“Really the best way to understand blue mind is to start with what I call, red mind, and that is our new normal, we’re stressed, we’re anxious, we’re falling behind in many aspects of our lives. We’re distracted. We’ve got this technology everywhere we look. I’ve got technology in my face and in my ears, and that’s our new normal. We dive into a melee of input of sensory overload. And it takes it’s toll on us. Red mind is very useful, it’s the reason why we have that mind state because it’s powerfully useful, it’s where we get things done, it’s where we drive for advancements, it’s where we compete. But if you stay in red mind too long, you will end up in grey mind, which is burnout, and breakdown and disconnect.”

Dr Wallace. J Nichols is a renowned marine-biologist, wild water advocate and author of the bestselling book - Blue Mind: How Water Makes You Happier, More Connected and Better at What You Do. 
His experiences as a field research scientist, government consultant, teacher, mentor, public speaker, parent, founder and director of businesses and nonprofit organisations, all support his quest to build a stronger and more diverse global blue movement.

Listen to Dan and Dr Wallace. J discuss:
 
- Intersection of the personal and professional
 
- Shades of mind. Red, grey and blue 
 
- Water, a conversation enhancer 
 
- Humans as aquatic creatures
 
- Water as therapy and transformation
 
- What’s your water story? 
 
- Access to water in times of ‘progress’
 
- Blue mind intersecting with sustainability
 
- Activating our blue mind

- The blue marble

 
Links: 
 
Blue Mind Book Club: https://www.facebook.com/wallacejnichols 
Blue Marbles: https://www.wallacejnichols.org/130/blue-marbles.html
The Blue Mind challenge: https://www.wallacejnichols.org/116/1428/the-blue-mind-challenge.html
 
Connect: 
 
Web : https://wallacejnichols.org/
Twitter : https://twitter.com/wallacejnichols

Play out track:
CJ Mirra  - Everglade Parade - Original Surf Soundtracks Vol 1
https://cjmirra.bandcamp.com/album/static-original-surf-soundtracks-vol-1
 
—————
 
Thanks for listening to The Spaceship Earth Podcast.
 
Host: Dan Burgess @dansolo__
Edit: Charlie Shread
Shownotes: Vicki Turner
Music: Escape Goat by Soren Lorenson
Join us on Instagram: @thespaceship.earth
 
If you wish to support The Spaceship Earth podcast, please leave us a review or share your favourite episode on social media, as this helps enormously.

Episode 44 - Dr Wallace J. Nichols - Blue Mind

In this episode I’m in conversation with Andy Cato, an award-winning mixed arable and livestock farmer and co-founder of Wildfarmed Grain.

This was a treat on many fronts. Not just because Andy is a fascinating human doing extraordinary work to regenerate our planet but this conversation connects up many of my own deep interests.
 
Before forming Wild Farmed Grain Andy was one half of music act Groove Armada and started his journey with music in the early nineties going on to become a massive global artist and DJ, releasing over 8 albums, touring all over the world and next year will celebrate 25 years of music.
 
But Andy’s story continued to evolve as he learnt about the impacts our industrial food systems are having on both planetary and human health which kickstarted his inquiry into food growing, farm ownership and his own stark experiences witnessing dying soils and the  devastating impacts of industrial agriculture.
 
His experimental nature and curious enquiring mind led him to the conclusion that regenerating soils for both climate and food is an urgent and pressing task for humanity and he has spent a decade developing farming methodologies where plants, animals and soils are all working in deep symbiosis, and farmers, bakers, millers and customers work together to create highly nutritious grains, flours and products in a value system that works for everyone.
 
Cut to 2021 and Wild Farmed Grain is making noise and beginning to spread from the underground, fast becoming the flour of choice of chefs and bakers around the country. His original 100Ha farm in Gascony, where his farming journey began, was recognised as the most innovative farm in France when awarded the prestigious Lauréat National de l'Agro-Ecologie 2020. He is the first Englishman to be awarded the Chevalier L’Order Merit de Agricole - the equivalent of a knighthood for services to agriculture.
 
Now on British soil, Andy is on a mission to take what he’s learned and help other farmers adopt his WildFarmed system so they can produce wheat that is not only more tasty and nutritious, but that eats up huge quantities of CO2 and restores soil health and biodiversity. 
 
This was a wide ranging conversation, Andy has lived an extraordinary life and his knowledge, energy and dedication to building a new regenerative and community led food system is incredible   - and for me to have a conversation which included raving , house music, the symbiosis of plant and animal relationships, soil health, complexity, human health, climate action and sourdough was an absolute treat.
 
I hope you enjoy it. Available on all podcast platforms.
 
Community and Links

An Agricultural Testament - Albert Howard
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Agricultural_Testament
 
The One Straw Revolution - Masanobu Fukuoka
 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/976905.The_One_Straw_Revolution
Kiss the ground
https://kisstheground.com/
Groove Armada
https://www.groovearmada.com/
We Are Grow
https://wearegrow.org/

Connect:
www.instagram.com/wildfarmed
https://wildfarmed.co.uk/
—————
Play out track:
Sasha  - Corner shop
https://sasha.bandcamp.com/album/luzoscura

Thanks for listening to The Spaceship Earth Podcast.
Host: Dan Burgess @dansolo__
Edit: Charlie Shread
Shownotes: Vicki Turner
Music: Escape Goat by Soren Lorenson
Join us on Instagram: @thespaceship.earth
Subscribe to monthly newsletter: becomingcrew.substack.com/welcome

If you wish to support The Spaceship Earth podcast, please leave us a review or share your favourite episode on social media, as this helps others find the podcast.

Episode 49 Andy Cato - Wild Farmed Grain - Fix Food. Fix the planet.

