In this episode I’m in conversation with Lily Cole.

Lily is a model, activist, social entrepreneur, writer, actor and mother who has campaigned and acted persistently on multiple social, environmental and climate justice issues throughout her working life.

She is committed to exploring new possibilities and ways of being which put care and life at the centre.

I connected with Lily last year when we were both invited to attend a climate activism retreat at Plum Village, the Zen Buddhist Monastery in France founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh

The Plum Village force is strong in this episode.

This conversation is grounded in this moment, it’s a dive into the deeper parts of change, the inner and outer dimensions of our values and actions and how they influence and shape the systems we seek to change.

We explore:

* Mindfulness, practicing deep listening and cultivating empathy for addressing the complex, contradicting and overwhelming issues of living in these times.

* The interconnectedness of all beings, ancient wisdoms and other ways of knowing, and the potential of shifting perspectives to create more caring and sustainable cultures.

* How we can integrate these practices and insights into our lives and communities as part of a collective journey towards regenerative and peaceful change.

Links

Lily Cole

Who Cares Wins Podcast

Plum Village

Play out Track

Will Flisk with Sif Augustdottir - Satie and the Crow

Recorded in 2021 I’m posting this Episode with Dr Wallace J Nichols today to honour his sudden passing this week.

The most humble human who gave so much to widening our collective understanding of the human entanglement and interdependence with the waters of this Earth.

His book Blue Mind is a must read and rightly influenced so many to see beyond water just as a resource to be protected but a sacred flow of life itself, so entangled with human life and health and our emotional regulation and wellbeing.

I spent a little bit of time with ‘J’ in California in 2018 and hosted him on the podcast in 2021 as we were emerging from the pandemic and he was coming to terms with the loss of his family home from wild fires.

He spoke a lot then about the need for water connection and blue mind in these times of increasing rage, stress, violence and divisiveness.

We had planned to record another conversation exploring loss, trauma, losing what we love and healing with the Earth but we never managed it.

He had those very rare qualities of deep intelligence and wisdom, empathy for all life, the capacity to invite curiosity and inquiry from people with humility and without the need to shout loudly or divide. He always spoke so beautifully of his family too - we send them love for these most challenging times of loss.

He would always hand out blue marbles, and say -

‘if we zoom out from our planet Earth a million miles - all you can see is a little blue marble floating in space - a planet made of water. Keep that marble in your pocket to remember this miracle’

He would encourage you to go and find your water, a river, stream, lake, pond or the ocean if you’re lucky. Be near it, on it, in it - cultivate your blue mind.

Water is medicine - he said.

In these time more than ever.

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Dr Wallace. J Nichols is a renowned marine-biologist, wild water advocate and author of the bestselling book - Blue Mind: How Water Makes You Happier, More Connected and Better at What You Do.

His experiences as a field research scientist, government consultant, teacher, mentor, public speaker, parent, founder and director of businesses and nonprofit organisations, all support his quest to build a stronger and more diverse global blue movement.

In this Episode I’m in conversation with the brilliant Immy Kaur and Kavita Purohit from Civic Square in Birmingham UK.

Civic Square’s mission is demonstrating neighbourhood-scale civic infrastructure for social, ecological, economic, and climate transition.

I’m a huge fan of their work, they are pioneers in the UK when it comes to demonstrating what communities can achieve when it comes to responding to some of the gnarliest, complex systemic issues we face as a species.

They use practical, decentralised approaches, translating complex systems change thinking into participative inquiry and co-design projects working with  place based communities alongside diverse practitioners, knowledge and wisdom holders and regenerative innovators.

When the times we are in can feel so overwhelming and mainstream political approaches exhausted, look to Civic Square and their ecology of collaborators for how we might create very different ways of imagining and realising better futures which put people and places at the centre around cultures of care, connection and solidarity.

We explore

* Systemic Issues and community approaches to finding solutions

* The importance of neighbourhoods and Public Goods

* Health Justice and ecological Health in neighbourhoods

* Demonstrating radical imagination

* The role of Doughnut Economics in neighbourhoods

* Community engagement and co-ceation approaches

* Different ways of knowing, re-pairing and re-imagining

Links

Civic Square

Civic Square Medium

Neighbourhood Doughnut

Stories for Life

Earth Sessions are DJ mixes that I put out from time to time.

