Living through the Death of Democracy: Manda's thoughts on love, liberty and the continued existence of complex life on earth

01/25/25 • 40 min

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We are living through the death of democracy and the onset of Techno-Feudalism. But this is not a time when linear systems can hold and feudalism was nothing if not linear. So how can we be part of a transformative process that will let us lay the foundations for a future we'd be proud to leave behind?

Usually, on Accidental Gods, we talk to guests who seem to exemplify some aspect of the generative edge of interbecoming change that will take us towards the emergent future we need if we're not only to survive, but thrive.

But once in a while it's just Manda, reflecting on the moment and offering pointers to things that might be useful to read or watch or listen to or think about. This is one of those, and it feels timely, in part because the Oxford Real Farming Conference too place recently and was immensely heartening - and partly because of the times we're in.

This was recorded on Sunday 19th of January 2025 and if you're in the English speaking world listening to this podcast, then you'll be aware that basically democracy dies tomorrow. Though, as you'll also be aware, we never had true democracy of the people by and for the people, and certainly nothing that might have created a generative enhancement of the web of life. We had a kleptocracy at best, a kakiocracy at worst and all of it was working against the kind of future we want to leave as our legacy.

So this is a podcast of ideas, most of which boil down to: It's time each of us committed ourselves in service to life. What does that feel like? How does it work and where will it take us? Let's find out.

Oxford Real Farming Trust https://realfarming.org/programmes/land-based-wisdom/

CFOSA https://consciousfoodsystems.org/

Animate Earth Collective https://animate-earth.org

The Wild with Indy Johar - the why

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/wild-with-sarah-wilson/id1548626341?i=1000677521024

Changing our Civilisational Model - Michel Bauens on Substack https://substack.com/inbox/post/155005488

And then at the macro level, Dark Matter Labs on Governance https://media.licdn.com/dms/document/media/v2/D4E1FAQFRu6lmVVqBvw/feedshare-document-pdf-analyzed/B4EZQsP1m3HAAc-/0/1735909140676?e=1738195200&v=beta&t=8kAX6cLW_kf4Lsvw8dYn2_9FG644-bWKa6SZy1QTXKk

If you want to share the journey with us, we're here:
Accidental Gods Gatherings https://accidentalgods.life/gatherings-2025/
Accidental Gods Membership https://accidentalgods.life/join-us/

Oxford Real Farming Trust https://realfarming.org/programmes/land-based-wisdom/

CFOSA https://consciousfoodsystems.org/

Animate Earth Collective https://animate-earth.org

The Wild with Indy Johar - the why

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/wild-with-sarah-wilson/id1548626341?i=1000677521024

Changing our Civilisational Model - Michel Bauens on Substack https://substack.com/inbox/post/155005488

If you want to share the journey with us, we're here:
Accidental Gods Gatherings https://accidentalgods.life/gatherings-2025/
Accidental Gods Membership https://accidentalgods.life/join-us/

Previous Episode

HeartFood - Healing our communities with Food grown on Regenerative Farms with Erin Martin of FreshRxOK

What happens when people with chronic, unstable diabetes eat food grown in local, regenerative farms? Erin Martin talks to the Accidental Gods podcast about the dramatic and spectacular improvements in health her group FreshRxOK saw in Oklahoma when they instigated a 'Food as Medicine' programme, offering real food with good nutrient density to diabetic patients in some of the poorest communities.

An Oklahoman on track to be a lawyer, Erin’s first job in a retirement community inspired her to pursue a degree in gerontology instead. During her Masters program at USC, Erin ran a team of advocates serving over 700 low income older adults in the Southern California area. She was troubled by how little support people get as they age. So Erin founded Conscious Aging Solutions, a company dedicated to helping older adults navigate health and social systems so they can age successfully. As Erin’s work focused on strategies for longevity, she found that food—access to quality food—had an enormous impact on our life spans.

As her interest in food grew, she became certified in Regenerative Soil Advocacy. Erin moved back home to Tulsa during the pandemic to find that the supply chain disruptions had only intensified what was already a food system problem in the city. Lack of access to nutritious foods was contributing to poor health outcomes and high mortality rates for Tulsans, especially those with chronic conditions.
In 2021, Erin co-founded a prescription produce program called FreshRx Oklahoma. The program’s success has launched her onto the national stage.
Now Erin champions food as medicine to promote the longevity of underserved communities, decrease food insecurity, support the environment, revitalize the agricultural economy, and decrease system-wide health care costs.

Recorded on the day of the US Presidential Inauguration, we talk about the shift from a sickness service to a health service and how food can help us move towards a more regenerative system. Most particularly, we talk about the truly spectacular health improvement indices in the diabetic patients who benefit from the FreshRxOK programme.

Erin's website: https://www.erinwmartin.com/
Erin on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@erinwmartin
FreshrxOK https://www.freshrxok.org/
FreshRxOK on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@freshrxok

If you want to share the journey with us, we're here:
Accidental Gods Gatherings https://accidentalgods.life/gatherings-2025/
Accidental Gods Membership https://accidentalgods.life/join-us/

Next Episode

Of Schoolishness, Space and Emergence into vibrant systems: a joint podcast with Tim Logan of Future Learning Design

If what our culture most urgently needs is for a critical mass of us to grow into adults and then elders, how can we help our young people to step beyond the artificial boundaries of our old, rigid system into a world where they are fully connected to all parts of themselves, each other and the web of life. How, in effect, can we create an educational system that is fit for purpose in the emerging century?

In this podcast, I joined with Tim Logan, host of the Future Learning Design podcast, educator, part of the team at Good Impact Labs and co-leader of the International Baccalaureate's 'Festival of Hope'. Tim is a highly experienced school leader, management consultant, coach, educator and researcher, has held previous pedagogical and well-being senior leadership positions in a variety of international settings and is proud to have consistently helped to build innovative, outstanding schools, supportive relationships and powerful educational visions. He says, 'The important question for now is, can we intentionally create more spaces in our schools that provide a qualitatively different kind of 'educational' experience? Transformational shifts are happening in educational and organisational cultures around the world right now. I am incredibly fortunate to be able to play a role in this.'

I was on the Future Learning Design podcast just before the dark nights of winter with Ginie Servant-Miklos, Raïsa Mirza and Will Richardson and his podcast has become one of my essential listens of the week and had been planning to invite Tim here to talk about the transformational shifts happening in education and how they can help us lay the foundations for a world we'd be proud to leave behind. We were planning something for later in the year but we had a cancellation and he had a tech misfire and we both needed something fast to get the schedules back on track, so here we are with a joint conversation—one of those that ranges wide over the landscape of culture and learning and the 'citadel mind' and our history of optimising for everything and how we could, instead, begin to expand into a more porous mindset and look for resonance and help young people to become part of the emerging transformation of the entire web of life.

Tim on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/teblogan/
Tim's podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/future-learning-design-podcast/id1536832802
Good Impact Labs https://www.goodimpactlabs.com/about
Nick Mulvey Live from COP26 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-GBl6DeA50&t=1273s
Concerned Bird Substack https://theconcernedbird.substack.com/p/elon-musks-and-xs-role-in-2024-election

Festival of Hope https://ibo.org/festival-of-hope/
Systems Transformation Pathway at UWC Atlantic College: https://www.uwcatlantic.org/learning/academic/systems-transformation-pathway

Green School: https://www.greenschool.org/

School of Humanity: https://sofhumanity.com/

If you want to share the journey with us, we're here:
Accidental Gods Gatherings https://accidentalgods.life/gatherings-2025/
Accidental Gods Membership https://accidentalgods.life/join-us/