Kate Robinson is a writer, speaker and director of Nevergrey and the daughter of the late Sir Ken Robinson. Her work is dedicated to his legacy and she continues to share his passion of human potential and empowering every person and every organization on the planet to imagine, reimagine, create and recreate via the platform -  Imagine If.
She was the founding Editor in Chief and Head of Strategic Operations of HundrED, a Finnish-based initiative designed to seek and share the most inspiring innovations in education globally and was awarded a thought leadership award for her Outstanding Contribution to Education Empowerment. 

Listen to Dan and Kate discuss:
 
- A Year of grief, relocation, marriage, a pandemic, and a new legacy business
 
- Life as the daughter of Sir Ken Robinson

- Myths and misunderstandings of creativity
 
- Education stripping us of our human resources, thus stripping the planet of it’s natural resources
 
- Great gardeners don’t grow a plant. They create conditions for plants to flourish 
 
- Rock and Roll was not a government led initiative. Real change comes from the ground up
 
- Traditional education is conformity and standardisation. Yet life comes from diversity
 
- Education discourages making mistakes. Yet mistakes makes us both human and creative
 
- Love letter and celebration of human potential
 
- Resistance and mutiny
 
- The more complex the issues of our world become, the more creative our solutions need to be to solve them
 
- We create the worlds in which we live. And there’s always the possibility of recreation
 
- Imagine If. A rallying cry to continue Sir Ken Robinson’s work
 
- Different capacities of imagination. And imagination as a practice
 
- Beneficial environments for learning and creativity
 
- Agency. Taking responsibility for our own lives and our shared planet
 
Community and Links 
 
Projects:
What If - https://imagine-if.com/schedule
Nevergrey - https://www.nevergrey.org
The Call to Unite - https://unite.us
Mind Up - https://mindup.org/about/
United World Colleges - https://www.uwc.org
Hundred - https://hundred.org/en
Big Picture Learning - https://www.bigpicture.org
 
Talks: 
Do Schools Kill Creativity Ted Talk - https://tinyurl.com/a7p7vma
 
Books: 
Out of Our Minds - https://tinyurl.com/4a55t4h2
Creative Schools - https://tinyurl.com/3425ckaj
Be More Pirate - https://tinyurl.com/5f8y5s8w
Connect:
https://www.instagram.com/itskaterobinson/
https://www.nevergrey.org
Email : skr@nevergrey.org
 http://sirkenrobinson.com
—————
Play out track:
Life is Beautiful - A Reminiscent Drive
A cheeky bootleg by Dan - featuring words from the late Sir Ken Robinson recorded during an interview with Dan in 2016
Host: Dan Burgess @dan__burgess
Edit: Charlie Shread
Shownotes: Vicki Turner
Music: Escape Goat by Soren Lorenson
Join us on Instagram: @thespaceship.earth
Subscribe to monthly newsletter: https://becomingcrew.substack.com/welcome

Episode 50 - Kate Robinson - Imagine If - Cultivating an Imagination Revolution

“Now there are lots of writers who talk about how foundational stories have been across history. Just take Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, in it he maps that without story, humans wouldn’t have been able to live in civilisations larger than about 20,000. That myth and story have been fundamental to our evolution as a species. And if we want to shift stories, we need to start thinking of them as technologies. We need to recognise them for the complex and potent things that they are.”

This episode explores the role of stories and narrative as a technology for foundational economic system change.  
Stories For Life is a project authored by Dan Burgess and Paddy Loughman in collaboration with The Green Economy Coalition and The WellBeing Economy Alliance. Collectively they explored how stories may help design an economy in service to life. To weave this narrative requires engagement across cultures. It needs everyone who brings stories into our cultures to participate and play. This podcast was recorded at The Stories For Life event hearing from those working to create new narratives through creative culture, arts, activism, new economic design, leadership, community action and more.

Listen to speakers:
 
Dan Burgess
- Our current destructive narratives
- What if we could evolve these stories?  
- What if we can jump into uncertainty?
- What if this is the most exciting and imaginative time? 
 
Paddy Loughman
- Symptoms of a deadly economy and how to design an alternative in service to life
- Separation and competition over kindness, compassion, cooperation, diversity, creativity and care
- Economics are not fixed, they were designed. So they can be redesigned. Upgraded
 
Ella Saltmarshe
- Myth and story are fundamental to the evolution of our species
- Change the Things. Change the Relationships. Change the goals - Donella Meadows 
- The values we hold will determine the stories we collectively have
- What changes when we understand ourselves as good ancestors?
- Radical kinship and care  
 
Carlota Sanz
- A new vision for the 21st century - A doughnut!
- An inherited degenerative system to a new regenerative and cyclical system
- What would it take to realise the new doughnut economy? 
- Change makers to change makers. The most effective way to realise a new paradigm
 
Kumi Naidoo
- What’s the biggest contribution we can make to the cause of justice? It’s not about giving your life, but giving the rest of your life 
- Activists no longer speak the same language of the people
- What is needed? System innovation. System redesign. System transformation
- Bravery is required to tackle the root of our problems
- The focus is too much on what people don’t have, not what people have.
- An appeal for a just social contract
 
Andres Roberts
- How do we change the story of human progress by working with nature?
- Nature works in cycles and webs of connection, not straight lines, pyramids and hierarchies
- Humanity’s guiding principle is growth. Yet nature is based on optimisation
- When we listen and observe to nature, a new kind of knowledge arises
- We have emerged from nature. If we connect back to this truth we’ll rekindle our feeling of belonging

Community: 
Green Economy Coalition - https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org
Wellbeing Economy Alliance - https://weall.org
The Longtime Academy - https://www.thelongtimeproject.org
Civic Square - https://civicsquare.cc/team/
Donut Economics Action Lab - https://doughnuteconomics.org
Bio-Leadership Project - https://www.bio-leadership.org
Power People & Planet - Kumi Naidoo https://www.powerpeopleplanet.org/
Stories For Life (You Tube) - https://stories.life/get-involved
—————
Thanks for listening to The Spaceship Earth Podcast.
Host: Dan Burgess @dansolo__
Edit: Charlie Shread
Shownotes: Vicki Turner
Music: Escape Goat by Soren Lorenson
Join us on Instagram: @thespaceship.earth
Subscribe to monthly newsletter: https://becomingcrew.substack.com/welcome

Episode 54  - Stories for Life - What if Stories are technologies for beautiful change?

