Accidental Gods

29/10/2025

What is an eco-civilisation? What are its values and what are the frames within which it works? Why do we need it in the first place and what will the Establishment do to maintain business as usual? Most importantly, what can each of us do to live an eco-civilisation into being?

This week’s guest, Jeremy Lent explores these ideas in depth in his forthcoming book, Ecocivlization: Making a World that Works, which is due out in May of 2026.

We’ve talked to Jeremy twice before, first in episode #38 about his award-winning book, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, and then in #102 about his second book in the series, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe.
Ecocivlisation is the third book in this trifecta and I was privileged to read the pre-proof draft, so I can tell you that it’s one of the few genuinely Thrutopian books I’ve read. It that lays out the iniquities and downright horror of the imperial/colonial system of the Trauma culture – termed Wendigo Inc. in the book – and then brings Jeremy’s trademark meticulous research and fluent prose to bear on the ways through to a system in which we all live and thrive and work towards the wellbeing of the entire ecosphere.
Given that there is such detail, I wanted to talk to Jeremy now, so that we could explore some of the foundations – the nature of the existing narratives of Business as Usual, of TINA: There is No Alternative – and why this is so ubiquitous in spite of being self-evidently untrue. Then I wanted to look at the broader frame of the Theory of Change proposed here so that next spring we can go into more detail ahead of the book’s publication.
For those of you who don’t yet know him, Jeremy was born in London, has a BA in English Literature from Cambridge University, an MBA from the University of Chicago, and was a former internet company CEO. Now, he is an author, speaker and founder of the Deep Transformation Network, a global community exploring pathways to an ecological civilization. He is also founder of the nonprofit Liology Institute, dedicated to fostering an integrated worldview that could enable humanity to thrive sustainably on the Earth.

https://accidentalgods.life/eco-civilisation-the-future-we-deserve-and-how-we-will-get-there-with-jeremy-lent/

What is an eco-civilisation? What are its values and what are the frames within which it works? Why do we need it in the first place and what will the Establishment do to maintain business as usual? Most importantly, what can each of us do to live an eco-civilisation into being?

22/10/2025

There are so many great people putting their shoulder to the endeavour of dreaming into and creating a future that is generative, connected and in the flow of life’s longing. It feels important to remember that among the dessolation of our daily news feeds.

Manda Scott has been chipping away at this work for years, through her brilliant books, teaching and her Accidental Gods podcast. She gathers some of the greatest thinkers, activists, writers, artists and teachers of our time to share their thoughts on the podcast. It’s been fuelling my travels recently and I thought you might value it too.

Manda will be joining me as a guest tutor on Feather, Fire, Stone and Bone again this year, and also offers her own brilliant programmes.

Enjoy!

Nature Podcast · Updated weekly · Another World is still Possible. The old system was never fit for purpose and now it has gone- and it's never coming back. We have the power of gods to destroy our home. But we also have the chance…

22/10/2025

How do we heal ourselves from the ‘lost-ness’ that afflicts our culture? How do we move on from the strange—and wholly untrue— belief our culture holds that we are separate from the natural world, that our cycles of exploitation, extraction, destruction, pollution are the way the world is, that this is the natural order and there’s nothing we can do to change it, individually or collectively?

Knowing that our sense of separation is an illusion is one thing, but genuinely feeling it deep in the marrow of our bones is quite another. Which is where this week’s guest comes in.

Kelly Wendorf is an executive and personal coach, spiritual mentor, disruptor, and socially responsible entrepreneur. As you’ll hear, her book ‘Flying Lead Change: 56 million years of Wisdom for living and leading’ offers a unique answer to these questions. Kelly is founder and CEO of EQUUS whose central question is, ‘What are you Yearning for?’ and whose central offer is: ‘We create conditions for your transformation’.
As the name suggests, she and her team do this, by engaging the generous spirits of a herd of horses as mirrors to the people who come to EQUUS for coaching – and, although this is often not why they think they’re coming, for healing. Kelly’s childhood experience with a whole-hearted man in Ethiopia, and later, with one of the First Nations people in Australia, taught her a way of listening, of being fully present, fully in her heart mind and body mind, in the present moment, and this is what she helps others to find with the help of the horses who often just don’t engage if we’re not congruent, not present, not fully embodied.

