The current system is not broken – it is doing what it was always designed to do – which is to shovel wealth and power from the many to the few at a human scale and from the more-than-human world to the industrial/technical maw of predatory capitalism at an ecological scale.
We are living through the death of democracy and the onset of Techno-Feudalism. But this is not a time when linear systems can hold and feudalism was nothing if not linear. So how can we be part of a transformative process that will let us lay the foundations for a future we’d be proud to leave behind?
By any measure, this year has been pretty turbulent and our capacity to predict anything at all for 2025 is fairly ragged, but that doesn’t stop us from celebrating Della’s news, and sharing the ways we find stability and maintain sanity in a world that feels increasingly precarious. Whatever else is happening, friendship is the glue that builds community and all of us – we who make the podcasts and everyone who listens – are building a de facto community of passion and purpose. So thank you for being there. I hope you enjoy what follows.
This meditation aims to offer a long-wide-deep perspective on our place as conscious nodes in the web of life – the journey that brought us here and the places humanity may go. Please give yourself plenty of time both to experience the journey and to reflect afterwards. If it helps to write down your feelings, images, ideas or sensations afterwards, please do.
It’s that time of year – when all we really want is to curl up and reflect, go inside, become the potential that will arise in the unfolding spring. If you want things to listen to or watch or read as you head into the long-nights, then these are (some of) the things that have caught my attention this year. Enjoy!
Here is an Autumn Equinox Meditation to help set you up for the shift from the long days to the long nights.
This is our regular September bonus episode – a brief look at where we’re at – how I (Manda) see things just now as we head deeper into the moment of transformation.
This guided visualisation walks us into the moment of balance between the long nights and the long days, the restorative time of winter and the outward-acting time of summer, between being to doing. Please take time for yourself to sit quietly and create a space out of time that has meaning for you. It doesn’t have to be at the moment of the equinox, whenever that is for you, wherever you are in the world, it’s the connection that counts, the marking of the day.
Here is our winter solstice meditation – please create a space for yourself where you won’t be disturbed and where you can feel your way into the dark, regenerative space of the longest night. If you want to draw the curtains, switch off all the power and light a candle, this may help you to connect with the place of rest and renewal.
Manda’s Equinox meditation focuses on finding our sense of balance as the tilt of the world balances between summer and winter, light and dark, day and night. And from that, finding a stable place with the three pillars of our heart minds: joyful curiosity, gratitude and compassion.
How can we heal our relationship with the earth, heal ourselves and feed the world good, nutrient-dense food?
In this, our 200th episode of Accidental Gods podcast, Manda was delighted to be joined by André Tranquilini, estate manager at Waltham Place, a 220 acred biodynamic estate in Berkshire, in the UK.
It’s the summer solstice, the longest day and the shortest night. What matters now in our world is that we reconnect with the rhythms of the living web. This meditation is designed to help you connect to the rising sun on this day of longest light.