"Carbon is the basic building blocks of life. It’s not actually a negative thing. Very rarely in a natural system is something objectively negative or positive. It plays its role. And so actually storing carbon and having carbon in your soil is incredibly important. And of course huge amounts of carbon has been lost from the soil. So there’s huge potential to store carbon in the soil. However I will say that we will get ourselves in trouble if we turn farming into a carbon storing exercise. I believe that we can store carbon in the soil and it’s really important for farming, and really important for the environment and the future. But I’m worried if we go down the route of only farming to store carbon, we lose the holistic understanding of nature and we end up back in a reductionist system where we are only thinking about carbon storage. To thrive we have to consider everything, and we have to understand the ecosystem in its entirety.” 


Will Rolph works with his brother Harry, farming olives at Two Fields in Zakros. After moving to Zakros they soon discovered a beautiful olive craft passed down through generations that was under threat from a broken industrialized food system. Diving deep into regenerative farming and rebuilding land & soil, they work together with their family and community to produce small batches of olive oil.


Listen to Dan and Will discuss:
 
- Journey from sustainable design, craftsmanship to regenerative olive farming
 
- Chemical, reductionist and monoculture farming works. But only for the short term
 
- In regenerative farming we give more than we take 
 
- Becoming ‘more forest, than field’ 
 
- How are we repairing our planet and building a future that’s possible
 
- Strength in diversity 
 
- Farmers and customers become trapped in a system that only benefits the corporation 
 
- The gift of mentorship and the proud nod of ‘you’ve got this’
 
- Land can’t give anymore than it is given
 
- Learning from the ancient and wild olive trees found in the mountains
 
- Deep connection to land and tasting the fruits of your labour
 
- Sharing the stories of Zakros through natural ingredients
 
- Joy to be found in limits and constraints
 
- Small is beautiful and powerful
 
- What we do to our soils, we do to ourselves
 
- Industrialisation disconnects us from valuable felt experiences
 
- Be an enquiring mind. Ask real questions
 
- Look after one another
 
Community and Links 
 
Places: 
Zakros
 
Connect:
Two Fields - https://twofieldszakros.com
Instagram - @twofieldszakros
 
—————
 
Thanks for listening to The Spaceship Earth Podcast.
 
Host: Dan Burgess @dan__burgess
Edit: Charlie Shread
Shownotes: Vicki Turner
Music: Escape Goat by Soren Lorenson
Join us on Instagram: @thespaceship.earth
Subscribe to monthly newsletter: https://becomingcrew.substack.com/welcome
 
If you wish to support The Spaceship Earth podcast, please leave us a review or share your favourite episode on social media, as this helps enormously. 

--

Episode 55 - Will Rolph - Two Fields Zakros - Farming in Service to Life

Hello 2022, hope this finds you well.

I’ve been composting 2021.

Episode 56  kicks off with something a bit different.

An audio experiment to start the year.

A story about stories.

Last year I was invited to do a TED X Talk about the climate and ecological crisis, I wasn’t really sure what to talk about to be honest.

I was struggling to think of what another white man, 50 years old could possibly add to all the noise in these extraordinary times.

I was also feeling fairly burned out by the last two years, had just returned from COP26 and was strangely disoriented and quite frazzled.

I decided to focus in on what I felt was the most valuable and useful learnings I have, that I could offer up in these unravelling and unknowing times.  Even though I knew it might feel uncomfortable and challenging. I wanted to find a way to weave the vital threads of my inquiring over the last 15 years together with where my attention and work is deepening and orienting towards.

It was quite a task to create, but I felt it didn’t end up working quite so well in a short talk format.

Because it’s really a story about stories. 

So I decided to evolve and expand it and record it as a podcast, but a bit more immersive.

It’s definitely right on my learning edge and I’m feeling a bit vulnerable putting this out. 
But that often means it needs to leave the nest.

I really hope it speaks to you and if it does please consider sharing it with someone else. We’d be most grateful. And whatever it makes you think or feel - I'd love to hear any feedback.

There are so many amazing humans and more than humans who have influenced the creation of this episode. 

You know who you are.

I’d recommend headphones or a decent speaker setup for this one. And being still. 
Enjoy

A massive shout to Charlie Shread - Audio Jedi for making this sound awesome.

#becomingcrew #thespaceshipearthpodcast

Link:

The Great Acceleration

https://www.slideshare.net/IGBPSecretariat/great-acceleration-2015

https://stories.life/
https://stories.life/chapter/the-narrative-of-separation/


Thanks for listening to The Spaceship Earth Podcast.


Host: Dan Burgess @dan__burgess

Edit: Charlie Shread

Shownotes: Vicki Turner

Music: Escape Goat by Soren Lorenson

Join us on Instagram: @thespaceship.earth

Subscribe to occasional newsletter: becomingcrew.substack.com/welcome

If you wish to support The Spaceship Earth podcast, please leave us a review or share your favourite episode on social media. With gratitude

Episode 56 - Dan Burgess - Becoming Crew - A Story about Stories

Phoebe Tickell is a Biologist and Systems thinker who develops methodologies and approaches suited to a better world. With a degree in Biological Natural Sciences she brings her understanding of biological networks and systems thinking into governance, organisational structures, narratives and imagination. From co-founding multiple organisations, designing and  implementing learning programmes to facilitating groups across the world, Phoebe has been called a voice of the emerging future and one of the most important systems thinkers of her generation.

