Accidental Gods (2026)

27/05/2026

Life has been evolving on our planet for the past 3.8 billion years. The ecosystems that thrive now have had a lot of practice at getting things right – particularly the complex web of inter-relations that allows us all to flourish. And yet, we’re on the edge of the sixth mass extinction largely because we humans have forgotten how to inter-relate and inter-be with the rest of the web of life. At an intellectual level, we know we’re integral nodes in the web, but we still behave as if it were other, and out there and not – yet – as if it were a source of wisdom and wonder and wholehearted support: an ancient mentor that has tried and tested enough options to know what works.

So how can we bring the astonishing, creative insights of Biomimicry to the field of human inter-being? How can we shift our sense of self and other, our communities of place, purpose and passion, our businesses, our governance structures…everything that we are and do onto a different trajectory using the web of life as our template? Biomimicry for Social Innovation asks exactly these questions and in this episode, we’re talking to its founder, Toby Herzlich.

Toby is a facilitator, trainer, executive coach, and organizational consultant. She is a Certified Biomimicry Specialist and Founder of Biomimicry for Social Innovation, which exists to translate ecosystem intelligence and Life’s Principles into leadership and social change strategies. As you’ll hear, she’s part of the team that developed The Nature of Trust, and its 8-principle framework for building and maintaining trust, which is so essential in any network of sovereign individuals whether they’re bees, or penguins, elks or geese – or people.

Toby is the founding co-facilitator of the Living Systems Leadership Retreats for Women and has supported the capacity-building of women leaders in war-torn countries of the Balkans and the Middle East.

There are so many richly inspiring pathways that Toby has opened as a result of bringing a social change and leadership development branch into Biomimicry – collaborating deeply with that larger movement and, at heart and core, with the Web of Life. This was one of those conversations that could have gone on forever. It didn’t, we stopped at a reasonable time and are definitely planning to cycle back with each other. And the cats visited—Toby’s and mine—which always makes a podcast flow with extra energy.

https://accidentalgods.life/trust-like-the-web-of-life-trusts-biomimicry-for-social-innovation-with-toby-herzlich/

How can we bring the insights of Biomimicry to the field of human inter-being? How can we shift our sense of self and other, our communities of place, purpose and passion, our businesses, our governance structures…everything that we are and do onto a different trajectory using the web of life as o...

20/05/2026

What are Thrutopian stories and why do we need them? How do they work? And most importantly, how can we craft them to land most effectively with ourselves and each other at scale and in time?
In this solo episode, Manda walks us through the middle way between the dystopia of now, towards the utopia of a future in which humanity flourishes as an integral part of a thriving plant. What could it and would it be like if each of us woke up every morning feeling safe, feeling confident in our ability to meet the challenges of the day in ways that would leave the world a better place? How would we feel if every moment of life was alive with a sense of meaning and purpose, of connection to all parts of ourselves, each other and the web of life?

We ask these questions regularly of our guests, but once in a while, it’s useful to unpick them in detail, to give ourselves the Motivation, Agency, Direction and Empowerment we need, so we can open doors for others in our communities of place, purpose and passion.

https://accidentalgods.life/thoughts-from-the-edge-manda-explores-thrutopian-narratives-the-building-of-intent-and-the-paths-to-a-future-wed-be-proud-to-leave-behind/

In this solo episode, Manda walks us through the middle way between the dystopia of now, towards the utopia of a future in which humanity flourishes as an integral part of a thriving plant. What could it and would it be like if each of us woke up every morning feeling safe, feeling confident in our....

06/05/2026

When we talk about building community, we often get stuck trying to bridge tribal divides, particularly in a media landscape designed to monetise division, amplify hatred, and draw us into cycles of righteous anger.
But what if there was a different approach? One that creates a sense of individual and collective agency, that centres the gifts and strengths of everyone in the room in a way that lets everyone feel heard and so sweeps beneath the tribal divisions to the heart of things, where we all care about a future that feels safe, and open, where we all feel confident and heard and seen, where we can bring our soul’s growth to the table and be taken seriously?

