What does it mean to act — not out of certainty, but out of grief and relational sensing ?

In this quietly powerful episode, Dan sits on the land with Gavin Fernie-Jones, co-founder of the Re-Action Collective, to explore how deep connection to place, the loss of his father, and the visible unraveling of mountain ecologies catalysed a life of collective action.

From ski lifts to community sewing tables, this conversation moves across the terrain of:

🌄 Mountains as memory and mirror 🔥 The palpable grief of witnessing climate collapse in beloved places 🧵 How one collective is patching, repairing, and repurposing not just outdoor gear—but the culture of disposability 🌀 Why experimental, humble, decentralised alternatives already exist—quietly flourishing beneath the capitalist noise ❤️‍🩹 Grief as a portal into purpose, and what becomes possible when we stop waiting for permission

Gav and the Re-Action Collective (now 70+ organisations strong) aren’t waiting for top-down transformation. They’re making the future by hand, with care, and in kinship.

This episode invites you not just to listen—but to feel.Feel the grief. Feel the land. Feel the possibility of living otherwise.

🔗 More about Re-Action:

https://re-action-collective.org/

https://www.actionism.space/

Greetings to the Summer Solstice

Here in the Northern Hemisphere

The sun is at peak power

These next days are the longest

Until we begin the gentle swing back towards darker times.

This morning my fellow guide Mark Sears sent me this poem from Persian Poet and Mystic - Hafiz which I shared on our call.

The Sun Never Says

Even after all this time

The sun never says to the earth,

“You owe Me.”

Look what happens with

A love like that,

It lights the Whole Sky.

Hafiz

______________________________

These are words that speak to the generosity of the sun

This extraordinary mysterious being of light and energy.

Because without the sun we do not exist.

No life exists.

And so we are all therefore - Children of the Sun

And that generosity runs deep in our embodied code.

It’s within us.And so I am re-minded again and again.

That perhaps it’s as simple as Re-membering what is already there.

I’ve been contemplating the sun much of this week

Enjoying the warmth on my skin but also aware of the searing heat that I’m experiencing in these days and what that triggers…

Noticing the abundance of plants and insects on the land around me and the vegetables and fruit in my garden which are thriving this year.

Noticing how the wild waters on the lands that I walk are running slower and slower.

I made a new Earth Sessions mix as an offering to honour the Solstice.

I’ve included tracks spanning 35 years, a few that were mainstays in my record box back in the late 90's.

In the company of some more recent beauties.

Big love to the artists, producers and creators of these sonic gifts. Full tracklist on site.

This is a 120/122 bpm groove.

For honouring the Sun, love, life, grief and joy of being alive on Spaceship Earth right now.

And the possibility of dancing our ways into more beautiful and peaceful futures.

A big summer salute to the cuckoos of Dartmoor who also appear in the intro.

How are you tuning into this moment in the Earth cycle?

Solstice blessings to you, hope you are finding some peace

New episode 102 - this is an audio adventure featuring a live panel conversation from the launch of new bio-regional project We Are Avon and musings from a Pilgrimage along the River Avon herself in the last week.

Across the UK more and more communities are engaging with the deteriorating health of their local rivers and wild waters.

From cold water swimmers, fishermen to local food growers, conservationists, nature lovers, artists, storytellers, writers and community activists there is a growing understanding that the health of the rivers reflects the health of our societies.

There is also a growing awareness that the rivers and wild waters of our lands are the arteries that lead to the ocean, the great blue heart of Spaceship Earth.

In the last couple of years I’ve been participating in the birth of a Bio-Regional project called We Are Avon (WAA) here in my hometown of Bath.

We Are Avon is an emergence of a place-based movement for regeneration in the UK.

It aims to act upon the interwoven crises of river pollution, climate change and food insecurity. Led by the people, a diverse web of communities, regenerators, farmers and projects who collaborate to regenerate.

A grassroots movement to provide food resilience for the region whilst also regenerating the communities, landscapes and watersheds of the catchment area beginning from the local level with river and land in this Avon valley.

