#240  Beautiful Trouble – crafting a political Alternative – and an independent Scotland – with Indra Adnan and Pat Kane 

The question of how we reshape democracy, walking the fine line between stagnation and populist rage – is the defining problem of our time – with a coherent strategy, we can shape anything. In its absence, we’re going to end up spinning in pointless circles, arguing about trivia while the world burns.

We set this podcast up months ago, thinking we’d talk about the example Scotland sets for the UK and the rest of the world as a way *maybe) to shape democracy. And then Nicola Sturgeon stepped down and Scotland fell into the kind of turmoil I thought only impacted England. And then the turmoil in England sparked a general election. So now we’re talking about how we can use this moment to affect the digital, distributed democracy that we need with two of the smartest people in our eco-system: Indra Adnan and Pat Kane of The Alternative.

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Election Special #3   Labour party Manifesto – anything worthwhile? with Jeremy Gilbert

What are we being offered by the incoming Labour Government? What’s good in their Manifesto (spoiler alert, not very much)? What’s not good? What could be improved upon and how do we go about pushing them to a place where they actually do something useful that isn’t simply a repeat of the same-old, same-old we’ve had for the past decade and a half?

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#239  Taking back the Power: Weaning ourselves off fossil fuels and onto the good stuff with Howard Johns of OneZero

Today we’re blowing open a route towards energy security, reduced carbon footprint and saving money – all in the way we make, distribute and use power. If each of us could minimise our own power use, we’d be a step on the way to reducing our overall carbon footprint: more, we’d be changing the ways we think of ourselves as separate from the web of life.

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#238  The Jay, The Beech and The Limpetshell with author Richard Smyth

Today we speak to the author of The Jay, the Beech and the Limpetshell – a work that is both memoir and a eulogy for a dying world. It brings together Richard’s passionate love of the natural world with his care for his two young children and considers how we help the generations that come after us to fall in love with a world that is going to be so, so different from when we were young – however old you are now, whatever your memories.

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ELECTION special #2    Clean Air, Clean Water, Clean Politics with Baroness Natalie Bennett of the Green Party 

In this second election special, we talk to Natalie Bennett (or Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle if we’re going to be formal – but she said we didn’t need to be) – one of two Green Party members in the House of Lords. Natalie is author of the Book  Change Everything: How we can rethink, repair and rebuild society – one of the essential books of our time that outlines in detail how we can create the total systemic change we need.

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#237  Answers to the Questions of life: Biomimicry, Complexity and Peacebuilding with Dr Deborah Benham

Deborah Benham is a trained Biomimicry Educator and with a background in Jon Young’s Deep Nature Connection work. She shares a practical, experiential lived and living toolkit to help us build thriving human societies, cultures, communities and businesses, designing with and as nature, creating mutual benefit for all life, using tech in life affirming ways, and uplifting justice, kindness and cooperation.

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ELECTION SPECIAL #1  Breaking the Doom-Loop of UK Politics with Neal Lawson of Compass

Our first Election Special with friend of the podcast, Neal Lawson, director of the progressive campaign group, Compass and co-host of the Compass podcast called It’s Bloody Complicated, a long-time progressive campaigner and a tireless advocate for Proportional Representation as a vehicle for radical progressive change in the way we do politics. 

In this swift half hour, we look at the circumstances of this utterly unexpected election and Neal explains the practical steps we can take between now and polling day  with the aim of brining about what he calls a progressive ‘Pitch Invasion’ that will fundamentally upgrade and update the way we arrange our governance structures…

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#236 Wild shamanic theatre and becoming embodied: with Jessica Bockler of the ALEF Trust

Our guest this week stands at the place where neuropsychology, shamanic practice and artistic practice meet. We explore the transformative power of theatre and the importance of integrating body, mind, and spirit to foster personal and collective growth and Jessica shares a clip from one of her own practices which is solid podcasting gold!

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#235  The Story is in our Bones: Rewilding Ourselves with author and activist Osprey Orielle Lake

Our guest this week is the author of The Story is in our Bones: How Worldview and Climate Justice can Remake a World in Crisis. This is a genuinely beautiful book on every level: full of living mythology, opening doors to how the bones of our language make the world around us, offering other perspective, other ways of being, living stories of where we came from and who we are and who we could be. 