So how do we achieve this social sculpting? This week, we’re talking to three members of the Generative Journalism Alliance to find out how they bring these very skills to disparate people in disparate places, to bring about real world changes.
Tchiyiwe Chihana was born in Bradford to Zambian born parents, and her existence is a tapestry of migration through generations. She is a public-interest broadcaster & moderator, building civic storytelling platforms that connect institutions & communities. Managing Director, African Voices Platform (TV & DAB) and Co-Founder, Generative Journalism Alliance

Peter P**a has been exploring the pathways to social evolution since founding the Grassroots Review in Canada in 1992. Since then he has been actively involved in federal politics, led a corporate communications firm and established the practice of Generative Journalism in an international arena.

Jack Becher is a systems change facilitator and story weaver with a background shaped by social-ecological movements. They are the Co-Founder and Steward of the Generative Journalism Alliance, Beyond Patriarchy, Sideways, Foundations Earth and the Kinstead.

This conversation opens doorways to a future where we have the wide, deep skills to move through the tribal divisions that our current system stokes so effectively, towards a place where we discover what matters to us most, and find ways to give everyone a sense of agency, of meaning and purpose, of being and belonging. This is how change happens, one conversation at a time and the Generative Journalism Alliance is hosting those conversations with deep integrity.

https://accidentalgods.life/brave-containers-sharing-stories-pushing-boundaries-creating-trust-with-the-generative-journalism-alliance/

When we talk about building community, we often get stuck trying to bridge tribal divides, particularly in a media landscape designed to monetise division, amplify hatred, and draw us into cycles of righteous anger. But what if there was a different approach? One that creates a sense of individual a...

29/04/2026

Can we separate politics from democracy? Our political system is wholly corrupt and no longer fit for purpose – if it ever was. What if Citizens’ Assemblies could bring agency to the whole of our population, helping people to find empathy with each other, to engage in conversations in good faith and work together to solve the wicked problems of the polycrisis: social inequity, climate chaos, the death cult of predatory capitalism. These are so interlinked, we won’t fix one unless we fix them all.

So how do we do it? This week, I’m talking to someone who spends her life reflecting on, teaching and researching this. Isabella Roberts of ANTIPARTY started off in the Big Four, Private Equity and Investment Banking, then switched from the private markets into politics at the start of 2021 as a candidate for the London Assembly elections. Against the backdrop of the UK’s first year out of the EU and in the depths of the COVID pandemic, she was inspired to take a stand and be the change she wanted to see in the governance of the UK’s capital.

She then took on a Masters in Digital Politics and Sustainable Development. Her thesis in 2023 focused on How Collective Intelligence Can Enhance Democracy, which resulted in the initiation of SAAFE which stands for: Space for Silent Contemplation and Reflection, Active Listening and Feeling Heard, Ability to Change One’s Mind, Feeling Connected as Part of the Whole, Epistemic Growth and Epistemic Humility – and which uses human-centred design principles for empowering participants in tech-enabled deliberation. This is an inquiry into what it means to be human in a digital age, in line with systems change towards a more deliberative democracy, and it has manifested in a multi-stakeholder project supported by the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton, bringing together democratic practitioners and the developers of deliberative technologies. Meanwhile, Bella is the independent evaluator of two deliberative processes: the Birmingham Museums Trust Citizens’ Jury, and currently the National Gallery’s Citizens’ Assembly (NG Citizens).

She also completed her first Vipassana course of 10-day silent meditation and is studying for a PhD with the title: Revolutionising deliberative democracy with immersive technology – a comparison between East and West.

Bella has explored the depth and breadth of what works, so that together, we can create a democracy that empowers ordinary people to help fix their communities and the wider world. Like previous podcast guests, Matt Golding of Antidote and Dylan McGarry of Empatheatre, Bella understands the sense of meaning and purpose and involvement that is so transformative – which was why this conversation was so rich and so deep. Enjoy!

https://accidentalgods.life/collective-effervescence-redefining-a-democracy-that-works-with-isabella-roberts-of-antiparty/

Can we separate politics from democracy? Our political system is wholly corrupt and no longer fit for purpose - if it ever was. What if Citizens' Assemblies could bring agency to the whole of our population, helping people to find empathy with each other, to engage in conversations in good faith and...