Centering food, river and land as powerful anchors for reconnecting people to place, this project aims to re-identify humans as 'regenerators’, as active participants in service to the climate and nature crisis we collectively face.

After a year of visioning and development, We Are Avon has launched its first crowd-funder to formalise and activate a number of community engagement projects

This episode conversation was recorded live at the start of April to mark the crowfunder, and a whole range of community engagement invitations over the coming months.

The session was themed around sharing hope and vision for a regenerative future in the Avon bioregion, and this panel represented River, Land, Food and Community movements in the local area with guests - poet and activist Meg Avon from Save Our Avon, Charlotte Sawyer, Director of award winning feature river doc which is blowing up right now Rave on for the Avon, and Hamish Evans, regenerative farmer, prefigurative activist from Middleground Growers who has been the lead instigator for the WAA project and myself as host.

This is a conversation for anyone interested in the health and futures of our land, river and local ecosystems.

For those curious about river and environmental action, community led responses to the climate crisis and different and more creative ways to get involved in bringing life back to the places we call home.

But really it’s a conversation about relationships between humans, communities and the more than human world around us with a focus here on rivers.

The episode also contains ‘messages from the Avon’, daily musings from a River Avon pilgrimage of the last week to mark the crowdfunder launch , as well as some song from Elpha Perkins

If we are to grow true regenerative movements, then engaging communities around rivers and weaving new regenerative cultures from the bottom up will be essential.

Links

Support the Crowdfunder

We Are Avon site

We Are Avon instagram

Rave on for the Avon film

I posted this episode two years ago on this day.

I’m thinking it might have more relevance and be more helpful today to more folks around here.

Context is king and all that.

Maybe as more folks begin to bear witness to this old world imploding, to this civilisational story ending, perhaps we are becoming ready to figure out what work we are being called to do ‘in the ruins’ as Dougald Hine might say.

I would suggest that there is much wisdom to be found in listening to Dougald and he speaks with such honesty, care and humility

I highly recommend reading Dougald’s book - At Work in the Ruins

As I said when I read it in 2023..

“ At Work in the Ruins is a book of wisdom for these times. Times which often feel to me to be full of cleverness that no longer make much sense”

Dougald is co-founder of The Dark Mountain Project.

Co-host of The Great Humbling podcast.

Co-founder of a School called Home in Sweden

And Author of book ‘At Work in the Ruins’ - the focus of this conversation.

Dougald is opening up vital spaces for different types of questions, conversations and invitations to be considered and explored as we face into the unravelling mystery of these times - times of endings.‘

At Work in the Ruins’ is a gift for this moment for those who know intuitively in their heart and gut that many things from 'modernity' need to end.

Now is a time for humility and creative courage, for letting go of stories, ideas, behaviours and systems that no longer serve life and crossing a threshold into imagining what could be and becoming the change.

Introducing the Annual 2024 - and the official Episode 100 of the Spaceship Earth Podcast.

A reflection of the year gone by with a nod to what it might be showing us about the future that is unfolding.

A curation of the highlights of 2024 on the podcast, it features clips, reflections, insights and learnings from many of the episodes.

It’s not exhaustive, not every guest is featured but I’ve included clips that felt to me to be fertile, wise and vital insights for these times we are travelling in.

The Annual features dialogue and clips from:Dan Burgess, David Wendl-Berry, Natasha Lythgoe, Immy Kaur, Bayo Akomolafe, Vanessa Andreotti, Azul Carolina Duque, Dr Rosalind Watts, Dr Stephan Harding, Lily Cole, Adah Parris, Jasmine Qureshi, Hamish Evans, Alnoor Ladha, Lynn Murphy, Sam Lee, Clare Farrell, Paul Powlesland, Dr Wallace J Nichols & Buckminster Fuller ;-)If you’ve never jumped in this could be the one to check out.

So if you are a regular listener I hope this captures some of the highlights for you and you might appreciate the reflections and insights we share.

If you are new to the podcast I hope this gives you a flavour of what we’re doing here and inspires you to dig into these conversations and episodes more deeply and jump into the becoming crew community

We’ve put a lot of time into creating this episode, I recommend putting the headphones on or turning up the speakers.