She has been called a ‘corporate shaman’ and a ‘CEO whisperer’, but as we crash through the boundaries of the Great Transformation, it seems to me that Kelly’s work opens doors for us all. We may not have access to a herd of free-living, re-wilding horses, but even reading about the experiences of her clients can melt some of the concrete around our hearts. And with this, we can always step outside, stand still, let the living world teach us.

This was a deeply moving read, and a fascinating conversation, at the end of which, Kelly offered our community coupons for two of her forthcoming online courses – the first ‘Breaking the Loop, Transforming Habits that hold you back’ is on Saturday 1st November at 10-11:30 am Mountain Time. The second is nearly a year from now: How to lead a Transformative Life’ takes place over two Saturdays, for two hours each at 10am – 12 noon Mountain Time and Kelly is offering it to our Accidental Gods community for free. So please do go and check out the show notes for the links and the coupon codes.

https://accidentalgods.life/rewilding-our-horses-rewilding-our-souls-with-kelly-wendorf-of-equus/

How do we heal ourselves from the 'lost-ness' that afflicts our culture? How do we move on from the strange—and wholly untrue— belief our culture holds that we are separate from the natural world, that our cycles of exploitation, extraction, destruction, pollution are the way the world is, that ...

15/10/2025

“Each of us was put on this earth at this time to personally determine the fate of humankind. Do you think you were put here for something less?”
Chief Arvol Looking Horse

We exist in a world where the ultra-rich are getting richer, powered by a system we call ‘the economy’ which is serving to funnel power and value up to an ever-shrinking core of wounded individuals who then project their trauma out on the rest of the world in a doomed attempt to feel better about being caught in a system that doesn’t promote human wellbeing.

So far, so very obvious. The system is clearly dysfunctional and the cost of failure is the 6th mass extinction. So how do we create the unity and clarity we need to coalesce around a common cause? Explicitly, how do we create a system that aims for the longterm wellbeing for all – where ‘all’ is not just all of humanity now and for generations to come in perpetuity, but all of the web of life, the human and the more than human worlds?
How, in fact, do we persuade at least a critical mass of our existing system, that we as humans exist to transform our selves and our world for the flourishing of all?
This weeks’ guest has wrestled with these questions for all her adult life. Dr Victoria Hurth is an Independent Pracademic who works at the cutting edge of theory and practice to help the world clarify its consensus on foundational issues. As you’ll hear, she firmly believes that we need to agree that our goal is the longterm wellbeing of all, and then co-create the governance system to frame the strategies 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.
She is a Fellow of the University of Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership (CISL), Director at the Soil Association Certification Ltd and advises Planet Mark, UnaTerra Venture Capital, and formerly Creatives for Climate Collective and SACE – Italy’s national export credit agency. She advised the UN on the SDG methodology for the business reporting target 12.6.1 and has over 25 years’ global experience in business transformation and as a full time Associate Professor of Marketing and Sustainable Business.

Alongside all this, she is a practicing Stoic. How inspiring is that? She is also co-author of a new book called ‘Beyond Profit’ which is one of those potentially world-changing books that lays out in explicit detail why the old system is dead, how slight tweaks to make it ‘more sustainable’ are never – were never – going to work – and how instead we might craft a new system of governance that allows us to step forward into a world that does prioritise the longterm wellbeing of all life.

https://accidentalgods.life/building-the-roots-of-a-world-that-will-work-with-victoria-hurth-co-author-of-beyond-profit/

We exist in a world where the ultra-rich are getting richer, powered by a system we call 'the economy' which is serving to funnel power and value up to an ever-shrinking core of wounded individuals who then project their trauma out on the rest of the world in a doomed attempt to feel better about be...

