Accidental Gods

Life has been evolving on our planet for the past 3.8 billion years.  The ecosystems that thrive now have had a lot of practice at getting things right - particularly the complex web of inter-relations that allows us all to flourish. And yet, we're on the edge of the sixth mass extinction largely because we humans have forgotten how to inter-relate and inter-be with the rest of the web of life. At an intellectual level, we know we're integral nodes in the web, but we still behave as if it were other, and out there and not - yet - as if it were a source of wisdom and wonder and wholehearted support: an ancient mentor that has tried and tested enough options to know what works. 
So how can we bring the astonishing, creative insights of Biomimicry to the field of human inter-being? How can we shift our sense of self and other, our communities of place, purpose and passion, our businesses, our governance structures…everything that we are and do onto a different trajectory using the web of life as our template?  Biomimicry for Social Innovation asks exactly these questions and in this episode, we're talking to its founder, Toby Herzlich.
Toby is a facilitator, trainer, executive coach, and organizational consultant. She is a Certified Biomimicry Specialist and Founder of Biomimicry for Social Innovation, which exists to translate ecosystem intelligence and Life’s Principles into leadership and social change strategies.  As you'll hear, she's part of the team that developed The Nature of Trust, and its 8-principle framework for building and maintaining trust, which is so essential in any network of sovereign individuals whether they're bees, or penguins, elks or geese - or people.
Living in northern New Mexico, Toby dedicated 20 years as a Senior Trainer with the Rockwood Leadership Institute and continues to support leaders and organizations through coaching and consulting inspired by nature.  Her clients include Executives at National Geographic Society, The Sierra Club, and The Cultural Conservancy. She is passionate about creating innovative approaches to collaboration, building, and guiding diverse networks including the Biomimicry Professional Certification two-year training cohorts, the Volgeneau Climate Initiative, North Carolina’s statewide progressive voter network, and the Indigenous Mycelium Gathering of 2025 - there's a link in the show notes and you will definitely want to explore that.
Toby is the founding co-facilitator of the Living Systems Leadership Retreats for Women and has supported the capacity-building of women leaders in war-torn countries of the Balkans and the Middle East.
There are so many richly inspiring pathways that Toby has opened as a result of bringing a social change and leadership development branch into Biomimicry - collaborating deeply with that larger movement and, at heart and core, with the Web of Life.  This was one of those conversations that could have gone on forever.  It didn't, we stopped at a reasonable time and are definitely planning to cycle back with each other. And the cats visited—Toby's and mine—which always makes a podcast flow with extra energy. Enjoy!
BSI Website
The Nature of Trust toolkit (free and online)
Living Systems Leadership Retreat for Women- in NM Aug 31-Sept 5  - open for registration!
Intro to Biomimicry for Social Innovation - virtual 4-week workshop, starts in October
Nature of Trust Co-Lab - virtual 10-week deep dive training, starts in September
Toby on LinkedIn  (funny, when I open this, it asks me to join LinkedIn, rather than taking me to the page)
What would Nature Do? Toby's Talk at Festival of Faiths (27 min video) 
Indigenous Mycelium Gathering 2025  (8 min video)
Other BSI resources:
Life’s Principles Leadership Cards - a deck of 52 cards for learning and Nature Tarot!
Nature Positive Practices - delivering Nature’s genius to your inbox twice a week!

—About Accidental Gods—

We offer three strands all rooted in the same soil, drawing from the same river: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'WALKING THE PATH OF THE INNER WARRIOR' which will run on Sunday 28th June 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price.

If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.  The next Foundation Course is in October and currently has spaces.
If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls.  Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here.

What are Thrutopian stories and why do we need them?  How do they work? And most importantly, how can we craft them to land most effectively with ourselves and each other at scale and in time?
In this solo episode, Manda walks us through the middle way between the dystopia of now, towards the utopia of a future in which humanity flourishes as an integral part of a thriving planet.  What could it and would it be like if each of us woke up every morning feeling safe, feeling confident in our ability to meet the challenges of the day in ways that would leave the world a better place?  How would we feel if every moment of life was alive with a sense of meaning and purpose, of connection to all parts of ourselves, each other and the web of life? 
We ask these questions regularly of our guests, but once in a  while, it's useful to unpick them in detail, to give ourselves the Motivation, Agency, Direction and Empowerment we need, so we can open doors for others in our communities of place, purpose and passion.
Link to the Thrutopia website - what is Thrutopian thinking?
—About Accidental Gods—

We offer three strands all rooted in the same soil, drawing from the same river: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'WALKING THE PATH OF THE INNER WARRIOR' which will run on Sunday 28th June 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price.

If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls.  Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here.

If the death cult of predatory capitalism is based on money as the commodification of suffering (which it is) - how do we create a monetary system that encourages people to help each other, to create communities of place, purpose and passion that are genuinely supportive and to invest where trust and hope lead, rather than simply the hoarding of ever-increasing amounts of value?
Stef Kuypers is an astonishing individual. He taught himself coding at age 14 and moved into a career in IT -  but he's a complete polymath and, after working the fields of creative thinking, improvisation, and business interventions, he took a deep dive into economics, monetary systems, complexity theory and human behaviour. Today he researches how monetary systems influence both our individual behavior and how it affects the way we organize our society. He's creator of the Sustainable Money Model and works for Happonomy in Belgium.
He's also aware that we don't just need a system that will work differently, we need to find ways to help people transcend the inner blocks that tell us the existing system is the only one that can work and anything else is unrealistic. So, as an avid gamer online and on tabletops, he's devised board games that help people to experience what it's like to live in worlds that work differently.  And if you or anyone listening is associated with any kinds of games companies, please let us know - because regenerative gaming that models regenerative ways of living has to be one of the ways forward.
That apart, we explored many routes to money and how we might handle it differently - enjoy!
Links
Stef on LinkedIn
Stef's Tedx Antwerp Talk
Stef's Tedx Youth Talk
Stef on Economy 2.0
Papers on ResearchGate.net
Paper on the Sustainable Money Model
Paper on Computational Analysis of post-keynesian monetary systems
Paper on decoupling economic health from growth
—About Accidental Gods—

We offer three strands all rooted in the same soil, drawing from the same river: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'FALLING IN LOVE WITH LIFE' which will run on Sunday 17th May 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price.