15/04/2026

Imagine a world where every one of us finds meaning in living a good life – and where ‘good’ means conducive to the flourishing of all beings. Imagine that this frames our every thought, sensing and action, allowing us to explore and question our triggered responses to the world we are enmeshed with in a way that is resilient and self-regulating, so that we can bring the best of ourselves to the table, with outcomes as information, ready to engage with what is, for what matters, and not to force how we think things ought to be. Imagine us working to govern this way of being so our our actions are shaped, moment by moment, day by day, year by year, decade by decade as we turn the bus that is humanity – the entire ecosphere, really – from the edge of the cliff that is mass extinction to collective enduring flourishing.

This is the vision of this week’s guest, Dr Victoria Hurth. Victoria was with us back in Episode #308 and I have put a link in the show notes so you can listen as she describes her new book, Beyond Profit; Purpose-Driven Leadership for a Wellbeing Economy and the ISO 37011 Standard which she is helping lead – and which is framed exactly around these philosophical concepts. Near the end of that podcast, Victoria mentioned that she is a practicing Stoic, and that she finds within its teachings, a moral philosophy compatible with our navigating the pinch point of the poly crisis.

And so clearly, we had to have another conversation. This is it. As a bit of background, Dr Victoria Hurth is an Independent Pracademic who works in service to the world clarifying its consensus on what matters, before we lose it. She firmly believes that we need to dedicate ourselves to the long-term wellbeing of all as the ultimate shared purpose, and then co-create the outer-most governance system to frame the strategies/behaviours/outcomes that will take us there. We don’t need everyone to sign up, but we do need a critical mass of people at all levels of our organisations from government, to NGOs to industry and beyond.

To this end, Victoria co-led the five-year development of the global ISO standard in Governance of Organizations (ISO37000), was Technical Author for the first national standard in Purpose-Driven Organizations and is currently Project Leader of the development of an equivalent ISO (ISO37011). Victoria is a Fellow of the University of Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership (CISL), Director at the Soil Association Certification Ltd and advises Planet Mark, and UnaTerra Venture Capital. She has over 25 years’ global experience in business transformation and is a full time Associate Professor of Marketing and Sustainable Business. Alongside all this, she is also a practicing Stoic.

https://accidentalgods.life/wise-just-courageous-temperate-stoicism-as-a-living-path-to-connection-with-victoria-hurth/

Imagine a world where every one of us finds meaning in living a good life - and where 'good' means conducive to the flourishing of all beings. Imagine that this frames our every thought, sensing and action, allowing us to explore and question our triggered responses to the world we are enmeshed with...

08/04/2026

“I think empathy is a creative act. It’s imaginal, it’s an art-making practice, where even just listening is creating a picture and a lifeworld of the other inside yourself in order to get closer to each other.”
Dr DYLAN MCGARRY

Empathy is a magical thing. It lets us do more than just step into another’s shoes, it opens the doors for us to step into their heart and soul with the vast generosity of spirit we’d like others to bring to us, wide as the sky, deep as the oceans, so that we can see through their eyes as the best of who they are. Obviously, we can do this with other people, but we can do it too, with whales, with elephants, with horses, and red kites and moles and spiders – and mountains and trees and landscapes… empathy is the spark that connects us to the More than Human world. There are not many people who truly understand this and fewer still who make it their life’s work to open the doors in our souls with such subtlety that we only know afterwards that we’ve stepped beyond the boundaries of who we think we are.
Our guest this week, Dylan McGarry, is one of these people. Dyl works across the fields of Education, Sociology, Ecology, and the Arts. An Educational Sociologist, Cultural Ecologist, multimedia artist, artivist, curator, theatre and filmmaker, Dyl’s work spans disciplines with many tentacles touching the world. Dyl holds a PhD in Environmental Education and Art, as well as degrees in Marine Science, Environmental Science, and Sustainable Rural Development.
As co-founder of Empatheatre, their praxis draws from the power of public storytelling, theatre, film, and animation, as a tool for regenerative community building, proactive justice, active empathy and meaning making. Their artwork and creative practice are particularly focused on empathy, working with imagination, listening and empathy as actual sculptural materials. They are developing pedagogies for empathy, in the context of ecological citizenship, and exploring the sculptural potential of empathy, attentiveness, intuition and learning.
Dyl is an inspiring pracademic, but it’s the work of Empatheatre that we’re really looking at today. This is a theatre-based approach to transgressive social learning, and an extra-legal alternative to democratising policy change. The plays are developed over months or years in collaboration with the communities affected by the concepts – and then when the play tours, the cast and crew facilitate conversations that turn into tribunals or citizen’s assemblies and the mere fact of having experienced the deep emotions of the play, can open doors that were previously closed.
Dylan says that empathy has three components: Imagination, attentiveness, and intuition. And just hearing this opens whole new ways of being for me, and I hope for you.
https://accidentalgods.life/sculpting-invisible-materials-expanding-empathy-in-the-hot-mess-of-now-with-dylan-mcgarry-of-empatheatre/