08/10/2025

What is humanity for? What happens if we rethink not just the way we plan buildings, but our entire role as beings on a living planet? These are the central questions driving Michael Pawlyn ’s 3rd edition of the life-changing book, 'Biomimcry in Architecture'.

Michael Pawlyn is an architect, the founding director of Exploration Architecture Ltd and is a ground-breaking pioneer, not just of biomimicry as the design foundation of architecture and the built environment, but of the ways we might redesign humanity.

Before setting up his own practice, Michael was central to the team that radically re-invented horticultural architecture for the Eden Project. In 2018 he jointly initiated Architects Declare a Climate and Biodiversity Emergency which has since spread to 28 countries with over 8,000 companies signed up to a declaration of action. He lectures widely and his and his TED talk has been viewed over 2 million times.

With Sarah Ichioka, he co-wrote, ‘Flourish’ and now Michael is back with the third edition of Biomimicry in Architecture, which came out on 1st September, and my goodness, this book has the capacity to change our world. If every key decision-maker on the planet had a copy of this book, and was given time to read it, our world would be a different place, because over and over again, Michael shows the ways that the natural world has designed things that are more efficient, stronger, more resilient than anything humanity has created – but that we can make things with them that the natural world has not imagined. More than anything this book re-iterates the fact that we are an integral part of the web of life and that by using our astonishing creativity, our capacity to see the design of an abalone shell, or the way a mussel roots in the seabed, or the ways palm leaves roll up in a hurricane or any of a thousand other almost-miraculous things—and then applying them in different contexts, we can create everything from surgical drills that can bend round corners to whole tidal lagoons that create and store power and offer whole new biomes. If we set the flourishing of all life as our goal, we can co-create miracles.
As will be obvious in the conversation you’re about to hear, this book lit up so many parts of my heart and my mind – there is so much we can do if we bring the best of ourselves to the table and Michael Pawlyn is one of those thought-leaders who has ranged right to the edge of what we know and what we can do and brought the results to the rest of us in a way that’s intriguing, inspiring and invigorating. Whatever else you do this year, you need to read this book. Buy it, share it, tell your friends. This is how we change the world.

https://accidentalgods.life/of-beetles-wings-and-brittlestars-using-biomimicry-to-co-create-a-flourishing-future-with-michael-pawlyn/

What is humanity for? What happens if we rethink not just the way we plan buildings, but our entire role as beings on a living planet? These are the central questions driving Michael Pawlyn's third edition of the life-changing book, Biomimcry in Architecture.

24/09/2025

How do the stories we tell ourselves and each other about ourselves, each other and our place in the web of life shape our world?

How can we craft narratives that can shift the way we see and experience the world? Is this even the best leverage point to start off with or is there a deeper/wider/more effective acupuncture point we could explore as we evolve to become…what?

What are we aiming for? What—who—do we want to be and how might we reach places we can't even express - and do it in the face of a world where narratives are becoming more black-and-white, more constrained by circumstances, more held by those with power?

In a week that's seen our world become both more complex, more ugly and more beautiful, we're talking to story-crafter and narrative-explorer, Paddy Loughman.

Paddy's work explores the role of narrative and communications in navigating beyond our predicament. He is curious about how we might come together to appreciate what science and wisdom traditions reveal about entangled, relational reality, and the potential of more viable, beautiful worlds. He works independently, collaborating with activists, academics, philanthropists, creatives, community organisers and more, orienting towards just, transformational change. He has also co-initiated a number of efforts, including Inter-Narratives with Ella Saltmarshe. Earlier in his career he worked as a strategist in commercial and political communications, before jumping into climate campaigning with a wide range of organisations, from the UNFCCC to grassroots activists, and once upon a time he trained as an actor.

This is my first conversation after a life-changing time away from my desk and it was a genuinely generative, consciousness-expanding conversation. I'm in the space where reality, dream and experience are overlapping seamlessly and Paddy felt like one of those people who can stand on the edge of all our spaces and look into what we might become and how we might get there. So…with this as your baseline, please do join us in our exploration of possibility.