If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls.  Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here.

When we talk about building community, we often get stuck trying to bridge tribal divides, particularly in a media landscape designed to monetise division, amplify hatred, and draw us into cycles of righteous anger.
But what if there was a different approach? One that creates a sense of individual and collective agency, that centres the gifts and strengths of everyone in the room in a way that lets everyone feel heard and so sweeps beneath the tribal divisions to the heart of things, where we all care about a future that feels safe, and open, where we all feel confident and heard and seen, where we can bring our soul's growth to the table and be taken seriously.
So how do we achieve this social sculpting?  This week, we're talking to three members of the Generative Journalism Alliance to find out how they bring these very skills to disparate people in disparate places, to bring about real world changes.
Tchiyiwe Thandiwe Chihana was born in Bradford to Zambian born parents, and her existence is a tapestry of migration through generations. She is a public-interest broadcaster & moderator, building civic storytelling platforms that connect institutions & communities. Managing Director, African Voices Platform (TV & DAB) and Co-Founder, Generative Journalism Alliance
Peter Pula has been exploring the pathways to social evolution since founding the Grassroots Review in Canada in 1992. Since then he has been actively involved in federal politics, led a corporate communications firm and established the practice of Generative Journalism in an international arena.
Jack Becher is a systems change facilitator and story weaver with a background shaped by social-ecological movements. They are the Co-Founder and Steward of the Generative Journalism Alliance, Beyond Patriarchy, Sideways, Foundations Earth and the Kinstead.
This conversation opens doorways to a future where we have the wide, deep skills to move through the tribal divisions that our current system stokes so effectively, towards a place where we discover what matters to us most, and find ways to give everyone a sense of agency, of meaning and purpose, of being and belonging.  This is how change happens, one conversation at a time and the Generative Journalism Alliance is hosting those conversations with deep integrity. 
Tchiyiwe on LinkedIn
Peter on LinkedIn
Jack on LinkedIn
GJA on LinkedIn
GJA Substack
GJA Just Transition Field Report pdf
Upcoming GJA Workshops (Next series starting 4th June)
Axiom News
Media Sovereignty Petition
—About Accidental Gods—

We offer three strands all rooted in the same soil, drawing from the same river: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'FALLING IN LOVE WITH LIFE' which will run on Sunday 17th May 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price.

If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls.  Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here.

Can we separate politics from democracy? Our political system is wholly corrupt and no longer fit for purpose - if it ever was. What if Citizens' Assemblies could bring agency to the whole of our population, helping people to find empathy with each other, to engage in conversations in good faith and work together to solve the wicked problems of the polycrisis: social inequity, climate chaos, the death cult of predatory capitalism.  These are so interlinked, we won't fix one unless we fix them all.
So how do we do it?  This week, I'm talking to someone who spends her life reflecting on, teaching and researching this. Isabella Roberts started off in the Big Four, Private Equity and Investment Banking, then switched from the private markets into politics at the start of 2021 as a candidate for the London Assembly elections. Against the backdrop of the UK's first year out of the EU and in the depths of the COVID pandemic, she was inspired to take a stand and be the change she wanted to see in the governance of the UK's capital.
She then took on a Masters in Digital Politics and Sustainable Development.  Her thesis in 2023 focused on How Collective Intelligence Can Enhance Democracy, which resulted in the initiation of SAAFE which stands for: Space for Silent Contemplation and Reflection, Active Listening and Feeling Heard, Ability to Change One's Mind, Feeling Connected as Part of the Whole, Epistemic Growth and Epistemic Humility - and which uses human-centred design principles for empowering participants in tech-enabled deliberation. This is an inquiry into what it means to be human in a digital age, in line with systems change towards a more deliberative democracy, and it has manifested in a multi-stakeholder project supported by the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton, bringing together democratic practitioners and the developers of deliberative technologies.  Meanwhile, Bella is the independent evaluator of two deliberative processes: the Birmingham Museums Trust Citizens' Jury, and currently the National Gallery's Citizens' Assembly (NG Citizens). 
She also completed her first Vipassana course of 10-day silent meditation and is studying for a PhD with the title: Revolutionising deliberative democracy with immersive technology - a comparison between East and West.
Bella has explored the depth and breadth of what works, so that together, we can create a democracy that empowers ordinary people to help fix their communities and the wider world. Like previous podcast guests, Matt Golding of Antidote and Dylan McGarry of Empatheatre, Bella understands the sense of meaning and purpose and involvement that is so transformative - which was why this conversation was so rich and so deep.  Enjoy!
Links
Bella on LinkedIn
Antiparty
Delibtech
Breathe With Bella Substack
Bella on YouTube
Bella on Spotify
@Antiparty on YouTube
ANTIPARTY on Spotify
POLIS
Books
Against Elections
Politics without Politicians by Helen Landemore
Bella's Masters Dissertation - How Can Collective Intelligence Enhance Democracy? An Investigation Towards Human Centred Design Principles For Empowering People Engaging With Deliberative Technologies?
—About Accidental Gods—

We offer three strands all rooted in the same soil, drawing from the same river: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass
Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'FALLING IN LOVE WITH LIFE' which will run on Sunday 17th May 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price.

If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life.
If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here.
If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are here
Manda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls.  Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here.