Empathy lets us do more than just step into another's shoes, it opens the doors for us to step into their heart and soul with the vast generosity of spirit we'd like others to bring to us, so that we can see through their eyes as the best of who they are. Obviously, we can do this with other people,...

25/03/2026

What are the stories we tell ourselves and each other about ourselves and each other and our place in the living web of life—and how do we shape them in service to Life?

This is the central question that animates : the idea that we are a storied species, that humanity lives and breathes and loves and learns by the rich tapestry of stories that shape our lives.

Everything we do from picking a career to moving house, from finding our life’s co-creator(s) to choosing what to have for lunch is underpinned by stories of who we are and how the world works. Often, we take these stories so much for granted that we don’t even recognise they are stories – we genuinely believe the world works like this.

But then once in a while, someone comes along with such great heart and deep, compassionate fluency in the many layers of our myths that they can weave magic wild enough to turn the bus that is humanity from the edge of the cliff – or at the very least, they can help us imagine what it is to be something entirely other, with no bus and no cliff.

This week’s guest, Sam Crosby Mythologist Facilitator, is one such myth-weaver. Sam is founder of Recalling Fire, the oral storytelling practice bringing ancient courage to modern leadership challenges. Guided by the work of Dr Martin Shaw at the School of Myth, fellow of the Bio-Leadership Project, mentor for A Band of Brothers and Alumnus of the Dartington College of Arts, he works with individuals and organisations all around the world, helping us to weave, re-weave the stories of our lives. Of this process, he says, ‘…after sharing reverential space and stories with hundreds of people as an oral storyteller and hundreds of thousands more as a consultant for culture, I believe stories and careful word choice have what it takes to guide us further down.’
This conversation was rich and deeply layered. We explored Arthurian Legend (fwiw, I think A Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff remains the best Arthurian book, though Mary Stewart’s Crystal Cave trilogy was my introduction to the whole genre and while I could never bring myself to read the third book, the first two were stellar), through a story of choice and agency, through the nature of grief and gratitude, love, loss and death as a Rite of Passage to the nature of story in modern politics: everything was here in a truly generative long-hour’s conversation. Enjoy!
https://accidentalgods.life/the-joy-of-becoming-lost-maps-myths-and-navigating-the-meta-crisis-with-sam-crosby-of-recalling-fire/

We are a storied species – we live and breathe and love and learn by the rich tapestry of stories that shape our lives. Everything we do from picking a career to moving house, from finding our life's co-creator(s) to choosing what to have for lunch is underpinned by stories of who we are and how t...

11/03/2026

In a culture where age is, at best, ignored, how do we rebuild a cohort of genuine Elders fit for the rapid transitions of the 21st Century: those who can combine the wisdom of wide boundary perspectives with the humility that allows flexibility of thinking, feeling and being?

This is one of the core questions of our time and this week’s guest is working to find answers. Alain Gauthier is co-founder and coordinator of the Regenerative Elder Process at the .

With John Izzo, he is co-host of The Way Forward Regenerative Conversations podcast and over his long life, he has been an international consultant, facilitator, coach, researcher-educator, and author. His book Actualising Evolutionary Co-Leadership: To Evolve a Creative and Responsible Society was published in 2014 – and is only available on Kindle (sorry) – but it is nonetheless a fascinating and inspiring read.

A graduate from HEC (Paris), with an MBA from Stanford University, Alain was once a senior consultant at McKinsey & Company. Now in his eighties and as an elder, he devotes his time to co-creating conditions for elders to explore how they can live a regenerative life and collaborate with younger generations in transforming education and community life.