Recorded in the Devonian woods around a campfire, Dan and Phoebe discuss: 
 
- Reflection, peace and slowness in a time when there’s lots to do

- The rejection of indigenous wisdom/science unless ‘discovered’ by western science  

- Systems change; yet aren’t we the system?
 
- In times of grief, what would a sane culture do?

- Evolving from a self-exterminating society to a self-sustaining society

- Caring for young imaginations in an era of technological entertainment

- Moral Imagination. Imagination activists. And imaginal zones 
 
- Subsidising slowness, not speed and rewiring our economy
 
- Power of the ‘sit spot’, make believe, masks and role play
 
- Relationships and value between the human and more-than-human world

- Everything is not in the government's hands. We can be empowered to create our own reality 
 
- Designing systems with wisdom. Bring it on!
 

Play Out Track:
Bonobo - Sapien
From the Album ‘ Fragments’
https://music.apple.com/gb/album/sapien/1584968878?i=1584969129

Sound Credits:
Features birdsong recorded by Fintan O'Brien
https://soundcloud.com/fintanobrien

Full Shownotes:
https://www.thespaceship.earth/podcast/2022/3/3/episode-57-phoebe-tickell-imagination-activism

Episode 57 - Phoebe Tickell - Imagination Activist

Nadeem Perera is a birder, wildlife TV presenter, activist, youth mentor and co-founder of Flock Together. 

Flock Together is a birdwatching collective for people of colour who have felt unwelcome and marginalised in spaces that should be for everyone. 
Together they are reclaiming green spaces and rebuilding relationships with nature - one walk at a time. 
At twenty eight years of age, Nadeem is more than his deep fascination with birds, his youth work, values and unique personal qualities are essential in the world today. 

Needem Perera Insta - https://www.instagram.com/birdnerdeem
Flock Together - https://www.flocktogether.world


For full show notes and links please visit The Spaceship Earth website: 

https://www.thespaceship.earth/podcast/2022/4/15/episode-59-nadeem-perera-flock-together-return-to-the-source-of-love

Episode 59 - Nadeem Perera - Flock Together - Return to the Source of Love

Dr Stephan Harding is a Holistic Scientist, Deep Ecologist and co-founder of the legendary Schumacher College. Stephan’s work intersects scientific ecology, with gaia theory and our psyche and soul. Author of two books, Animate Earth and new publication, Gaia Alchemy. Stephan has worked and taught alongside the world's leading ecological thinkers, feelers and activists. And has worked closely with scientist James Lovelock, a mentor, who developed the Gaia theory hypothesis. 

Join Dan and Stephan discuss: 
 
- Who is Gaia and what’s her history? 

- James Lovelock an independent scientist and great mentor 
 
- From the scientific study of the Muntjac Deer to the deep connection of the wholeness of nature

- We are not just thinkers. We’re equally, feelers, sensors and intuitors
 
- We’re inherently animistic with a spiritual connection to nature. And we can still value science
 
- A cultural revolution needs to happen quicker than any other, for the sake of all beings
 
- Gaia Alchemy. Why put alchemy with science? 
 
- Healing a crisis of meaning and the Azoth of Philosophy
 
- Valuing the psyche over the ego. Do we invent ideas or do we receive them?
 
- Find your Gaia place
 
- We have two bodies. One, a human body which lives inside the wider body of the Earth, Gaia.
 
For full show notes and links please visit The Spaceship Earth website:
https://www.thespaceship.earth/podcast/2022/6/10/episode-60-stephan-harding-a-kingdom-beyond-measurement

Episode 60 - Stephan Harding - A Kingdom beyond Measurement

New Earth Sessions Mix from @dan__burgess :

I’m struggling with my voice at the moment.

And words.

So I’ve been taking a pause from recording conversations.

The podcast is in a composting phase

Which feels absolutely right for this time.

Autumn has always been an important season for me.

I feel the transition in a very embodied way.

Deep in my psyche and bones.

The letting go. 

The breaking down
 
Of what was.

A clearing of space.

For what could be.

A grieving of sorts.

In a beautiful way.

In recent years Autumn had also become a time of unexpected challenge.

So this mix is an ode to Autumn and all the feels that I’m feeling right now.

Autumnism. 

125 BPM

Play loudly, for running, dancing and moving through these darker times. 

A new season of the podcast will be emerging from the compost.

Massive respect to all the producers featured in this mix. 
Thank you for your beautiful sonic offerings.

Available on all podcast platforms.
#gratitude #thespaceshipearthpodcast #housemusic #earthsessions #cosmichouse #organichouse
#becomingcrew 

Tracklist on site.

Earth Sessions - Autumnism  - Dan Solo in the mix

Former professional big wave surfer Fergal Smith walked away from professional surfing a decade ago to begin a journey of becoming a regenerative farmer on the West coast of Ireland.

In this conversation recorded in June 2022 Dan revisits Moy Hill for a third time and catches up with where Fergal is at on the evolutionary journey of Moy Hill Farm . 

Fergal is now working with livestock as a core tool in bringing back soil health, bio-diversity, carbon drawdown and growing nutritious food for the local community. 

This conversation is an open exploration of the challenges, complexity and nuance required in bringing life back to landscapes, feeding people healthy food and dealing with the challenges of the urgent transition from industrial agriculture to regenerative farming.

https://www.moyhillfarm.com/

Episode 62 - Fergal Smith - Moy Hill Farm - It's not the cow, it's the how

Episode 64 with Dougald Hine.

Dougald is co-founder of The Dark Mountain Project.

Co-host of The Great Humbling podcast.

Co-founder of a School called Home in Sweden where he lives with his partner and son.

And Author of new book ‘At Work in the Ruins’ - the focus of this conversation.

