What is the nature of being and belonging in the current world? How can we honour the rite of passage that is happening, and let go of the old ways, let them die to the past, live in the liminal space of unknowing, and step into a future that emerges from the best of who we are? Isla McLeod is a celebrant, ritualist, walker-between-the-worlds and deep connector to spirit. She says of herself: " I am a creator of ceremonies, ritual designer, transformational healer and companion at the thresholds...
Jan 26, 2022•1 hr•Season 9Ep. 6
How do we understand dreams in ways that make sense of 21st Century life? How can we interpret them in ways that have meaning for us as individuals, in the complexity of our lives? Rabbi Jill Hammer has explored the depths of dreams and dreaming with her new book - and here talks to us about what she learned, and some of the dreams that touched her most deeply. Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, is an author, scholar, ritualist, poet, midrashist, and dreamworker. She is the Director of Spiritual Education ...
Jan 19, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Season 9Ep. 5
How can we find joy in life again? How can we create beautiful things to wear that allow us to be the best of ourselves - and build community while we do it? Alice Holloway is co-founder of London Urban Textiles Commons, and she's committed to finding the answers. Join us for an inspiring, sparky exploration of how our future can be different. Alice Holloway has a degree in jewellery making from Central St Martin's and a Masters in Design for the Cultural Commons from the London Metropolitan Uni...
Jan 12, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Season 9Ep. 4
How can we be the best possible stewards of the future for our children? How can we meet their eco-anxiety and teach them resilience, adaptation and give them the skills of systemic thinking that will help them navigate the uncertainties to come? Eva Bishop is mother of two young children, as well as being a long-term a climate activist and current communications director for the Beaver Trust. She is dedicated to finding ways that we can all create emotional and practical resilience in the face ...
Jan 05, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Season 9Ep. 2
What is Power? How do we use it: both power over each other, and the power that fuels the world? How could we use it better? In this, our ninth season (and third year), we are aiming to look more deeply into the ways we might create a flourishing future that we would be proud to leave to the generations that follow us. With that in mind, our first guest of this new season is Richard Heinberg, author of the magesterial, ' Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Surviva l' which came out in Septembe...
Dec 29, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Season 9Ep. 1
As we head down into the dark nights of the year, the quiet time of introspection, of assessing the year just gone and thinking forward to the one yet to come, Accidental Gods joins with the hosts of Upstream and The Hive podcasts: 3 women engaged in the best of change to bring the world to a flourishing future. This is now official solstice tradition - we three explore the questions we've asked others through the year, look at what moved us in our podcast interviews and what they are pulling us...
Dec 20, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Season 9Ep. 3
What are the best, most readable, most inspiring and most give-able books this season? Manda's solstice list of her favourite Fiction and non-Fiction books read in 2021. Plus a bonus handful of must-listen podcasts. Here we go, people of the podcast - the books and their links. I've linked through Blackwells, because I used to love Heffers (part of the same chain) when I was in Cambridge. Do obviously feel free to support your local bookshop. KSR: The Ministry for the Future https://blackwells.c...
Dec 15, 2021•39 min•Season 8Ep. 16
How can we get from the current edge-of-catastrophe to a world where we have addressed the huge issues of the climate and ecological emergency? Only in fiction can we bring the answers together in a vision of a better world. Author Kim Stanley Robinson talks about his 'The Ministry for the Future' - One of Barack Obama's favourite books of last year. 'If I could get policymakers and citizens everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Futur...
Dec 08, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Season 8Ep. 15
How can we shape our economies in a post-COP, decarbonising world? How can we build a way of exchanging value that actually works in favour of our planet, not against it? Dr James Meadway, former economic advisor to John McDonnell on how redistribution can take place, and how to reshape our political landscape. Dr Meadway's work has focused on developing viable alternatives to neoliberalism, and has published widely on democratic ownership, environmental economics, and automation and the digital...
Dec 01, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Season 8Ep. 11
How do we evolve the radical new sense of community, connectivity, mutual support - and resilience - that we need as we move into a world of climate breakdown? Jeremy Lent's book The Web of Meaning is the 2nd of 3 that build a picture of an eco-civilisation. In this week's episode, we explore the ways we can all be part of the solution. Jeremy Lent, described by Guardian journalist George Monbiot as “one of the greatest thinkers of our age,” is an author and speaker whose work investigates the u...
