Accidental Gods

• Of Beetles' wings and Brittlestars: using Biomimicry to co-create a flourishing future with Michael Pawlyn

  What is humanity for?  What happens if we rethink not just the way we plan buildings, but our entire role as beings on a living planet?  These are the central questions driving Michael Pawlyn's third edition of the life-changing book, Biomimcry in Architecture.  Michael Pawlyn is an architect, the founding director of Exploration Architecture Ltd and is a ground-breaking pioneer, not just of biomimicry as the design foundation of architecture and the built environment, but of the ways we might redesign humanity. Before setting up his own practice, Michael was central to the team that radically re-invented horticultural architecture for the Eden Project. In 2018 he jointly initiated Architects Declare a Climate and Biodiversity Emergency which has since spread to 28 countries with over 8,000 companies signed up to a declaration of action. In addition to his architectural work he advises companies and governments on how to make the shift from sustainable to regenerative design. He lectures widely and his and his TED talk has been viewed over 2 million times, which gives you a sense of the scale and scope of the possibilities he opens up.  With Sarah Ichioka, he co-wrote the book 'Flourish' and we spoke to Sarah back in episode #147, but now Michael is back with the third edition of Biomimicry in Architecture, which came out on 1st September, and my goodness, this book has the capacity to change our world.  If every key decision-maker on the planet had a copy of this book, and was given time to read it, our world would be a different place, because over and over again, Michael shows the ways that the natural world has designed things that are more efficient, stronger, more resilient than anything humanity has created - but that we can make things with them that the natural world has not imagined.  More than anything this book re-iterates the fact that we are an integral part of the web of life and that by using our astonishing creativity, our capacity to see the design of an abalone shell, or the way a mussel roots in the seabed, or the ways palm leaves roll up in a hurricane or any of a thousand other almost-miraculous things—and then applying them in different contexts, we can create everything from surgical drills that can bend round corners to whole tidal lagoons that create and store power and offer whole new biomes.  If we set the flourishing of all life as our goal, we can co-create miracles. As will be obvious in the conversation you're about to hear, this book lit up so many parts of my heart and my mind - there is so much we can do if we bring the best of ourselves to the table and Michael Pawlyn is one of those thought-leaders who has ranged right to the edge of what we know and what we can do and brought the results to the rest of us in a way that's intriguing, inspiring and invigorating.  Whatever else you do this year, you need to read this book. Buy it, share it, tell your friends.  This is how we change the world.  So, with that endorsement ringing in your ears... Book - Biomimicry in Architecture https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/biomimicry-in-architecture-michael-pawlyn/1341162TED talk - using Nature's Genius in Architecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QZp6smeSQABiomimicry Talk at UNITE summit https://youtu.be/XZbv9tc3Prc/Episode #147 with Sarah Ichioka on 'Flourish' which she co-wrote with Michael: https://accidentalgods.life/flourish-designing-new-paradigms/‘Human Layers’ workshop developed by The Long Time Project based on Joanna Macey’s work https://www.thelongtimeacademy.com/toolkitSurvival of the Fittest: From ESG to Competitive Sustainability - paper from Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership https://www.cisl.cam.ac.uk/files/from_esg_to_competitive_sustainability.pdfWhat 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

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• Let the Wild Gods Rise! Bridging Between the Worlds with Jackie Morris and Tamsin Abbott

  Let the Wild Gods Rise.  Easy to say and harder to do - but if you were offered a portal, a way to step into the other-worlds, to reconnect with all that we have been and could be, would you take it? If you're listening to this, you are likely steeped in the mechanical world of our culture - but it doesn't have to be like this.  The other worlds are alive, present…wild—and just within reach. All we need are doorways, places where the veils between the worlds grow thinner and then route maps to take us to—and through—them. There are many of these: some of us have places where we go to sit, day after week after month after year; places we walk where the lapwings fly or the toads grumble or the lichens coat the rocks. Some of us dance, or sing, or hold spaces for each other to find the endless re-creation of the web in the inter-becoming moment, the dependent co-arising of the magic of life. Many of us go to books and it's one of these we're visiting today: Wild Folk by Jackie Morris and Tamsin Abbott is a work of art, a delight on so many levels—and it's explicitly a portal to the wild at the heart of the world. I'm fairly sure I don't need to introduce these two amazing women, but just in case: Jackie Morris is an artist, illustrator and wordsmith. Alone or in collaboration has written & illustrated over forty books, including classics such as The Snow Leopard, Song of the Golden Hare, and East of the Sun, West of the Moon. More recently, she and Robert Macfarlane co-created The Lost Words, and The Lost Spells, and I'm delighted to say they are working on new book on birds, which is due to come out soon.Tamsin Abbott has been creating painted stained-glass panels for over twenty years. Herwork is influenced by this ancient land and how we are connected to it: the hills, the woods, the plants, birds and animals that live alongside us and the world of myths and fairytales that we have spun around it. She has appeared on BBC Countryfile, appeared in many of this country's foremost magazines and exhibited in our leading galleries. As you'll hear, Jackie and Tamsin had been friends for many years before the seed of Wild Folk finally took root at a residency in the wilds of Exmoor. The result is a work of pure magic.  Come along with us and let's explore the what and the how and the where and the who of this astonishing act of co-creation. Where you'll find WILD FOLK in the UK https://www.jackiemorris.co.uk/where-the-wild-folk-books-are/Tamsin's website https://www.tamsinabbott.co.uk/Tamsin on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/tamsintheshed/Tamsin on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Tamsin-Abbott-260979701880/Jackie's website https://www.jackiemorris.co.uk/Jackie on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jackiemorrisartist/Jackie on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/JackieMorrisPaints/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

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• The Magic in the Tales we Tell: Living new Stories in Service to Life with Paddy Loughman

  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. LinksStories 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-folksAntidote 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/bb3d95f3af2350dfWhat 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

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• A Dawning Mind: Exploring the science of spirituality with Dr James Cooke

  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/9781633889927Living Mirrors Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/living-mirrors-with-dr-james-cooke/id1516523741James on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DrJamesCookeWhat 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

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• Step by Radical Step: The Route to a Flourishing New Economy with Colleen Schneider

  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 LinkedInColleen's papers: How to Pay for Saving the World - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800923002318Democratizing the Monetary Provisioning System - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15487733.2024.2344305On 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-changePapers by others:The political response to Inflation: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/mexico/governments-survived-inflationWorkshops:Public Money for Public Good: Why MMT Matters | ViennaSeptember 27th and 28th Gleis 21, Bloch-Bauer-Promenade 22, 1100 Wien, Austriahttps://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-sheffieldRegenerative Economy Lab - Money and Finance WorkshopVienna, October 23rd and 24thhttps://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-labDocumentary '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

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