In this book Dougald is opening up vital spaces for different types of questions, conversations and invitations to be considered and explored as we face into the unravelling mystery of these times - times of endings.

‘At Work in the Ruins’ is a gift for this moment for those who know intuitively in their heart and gut that many things from 'modernity' need to end.

Now is a time for humility and creative courage, for letting go of stories, ideas, behaviours and systems that no longer serve life and crossing a threshold into imagining what could be and becoming the change.

We highly recommend this book.

Available everywhere you get your podcasts

We hope you appreciate this episode. 

Please do share, rate and review if this speaks to you.

#atworkintheruins #thespaceshipearthpodcast #becomingcrew

Episode 64 - Dougald Hine - At Work in the Ruins

Why do rivers need guardians ?
What does it mean to be a lawyer in a time of climate and ecological crisis ?
Can nature have legal rights?

Paul Powlesland is a civil barrister, environmental activist and guardian of the River Roding in East London.

Over the last few years single handedly bringing life back to  this river and growing a community of crew re-connecting and regenerating the river and exploring what the legal rights of a river might look like.

Paul is shaking up what it means to be a lawyer in a time of climate and ecological crisis.

After practising as a barrister in London for a decade, Paul realised the urgent need to create greater respect and protection for the natural world within our legal system. 

He founded Lawyers for Nature to represent the natural world and all who are seeking to defend it in the courts as best he can within the current legal framework. 

He has a deep affinity for wild water, lives on a boat, on a stretch of tidal river, and has founded community project The River Roding Trust to bring life back to the River Roding in East London.

This episode weaves many threads including -
- what it means to be a lawyer in a time of environmental crisis,
- the importance of reconnecting with nature, our more than human family 
- the beautiful inquiry into making rivers sacred again and giving them legal rights.

This is also a very special episode for us - being the first Ocean Mic episode  -  a new collaboration between The Spaceship Earth podcast and Finisterre.

Episode 67   - Ocean Mic - Paul Powlesland - River Guardian and Lawyer in an ecological crisis

Bayo is an author, writer, celebrated speaker, teacher, and self-styled trans-public intellectual - whose vocation goes beyond justice and speaking truth to power to opening up other spaces of power-with, and queering fond formulations and configurations of hope.

Bayo invites us to see the crises of our times with a post activist,  post humanist lens, revealing cracks and bringing much-needed trouble to settled narratives.

His writing and speaking is prolific, vital and so generous.

His provocations and the invitations that sit under them are not always fully comprehended in our more comfortable human centered cultures of progress which Bayo speaks to with clarity in this conversation.

This was a shorter episode recorded online at the end of a slightly frazzling week, but as ever with Bayo this conversation is full of gifts, stunning insight, provocation and fertiliser for navigating these mysterious times.

Bayo is one of our special guests on The Remix kicking off in May - a 3 month action learning adventure for story rebels from Becoming crew.

Applications open 

https://www.becomingcrew.com/theremix

Episode 66 - Bayo Akomolafe - Cracks, re-pairing and making new moves

What if the health of the wild waters of the Earth are a reflection of human health?

What if restoring our relationship with the wild waters on this earth was a way to restore and heal our own health ?

How might moving into a more intentional relationship with water within us and around us help us through these times of fear, grief and complexity?

How might cultivating practices and rituals with water today begin to catalyse cultural shifts towards a return of the sacredness between humans and the waters on this Earth?

Easkey Britton is a surfer, scientist, academic, social ecologist, activist, writer and artist who has dedicated her life to exploring connection with the ocean and wild waters of this Earth and understanding our human relationship with water as watery beings.

This is Easkey’s third time on the podcast and this episode is in honour of her new book Ebb and Flow, Connect with the Patterns and Power of Water.

An essential book for this moment, as we are beginning to understand through witnessing the health of the rivers and ocean around us  - what we do to the wild waters of this Earth ultimately we do to ourselves.

Packed with wisdom and practices to restore health to ourselves and the wild waters around us, Easkey has weaved together insight and intelligence from her own deep experiences and those of wisdom keepers, water guardians, scientists, activists and indigenous scholars from all over Spaceship Earth.

This conversation riffs on a number of threads in the book.

This is an Ocean Mic episode in collaboration with Finisterre

Play-out track

‘Landscape’ by East Forest and Peter Broderick

EP 70 - Ocean Mic - Easkey Britton - Ebb and Flow

This offering comes from Becoming Crew Guide Mark Sears. 

It is an ancient myth from the Inuit tradition. 

It emerged from the back of the cave following our first session of our learning adventure The Remix and a provocation from Bayo Akomolafe. He invited us to consider the possibility of shapeshifting and the idea that it is only through strange encounters beyond our comprehension that new stories might emerge. 

This is a short tale, but a deep one and it begs the question - 'what have we sent into exile that we might need to reclaim right now in our culture where we find ourselves as lonely hunters at the doorway of our huts.'

As you listen perhaps you might want to ask yourself, where do you find yourself in the story?

Episode 71 - Stories for Life  - Mark Sears - Fox Woman Dreaming

This episode is a basecamp crew conversation between Dan and fellow Becoming Crew guides Evva Semenowicz and Mark Sears.

It speaks to this moment in time, where planetary boundaries are being crossed, Earth system tipping points are approaching, climate and ecological breakdown is being experienced all over western societies and yet the culture of denial, divisiveness and inaction is still dominant in government, media, and corporates.

What is true and what is real ?

What will it take for more people with influence to step fully into this moment and begin to step into service to life on our home planet, for a sense of collective action to spread ?

We speak especially to the inaction in organisations and business, beyond their own agendas, why are orgs still so passive when it comes to responding to these crises, when the very conditions that enable their businesses to function are unravelling fast.

We unpack ‘What’s Yours to Do?’  - a new one day offer from Becoming Crew to support organisations to begin to step into this new reality and cultivate courage for their own unique forms of activism and participation towards halting the destruction of our living Earth and accelerate the shift towards life-sustaining cultures.