This unravelling world makes me despair today.

So I went down to the Spaceship shed and recorded this mix.

Ruff and ready.

When there are no words, there is music.

House Music

And Love.

Respect to the artists and producers who have created these tracks that are alive for me right now.

Full listing on site.

In this episode I’m in conversation with Sarah Corbett, award winning campaigner, activist and founder of the Craftivist Collective.

Craftivism, where craft meets activism, offers a unique, intimate, transformative approach to addressing the gnarly issues of our time, emphasising the importance of gentle, emotionally intelligent, creative and persuasive protest in fostering meaningful dialogue, connection and change.

From crafting hearts to connect across climate movements to sewing personalised handkerchiefs sent to corporate leaders and so much more - Sarah and the Craftivist Collective invite people to embrace activism rooted in gentleness, compassion, humility and self-care.

We Explore

* Navigating the digital activism world: challenges and personal reflections

* Blending craft and activism for change

* The potential of gentle protest: crafting a kinder activism

* The power of hands in crafting, connecting and healing

* The transformative impact of craft on mental health

* Craftivism in action: from gentle protest to wider solidarity and systemic change

Links

Craftivist Collective

Craftivist Instagram

In this episode I’m in conversation with Adah Parris - keynote speaker, futurist,  visionary artist, and activist who inspires transformative change through her practice.

Adah is working with many inquires - including ‘Cyborg Shamanism’ and the provocation ‘What kind of ancestor do you want to be ?’

And we dig into this and much more in this conversation.

This is also a conversation which explores the essence of diversity - of wider intelligences, of sensing the world differently and of co-creating different futures. 

A conversation between two late diagnosed neurodiverse people, we explore what happens when we challenge normativity, drawing on other forms of creative intelligence, what do we find along the path when we're walking on the edges of normal?

We Explore

* Personal and collective responsibility towards climate change and the actions necessary for a more regenerative future.

* Emotional and mental health in the face of conflict and crisis.

* Experiences of ADHD and Autism, challenging ‘normativity’ and the impact and potential of diversity in shaping our future

* Creating change through remembering our rootedness to the Earth

* Cyborg shamanism’ - blending technology, storytelling and spirituality for better understanding relationships, interconnectedness and planetary consciousness.

Links

Becoming Crew Live Gatherings

Tickets for Live Gathering with Bayo Akomolafe

Adah Parris

Adah Parris Instagram

Earth Echoes

Every so often I record a conversation that feels absolutely vital for the stuckness of these times.

Full of insight, provocation, intelligence, trouble and beautiful fertiliser for what could be.

This is one of those episodes.

A conversation with Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy - both long term activists, political strategists and in their words ‘accidental philanthropy advisors’.

Alnoor and Lynn are two of the wisest souls I’ve hosted here.

Their ability to articulate with clarity, nuance, honesty and humility to the mess we are in as a species and how we got here, while gesturing towards beautiful ways through is remarkable, and is a true gift in my opinion.

They draw on this knowledge through wisdom, experiences and learnings from a vast diverse web of life, traditions, cultures, professions and expertise past and present, and the extraordinary book they created is a synthesis of all of that.

Post Capitalist Philanthropy - Healing Wealth in the Time of Collapse 

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This Episode is a longer one. - However, we do offer you an intentional reflective pause half way through, a place to breathe and check in on yourself or take a break.

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This conversation is deep, it sets out a dynamic perspective on ’the waters we are swimming in’ today and the ‘Age of Consequence’ we are now experiencing.

We explore:

* Navigating the polycrisis/metacrisis - how did we get here - understanding the systems through ‘structural, historical, constellational world views.’

* The inevitability of financial collapse and currency devaluation as the model of debt-based, growth-based logic self-terminates.

* The incompatibility between the Earth’s System and Neo-liberal late stage- capitalist modernity

* Ontological shifts and returning to life force - somatics, disembodiement, separation, identity, ancestry and death

* What is Post-Capitalism - values and realities

* Becoming ‘conscientious objectors’ of the dominant extractive culture

* Shifting to solidarity with all life: the power of connection and dialogue with the living world and ancient wisdom in modern activism and regenerative change

* Growing post-capitalist realities, cultures and infrastructure through community and practices

* Living and practicing new and ancient ways of being, knowing and relating

* Creating post capitalist infrastructure: a call to philanthropy and wealth redistribution

* Reflections on wealth, identity and the journey of collective liberation and transformation.