Nov 24, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Season 8Ep. 13
As we lurch towards irreversible climate chaos, how can we begin to pull back from the edge? This week, we look specifically at the area of transport: how can we be mobile and yet reach the 3 Zeroes of Death, Emissions and Carbon? What would it mean to live in an area with fair, free, extensive public transport? And how can we make this happen. Our lively, inspiring conversation with Dr John Whitelegg has answers. Dr John Whitelegg, BA PhD LLB, is visiting professor, School of the Built Environm...
Nov 17, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Season 8Ep. 12
If the stories of our culture are of separation, scarcity and powerlessness, how can we build new stories, new myths, new ideas of how we can be different? Alina Siegfried has explored the deep concepts of the stories of our world, and how we can reshape them. We are the stories we tell ourselves - about who we are and where we're going. In our small day to day decisions, we think how our stories of ourselves will be enhanced by the things we do. So when all our stories have been about scarcity,...
Nov 10, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Season 8Ep. 10
Anthea Lawson is a campaigner who’s interested in the connections between our inner lives and the world we create together. In a world of such astonishing inequity, where ever fewer people hold ever more power, how do those of us whose lives are given to change, meet the reality that we are embedded in the system? If we are an integral part of the problem, how can we live the solution into being? Is that even what we're here for? Anthea Lawson has thought about this in immense depth and with hug...
Nov 03, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Season 8Ep. 9
What is the bare minimum we need world leaders to agree at COP26 and what can we do if they fail? Rupert Read, academic philosopher, author and climate activist discusses the urgency of the moment - and how a 'moderate flank' of climate activists can grow out of the COP. Dr Rupert Read is a long term climate activist. On the day after this podcast goes out, he'll be in court on charges of Criminal Damage for pouring water soluble paint on the steps of a hard-core climate denying think tank. No s...
Oct 27, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Season 8Ep. 7
If we are going to meet the challenges of the climate, ecological and cultural crisis, we're going to have to change the systems that surround us: Education systems, health care systems, food systems, economic systems... ultimately systems of government. How can we do so peacefully and kindly without leaving vast numbers of people in freefall? The systems around us have grown up in a world that assumed them impervious to change. But - as Greta has said - change is coming. So how do we navigate i...
Oct 20, 2021•54 min•Season 8Ep. 6
As we understand more of the climate and ecological emergency, it becomes increasingly clear that Regenerative Agriculture needs to be one of the mainstays of our plans for systemic change. Part 2 of 2 with Ffinlo Costain of Farmwel and the Farm Gate podcast. We live in an era of empty food, vast food miles and a burgeoning ecosystem emergency that is largely pushed by a chemical-based agriculture system that is poisoning waterways, oceans, and soil, destroying the biodiversity of our land and w...
Oct 13, 2021•39 min•Season 8Ep. 8
How can we reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide, build living soil from the chaos of industrial farming, while growing healthy nutritious food and restoring our devastated ecosystems? Regenerative farming has so many of the answers and this week we speak to the host of the FarmGate podcast, Ffinlo Costain. Two parts - this is Part One. We live in an era of empty food, vast food miles and a burgeoning ecosystem emergency that is largely pushed by a chemical-based agriculture system that is poisoning...
Oct 13, 2021•48 min•Season 8Ep. 5
How can we build a progressive political movement that spans the world and that will take us to where we need to be: a future we can be proud of and towards which all of us will want to work? Taking politics, activism, progressive ideals with Jeremy Gilbert, Professor of Cultural and Political Theory at the University of East London. This is one of our most nakedly political conversations - because politics is the language of power and those who rule over us do so with at least the vestige of a ...
Oct 06, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Season 8Ep. 3
How can we embrace our humanity and use it in service to the earth and all that lives? How can we bring the best of ourselves to the best of the Web of Life in full understanding of the chaos of the moment, with full and open hearts? Deena Metzger has given her life to finding answers - and shares them here. From her experience at three years old when she saw the spirit of her grandmother at the foot of her crib, Deena Metzger's life has been devoted to the exploration of the worlds of spirit an...
Sep 29, 2021•58 min•Season 8Ep. 4
In a world of uncertainty, transformation and potential catastrophe, how can we find our own truth and, from there, speak with authenticity to the children and young people in our lives about the world that is coming? Louis Weinstock is a celebrated psychotherapist who finds ways to help people of all ages connect with their own truth and share it. In this episode, we explore our attitudes to death, loss - and the climate emergency - and how we can hold the conversations that need to happen. Lou...