Recorded in a meadow in Somerset at sunset on a very dry June day the conversation picks up from our last session in Episode 63 in January, reflects on the launch of The Remix  - (un)learning adventure for story rebels and then into this moment and what is being called for from business and organisations and our offer of What’s Yours to Do ?

https://www.becomingcrew.com/1day

Episode 73 - Becoming Crew - Whats Yours to Do ?

This episode contains two short audio essays from Christina Williams, a writer exploring the pathways that can connect us more deeply with the more-than-human world. 

She is passionate about complexity, systems change, and how narrative shifts can drive movements for change. 

Christina took part in The Remix 2023, our Stories for Life themed learning journey from Becoming Crew.

She is based in Amsterdam.

https://newfutures.substack.com/
https://stories.life/
https://www.becomingcrew.com/

Episode 74 -Stories for Life - Christina Williams - Love stories/horror stories

Episode 75 is a reflective ramble in the woods from me your podcast host Dan Burgess.

There are no guests (apart from wind, trees, a buzzard and a pigeon)

The episode marks an end to this season of recordings and also to the format of conversations this year.

And brings a pause in episodes until early Autumn.

For me this episode was a chance to honour some shifts, reflect deeply, and to try and speak from my heart intelligence. 

So this is a spontaneous, personal honest, open, vulnerable, meandering, reflective share. 
And some of my opinions on this moment in time.

Firstly where I find myself with my own inquiring, work and the context we find ourselves in at this moment as climate breakdown becomes seemingly impossible to ignore. 

How I am deepening my own learning, practices and offerings through deeper relational intentionality with the more than human world,  including the impact of a recent Vision Quest I completed and participation as a co-learner in a new 18 month learning journey exploring ‘Kincentric Leadership’.

And how all this is shaping the future of the podcast, the work I offer to others and the work of Becoming Crew.

Finally I wanted to reflect on my key takeouts and learnings from the podcast conversations with my amazing guests this year and why they feel important and really useful for these times we are facing into.

I also share what next for the podcast in the Autumn (loads) and from Becoming Crew.

To be honest I recorded this episode for me, but I hope you find something in it for you, let us know, we’d love to hear from you.

A big thanks to all the guests, contributors and our crew for making this podcast happen and to all our beautiful listeners for supporting us.

Episode 75 - Dan Burgess - Rambling in the Woods - Reflections from the heart in unravelling times

This episode has been created to honour  ‘The Remix’ - our recent 3 month experiential (un)learning adventure for story rebels hosted by becoming crew.
The Remix set out to explore the power of cultural stories in these times, and not in a shiny, universal, human-centered way.

It was an invitation into a deep, creative, relational inquiry  - exploring the cultural stories we live by while at the same time re-entangling ourselves back into the vast web of life  - the world we have not made.

An intentional space to explore the intelligence, interconnectedness, kinship and mystery of life on this Earth and how that might shape and inform our creative practices, projects, the stories we carry and our ways of being in these times of great unravelling.

37 crew from 8 countries participated, guided by Dan Burgess and fellow guides Evva Semenowicz, Mark Sears, Mark De'Lisser,  and Kamara Venner.

We were joined along the way by 7 guest teachers, Bayo Akomolafe, Paddy Loughman, Phoebe Tickell, Felipe Viveros, Jay Griffiths, Easkey Britton and Sophie Strand.

Together we weaved a peer supported action learning community, cultivating deep entanglement practices with the more than human world in the places we call home,  participating in creative challenges and experiments while considering  - How might our stories help to seed and grow life-sustaining cultures ?

This episode is an audio artefact of the journey, it weaves contributions from all our guests, guides and participants, it is a memory bank for us, to remember the wisdom, connections and learning we received.

We recommend headphones for this one.

Full show notes via

https://www.thespaceship.earth/podcast

Episode 76 - The Remix 2023 - Audio Artefact - (un)learning adventure for story rebels

It’s been a year since the  last Earth Sessions mix.

I finally got it together to record this.

Mixed live in my garden studio while humanity continues to implode.

Violence, suffering and despair spilling over on this Earth.

These last few weeks have been overwhelming.

But I remember today the power of music and dancing as one way to move the body and mind through dark times

Heart vibes, to connect to a deeper source within and to unite into new ways of being.

This mix signals the crossing of a threshold into darker mysterious times, towards winter.

To acknowledge the Celtic festival of Samhain (a few days ago) pronounced Sow (as in Cow)Inn

A time for dropping into mystery, decay, shedding, breaking down, letting go and composting.

Going dark and in deep in preparation for seeding new life.

Love in cycles.

This is an offering for this moment.

It’s deep, dark, trippy, fairly pumping, emotional.

Play in the dark, loudly. 

For running, dancing, crying and moving through darker times.

Respect to all the producers featured in this mix. 

Thank you for your beautiful sonic offerings.

Full tracklist on site

Episode 77 - Earth Sessions - Samhain deep - Dan Solo Mix

This unravelling world makes me despair today.

So I went down to the shed and recorded this mix.

Ruff and ready.

When there are no words, there is music.

Includes excerpts from my conversation with Alnoor Ladha in Episode 84, which I heartily recommend listening to.

A conversation for these times:

https://becomingcrew.substack.com/p/episode-84-alnoor-ladha-and-lynn

Tracklisting:

Polynation - Cascade
Golan Zocher - Sandman (Paul Kardos mix)
Tim Green- the night is blue
Paul Thomas - Emotional Landscapes (Jiminy hop mix)
Energy 52 - Cafe del mar (Dale Middleton mix)
St Germain  - so flute (Simon Vuarambon mix)
Lunar disco - Roswell
Damian Lazarus - Revolution
Plastikrosen feat. Solveig Eger (Patrice Bäumel Remix)
Guy J  - Illusions (Original Mix)
Rufus Du Sol  -always (Monkey Safari Remix)

Ep 87 - Earth Sessions - Dan Solo  - No Words

In this episode I chat with David Stover co-founder of restorative venture Bureo who are turning ocean fishing net pollution into new materials and products, building a whole new supply chain system which supports people and planet. The interview is about how Bureo came to be. Enjoy. This was my first session recording via skype and garage band from my mancave in Bath to Ventura in California. So I was slightly distracted on making sure the recording was happening. Learning by doing! 

