreaming Your Death Awake' (you don't have to be a member) it's on 2nd November - details are here.
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 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