Coconut Thinking

How might we participate as Earthlings, part of a living planet, in kinship with the more-than-human?

Dan Burgess is a regenerative practitioner, creative strategist, and facilitator working at the intersection of ecology, culture, and transformation. With roots in the worlds of storytelling, activism, and systems innovation, Dan helps individuals and organizations reimagine their roles in a world undergoing profound change. He draws on years of experience in creative industries, participatory leadership, and place-based learning to design processes that foster deep connection, agency, and collective renewal. Dan is known for his work in cultivating regenerative mindsets and practices that align human activity with the rhythms and needs of the living world. He is the founder and host of Spaceship Earth, a podcast and platform for exploring how we might live with greater imagination and responsibility as crew members of a planet in crisis. At heart, Dan is a bridge-builder—linking the inner and outer, the personal and systemic, the practical and the poetic in service of a thriving future. We discuss:

🥥 The balance between trying to get more people on board with our transformative ideas and the need to put energy into how we are creating space in ourselves to create space;

🥥 How the culture of modernity is a passenger story, where few of us are benefiting from modernity, within humans and as humans;

🥥 How ideas are processes that move and drift through interactions with others and their ideas, a sort of confluence that is never isolated.

Check us out: www.coconut-thinking.com

Check out the Spaceship Earth podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-spaceship-earth-podcast/id1338946235

What does it mean to nurture good relationships through regenerative education in these times we live in?

In this episode, I speak with the authors of the soon-to-be-published book, The Art of Regenerative Educatorship.

Bas is an associate professor in regenerative leadership at the Mission Zero Centre of Expertise at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, where he also serves on the management team of the Master’s in Sustainability Transitions. He lives in Dordrecht with his partner, writes novels, and is an avid gamer.

Mieke is an associate professor in Regenerative Education and Development at the University of Amsterdam, where she works within the international development studies programme and the Governance and Inclusive Development research group. She lives in Amsterdam with her partner and twins and is a committed Reiki practitioner and yoga teacher, engaged with the Reiki Regenerative Resource Development Community in The Hague.

Koen works as a regenerative educator at the University of Amsterdam. He teaches change-making within the Computational Social Sciences programme and supports interdisciplinary educators. He lives in Utrecht with his partner and dog, and draws deep inspiration from his intercultural connection with Turkey.

We discuss:

🥥 How regeneration invites us to become grounded in the project, connected with love to all life, to be present with all life in place, to have the courage to keep working, no matter the outcomes.

🥥 How we are complicit in the system, but we can be constructive disruptors and have the will to remain in the system in spite of its damaging effects.

🥥 How the process of writing the book was emergent and invited the reader as part of the process, opening up spaces for contextualized meaning-making.

Check us out: www.coconut-thinking.com

We honor Nyepi with this special episode, in which Charlotte Hankin interviews Benjamin Freud. Nyepi is the Balinese Day of Silence, and is a Hindu New Year celebration marked by 24 hours of complete stillness. No travel, no lights, no work, and no noise. It is a time for self-reflection and spiritual renewal.

We recorded this episode a few days after Nyepi and after that time of pause and gather. We discuss:

🥥 Regenerative education and how nothing goes beyond Nature’s paradigm (referencing Denise DeLuca);

🥥 How education is part of a larger system that replicates itself, meaning education won’t change without deeper systemic transformation;

🥥 How sometimes it’s either/or, both/and, and even or/either.

Join us for this special episode and check us out: www.coconut-thinking.com

How might we shift our educational practices to deepen students’ ecological awareness, nurturing a culture of care and reciprocity with Earth’s living systems?

