Accidental Gods

13/11/2024

There are many responses to the US election - acknowledging that the 'democratic' system we've known is over and then building ideas of what needs to come next is at the heart of things now.

And above all - we all need to work out what kind of future we want to leave behind - particularly those of us over 50... who are on the downhill slope toward the next big adventure. What future do we who are notionally elders want to leave as our legacy?

This is the most important question of our lives. It would be hard to discuss anything else, but my guest this week is uniquely placed to address it. As you’ll hear, Dr. John Izzo was once an ordained Minister in a Presbyterian Church. Now, he’s a bestselling author, speaker, and thought leader focused on social responsibility. He’s a Board Member of the Elders Action Network and the Elders Climate Action group and one of the co-hosts of a podcast called The Way Forward Regenerative Podcast which is expressly aimed at people over 50 who want to explore what it means to be an elder.

I met John on that podcast back in the summer and was so impressed with his approach to things. John is a deeply thoughtful, deeply spiritual person who takes his time to look at things from all angles. He’s dedicated his entire career to helping individuals and organisations discover purpose and foster meaningful change. He is absolutely committed to exploring the role of elders in creating a regenerative future. And we need this now, more than ever.
Originally we had scheduled this week’s guest for a recording on the 4th of November. Clearly this wasn’t going to be as constructive as a conversation held in the wake of the election, whatever the outcome. And so we rescheduled and spoke together on Thursday 7th, which gave us time to process the results and speak more directly to a future that is unknowable, but not entirely unpredictable. How do we feel? What world do we want to create? How best can we bring alive a flame of hope from the ashes of the old system? These are the questions we bring to the table – a starting point, not an end point and no doubt this conversation will continue for the rest of our lives. This is our truth for now.

https://accidentalgods.life/being-the-best-ancestors-we-can-with-dr-john-izzo-of-the-elders-action-network/

How do we all respond to the seismic events of the US election? Specifically, how do those of us over 50 respond? (and how would the younger generations like us to respond)?

08/11/2024

We are at an inflexion point - it is now obvious to (almost) all of us that the current system is not fit for purpose - it is never going to give us a route to a future we'd be proud to leave behind.

In the utter devastation of the old, is the possibility of something different. So how do we go about it?

Thoughts here:

It occurs to me that we are now at an inflection point in the WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich and - notionally - Democratic) culture that has been so successful in destroying the ecosphere. So where do we go from here?

06/11/2024

Today is a day of mourning. But we have to create hope for the generations that come after us. We know that, even before the US election results, young people are facing a world where the only certainty is uncertainty, where the only known is the unknown. So what can be done to offer them the best grounding possible to move into the transition?
If you’re over 40, the world you grew up believing in no longer exists. The younger generation approaches the polycrisis with open eyes, striving to find and nurture resilience, to listen to the whispers of synchronicity and let it lead them – and us – to a world that works for all life.
In this week's episode of the hashtag hashtag , we’re talking to Elliot Riley. Elliot is an educator, permaculture designer and practitioner working to bring wellbeing, reforestation and perennial food production into schools.
Elliot graduated during the pandemic. When he left school, he was planning to join the paratroops, but after what he describes as a ‘Thunderbolt moment’, he shifted tack and, despite not having the grades, was able to get a place to study history at the New College of Humanities. One pandemic and a degree later, he realised that mainstream education struggles to equip us for the challenges of a changing world. After two years upstream, studying Trauma-Informed Education and permaculture in the Dominican Republic, Elliot returned to his hometown, where he now works at The Saint Leonard’s Academy, leading a wellbeing programme called Future Growth, which supports students whilst transforming the community’s waste into a regenerative food forest. Through an initiative called OFFSET, Elliot’s working to spread the mission further.
https://accidentalgods.life/turning-waste-into-wellbeing.../

Young people are facing a world where the only certainty is uncertainty. where the only known is the unknown. So what can we do to offer them the best grounding to move forward into the transition to come?

31/10/2024

This looks fun!