How do the stories we tell ourselves and each other about ourselves, each other and our place in the web of life shape our world? How can we craft narratives that shift the way we see and experience the world? Is this even the best leverage point to start off with or is there a deeper/wider/more eff...

17/09/2025

Why are we here? How do we think? What is the nature of life? What are the boundaries between ourselves and the rest of the living web—between ourselves and the rest of the universe across space and through time…and in the timeless, formless place from which everything arises?
These are the big, foundational questions of our existence, and how we answer them shapes how we see ourselves and our relationship to everything around us. If we work on a human supremacist frame, then we have no qualms about destroying the rest of the living web. If we know ourselves to be integral to it, if we can ‘prove’ this at a scientific level, then perhaps we can shift the way we behave.

Dr James Cooke is an author, researcher and host of the Living Mirrors Podcast which is how I got to know him. He has three degrees from Oxford, including a PhD in neuroscience. He has been conducting research into the brain basis of consciousness and at the University of London, he achieved a theoretical breakthrough that linked philosophy, the latest in cognitive neuroscience and modern secular mysticism. Outside academia, he directs the Inner Space Institute for NonDual Naturalism, a center for education and participation in topics at the intersection of science & spirituality. It is here, it says, ‘To help you engage in spiritual development in a way that is scientifically grounded.’
Nondual Naturalism is a worldview that synthesises science and spiritual insight, centred around the recognition that we are not separate from nature and are fundamentally at home in existence and James expands on this in detail in his book, The Dawn of Mind: How matter became conscious and alive which synthesises science and contemplative insight to offer a radical solution to the Hard Problem of Consciousness and the question of our place in existence.

https://accidentalgods.life/a-dawning-mind-exploring-the-science-of-spirituality-with-dr-james-cooke/

Why are we here? How do we think? What is the nature of life? What are the boundaries between ourselves and the rest of the living web—between ourselves and the rest of the universe across space and through time…and in the timeless, formless place from which everything arises?

10/09/2025

Our western (Trauma Culture) economies run on two falsehoods – we might go so far as to call them lies.
The first is that economies have to grow to be ‘successful’. The second is that government spending is limited by the tax take. That is, they need to take money in as taxes in order to spend it out into the economy. Both of these are untrue, and understanding that they are untrue, and the political forces of ignorance and mendacity that keep them in place, is essential to our moving forward into a future that works. We cannot continue to maintain the death cult of predatory capitalism. We cannot continue with a Zombie economy that extracts, consumes, destroys and pollutes as if there were no consequences.
So what do we do? Both ecological economics and Modern Monetary Theory have been around for a while. Degrowth theory is more recent, but it’s being taken more seriously. What I haven’t seen up till now is a fusion of these: a set of policy ideas worked out in which we acknowledge how money actually works, and look at how a national -or global – economy could be structured to lead us forward into a world where people and planet flourish together. I don’t think this is the final destination, but it’s definitely a step on the way.
Our guest this week is someone particularly well positioned to answer these questions. Colleen Schneider is a Doctoral student in Social-Ecological Economics & Policy in Vienna. Her key research areas: Ecological Economics, Environmental Justice, Monetary and Financial Systems in a Post-Growth Economy, Climate Policy. She says, “I take a sociological and anthropological approach to understanding money as fundamentally a social relation. Money, and the monetary system (as with our economic system) are things we’ve created, and can create otherwise. I draw on historical examples to help understand how the institutional structure of the monetary system and our ideas about money came to be what they are, and to challenge those. [I seek to] de-naturalize money and point to ways to structure the monetary system as democratized, and (at least somewhat) localized -to realize money as a public good. I focus more specifically on how monetary and fiscal policy can be directed toward meeting human needs within environmental limits, while maintaining macroeconomic stability.”
So this is the focus of today’s conversation. This is a field about which I am passionate – I absolutely believe that if everyone understood how money actually works in our current world, a lot of the power inequities that we currently experience would end. We have endeavoured to minimise the use of jargon, though we did talk about monetary and fiscal policy and I wanted to make it clear that Monetary Policy is about keeping prices stable – about using interest rates to influence inflation, that kind of thing . Fiscal policy is about the spending decisions – do we have austerity or don’t we, do we fund social goods or don’t we, do we decide to pour money into the military, or don’t we… and the nature of taxation – what rates do we levy, what are the bands and what loopholes do we leave wide open so our friends can escape paying taxes altogether – while everyone continues to pretend that government spending is limited by the tax take. Which is nonsense. Taxation is about levelling the playing field. It’s not about paying for the NHS.
So there we go. Colleen spends her entire life working in this field, producing fascinating papers and a chapter in a forthcoming book that completely blew me away. So she speaks to these things far more eloquently and intelligently than I can!