In this episode, I speak with Katharine Burke. Katharine has been an educator for over 30 years, passionately advocating for ecological literacy, permaculture, and regenerative education. She currently teaches Geography and Social Studies at the secondary level, focusing her work on transformative ecological education projects. Katharine’s master’s thesis, “Restorying our Connection to the Natural World,” led to practical school initiatives including gardening programs, composting and seed studies, survival excursions, immersive nature camps, and integrating systems thinking across literature, geography, economics, and social studies. She authored EARTHWARDS, a practical guide reflecting educators’ real-world experiences. Katharine also founded The Small Earth Institute to offer deep ecology and regenerative design training for teachers. We discuss:

🥥 How sometimes change starts with having the space to talk about what uncomfortable, challenging, or simply not spoken;

🥥 How building a value system requires building it with others,

🥥 How transformative education is about shifting perceptions, identities, and values, which, when coupled with ecological education, bring us to understand we participate in the web of life.

Check us out, www.coconut-thinking.com

Do we have what it takes to change our ways to ones that work with, rather than against, life?

In this episode, I speak with Giles Hutchins. Giles is a leading voice in regenerative leadership and business transformation. With 30 years of experience—including roles as Head of Transformation at KPMG and Global Sustainability Director at Atos—he now focuses on guiding leaders and organizations toward more resilient, nature-inspired ways of working. He’s the author of books like The Illusion of Separation and Leading by Nature, and his new book is called Nature Works: Activating Regenerative Leadership Consciousness. Giles's work explores how businesses can move beyond outdated models to embrace a regenerative future. We discuss:

🥥 What it takes to lead in a world of complexity and change;

🥥 How the current mechanistic paradigm can at best help us cope with what is coming, what has already happened, and maybe not even help us cope for much longer;

🥥 How dynergy is a tension and conflict holds creative energy, which allows for emergence to come through;

🥥 Nature as natura naturans, the enabling process of becoming, not Nature as "out there."

Check us out www.coconut-thinking.com

How might we weave stories together as a response to ecological breakdown, using sound to connect to place?

In this episode, I speak with Mike Edwards. Mike began his career researching climate change in the Southwest Pacific, where his work—cited by the IPCC—was among the first to explore ecocolonialism: how climate discourse is manipulated by the powerful to control those most affected. His research challenged dominant narratives, sparking debate among those reluctant to rethink the status quo. In 2015, he co-founded Sound Matters, pioneering work in sonic rewilding, regenerative soundscaping, and Integral Listening (IL). His book Soundscapes of Life is set for release in 2025. Beyond sound, Mike has been a Climate Change Advisor to The Elders Foundation, working with leaders like Kofi Annan and President Jimmy Carter ahead of COP21. He has lectured worldwide, led the Arts and Ecology programme at Dartington Arts, and founded InnerDigenous, a movement helping people reconnect with self and place for personal and planetary healing. We discuss:

🥥 How knowledge is co-created by place and when it travels, brings place with it;

🥥 How soundscapes are the stories of many, which force us to attend differently;

🥥 How we are not interconnected, because that might suggested we can become disconnected, rather, we are all entangled and vibrating, sometimes, if we are lucky, at the same frequencies.

Check us out, www.coconut-thinking.com

Check out www.sound-matters.com

What happens when the way we see ourselves changes the way we see the world?

In this episode, I speak with Steffi Bednarek. Steffi’s work explores the intersection of climate change, complexity thinking, and the human psyche. She is the Director of the Center for Climate Psychology. With over 25 years of experience in depth psychology, trauma-informed practice, complexity thinking, and climate psychology, she supports individuals and organisations in navigating the psychological impacts of the metacrisis while fostering resilience and healthy cultures. She is the author of Climate, Psychology, and Change, described as “a work of wisdom and radical ideas” by Satish Kumar and endorsed by Fritjof Capra, Bill McKibben, and Nora Bateson. We discuss:

🥥 How our identities might shift in different ways depending on how we draw the boundaries, which changes our resonance with/as the world;

🥥 How silencing others because they do not agree with us is not the solution to creating spaces for understanding;

🥥 Our (in-)capacities to manage the inundation of information that comes our way, and how we might better adapt so as to flourish at best and avoid trauma at minimum.