🦇** HALLOWEEN GIVEAWAY **🦇

Surprise! To celebrate the witchiest time of the year, we are giving away a signed copy of both The Wheel and The Witch’s Survival Guide to one magickal winner 💫

To enter this Samhain giveaway, all you have to do is:

🌕 follow and September Publishing

🍂 like this post

🫖 comment below the post tagging two (or more) witchy friends - each comment is a separate entry

🧡 get an extra entry by sharing the post to your IG story and tagging us so we can see it!

Enter by 8 pm on Sunday 3rd November (winner announced on Monday 4th Nov). Open to entrants worldwide. Good luck!

31/10/2024

Yay for September Publishing and
This'll be a fascinating ride/read....

31/10/2024

Hello all - I have the astonishing and heart-warming honour of speaking at the Animate Earth memorial to the late Stephan Harding on Sunday November 10th - details here:

________

Please join us for a celebration of the wonderful book Animate Earth, written by our late mentor and advisor Stephan Harding who passed away this September.

It was Stephan’s pioneering and courageous work on the edge of science – a new holistic science that brings our subjective experience and felt relations with the natural world alongside the study of ecological processes – that so inspired the work that we now continue in his name. His insights, from a scientific perspective, were foundational in our understanding of contemporary animism, the experience that all life is intelligent, working, evolving and communicating together in a great collaboration.

With Manda Scott, Rupert Sheldrake, David Abram, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Tom Rivett-Carnac, Colin Campbell & Angharad Wynne

Annual Confluence 2024
10 November 4-8pm
Bookings via

10 November

30/10/2024

How does an understanding of what makes dogs tick, help us to understand ourselves and our place in the world? What does it take to feel safe – as a human, or as a dog (or cat, or horse, or… anything)?

https://accidentalgods.life/having-your-c-a-k-e-compassion-awareness-knowledge-empathy-and-sharing-what-you-learn-with-andrew-hale-of-dog-centered-care/

with Hale of Dog Centered Care

How does an understanding of what makes dogs tick, help us to understand ourselves and our place in the world? What does it take to feel safe - as a human, or as a dog (or cat, or horse, or... anything)? And how can we help ourselves and each other find regulation in a VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertai...

30/10/2024

How does an understanding of what makes dogs tick, help us to understand ourselves and our place in the world? What does it take to feel safe – as a human, or as a dog (or cat, or horse, or… anything)? And how can we help ourselves and each other find regulation in a VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous)?

Andrew Hale is a Certified Animal Behaviourist who specialises in working complex behaviour cases, especially those involving ‘Reactivity and Aggression.’ Look around you at the world. Look at the news. What two words best describe the nature of our local, national and geo-political processes?
Andrew is one of those remarkable people committed to a Dog Centred Care approach, working with empathy and compassion to understand why any being is behaving in this way. His focus is on dogs, but what we’re learning – and the reason I have invited Andrew onto the podcast – is that all the theories of secure or ruptured attachment, of the need for autonomy, agency, confidence and safety, apply in dogs as much as they do in people -or indeed, any sentient being.

This conversation dives deep into trauma (or at least, trauma responses), our capacity for secure attachment in the modern world, our parenting skills, our skills as people who choose to share our lives with other animals – and ultimately, our skills in helping ourselves cope with a culture that’s increasingly going off the rails. It’s not about to get any better, either. So the more we can find our own stability, the more we can help others. Which is what this episode is all about. Relax, get yourself a cup of tea and let’s explore what really makes us tick.

https://accidentalgods.life/having-your-c-a-k-e-compassion-awareness-knowledge-empathy-and-sharing-what-you-learn-with-andrew-hale-of-dog-centered-care/

How does an understanding of what makes dogs tick, help us to understand ourselves and our place in the world? What does it take to feel safe - as a human, or as a dog (or cat, or horse, or... anything)? And how can we help ourselves and each other find regulation in a VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertai...

25/10/2024

Hey people - a reminder that we're Dreaming Your Death Awake this Sunday - the closest we could come to Samhain.