https://accidentalgods.life/step-by-radical-step-the-route-to-a-flourishing-new-economy-with-colleen-schneider/

Our western (Trauma Culture) economies run on two falsehoods - we might go so far as to call them lies. Our guest this week is someone particularly well positioned to debunk these and show how how monetary and fiscal policy can be directed toward meeting human needs within environmental limits.

03/09/2025

As the old system is splitting apart, a few brave souls are already working to hospice this old system, acting as Death Doulas to the Great Dying—as well as helping people to awaken the seeds of a new world within. One of these is our guest this week. Sara McFarland is a Soul Initiation and Wild Mind Mentor and Guide, Artist of Consciousness and a Death Doula for the Great Dying.

Their website says, ‘I believe Earth is always moving towards transformation and renewal—to our eyes, it may look like rupture or being stuck, a dead end or a tragedy. And, like Earth, we are always Whole, regardless of the part we are currently stuck in. Resiliency is part of (our) nature. I do not offer the solution to your “problem” – what are often labeled problems, I understand as symptoms of disconnection from the Web of Life and the Trauma of Civilization. Both blessing and curse, they are the place where our gold is buried and shaped. I use all of the tools-physical, energetic and spiritual- I have learned and received, to support you towards wholeness and the building of inner resources in order to reduce your stress level, to learn to love yourself and to stand in your power. ‘

I came to know Sara earlier this year when I was invited onto the Starter Culture podcast. We talked for an hour and it felt like about 3 minutes and that we could have talked all day and not run out of avenues to explore, rabbit holes to excavate. Our conversation today took entirely different routes but was felt just as generative to me. Sara lives right at the emergent edge of the transformation of our world, helping to the of people who are called to ask them for help, and stepping into the Mystery at all its levels to act as a guide, mentor, healer in a world in transition.

https://accidentalgods.life/the-crisis-and-the-call-journeys-through-species-wide-soul-initiation-with-sara-mcfarland/

As the old system is splitting apart, a few brave souls are already working to hospice this old system, acting as Death Doulas to the Great Dying—as well as helping people to awaken the seeds of a new world within. One of these is our guest this week. Sara McFarland is a Soul Initiation and Wild M...

27/08/2025

Sometimes the most powerful endorsements come from outside our own community.

When Manda Scott introduced Julia on her Accidental Gods podcast, she described Lights On Learning as:
💡 ‘A genuinely delightful book…’
💡 ‘A doorway into radiance…’
💡 ‘A book that belongs in every school and family…’

If you’ve been waiting for the right moment to dive in — or to gift it to someone who needs it — this is it.

You can get a digital copy for £4.97 here - https://bit.ly/45wPreK

or if you would prefer a hard copy then that is available on line or can ordered from your local bookshop.