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Are we willing to walk away from cultures of domination, control and violence ?

To recognise our smallness in the great mystery of life and begin to trust the life force within us and around us to guide us into practicing new ways of being and new cultures that put life at the centre again.

I really hope you appreciate this Episode, please do comment, share and post far and wide if it brings things up for you, we’d love to hear from you.

Links

Becoming Crew Live Event Gatherings

Post Capitalist Philanthropy

Transition Resource Circle

Culture Hack Labs

Sam Lee - Green Mossy Banks

Originally released in June 2022, I’m rebroadcasting for Earth Day Episode 60 with Dr Stephan Harding - Holistic Scientist, Deep Ecologist, Author and Co-founder of Schumacher College who was mentored by the scientist James Lovelock - responsible for the Gaia Theory Hypothesis.

Earth Day began in 1970 the year before I was born, and here we are 54 years later experiencing the accelerated unravelling of our Earth’s System, essentially from a perception problem, a relationship problem, a separation crisis.

Capitalist Modernity has failed to understand or accept that the Earth is alive, an ongoing complex, mysterious entanglement of intelligent living relationships which have created the conditions for life to emerge, including human life.

This is Gaia. A way of seeing the Earth that humans throughout the majority of our time as a species on this planet have always known.

The Earth and all life on it is sentient, animate and sacred.

Decades of destructive and extractive ways of being in relationship with the Earth means we’re facing into the consequences of that in profound ways now, how quickly can we wake up at scale and re-learn to see the Earth as alive ?

What Stephan would call Gaian consciousness…

“So lets call it a Gaian consciousness. It’s gradually taking root inside people, people are waking-up to it more and more. But it’s slow. Waking up is far slower than the rate of destruction. And what we need now is the rate of waking-up to overtake the rate of destruction. And the waking-up has got to happen on a massive scale. But I don’t know how that is going to happen.

The positive side is that cultural revolutions can happen very quickly. Revolutions in consciousness can happen very quickly. This one has got to happen quicker than any other, and happen fast and on a global scale. And it has got to transcend national boundaries, political boundaries, all the sorts of boundaries that we humans have erected between ourselves, gender boundaries, all those boundaries they have got to fall down. And we all have to unify to protect our very own planet, for her own sake and our sake and the sake of all beings. Is that going to happen?”

In this episode we explore

- Who is Gaia and what’s her history? 

- James Lovelock independent scientist, mentor and Gaia Theory Hypothesis

- From the scientific study of the Muntjac Deer to the deep connection of the wholeness of nature

- We are not just thinkers. We’re equally, feelers, sensors and intuitors

- We’re inherently animistic with a spiritual connection to nature. And we can still value science

- A cultural revolution needs to happen quicker than any other time, for the sake of all life

- Gaia Alchemy. Why put alchemy with science? 

- Healing a crisis of meaning and the Azoth of Philosophy

- Valuing the psyche over the ego. Do we invent ideas or do we receive them?

- Finding your Gaia place

I hope you enjoy this conversation.

Something a bit different this week from the deeper more than human dive we’ve been on in the last few episodes.

I’m in conversation with Matthew Barr of Adventure Sport Podcast Looking Sideways

Matt has released nearly 250 episodes on his podcast with some of the biggest, humblest and most interesting names in Surfing, Snowboarding, Skateboarding and related pursuits.

Many of the conversations Matt hosts explore the big challenges of our time through the lens of these sports, experiences and communities.

Aside from being a fan of the pod I wanted to get Matt on for a few reasons:

* I’m a life long trail runner and a keen surfer  - both of these pursuits have kept my awe for the living Earth alive and my humility in check - as a little human-being on a vast, powerful, complex, intelligent more than human planet .

* I’m always curious about adventure sport and the obvious relationship with our living Earth that offers potential not just for connection, but protection, activism, regeneration and stewarding from within these communities, if they could be more widely mobilised.