Check us out: www.coconut-thinking.com

And check out the Center for Climate Psychology: https://climate-psychology-change.squarespace.com/

How might leadership open more emergent spaces in schools?

This is the first in a series of episodes throughout the year where we invite educators and practitioners to explore how they might share their time, talents, and gifts to uplift others. As we delve into their stories, we ask our guests what contributions they envision making in the spirit of generosity and regeneration. This isn’t about the spotlight—it’s about the offering.

In this episode, I speak with Leslie Medema, Head of Campus at Green School Bali. Leslie has held various roles at Green School, including head, curriculum developer, career counsellor, and, above all, educator. Her background spans work in NGOs and policymaking across industries. While she may be in the jungle, Leslie never forgets her roots in South Dakota. She brings a wealth of experience in starting innovative schools, aligning vision with lived experiences, and guiding organizations from unproductive chaos to emergent possibilities. We discuss:

🥥 How to grow an organization in the midst of (controlled chaos) in ways that build capacity and foster community;

🥥 The importance of knowing and articulating why we learn and teach something and how this makes our local or global world a better place;

🥥 How being comfortable with uncertainty is never going to be an easy ride—stories from Green School over the past 13 years

Check us out www.coconut-thinking.com

How might we learn (and teach) to navigate uncertainty when the system rewards final answers?

Dave Cormier is an internationally renowned educational thinker specializing in the intersection of technology and pedagogy. He coined the term MOOC in 2008 and pioneered open and rhizomatic learning. His work on creativity and uncertainty in education is taught globally. In 2024, he published Learning in a Time of Abundance: The Community Is the Curriculum with Johns Hopkins University Press. Recently, Dave facilitated an international online conference for educators and will be a visiting academic at Deakin University for the CRADLE symposium on Generative AI and Work-Integrated Learning. As the Interim Director of Curriculum Development and Delivery, Open Learning at Thompson Rivers University, he advances digital learning strategies in the GenAI era, supporting student experiences with practical and strategic solutions. We discuss:

🥥 How a single adult engaging with a few students—when replicated locally and globally—might be the response we need to face the metacrisis.

🥥 How learners of all ages don’t need to have every tool at their disposal when confronting uncertainty, but rather need to know how to respond, what to do, and where to learn to navigate it effectively.

🥥 How the most important literacy of the 21st century is humility—the ability to say, “I don’t know, but let’s learn together.”

Check us out at www.coconut-thinking.com

How might sound reshape our understanding of and nurture new relationships with the living world?

In this episode, I speak with Louise Romain. Louise works as an anthropologist, an imagination activist (with Moral Imaginations) and a podcast producer. She campaigns for multispecies justice and Indigenous rights through grassroots organising, relationship building and media production. With her show ‘Circle of Voices’, she produces short stories, spoken word and immersive sound journeys, crafted as invitations to dream deeper into possible and desirable futures while engaging with themes of socio-political and environmental justice. She is fascinated by the potential of acoustic ecology to weave listeners into the sacred web of life and to support ecosystem regeneration. Louise is part of the Communications Team of the Women’s Caucus of the Convention on Biological Diversity, a 2024 Fellow of The Bio-Leadership Project and an active member of Earth Decides. We discuss:

🥥 Multispecies justice as supporting all species to thrive alongside humans, appreciating that survival depends on water, the land, the air—a healthful planet;

🥥 How sound asks us to slow down and open ourselves to different relationships with the living world of which we are part, noticing what we aren't used to noticing when we rely primarily on our sight;

🥥 Inclusion of the more-than-human and how inclusion might require exclusion, and leaving a part of us behind in order to be included.

Check us out www.coconut-thinking.com

Find out more about Louise's work on her website https://tuneintotheworld.com/ and follow her on social media @‌lou_romain_ and @‌circleofvoices.

Find her podcast here.