Rememeber there are no passengers on Spaceship Earth, we are all crew.
https://bureo.co/


Sound: New Binurial Beats from Will Flisk

THE SPACESHIP EARTH - EPISODE 1 - DAVID STOVER - BUREO

Live from a beach in Nicaragua   - another experiment in spontaneous planetary riffing  -  I share a slightly cosmic podcast connection story, the practices of spontaneity, openness and generosity as life centered -  then with a nod to World Water Day - explore our connection to the ocean, the power of water to heal and make us feel good, our dependence on the ocean to support the life giving systems of the Spaceship Earth, eating rice and beans every day and more.
Some links from this episode...

The magic Millz and his genius podcast and how my podcast met his - meta 
https://soundcloud.com/thejfdicast/gut

Blue Mind - great book and growing movement on the benefits of being near water > http://www.wallacejnichols.org/122/bluemind.html

Sylvia Earle  - marine biologist and ocean legend
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Earle

Rice and beans (gallo pinto) 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallo_pinto

The track I played out - 'Lost at Sea' - The Egg
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/lost-at-sea/644013029?i=644013237

email me: dan@danburgess.earth
twitter: twitter.com/dansolo
insta: instagram.com/dansolos

THE SPACESHIP EARTH - EPISODE 5 - WATERY WITH DAN BURGESS

In this episode I’m with Chris Salisbury - storyteller, outdoor educator, nature connection guru and founder of WildWise in Devon, UK. We explore connection to nature through experience, embodied knowledge and opening the imagination, the need for soul work in our industrialised lives, the challenges facing children, teens and us older folks in a world that has shunned ritual, wildness, community living and spaces to connect with who we truly are. How time in nature can spark our curiosity and creativity,  the power of stories in oral form to inspire and support us in times of trouble. Includes guest vocals from Chris’s hens. Enjoy!

Show notes

https://wildwise.co.uk/

https://www.oxfordstorytellingfestival.co.uk/meet-the-team

https://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/short-courses/call-of-the-wild-2019

Episode 18 Chris Salisbury - WildWise - Feeling our way back to nature

In this episode I chat with Afdhel Aziz - Author of the book  ‘Good is the New Cool - Market like you give a damn’, Keynote Speaker and Chief Purpose Officer at Conspiracy of Love. Afdhel is on a mission to help businesses find purpose and meaning in what they do, and he’s spent 20 years working at the highest level in some of the biggest brands on the planet -so he has a unique perspective on the workings of the corporation. We riff on his journey, the challenegs we face right now as a human race, why business has such a big role in the shift to a more beautiful world, the blockages to radical change in business, the climate and ecological crisis and the implications of that for consumer and brand culture - and why humans ultimately are the key to change. Enjoy!

https://www.afdhelaziz.com/

https://www.goodisthenewcool.org/

https://conspiracyoflove.co/team-1

https://www.forbes.com/consent/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/afdhelaziz/

The SpaceShip Earth - Episode 23 - Afdhel Aziz  - Why true brand purpose must come from within

In this episode, I'm in conversation with Louise Middleton, founder of Kudhva -  an amazing collection of stunning hide-outs on a magical, elemental landscape on the remote and wild North Cornwall coast - a place for folks to disconnect to reconnect. Having spent the night in a Kudhva in a rocking gale,  I caught up with Louise to get the Kudhva story, the vision and journey of place making so thoughtfully in tune with the landscape, designing living experiences that help people connect more fully with themselves, to each other and the non human world around them. We explore how living more simply and intentionally seems to help us let go of stress, tune in to our creativity and connect better with ourselves and others.  Experimenting with the design challenge of creating balance between space for solitude vs community. At a time when we are faced with the most enormous and urgent challenges of lowering our carbon and ecological impacts particulalry in the west, and where we have often removed ourselves from place based community, what can we learn from places like Kudhva which we can bring back and build into our modern urban lives. Hope you enjoy. Please share and review if you like it.

http://kudhva.com/
https://www.instagram.com/kudhva/

The SpaceShip Earth - Episode 24 - Louise Middleton -  Kudhva - Hiding Out to Reconnect

In this episode I welcomed award winning campaigner, activist, author and speaker Natalie Fee to the SpaceShed in my garden.
Nat is a true maverick making incredible impacts through her organisation City to Sea and Refill - from an idea in her head which hatched a youtube video and a crowdfunder to bring attention to plastic pollution habits in our consumerist culture, Nat has built a 30 strong campaigning organisation and a fast growing community driven movement to encourage the spread of refill culture in our society. We riff on Nat’s journey from dropping out of University, searching for spiritual meaning, achieving material and financial success and not finding happiness with that and how stumbling across Chris Jordan’s Albatross project catalysed her to act on plastic pollution.
We talk about the rise of consumerism, plastic pollution, searching for meaning, community action, individual change and action as system change, following your heart and putting yourself out into the world and much much more. This is an open, honest conversation about Nat’s journeying to find meaning and purpose in her life which led to campaigning and innovating on plastic pollution, which has become a catalyst to connect more deeply to the earth and how Nat believes individual action to be a creative, powerful and regenerative act. Which is exactly what her new book ‘How to Change the World for Free’ riffs on. We talk about toilets a fair bit too and porn and flax seed lube. Enjoy!