Over the last seven years, he has been an active member of the Elders Action Network (EAN), where he initially led a visionary planning process and now co-leads the Regenerative Elder Process (REP) – which, this April (2026) is offering for the seventh time an in-depth exploration called Embodying Regenerative Worldviews. He co-leads the REP Community and is a member of the Advisory Council of Elders Rising, EAN’s educational arm.

https://accidentalgods.life/open-mind-open-heart-evolving-the-nature-of-eldering-with-alain-gauthier-of-the-regenerative-elder-process/

In a culture where age is, at best, ignored, how do we rebuild a cohort of genuine Elders fit for the rapid transitions of the 21st Century: those who can combine the wisdom of wide boundary perspectives with the humility that allows flexibility of thinking, feeling and being?

01/03/2026

In this podcast Manda dives deep into the nature of fear, what it is and how we might find our own resources, resilience and capacity to work with the parts that catch our attention. Given this, it is recommended that you listen at a time and place where you can give it full attention.
We believe that we are in a time of total transformation and the potential is enormous – if enough of us can do the work to free up the stuck parts inside so that we can be fully present, fully able to respond to the needs of every moment as it arises. Nobody is suggesting this is easy work, but it is absolutely the work of this moment. If we can all free up our stuck places so that our connections between all parts of ourselves, ourselves and each other, ourselves and the Web of Life are free and fluid – then we can begin to step into what’s ours to do in the moment, rather than rehashing old stories of old hurts – that may not be ours, but may be inherited from the generations that have gone before. We need not to pass them on, but more than that, we need to be able to connect in real time with all that’s around us in an ever-changing world.

[For those of you who attended the Gathering Honouring Fear as your Mentor that Manda taught earlier this month, this podcast is designed both to cement the teachings of that Gathering and open them up to our wider group of listeners.]

https://accidentalgods.life/honouring-fear-as-your-mentor-thoughts-from-the-edge-with-manda-scott/

Manda dives deep into the nature of fear, what it is and how we might find our own resources, resilience and capacity to work with the parts that catch our attention. Given this, it is recommended that you listen at a time and place where you can give it full attention.

18/02/2026

As we crest the wave of the Great Transformation, we have choices: we can crash into chaos and extinction – or we can step into our birthright as fully conscious nodes in the Web of Life, offering the astonishing creativity of humanity in service to life.

We’ve said this on the podcast often, but it’s not often that we speak with someone whose entire life is given to helping people step into our birthright, to opening the doors of what we might call Nature Connection, but is so much deeper than this – so that anyone, of any age or circumstance can step forward into whatever it is that our birthright becomes in the twenty-first century.

Our guest this week does just this. I’ve known of Jon Young for decades, heard of his 8 Shields practice and have friends who have trained in his Art of Mentoring, but it was only this last September that we met in person and I was struck by the deep inner stillness he brings to everything he does, the sense that his awareness stretches out across space and through time and he’s listening to layers upon layers of meaning.

Jon Young is a deep nature-people-self connection researcher, mentor, naturalist, wildlife tracker, author, consultant, and storyteller. Mentored by his grandmothers, Tom Brown, Jr., and a host of elders and experts, he has spent over 40 years leading the field of nature-based community building. His work explores the impact of nature on mentoring, human intelligence, spirituality, well-being, and development, influencing tens of thousands worldwide. He is the author and co-author of seminal works such as What the Robin Knows and Coyote’s Guide to Connecting to Nature, and has appeared in documentaries including The Animal Communicator. In 2016, he received the Champion of Environmental Education Award for his innovative and globally impactful contributions to the nature connection movement.

So, with all of this as our baseline, it was an honour and a delight to dive deep with Jon into the history and lineages of his learning, of his views of where we are now, and of how we can best navigate this moment of collapse and renewal.

https://accidentalgods.life/tracking-the-wild-things-inside-and-out-with-jon-young-of-living-connection-1st/

How can we step into our birthright as fully conscious nodes in the Web of Life, offering the astonishing creativity of humanity in service to life? Our guest this week helps people do just this...

Accidental Gods

27/05/2026

20/05/2026

06/05/2026

29/04/2026

15/04/2026

08/04/2026

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