Accidental Gods

24/09/2025

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.

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 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 eff...

17/09/2025

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.

https://accidentalgods.life/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?

10/09/2025

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!

https://accidentalgods.life/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. Our guest this week is someone particularly well positioned to debunk these and show how how monetary and fiscal policy can be directed toward meeting human needs within environmental limits.

03/09/2025

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 the 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.

https://accidentalgods.life/the-crisis-and-the-call-journeys-through-species-wide-soul-initiation-with-sara-mcfarland/

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 M...

27/08/2025

Sometimes the most powerful endorsements come from outside our own community.

When Manda Scott introduced Julia on her Accidental Gods podcast, she described Lights On Learning as:
💡 ‘A genuinely delightful book…’
💡 ‘A doorway into radiance…’
💡 ‘A book that belongs in every school and family…’

If you’ve been waiting for the right moment to dive in — or to gift it to someone who needs it — this is it.

You can get a digital copy for £4.97 here - https://bit.ly/45wPreK

or if you would prefer a hard copy then that is available on line or can ordered from your local bookshop.

27/08/2025

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.

https://accidentalgods.life/dreams-as-a-way-of-life-becoming-a-good-relative-with-author-hilary-giovale/

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...

13/08/2025

How do we Outgrow the death cult of Modernity – opening the doors to a future we’d be proud to leave to the generations yet unborn?

n this week’s podcast I was honoured to join a four-way conversation between Giovanna de Oliveira Andreotti, Vanessa Andreotti and Tim Logan of Future Learning Design Podcast, to celebrate the publication of Vanessa’s new book, Outgrowing Modernity - WHICH IS OUT NOW!

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.

https://accidentalgods.life/co-evolving-humanity-outgrowing-modernity-with-vanessa-and-giovanna-andreotti-and-tim-logan/

How do we Outgrow the death cult of Modernity - opening the doors to a future we’d be proud to leave to the generations yet unborn?

06/08/2025

...which is why we need Universal Basic Services...

until we can undo capitalism and build something healthier for us and the living web.

05/08/2025

This was a truly generative, co-evolutionary podcast - I was honoured to be in conversation with the magical, inspiring Sara McFarland

Podcast Episode · Co-Evolutionary Culturing · 04/08/2025 · 1h 5m

30/07/2025

“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.

https://accidentalgods.life/otterly-amazing-common-sense-farming-can-feed-us-all-with-charlie-bennett/

“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.” Our guest this week, Charlie Bennett of Middleton North Farm, is working to find ways to feed people healthy, nutritious food at pr...

16/07/2025

When people have experienced ways to bring Power to those with Wisdom and Wisdom to those with Power, then they’ll work together to make it a reality at a larger scale.

Our ‘democracy’ is, in fact, a kleptocracy that is not fit for purpose IF that purpose is the continuation of complex life on earth. The sociopaths who have stolen control show no signs of shifting to something that works, so it’s way past time that ordinary people across all walks of life embraced the tools of participatory democracy and wrought the new system that we need – a new House of the People which would, finally, accrue power to those with wisdom and enact governance of, for and by the people and the planet.

To do this, we need people who are intimately aquainted with these tools, who live them, breathe them, find joy and creativity in them and know how to share them in ways ordinary people understand. Our House is a collective that exists to do exactly this and in today’s episode, we’re talking to Katy Rubin and Oli Whittington, two of its core team, to find out what it does and how and why – and, crucially, where it could take us if we all jump on board.

Katy Rubin is a Legislative Theatre practitioner and strategist based in the UK. She is founder of The People Act hub for creative civic practice.

Oli Whittington is the initiator and co-lead of Our House, drawing on his background in participatory design and democracy.

Together, they are working around all four nations of the UK to help bring the tools of participatory democracy to communities of place, purpose and passion. They are helping to facilitate local participatory processes with a view to creating National Charters for each Nation and then bringing people together to decide whether we want a united Charter for the whole of the UK or remain separate.

To me, creating a governance system that is fit for purpose is absolutely essential to our moving forward through the pinch point of the Great Transition. If we can’t find coherent, constructive, compassionate, courageous ways to work together, we’re sunk—and while there might be courageous, compassionate people within the current system, the overall system is not any of these. So I dearly hope that by the end of this, you’ll want to become involved.
And if you’re listening to this podcast as it goes out on the 16th of July 2025, you should know that there’s an online event on the 18th which in an open invitation to anyone, anywhere who wants to start building an open democracy. Please do sign up, there’s a link in the show notes.

https://accidentalgods.life/peoples-charter-for-people-power-with-katy-rubin-and-oli-whittington-of-our-house/

When people have experienced ways to bring Power to those with Wisdom and Wisdom to those with Power, then they’ll work together to make it a reality at a larger scale.

10/07/2025

Hey people

I am honoured to be offering a webinar/workshop with the Work That Reconnects Network

We are living through a time between stories. Narratives of scarcity, extraction, greed and separation are crumbling, while new stories of a flourishing and healthy planet are seeking to be born.

Our call is for participation in creating these new narratives. This begins with building deep connection to ourselves and each other with movements that coalesce around shared values and listening for the stories that arise out of those values.

Saturday, October 11, 2025
10am PDT / 6pm BST (UTC -7)
Check your time zone here.

We will offer a visioning and writing process that invites participants to explore the layers of what they truly value, and how they might express that value in ways that nourish life.

https://workthatreconnects.org/event/thrutopian-narratives-webinar/