Accidental Gods

How do we move beyond our myopic focus on carbon/CO2 as the index of our harms to the world? What can we do to heal the whole biosphere? And what role is played by water-as-verb, forest-as-verb, ocean-as-verb?

This week's guest is an environmental journalist and author who has answers to all of these questions - and more. Judith Schwartz is an author who tells stories to explore and illuminate scientific concepts and cultural nuance. She takes a clear-eyed look at global environmental, economic, and social challenges, and finds insights and solutions in natural systems. She writes for numerous publications, including The Guardian and Scientific American and her first two books are music to our regenerative ears. The first is called 'Cows Save the Planet' and the next is 'Water in Plan Sight'. Her latest, “The Reindeer Chronicles”, was long listed for the Wainwright Prize and is an astonishingly uplifting exploration of what committed people are achieving as they dedicate themselves to earth repair, water repair and human repair.

Judith was recently at the 'Embracing Nature's Complexity' conference, organised by the Biotic Pump Greening Group which offers revolutionary new insights into eco-hydro-climatological landscape restoration. She's a contributor to the new book, 'What if we Get it Right?' edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, who was one of the editors of All We can Save.

Judith has been described as 'one of ecology's most indispensable writers' and when you read her work, you'll understand the magnificent depth and breadth of her insight into who we are and how we can help the world to heal.

Judith's website https://www.judithdschwartz.com/
Do The Impossible website https://www.dotheimpossible.earth/
Embracing Nature's Complexity Conference https://www.thebioticpump.com/tum-ias-conference-2024
Judith's paper at the conference https://bioticregulation.ru/conf2024/Judith-Schwartz.pdf
Book - What if we get it right? https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-If-We-Get-Right-ebook/dp/B0BPX5GWP8

Musician, artist, maker-of-ceremony and guardian of the ancestors of the land, Carolyn Hillyer talks - and sings - about the three things that take care of this land: a deep honouring of the ancestors, a fierce guardianship, and the absolute heart-felt connection of tribe.

Carolyn Hillyer lives on a 1,000 year old farm in the heart of Dartmoor. Her fierce, deeply spiritual guardianship of this place involves a heart-commitment to sharing the space with those who have been and those yet to come. As we near the end of (the first) Covid lockdown, she talks - and sings - of her spiritual connection to the ancestors of this land, of the ceremonial spaces she has built, of the Sami women and the bear skull that they brought in honouring - and of the remains of a Bronze Age ancestor-woman found on the hill overlooking the land, and the bear skin she was wrapped in. Carolyn's deep, heartfelt connection to the land shines through her words, her art and her songs: a shining beacon of how life can be lived for those who choose to follow.

Carolyn’s website, Seventh Wave Music: https://www.seventhwavemusic.co.uk

As you'll know by now, one of our core motivators in creating this podcast was the realisation that the 'democratic' systems of the world are largely broken and are not a useful way to affect change. I used to be a political activist. I thought I'd given all that up, but today's conversation has definitely re-awakened my political instincts because today I'm talking with two of the people who set up South Devon Primary: a group committed to changing the political system in the UK.
So the first thing to say for those of you who live elsewhere is that this episode is focused on the need for change in the Westminster Parliament. But the issues are worldwide and whatever your political system, it could probably do with being shaken up. We need to share best practice across the globe and what Simon Oldridge, Anthea Simmons and Ben Long have created feels like a template that could be replicated not just throughout the UK but across the world. The principles are basic and while it's not going to take us to full democracy in one giant leap, it's definitely a step in the right direction. If adopted around the nation (and the world) it could see us move away from the politics of hatred, fear and resentment to something a great deal more generative.

To look at these three in more depth and so understand where they're coming from: Simon Oldridge was an accountant with Ernst and Young and then CEO of a manufacturing company. More recently, his awareness of the climate and ecological crisis has led him to engage with a group endeavouring to put forward a Climate and Ecology Bill to the UK parliament (he talks about this in the podcast) and to set up the South Devon Primary campaign which you'll hear about in much more depth.

Anthea Simmons is Editor in Chief of the progressive online paper, West Country Voices, speaker for Devon for Europe and author of a number of books, including one for young climate activists. Before that, rather like Simon, she worked in financial asset management. She's a passionate advocate for the South Devon Primary and invented the Democracy Meter, which you're also hear about in the conversation.

Ben Long is an author and educator and currently helps his partner run her ceramics business in Devon. He didn't join us on the podcast - partly because I think two extra voices is enough to contend with - but he's a core part of the work of South Devon Primary.

And that work is practical, active, really intelligently targeted and if it were taken up around the country, could do more, I think, to shape the outcome of the next general election than anything else I've found. Listen, enjoy - and then make this happen as near to wherever you live as you can.

South Devon Primary Website https://www.southdevonprimary.org/
Zero Hour https://www.zerohour.uk
Anthea Simmons on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/antheasimmons/
West Country Voices on Twitter https://twitter.com/WCountryVoices
Simon Oldridge on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-oldridge-17207a206/
Simon on Twitter https://twitter.com/SiOldridge
South Devon Primary on Twitter https://twitter.com/SDevonPrimary
Ben Long on Twitter: https://twitter.com/benwhlong

Simon - Twitter thread w Local MP https://twitter.com/SiOldridge/status/1641713280967213056

Sometimes the synchronicity of this podcast leaves me very happy. About six months ago, I was thinking that I wanted to talk to someone who really lived at the interface between science and spirituality, where I could begin to sand down some of the rough edges of my own thinking.