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#234  Any Human Power – Manda Scott talks about her new Thrutopian Mytho-Political thriller

This week the tables are turned and Maddy Harland, editor of Permaculture Magazine interviews Manda about her new ‘seismic’ Mytho-Political thriller, Any Human Power, which will be available from 30th May.

From a bestselling storyteller who brings together myths and speculative futures with a radical compassion, comes the story of a family at the heart of a political crisis and the ensuing uprising of a disenfranchised generation. A family that harnesses the skills and stories needed for real change, if they can choose the right path, before it is too late …

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#233  No such thing as Waste, No such place as ‘Away’! – Composting our way out of the meta-crisis with Nicky Grady Scott

Join us on a deep dive into the transformative world of composting with Nicky Grady Scott, a master composter and educator whose expertise is revolutionizing our approach to waste and regenerative cycles. In this enlightening episode, Nicky shares his journey from a passionate 16-year-old working with compost to the establishment of community-led recycling projects that have evolved into thriving businesses. Discover the science and simplicity behind composting, the importance of soil health, and how we can all contribute to a flourishing future by turning our “wasted resources” into rich, living soil.

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#232  Writing The Deluge: Dark nights, Apocalypse and Hope with author Stephen Markley

Author Stephen Markley opens the doors to The Deluge, his ground-breaking, world-changing Climate/MetaCrisis thriller- 900 pages that absolutely squarely rips into the current system in all its deficiencies – and offers a route through to a future that might work.

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#231  Eco-Spirituality – Exploring Deep in the Woods of the Divine with Woodford Roberts and Rupert Read

In this deep, thoughtful conversation, two of the men at the heart of the Climate Majority Project discuss their own journeys into eco-spirituality – what they believe it to be and why it’s a core, foundational bedrock of their lives.

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#230  What do we really think about Food? Revolutionising what we eat with Sue Pritchard of the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission

This inspiring conversation with Sue Pritchard was sparked by the FFCC’s inspiring Food Conversation – which brings together ordinary people and begins to unpick the web of deceit surrounding our food – and replaces it with something that is real and decent and nourishing on a physical and systemic level. This was such an inspiring, invigorating conversation and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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#229  How do we live, when under the surface of everything is an ocean of tears? With Douglas Rushkoff of Team Human

Douglas Rushkoff shares with us the palpable “ocean of tears” lurking beneath the surface of our collective consciousness—a reservoir of compassion waiting to be acknowledged and embraced. His candid reflections on the human condition, amidst the cacophony of a world in crisis, remind us of the importance of bearing witness to the pains and joys that surround us. He challenges us to consider the role of technology and AI not as tools for capitalist exploitation but as potential pathways to a more humane and interconnected existence.

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#228  Evolving Education: Building a Doughnut School with Jenny Grettve of When!When!

Jenny Grettve’s heart-mind is huge and deep and we explored many areas of the transformation that’s coming, from the evolution of a primary school along Doughnut Economic lines to the future of architecture, to the role of systems thinking in our political, social and, in the end, human, evolution. It was a truly heart-warming conversation and I hope it helps you, too, to think to the edges of yourself.

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#227  Building Trust, One Conversation at at Time: Cooperation Hull with Gully Bujak

This podcast exists to open doors, to let the world know some of the many, many things that are happening around the world to bring us closer towards that just, equitable and regenerative future we’d be proud to leave behind. And this week’s guest is someone who lives, works and acts at the cutting edge of possibility.

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#226  Vulture Capitalism – Exposing the toxic system and how to outgrow it with Grace Blakeley

This week’s guest is one of those who understands the nuts and bolts – the iniquities – of the current system – and has ideas of how we can shape something better from the hot mess of corruption and greed in which we’re mired. Grace Blakeley is a staff writer at Tribune Magazine and author of  ‘Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts and the Death of Freedom’ in which she peels back the layers of our economic system, exposing the stark realities hidden beneath the veneer of ‘free markets’ and ‘democratic’ institutions.

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#Bonus: Meditation for the Spring Equinox 2024, with Manda Scott

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, perhaps light a candle, or otherwise 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. 

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