It's a sonic adventure.

WE have curated these through the following themes which were alive in 2024 and we are carrying into the podcast and the becoming crew offerings for the journey ahead:

1. The importance and possibilities of non-ordinary experiences through nature based rites of passage and rituals

2. Decolonising and growing post-capitalist realities

3. Practice-driven change for ways through the divisiveness and violence of these times

4. Honouring death, grief and composting our s**t as vital regenerative practices

5. Shifting our relationality, seeing the natural world from transactional to sacred

6. Imagining and Re-membering alternative futures

7. The Future is Local - we can network for the rest

8. Centering the young/Intergenerational by Design

9. Now is the Time for Crews

Finally we'd love to hear your thoughts to help us shape the next year of the Spaceship Earth Podcast.

We want to keep crafting the offering to stay useful and relevant in these challenging and emerging times.

Your feedback helps us to understand where folks are at with the podcast in its current form.

It will take about 10 mins of your time and we'd be so grateful for your feedback.

LINKS

Our listener Survey - We’d so value your inputs in helping us shape the next chapter for the Podcast

Into the Dark - Our Winter Community Adventure - Join us

Two winter offerings for you.

Two invitations to step into the dark.

I am not ready to get back to it - whatever it is.

But just beginning to find some slowness and stillness in my body.

After crawling through the portal of the Winter Solstice and into the festiveness of things.

The last two days actually feel like winter here.

The ground is frozen.

The stars shine extraordinary at night.

I can feel a gentle connection in my body with the land around me.

A slow synching.

I’m just starting to feel an interest in reflecting on what was and what might be.

The year gone by and the one beginning.

Just a stirring of curiosity.

Over the last few years I’ve given up setting new year intentions and goals and in and out lists for the start of January.

It just doesn’t feel true to me.

I’m suspicious of the rush to get going.

It smells colonial.

I am always still full.

Of the year that has been

All the contradictions, confusion, joy, grief and possibility,

They’re still there

Quieter and calmer but not yet examined

And given perspective.

And so needing to create space

For reflecting and composting.

What threads to trust, follow and hang onto this year?

What to let go of ?

Preparing the ground for new emergings.

And that can’t happen fast.

With integrity

It needs time.

As winter does.

I struggle with goals in the dark.

And this is dark time.

So I have two winter offerings for you.

Two invitations to step into the dark

The first is this new Earth Sessions mix:

Into the Dark - a deep, slow, wintery, sonic meander, through ambient electronic melancholy into deep house.

Sounds and tracks that I’m finding connection and curiosity with in these darker, colder times of breakdown, reflection, exploration and dreaming towards the light

Tracklist on website

If you walk with it, run with it, sit with it, drive with it, cook with it.

Dance with it.

I hope you enjoy it

The second offering is an invitation to join our next practice community learning adventure which begins 23rd January

Into the Dark

( notice the theme)

This is the third year we’re hosting this journey and it really is a magical adventure.

Personally this has now become the only way to prepare the ground and surface my intentions for the year ahead.

Info and register

Wherever you are I hope you find some peace in these darker times

Episode 99 is a shorter offering with the wise, wonderful and humble Azul Carolina Duque.

Azul is a Colombian artist and educator. Her artistic practice is about relating to embodied sound as a tool for re-membering ourselves out of our collective denials.

These explorations are informed by her training as a musician, a death doula and a clown.

She is also on the path of relating to music as a living entity, as opposed to a product to be consumed.

She is a member of the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures (GTDF) collective, which you may recall from Episode 96 with Vanessa Andreotti - author of Hospicing Modernity and co-founder of the collective.

GTDF is a trans-disciplinary multi-generational art/research collective that develops technologies of inquiry through artistic, pedagogical, cartographic, and relational experiments that aim to identify and de-activate colonial habits of being.

GTDF is also about hospicing worlds that are dying within and around us with care and integrity, as well as attention to the lessons these deaths offer, while also assisting with the birth of new and potentially wiser worlds.

This was recorded in my garden in the summer, during a small gathering of West Country crew as Azul was visiting the UK.