Working with the idea that death is a rite of passage, to be met with grace - and that only by fully embracing our own mortality can we learn to live the great, wild magic that is life.

https://accidentalgods.life/dreaming-your-death-awake/

Anyone/everyone is welcome. Accidental Gods Members remember that you have a 50% discount and the code is on the Members Home page.

Death is our ultimate teacher: When we learn how to die, we learn how to live. Conversely, only by learning how to live fully present in each moment, can we learn how to die well.

18/10/2024

This was a really heart-warming, engaging, wide-ranging conversation with Fiona Mackay Photography on her 'Nurtured by Nature' podcast...

Perfect weekend listening...

Enjoy!

https://fionamackayphotography.com/2024/10/51-mapping-the-emergence-of-a-new-paradigm-with-manda-scott-any-human-power/

51. Mapping the Emergence of A New Paradigm with Manda Scott, Any Human Power By: Fiona Category: Nurtured by Nature Podcast Episodes October 17, 2024 SUBSCRIBE, FOLLOW & LISTEN:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | AmazonMusic | YouTube Music Welcome to episode 51 of the Nurtured by Nature podcast, today...

09/10/2024

This was a really interesting conversation - Amy Rowlinson asks thoughtful, probing questions and we get to the heart of what matters now, as we learn how to hospice modernity and build something new from the ashes...

Former veterinary surgeon turned author, columnist and podcaster Manda Scott explores the need for new narratives that challenge existing economic, cultural and environmental paradigms perpetuating scarcity and powerlessness. Manda critiques current economic systems and advocates for serotonin-drive...

09/10/2024

Your regular reminder of what industrial agriculture is doing to our oceans:

PDF | The world has focused on carbon mitigation as the only solution for climate change. This discussion paper considers how marine biodiversity... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

09/10/2024

How do we offer secure, safe, dry, affordable homes to all the people who want them while not breaching our planetary boundaries more than we have already?
Our two guests this week are deeply embedded in the creation of Tiny Homes as a way for us meet the needs of all within the bounds of the living planet. Both are living absolutely at that sharp, bright edge of inter-becoming from which our more flourishing future will emerge.

Rachel Butler is the founder of Tiny House Community Bristol, Chair of Bristol Community Land Trust and is a member of Bristol’s One City Homes & Communities board. Her root mission is within systems change/paradigm shift: to re-common as much land as practicable, enabling as many people as possible to move back onto and reconnect with this land, by co-creating and co-residing in Tiny House Regenerative Settlements. She believes that, at this critical time of human-created poly crisis, as the current system collapses and composts, it’s also time for the human species to rejoin the web of life, in sacred reciprocity; healing our relationships to self, each other and community; not only human, but of all beings and kinds.

maddy longhurst is a director of Tiny House Community Bristol alongside Rachel and, for the last 4-5 years has been helping to create their Tiny House development in Sea Mills, Bristol, as well as another small tiny house community off the radar. Since having to leave her rented home this August, she and her daughter have decided to exit the mainstream housing system so as to no longer be subject to its unethical, exploitative ways, but to live, for now, in the fertile margins until their tinies are created.
She’s UK coordinator of the Urban Agriculture Consortium, weaving relationships between people working in the urban and peri-urban agroecological transition. She is also Studio Coordinator for Constructivist, a regenerative design school for built environment professionals, and part of the Strategy circle for Bristol Commons. Some of her current areas of work are on Reimagining the Greenbelt as a place for regenerative settlements, prototyping Landed Community Kitchens and developing a model for Tiny Homes for land regenerators in the city.

As you can imagine, our conversation ranged from how grinding bureaucracy so often gets in the way of genuinely restorative, regenerative practice, to the philosophy and practices that are the foundations of the change we need to see in the world. We explored the actual social technologies that moved things forward and learned of two workshops that sound totally transformative.

How do we offer secure, safe, dry, affordable homes to all the people who want them while not breaching our

more than we have already?



https://accidentalgods.life/living-well-in-a-tiny-house-with-rachel-butler-and-maddy-longhurst-of-bristol-tiny-house-community/

How do we offer secure, safe, dry, affordable homes to all the people who want them while not breaching our planetary boundaries more than we have already?