* I really appreciate how Matt digs into the multiple tensions and issues we are facing today from climate and ecological breakdown, to structural racism, to gender rights and much more - he explores them, through the stories of some amazing humans that he hosts.

* Like this podcast tries to do, Matt creates space to explore the complexities, nuance and difficult things we must all learn to face into, the uncomfortable conversations we need to learn to welcome if we’re to find ways through these crazy times into more peaceful, co-operative ways of being, between humans and all life on this Earth.

* Podcasting can be an extraordinary medium for learning and unlearning which is what keeps me going with this podcast and what I learn in this conversation drives Matt to continue with his.

We explore:

* The need for more spaces for true dialogue to help us move through the stuck binary, divisiveness of modern culture and media.

* How so many tensions are often based on poor information and limited understanding, especially when it comes to our relationship with a complex living planet.

* The elephant in the room when it comes to the meta crisis - ‘the spell of Capitalism’ - and our collective inability to imagine anything different.

* The impacts of a deeply commoditised, extractive and often entitled culture on our personal sense of responsibility to look beyond ‘nature as transaction’, and act as stewards, protectors and active participants in change.

* ‘The Announcement’ - a 3 part audio documentary that Matt is creating with Patagonia based on their recent decision to ‘convert all the wealth Patagonia creates to protect the source of all wealth - the Earth.’

* This is also a conversation from two ‘Gen-X’ middle-aged white men about the pursuit of the podcasting medium, the role for longer form content, the challenges of pervasive technology and social media platforms on our attention, and how to be of service in these unravelling times.

As Matt put it:

“We were both born in the analogue era and we’ll die in the AI era”.

I hope you enjoy, please share if you do and let us know how this lands for you in the comments

Links

Looking Sideways Website

Looking Sideways Substack

Instagram

Patagonia Announcement

In this episode I’m in conversation with Natasha Lythgoe, Vision Quest guide, retreat leader and mentor, who’s work and approach has been profoundly shaped by her life as an artist and through her buddhist practice.

Natasha works with mind, body, psyche/soul and mystery, sharing the skills that have been shared with her over the last twenty five years of practice.

I’ve been following Natasha’s work since we trained together as nature guides on Chris Salisbury’s inaugural Call of the Wild program 11 years ago and was excited to invite her onto the podcast this year.

This is a conversation which explores the messy work of integration or incorporation as Natasha prefers.

It’s about the work we must all do if we’re serious about paradigm shifts, letting go of destructive behaviours that no longer serve us,  and becoming the change we seek, especially following rites of passage, threshold work or peak experience.

This is a conversation which invites us to explore different intelligences within us and around us.

Especially our own body intelligence, learning its language and clock which defies the very paradigms of extractivism and capitalism.

We explore

* Natasha’s journey as an artist, her buddhist practice and her connection back to the land and a wilder intelligence.

* How do we begin to trust the messy, wild , aliveness inside us and around us in contrast to the linear, rational, limited ways of ‘making sense’ in modernity.

* How to learn to trust different ways of knowing to help us navigate these times. Ways which are not always comfortable and clear.

* Somatics and the body - this episode is a bit different, in that it features a very spontaneous co-created somatic practice which Natasha offered me as we were in mid conversation.

So I invite you to follow along when Natasha guides the body intelligence practice - see it as a playful sensory exploration. 

Christina Figures said recently:

“Systemic transformation is deeply personal. “

I think this episode is touching on that.

It invites us into the uncomfortable, messy and I’d suggest most beautiful work, which doesn’t fit neatly into the commercialisation of  peak experience, spiritual transformation and purpose/leadership work.

Learning to lean into your authentic purpose, with a process and journey which is often being guided by wilder, unpredictable, more feral, more than human life forces. 

Which I think is really the invitation of becoming crew.

As Bayo Akomolafe once said to me:

“May your road be rough “

I hope you enjoy this conversation.

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We are planning an On-Land Wilderness Solo with Natasha and Becoming Crew guides with ongoing incorporation 20-22nd of September.

If you’d like to register interest mail us: [email protected]

Links

The Art of Rewilding

Natasha Lythgoe Instagram

Becoming Crew - The Remix

Play Out Track

Will Flisk - Long Pig