#249 Finding the Courage to Care – Ways to build a Mothering Economy with author Jenny Grettve
In this moment of transition, we need to become the best of ourselves, as individuals, and as a culture. But how? What does it look like? More importantly, what does it feel like? Designer and Thrutopian thinker, Jenny Grettve says it’ll feel as if we care for the web or life as a mother care for her children. And we’d better learn how to do it as fast as we can.
‘Are we [in our WEIRD culture] intelligent enough to be more generous than we have ever been throughout history?’ So writes Jenny Grettve, in her new book, ‘Mothering Economy’.
Jenny is an author, philospher, systems thinker and designer who joined us in Episode #228, talking about the principles and practice of her generative, systems-led design agency, ‘When!When!’
At the time, she said she was writing a new book – and now, ‘Mothering Economy’ is coming out at the end of this month (August), so we’re back in a wide, deep, provocative, generative conversation about what it might takes for us to have the courage to care deeply for ourselves, each other and the more than human world. She writes, ‘The profound mothering among humans that I envision is not a burdensome technological revolution, but rather a simple way of being together. We have a vast number of examples: what we lack is the intention and commitment to raise awareness…’
And so let’s do all we can to raise awareness by exploring the ideas deep in Jenny’s book and searching our own beings for ways to show up with stronger, clearer, more open hearts.
In Conversation
You may also like these recent podcasts
Mothering the Future we’d be proud to leave behind – with author and activist Zineb Mouhyi
“I have come to believe something that sounds simple and is anything but: if Mothering were the axis around which we revolved, we would liberate the world. By Mothering I do not mean the biological act of giving birth, or the domestic role that has been used to confine us. I mean the practice – available to all people, in all bodies – of tending to life with full presence: protecting it, nourishing it, teaching it to know itself, trusting it.”
Grown Up Politics: A Chance for Change – Round Table with Neal Lawson of Compass and Rupert Read of the Climate Majority Project
We’re at a pivotal moment in world geopolitics. Increasingly the masks and the gloves are both off – but it’s not a binary choice any more between two sets of suits in slightly different coloured ties: now we have the right showing its true colours – and a chance for the progressive majority in this country to find its feet and lead us towards a genuinely thoughtful, emotionally literate, high-bandwidth politics that ditches the toxic tribalism and instead lays the ground for a future that could actually work.
Breaking open the Story of Bread with Abby Rose of Farmerama
We’re delighted to welcome Abby Rose from the Farmerama podcast to share how story about bread helped listeners to take action, big and small. This is Thrutopia in action and really gets to the heart of the power of story to change the future. Please do listen and enjoy!
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 our template?
STAY IN TOUCH
For a regular supply of ideas about humanity's next evolutionary step, insights into the thinking behind some of the podcasts, early updates on the guests we'll be having on the show - AND a free Water visualisation that will guide you through a deep immersion in water connection...sign up here.
(NB: This is a free newsletter - it's not joining up to the Membership! That's a nice, subtle pink button on the 'Join Us' page...)