www.citytosea.org.uk/

refill.org.uk/

nataliefee.com/
nataliefee.com/books/

www.instagram.com/nataliefee_/

www.instagram.com/citytosea_/

www.instagram.com/refillhq/

The SpaceShip Earth - Episode 26 - Natalie Fee - City to Sea - How to Save the World for Free

In this episode I’m in conversation with Olivia Knight
Liv is a social entrepreneur and the founder of collaborative gifting platform Patchwork. 
She is an activist on multiple dimensions at a community level and through serving social, climate and ecological challenges.
She is playing a key role in the development of the UK sharing economy and is current chair of the movement.
An ex brand strategist, she was a partner and strategist at eatbigfish and a creative director at climate and environmental creative platform Do The Green Thing 
Liv is someone with tremendous energy and vision, and a fierce believer in equality, fairness and social justice.
We riff on her story, the birth of the Patchwork platform, consumption culture vs sharing and community participation, the social inequalities that the pandemic is revealing, how the sharing economy could develop as we look beyond just physical stuff to human connection, ecological healing and regenerating and re-imagining the places we live.
This was recorded in early May. Hope you enjoy!
Available all usual platforms.
#thespaceshipearth #becomingcrew 


https://patchworkit.com/#
https://twitter.com/projectpatchwrk
https://www.instagram.com/patchwork_it
https://www.sharingeconomyuk.com/

Episode 35 - Olivia Knight - Patchwork - Sharing is the currency of connection

“The fact that other people were trying to save my life, I can’t give up. I’ve been given a second chance, I can’t stop or not try. It makes you think how precious life is, and really any second, any moment, you can be put at risk, which I was. I was on the edge of living and dying. And I was so grateful to be given a chance again.” - Olive Burgess

I wasn’t sure I could continue with my podcast after my daughter Olive fell critically ill in November. I have struggled to find the point of it for the last couple of months. But with perspective I’ve concluded that the podcast is important to me, a regenerative practice that makes me a better human through the process of making them. So I’m committing to trying to record each week now in year 3(!) and release two a month. To mark this transition is this very personal episode 43, a conversation with my 13 year old daughter Olive Burgess  - which took place early January, a couple of weeks after she came home from nearly 7 weeks in Bristol Royal Children’s hospital after emergency brain surgery following a sudden seizure one night in November. In some ways this conversation represents a part of Olive’s and my own sense making and processing of what was a hugely traumatic and terrifying experience, it tries to document what happened that night and the following days and weeks and then focusses in on Olive’s reflections on the whole experience and coming to terms with how this and the cause of it is impacting her life. Ultimately it’s a story of a courageous, determined, resilient and very humble teenager dealing with an enormous physical and mental trauma, it’s a story of learning to live with uncertainty and the flipside of that, of trying to be here now, living in the present of everyday. It's a story of the extraordinary NHS humans who treated and cared for her. It also reveals the tremendous power in the love and support of community, family, friends -  known and unknown  - who emerge, reach out and self organise in times of crisis to hold us through the darkest of times.
I hope you take something from the listen. Peace and Out.
__________

Olive Burgess, daughter of host Dan Burgess is a thirteen year old dancer and surfer who loves to cook. However on the evening  of 12th of November 2020 she suffered a sudden and major stroke. Listen to Olive speak with great clarity as she reflects upon her life threatening experience:

- Olive’s unexpected seizure, paralysis and emergency ambulance trip
- Five hour brain surgery at Bristol Royal Children’s Hospital
- Regaining consciousness and learning she had a stroke
- Experience of confusion, tiredness, yet no fear
- Deep connections made with nurses, patients and the rehab’ team
- Six weeks of scans, tests and ward rounds
- Unexpected difficulties of returning home with FOMO, frustration and sadness
- Craving her thirteen year old life prior to the stroke
- Living with an AVM condition
- Expressing all the emotions as a form of medicine
- Overwhelming support from family, friends and strangers across the world
- Limitations, fears and invisibility whilst in a wheelchair
- What got Olive through her experience? Percy Pigs and much more.

Special thanks to the NHS, family and friends, old and new, who showed support, love and community to the Burgess family

—————

Thanks for listening to The Spaceship Earth Podcast

Host: Dan Burgess @dansolo__
Edit: Charlie Shread
Shownotes: Vicki Turner
Music: Escape Goat by Soren Lorenson
Join us on Instagram: @thespaceship.earth


_____

Links

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/OliveBurgess
https://www.grandappeal.org.uk/
Florence & The Machine - Spectrum ( Say my name) Calvin Harris Remix

Episode 43 - Olive Burgess - Surviving a teenage stroke

The story of Spaceship Earth is simple...

We live on a life giving rock called Earth hurtling through space.

Like a spaceship, we have a finite amount of supplies with an intelligent operating system, called nature, which keeps everything replenished as long as we all respect it and participate wisely. 

So a deep relationship with this mysterious system, along with spontaneous co-operation between humans and all life is essential to keep us thriving and the spaceship flying.

In this podcast I’m in conversations with folk involved in regenerating life, 

Shifting consciousness and re-imagining how we can live more beautifully and peacefully. 

I talk with artists, writers, activists, designers, adventurers, healers, farmers, creative mavericks and more.

Their stories invite us to  participate in the co-creation of life sustaining cultures.

In service to life.

Becoming crew on Spaceship Earth.

Rad cosmic intro music (now remixed) - with gratitude to  Matt Hales and Davide Rossi (Escape Goat by Soren Lorenson, published by BMG). 

Hosted by Dan Burgess, edit via Charlie Shread, engine room Seemah Nahome-Burgess
Join us on instagram @thespaceship.earth
Subscribe to writing and updates: https://becomingcrew.substack.com/welcome
Join our (un)learning adventures:
www.becomingcrew.com

Popular tracks by The Spaceship Earth Podcast