27/08/2025

Our Trauma Culture has spread across the globe with terrifying speed and ghastly efficiency. But the tide is turning and people of good heart in many nations are beginning to understand that what we need now is a move towards a 21st Century Initiation Culture. The language is often different, but at heart, this is where we need to go.
Our guest this week, Hilary Giovale, is a mother, writer, facilitator and community organiser who lives in Flagstaff, Arizona. As an active reparationist, she seeks to follow Indigenous and Black leadership in support of human rights, environmental justice, and equitable futures. She is the author of the award-winning book Becoming a Good Relative: Calling White Settlers toward Truth, Healing, and Repair.
Descended from the Celtic, Germanic, Nordic, and Indigenous peoples of Ancient Europe, she is a ninth-generation American settler. For most of her life these origins were obscured by whiteness. After learning more about her ancestors’ history, Hilary began emerging from a fog of amnesia, denial, and fragmentation. For the first time, she could see a painful reality: her family’s occupation of this land has harmed Indigenous and African peoples, cultures, lands, and lifeways. This realisation changed her life and part of this change was writing this moving, deeply important book. Supported by local First Peoples, she undertook four years of fasting ceremonies, and began to engage differently, more deeply and with a new, raw authenticity with those whose ancestors had been most damaged by the Trauma Culture’s colonisation of the land.

Her book is essential reading for anyone in white culture, wherever we live in the world. It’s a raw, unflinching step into discomfort, but it’s also a deeply moving memoir of Hilary’s journey inward, to dreams, to genuine visionary connection with the land, to the power of heartfelt apology to heal at least some of the generational horror of the Trauma Culture.

So, you’ll definitely want to read this. If you’re in North America, you can get hard copies easily. If you’re elsewhere, you may only be able to get an e-book, but either way, Hilary returns all income she receives from book sales to Decolonizing Wealth Project and Jubilee Justice.

https://accidentalgods.life/dreams-as-a-way-of-life-becoming-a-good-relative-with-author-hilary-giovale/

Our Trauma Culture has spread across the globe with terrifying speed and ghastly efficiency. But the tide is turning and people of good heart in many nations are beginning to understand that what we need now is a move towards a 21st Century Initiation Culture. The language is often different, but at...

13/08/2025

How do we Outgrow the death cult of Modernity – opening the doors to a future we’d be proud to leave to the generations yet unborn?

n this week’s podcast I was honoured to join a four-way conversation between Giovanna de Oliveira Andreotti, Vanessa Andreotti and Tim Logan of Future Learning Design Podcast, to celebrate the publication of Vanessa’s new book, Outgrowing Modernity - WHICH IS OUT NOW!

Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti is author of Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism which we have referenced many times on Accidental Gods. She is also Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria in Canada. She is a former Canada Research Chair in Race, Inequalities and Global Change and a former David Lam Chair in Multicultural Education. She is one of the co-founders of the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures (GTDF) Arts/Research Collective, is the author of many academic papers and, with Aiden CinnamonTea, is co-author of Burnout From Humans. Most of her published articles and OpEds are available at academia.edu.

Her daughter, Giovanna de Oliveira Andreotti, is a Dancer/dance teacher, GTDF member, certified Warm Data Lab host, founder of Rewiring for Reality: Cross Generational Reckoning, and an online course facilitator/co-ordinator. She holds a Bachelor’s in Psychology from UBC, postgraduate certifications in Climate Psychology and Embodied Social Justice, and currently coordinates an inquiry that maps pedagogical practices addressing complexity, complicity, collapse, and accountability.

This conversation took us deep into the complexity of what it means to be human at this moment when the old order is quite clearly in breakdown. How do we use language? How do we engage with ourselves, each other and the web of life? And what is the web in a world where the first human-created silicon life is co-evolving with us. How do we explore inter and intra-generational responses and capacity for meaning-making in a way that honours everyone, both human and beyond-human?

In a world that feels ever more precarious, it was an honour and a delight to be in the company of such bright, deep minds. Thank you to Giovanna, Vanessa and Tim – and I hope you all enjoy this as much as we did.

https://accidentalgods.life/co-evolving-humanity-outgrowing-modernity-with-vanessa-and-giovanna-andreotti-and-tim-logan/

How do we Outgrow the death cult of Modernity - opening the doors to a future we’d be proud to leave to the generations yet unborn?