Sep 22, 2021•1 hr•Season 7Ep. 12
How can sound edge us closer to the centre of ourselves, bring us closer into connection with our own authenticity and with the heart of the earth? Caro C has produced the Accidental Gods Podcast since its inception. Here, she talks about the wild magic of sound in all its forms. Caro C has been described as a Soul Enchantress (BBC Radio 3) and a 'One Woman Electronic Avalanche' (BBC Introducing), she's a composer and musician, a sound engineer and a solo performance artist. She's a rock climber...
Sep 15, 2021•58 min•Season 8Ep. 1
Ece Temelkuran is an astonishingly astute, great-hearted writer. Joining us from Zagreb, she gave us an hour of wisdom, insight and compassion, based around her book 'TOGETHER: 10 Choices for a Better Now' - with an international audience and some cracking questions, this is our gift to you this weekend. Ece Temelkuran is an international columnist, political analyst, novelist and sharp, brilliant, astute - and great hearted - writer. Her books 'HOW TO LOSE A COUNTRY' and 'TOGETHER' have been me...
Sep 12, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Season 8Ep. 2
How can we embed circular thinking in our food, energy, water & waste to benefit people and the planet? LEAP Micro Anaerobic Digestion is building the systems in the UK, Nigeria, Malaysia and around the world to create local zero waste cultures that provide food and energy to their communities. Rokiah Yaman is the Project Director for LEAP Micro Anaerobic Digestion. A part of the project from the start, she coordinates the LEAP demonstration sites, oversees fundraising and planning activitie...
Sep 08, 2021•56 min•Season 7Ep. 13
In a world where the only constant is change, how can we find the best of our wisdom? How can we find true connection to the spirits of the places we live so that we might learn better how to be in the transition that is coming? How, above all, can we approach death with equanimity, and even joy? This week, we explore all of this with author, mythicist - and elder - Sharon Blackie. Dr. Sharon Blackie is an award-winning writer and internationally recognised teacher whose work sits at the interfa...
Sep 01, 2021•59 min•Season 7Ep. 11
How are we going to create the power that we need in a world where fossil fuel use has to end? How can we end the central control of power and keep safe our data in a world where data-mining is a pernicious - and lucrative - as coal mining? Howard Johns has spent all his professional life finding answers. He shares them here. Howard was a climate activist on the front lines until he realised that he needed ways to say 'yes', instead of 'no'. Accordingly, he set about building solutions, eventual...
Aug 25, 2021•59 min•Season 7Ep. 10
How can we begin to reverse the destruction of our countryside, the pollution of our rivers - and our disconnection from the Natural World? Beavers, of course. Eva Bishop of the Beaver Trust tells of the UK introduction of beavers and puts it in a whole-system context. The Beaver Trust is a small group of committed individuals who understand the deep interconnectedness of life. By bringing beavers back to the UK where once they flourished, they are seeing whole ecosystems grow back to life. In t...
Aug 18, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Season 7Ep. 9
When Forrest Landry was 16 years old, he took a vow to meet the Natural World openly, fully, without any projection or expectation on his part - he was not going to take one step and wait for the rest of the world to take 99 steps to him - he was going to go all the way. His life has been shaped by the experience - and he talks to us this week about where that has taken him. " Love is that which enables choice. Love is always stronger than Fear. Always choose on the basis of Love." – Forrest Lan...
Aug 11, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Season 7Ep. 8
COP26 takes place in Scotland in November. How can ordinary people persuade our elected Overlords that they need to change the system? Across the UK, Climate Actions are being prepared. We speak to two people involved in Pilgrimages to Glasgow about what drives them and what they hope will change. COP26 takes place in Glasgow, Scotland in November of this year. This is our best - possibly our last - chance to persuade those who govern the world that the climate and ecological emergency needs swi...
Aug 04, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Season 7Ep. 6
What is it that makes us human? How can we bring the best of ourselves to the current crises – individually, and as a civilisation? In this episode, we talk to Matthew Taylor, CBE FAcSS, and explore his ideas around ‘co-ordination theory’ and how we can use them to create new politics and new ways of organising our society to give more people a better, more equitable say in how we make things happen. Matthew Taylor, CBE FAcSS, is the Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation, but before that, he ...
Jul 28, 2021•52 min•Season 7Ep. 7
As our world hurtles towards tipping points, how can we be part of the solution? How can we find resilience, in ourselves, our lives and our communities? Above all, how can we bring Active Hope to the world? Dr Chris Johnstone and Madeleine Young have set up an online training course based in Joanna Macy's work that reconnects and we talk about it in this week's podcast. With a background in medicine and psychology, Chris Johnstone's work over the last thirty years has focused on exploring what ...
Jul 21, 2021•1 hr•Season 7Ep. 5