And that afternoon, I discovered that the 2nd edition of Professor Ursula Goodenough's book 'The Sacred Depths of Nature' was due to be published in the first half of this year. So we set up a podcast and then it turned out that my calendar management was haywire and I'd booked it for the day after teaching one of the most challenging of the shamanic dreaming courses. Normally I'd give myself several days to come back to something approaching consensus reality. You may think I don't spend a lot of time in CR as it is, and you'd be right, but there are degrees of my untethering and the day after a dreaming course is not my most tethered.

But in the end, it was magical - really good to re-read Ursula's book in the evening and then have a quiet day reflecting and exploring things that snagged my attention. And so here we are: Ursula is a Professor of Biology Emerita at Washington University. She has discussed religious naturalism in essays, college classes, and as part of blogs and television and radio productions. She participated in conversations with the Dalai Lama sponsored by the Mind and Life Institute.

She is author of the book, “The Sacred Depths of Nature” which, examines cosmology, evolution, and cell biology, celebrates the mystery and wonder of being alive, and suggests that this orientation might serve as the basis for “planetary ethic” that draws from both science and religion. And on the basis of this concept, in 2014, Ursula was part of the founding of the Religious Naturalists Association. And now comes the second, updated, edition, that looks into epigenetics and pandemics and generally updates both the science and the moving reflections that each scientific section evokes.

It's beautiful, thoughtful, and inspiring. Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass said of it, “At once expansive and intimate, empirical and immanent, analytical and intuitive, material and spiritual, science and poetry get to dance joyfully together in these pages.” What better encouragement would we need to explore more deeply with the author? So People of the Podcast, please welcome Professor Ursula Goodenough, author of The Sacred Depths of Nature

In 2023, Ursula was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Sacred Depths of Nature http://sacreddepthsofnature.com/
Order Ursula's book here http://sacreddepthsofnature.com/order-book/
Religious Naturalist Association https://religious-naturalist-association.org/welcome/
National Academy of Sciences https://source.wustl.edu/2023/05/goodenough-mckinnon-elected-to-national-academy-of-sciences/
Terence Deacon - The Symbolic Species https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/733691.The_Symbolic_Species
Bitch by Lucy Cooke https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/bitch-a-revolutionary-guide-to-sex-evolution-and-the-female-animal-lucy-cooke/6532317?ean=9781804990919

Our two guests this week are deeply embedded in the creation of Tiny Homes as a way for us meet the needs of all within the bounds of the living planet. Both are living absolutely at that sharp, bright edge of inter-becoming from which our more flourishing future will emerge.

Rachel Butler is the founder of Tiny House Community Bristol, Chair of Bristol Community Land Trust and is a member of Bristol’s One City Homes & Communities board. Her root mission is within systems change/paradigm shift: to re-common as much land as practicable, enabling as many people as possible to move back onto and reconnect with this land, by co-creating and co-residing in Tiny House Regenerative Settlements. She believes that, at this critical time of human-created poly crisis, as the current system collapses and composts, it’s also time for the human species to rejoin the web of life, in sacred reciprocity; healing our relationships to self, each other and community; not only human, but of all beings and kinds.

Maddy Longhurst is a director of Tiny House Community Bristol alongside Rachel and, for the last 4-5 years has been helping to create their Tiny House development in Sea Mills, Bristol, as well as another small tiny house community off the radar. Since having to leave her rented home this August, she and her daughter have decided to exit the mainstream housing system so as to no longer be subject to its unethical, exploitative ways, but to live, for now, in the fertile margins until their tinies are created.

She's UK coordinator of the Urban Agriculture Consortium, weaving relationships between people working in the urban and peri-urban agroecological transition. She is also Studio Coordinator for Constructivist, a regenerative design school for built environment professionals, and part of the Strategy circle for Bristol Commons. Some of her current areas of work are on Reimagining the Greenbelt as a place for regenerative settlements, prototyping Landed Community Kitchens and developing a model for Tiny Homes for land regenerators in the city.

As you can imagine, our conversation ranged from how grinding bureaucracy so often gets in the way of genuinely restorative, regenerative practice, to the philosophy and practices that are the foundations of the change we need to see in the world. We explored the actual social technologies that moved things forward and learned of two workshops that sound totally transformative. Since recording, it's become apparent that the one in Bristol with El Juego is not really open to other participants, which is sad, but I have no doubt they'll be back - and that Maddy and Rachel will be able to engage with the teaching and bring it into life here and elsewhere. I've put links in the show notes to the Fearless Cities event in Sheffield on the weekend of the 2nd and 3rd of November. If I go, I swear I'll be at a microphone in time for the Ask Me Anything Gathering in the Accidental Gods membership that day. This is also a good time to remind you that Dreaming your Death Awake is on the last Sunday of October, 27th from 4-8pm UK time. It's on Zoom and anyone can come.

Tiny House Community on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/tiny-house-community-bristol-ltd/
https://www.tinyhousecommunitybristol.org - this is the Tiny House Community Bristol website - please have a look at the Sea Mills page where you can see and support their planning application
The THCB Facebook page is here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/364360747248042/
THCB Instagram @tinyhousecommunitybristol

Other related sites of interest:
https://www.bristolclt.co.uk
https://wecanmake.org/
https://thebristolcommons.org/
https://www.bristolonecity.com/
https://www.in-abundance.org/
https://coexistuk.org/
https://www.urbanagriculture.org.uk/
https://www.fearlesscities.com/
https://www.fearlesscitiessy.org/
https://eljuego.community/
El Juego Tour details here: https://eljuego.community/tour-reino-unido/

https://www.regenerativesettlement.com