This is in my opinion a beautiful taster of the deep, powerful, complex work that Azul and the collective are focussed on with deep humility, honesty and often humour.

Azul speaks to seeing the Earth as a living entity and recognising the entanglement between humans, land and all life.

About the importance of acknowledging and embracing complexity, including the uncomfortable and painful aspects of our current reality and the relational and cognitive challenges we are facing.

She speaks to modernity and colonialism as forces of separation, the dis-ease of separation, urging a shift towards relational approaches developed alongside indigenous knowledge.

Azul emphasises the significance of composting work, both internally and externally, sitting with the s**t so that we process properly and don’t continue to pass it down to the next generation.

She also speaks to the critical role of elders, rites of passage, and the transition between life stages in fostering a sense of service and responsibility to life on Earth.

The conversation also includes some beautiful questions from crew who had gathered in the garden on what was a sweltering hot afternoon.

So I hope you enjoy this, Azul is in my opinion a remarkable human, and a wonderful storyteller as you will hear, carrying vast wisdom beyond her years, and shows up with great humility and compassion and playfulness , dedicating her young life to this work

We are very lucky to have her on board Spaceship Earth.

LINKS

https://decolonialfutures.net/

https://decolonialfutures.net/hospicingmodernity/

Into the Dark - 5 week community winter adventure with Becoming Crew

This episode was from a live panel I hosted recently here in my home city of Bath, UK.

A conversation with a brilliant crew embedded with the lands and rivers who are working to steward, guardian, protect, connect and regenerate life between human communities and more than human ecologies.

This was part of a community engagement day for West Country Bio-Regional project We Are Avon.

We Are Avon is a movement of landworkers, organisations and communities collaborating for regional transformation of our land, river and food systems.

This is a self organising bottom up collective of folks around the Avon River who are collaborating and experimenting to envision a bio-regional future - this is proper roll up your sleeves become the change movement - very much in the spirit of becoming crew.

The panel was focussed specifically on exploring rivers, our relationships to them, the state they are in and why they are such a key connection in a bio-regional project.

My guests were a quite brilliant crew:

Amelia Crews - ocean and river activist, community energy organiser and climate and nature action dynamo.

Eva Perrin - Aquatic Ecologist, PhD graduate in freshwater biogeochemistry, community activator for citizen science and river protection, co-founder of Conham Bathing Group and Rave on for the Avon.

Hamish Evans - permaculturist, regenerative farmer and prefigurative activist - co-founder MiddleGround Growers

Paul Powlesland - river guardian, rights for nature campaigner and activist lawyer.

Four amazing humans serving life, becoming the change, doing difficult yet joyful work.

This is a dynamic conversation, full of insight, provocation and invitation to get stuck into whatever hood/river/forest you find yourself close to.

It’s very much a conversation about entanglements, relationships and interdependence, the future we’re being called to shape is one of new relationships, of learning to relate in new ways to ourselves, to each other and to this more than human world we call home.

And the ways we relate to the wild waters of this Earth is such a fundamental indicator of the health of the human and more than human crew on Spaceship Earth.

What does it look like to see ourselves, not at the centre of a landscape of place, but decentered, in kinship, in relationship with all life that is there ?

What does it look like to step into a way of being that sees us in a place of kinship, as part of a sacred web of life, not above it trying to create power and control over it, but within - in relationship with.

So I hope this conversation inspires you to get out there and find your own way back into this great mysterious entanglement of life, becoming crew on Spaceship Earth.

If you’re in the Avon hood, come and get involved in We Are Avon - links below

LINKS

Join the We Are Avon info and broadcast channel ( no chat)

We Are Avon Instagram

Amelia Crews

Paul Powlesland on Twitter

Eva Perrin

MiddleGround Growers

River Roding Trust

Lawyers for Nature

Conham Bathing Group

Thriving Avon Charter

Into the Dark - Winter learning Journey from Becoming Crew

In deeply mysterious times I can think of no finer human to help us consider other ways of seeing, thinking and responding to the crises than Bayo Akomolafe who we welcome back for Episode 97.