02/10/2024

Had to share this - with thanks to Pat Foster

02/10/2024

How do we move beyond our myopic focus on carbon/CO2 as the index of our harms to the world? What can we do to heal the whole biosphere? And what role is played by water-as-verb, forest-as-verb, ocean-as-verb?
This week’s guest on the is an environmental journalist and author who has answers to all of these questions – and more.

Judith D. Schwartz is an author who tells stories to explore and illuminate scientific concepts and cultural nuance. She takes a clear-eyed look at global environmental, economic, and social challenges, and finds insights and solutions in natural systems. She writes for numerous publications, including The Guardian and Scientific American and her first two books are music to our regenerative ears. The first is called ‘Cows Save the Planet’ and the next is ‘Water in Plan Sight’. Her latest, “The Reindeer Chronicles”, was long listed for the Wainwright Prize and is an astonishingly uplifting exploration of what committed people are achieving as they dedicate themselves to earth repair, water repair and human repair.

Judith was recently at the ‘Embracing Nature’s Complexity’ conference, organised by the Biotic Pump Greening Group which offers revolutionary new insights into eco-hydro-climatological landscape restoration. She’s a contributor to the new book, ‘What if we Get it Right?’ edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, who was one of the editors of All We can Save.
Judith has been described as ‘one of ecology’s most indispensable writers’ and when you read her work, you’ll understand the magnificent depth and breadth of her insight into who we are and how we can help the world to heal.

https://accidentalgods.life/of-reindeer-donkeys-and-the-verb-that-is-water-stories-of-climate-healing-with-judith-schwartz/

How do we move beyond our myopic focus on carbon/CO2 as the index of our harms to the world? What can we do to heal the whole biosphere? And what role is played by water-as-verb, forest-as-verb, ocean-as-verb?

25/09/2024

How do we build the local futures we all know we need? What does it actually take to become a good enough ancestor?

Or even the best ancestor we can be? Our guest this week on the , Helena Norberg-Hodge, has given her life to exploring the answers, and helping birth them into being.

Helena Norberg-Hodge is one of the Elders of our culture. She’s a linguist, author and filmmaker, and the founder and director of the international non-profit group Local Futures, in which role, she has initiated localisation movements on every continent, and has launched both the International Alliance for Localisation (IAL) and World Localisation Day (WLD).
She’s a pioneer of the new economy movement and recipient of the Alternative Nobel prize, the Arthur Morgan Award and the Goi Peace Prize for contributing to “the revitalisation of cultural and biological diversity, and the strengthening of local communities and economies worldwide.” She is author of the inspirational classic Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, and Local is Our Future (2019), and producer of the award-winning documentary The Economics of Happiness.
Almost fifty years since her journey began in Ladakh, Helena is still collaborating with thought-leaders, activists and community groups across the globe which gives her a uniquely rounded insight into how our local futures could look and feel – and the routes to getting there.
I’ve known Helena since I was at Schumacher college – I rented a room in her house for a while, so we know each other well and I was able to press her in ways I wouldn’t normally feel able to do with a podcast guest, so we could drill down into the details of her ideas for a different way of being. At heart, we need to get rid of global trade and move back to a localist economy based in sufficiency. The devil is in the detail, obviously, but if we have an idea of where we’re going, we stand more chance of getting there.
So I hope this inspires you to action. Please do follow up some of the links – and definitely watch this new film: Closer to Home – the vision it offers of a generative, working local future is beautiful.

https://accidentalgods.life/building-an-economics-of-happiness-why-our-future-must-be-local-with-helena-norberg-hodge-of-local-futures/

How do we build the local futures we all know we need? What does it actually take to become a good enough ancestor? Or even the best ancestor we can be? Our guest this week, Helena Norberg-Hodge, has given her life to exploring the answers, and helping birth them into being.

24/09/2024

Had a lot of fun on the outstanding 'What is a Good Life' with the truly soul-full, heart-full Mark McCartney

On the 89th episode of the What is a Good Life? podcast, I am delighted to introduce our guest, Manda Scott. Manda trained as a veterinary surgeon but is now an