Bayo is a philosopher, writer, post-activist, professor of psychology and executive director of the Emergence Network.

Bayo was guest in Episode 66 and this conversation was recorded live in a Becoming Crew online learning event in June this year .

As we witness mythic scale events unfold almost weekly, this conversation feels more timely now than it did 5 months ago when it was recorded.

Bayo’s words and thinking continue to ferment in such profound ways.

Having sat on it for a few months, we’ve added some Spaceship Earth sonic love and I feel this is a really potent and helpful offering for this moment .

Bayo is without doubt one of the most important thinkers, writers and speakers in these times of unravelling and one of the most humble, kind and funny humans with it.

The rarest of combinations.

He invites us to see and notice differently, to consider things which often feel invisible, beyond our individualised ways of seeing and yet perhaps, might be critical noticings for finding ways through our collective stuckness.

But only if we’re prepared to venture into the cracks as Bayo might say.

We invited Bayo to come to this conversation to help us explore and better understand the terrain of ‘whiteness’  - whiteness not as skin colour but perhaps as the invisible controlling logic of the systems, structures and deeply engrained ways we act out everyday enmeshed in the pervasiveness of capitalist modernity.

We cover :

- The terrain of whiteness

- Desensitisation and grief

- Moving towards cracks and openings

- The limits of systems theory

- Post-Activism

- Cultivating different ways of responding to these times

- How alternative solutions often continue to serve dominant systems and infrastructure

- Learning to live well with loss and uncertainty

This is a deep, rich, creative and vulnerable conversation about the trouble we are in as a species, brimming with provocation and insight to sit with in this moment.

I’d suggest this is essential fertiliser for heading off the highway of modernity and making new moves.

This was a live online session with our community and includes some beautiful questions towards the end which Bayo responds to.

We play out with a new song from Natalie Fee called Winter.

Is it possible to create thriving, liveable futures without doing the work to acknowledge and process the destructive systems, stories and behaviours that are causing so much devastation to life on Earth today ?

- To understand how these logics run deeply through us and our dominant ways of thinking, seeing and relating.

- To create space to collectively compost these ways to ensure we do not continue to perpetuate the same destructive patterns as we co-create responses and pathways into the future.

- To recognise the urgent need for intergenerational responsibility, to connect across generations for collective processing, learning and healing and cultivating moral responsibility for future life.

Personally I don’t believe we can avoid this work for much longer if we are serious about meaningful change and my guest in this episode Vanessa Andreotti has dedicated her life work to exploring how the dominant knowledge systems of modernity and ways of relating to ourselves, to each other and to the Earth are deeply entangled with the growing violence, divisiveness and declining health of all life on this planet - human and more than human.

Vanessa is Dean of Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria, Canada, Author, of the groundbreaking book - Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity's wrongs and the implications for social activism and Co-founder, Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures Collective.

Vanessa’s life work has been in education and learning, her practice is rooted in relationality, indigenous knowledge and centering our entanglement with the living Earth.

She has worked extensively across sectors internationally and is a leading voice in global justice, global citizenship, Indigenous knowledge systems and the climate and nature emergencies.

If you haven’t read Hospicing Modernity, you may find some of this conversation challenging.

Hospicing Modernity is not a comfortable read, it proposes that colonialism, racism and other toxic divisions and cultural supremacies that inform the systems of Modernity that we all inhabit run deeply inside us  - perhaps neuro-biologically - it invites readers into an uncomfortable unlearning journey, of noticing, letting go, composting and unmaking ourselves from the violent ways of seeing and being that modernity and industrial consumerist society has created.

We explore:

The challenges we are facing on Spaceship Earth

Responsibilities and challenges in education systems

Hospicing Modernity: The context today

The dis-ease of separation

Intergenerational responsibilities

Composting W.E.I.R.D s**t - Western, Entitled, Individualistic, Reductionist and Delusional.

The role of education, humour and metaphor in addressing complexity

The gut as a site of learning and vulnerability

Embracing entanglement

Healing our fractured relationship with Earth

Supporting the young

The role of elders and rites of passage, transitioning through grief