Advertise on podcast: THE SPACESHIP EARTH PODCAST

Time for another ramble. Recorded a week ago beneath an ancient Hawthorn at Ghostwood Down. I’m sitting with a lot of grief at the moment, so this was a spontaneous ramble from the heart. Riffing on: The sacred Hawthorn tree On sitting with grief, loss, endings and death, the inner and outer. On the heart space and heart intelligence. On speaking more openly and honestly to the collapse of the systems, structures, stories and ways of modernity And asking what might emerge from that ? On imagining a UBI to support weavers of regenerative futures. On music, raves, dancing and connection. Featuring readings, shout outs and notices from: Tree Wisdom by Jacqueline Memory Paterson Mortal Podcast - with Julia Samuel Earth Grief by Stephen Harrod Buhner I Eat the Stars by Sarah Wilson Immy Kaur from Civic Square Citizen Friday - from Actionism Northern Exposure - Sasha and John Digweed We Are Avon - Avonfest Tickets Famous for Five Miles - Fridays at Ghostwood MTTR - the coolest, post-capitalist denim brand on Spaceship Earth Requiem, Invitation, and Celebration: A Collection of Seasonal Practices Available on all podcast platforms Get full access to Becoming Crew at becomingcrew.substack.com/subscribe

Re-releasing this 25 min immersive audio story adventure written 5 years back, as it feels more relevant now than ever.  Performed at festivals this summer - it landed with appreciation - so putting it out for folks who weren’t with us back then An exploration of how stories play a dominant role in shaping our perceptions and ways of seeing, being and relating in the world. And how one particular story of human exceptionalism and separation from the rest of 'nature' may well be at the centre of the meta/poly/everything crisis we are in today. Or at the very least in coming to terms with it. The origin story of becoming crew… Passenger or crew ? The choice is yours.  I hope you receive something if you listen. This is one for the headphones #thespaceshipearthpodcast #becomingcrew Get full access to Becoming Crew at becomingcrew.substack.com/subscribe

My guest in this Episode is ecological artist, Anna Murray. Anna is also co-founder and creative director of conscious design studio Patternity, established on a core belief that a shared awareness and understanding of life's many patterns can create more regenerative and connected ways of living. Eight years on Anna returns to Spaceship Earth for a conversation recorded beside the waters on the land at Ghostwood Down. This conversation explores Anna's work as an ecological artist and creative human finding her way through these times by learning to trust her intuition, commitment to creative practice, and the power of connection and community. It asks: 'What if water is more than resource, but one of our oldest teachers?' Together with the stream alongside us, we go on a deep, babbling, meandering exploration of what it means to cultivate a deeper relationship with water, not simply as something we need to protect, but as something that has always shaped who we are as human beings. From rivers and rituals to beauty, creativity, loss, and grief, we reflect on the quiet practices and the deeper listening that help us remember our place within the living world. Anna shares the personal and creative journey that led to her new platform, Wellspace, and her first immersive exhibition, The Waters Are Speaking. This is an extraordinary tale of persistence, emergence, trust, and co-creation with human and more than human collaborators and why creating spaces of awe and reverence may be just as important as raising awareness in these unraveling times. This conversation is an invitation to slow down, to notice, to make time for beauty, and perhaps to rediscover that changing our relationship with the world begins by changing the way we participate in it. Water is the obvious subject, but this conversation isn't really about water. It's about remembering relationship and interdependence with all life through water. I hope you enjoy this, and if you get a chance go and visit Anna's exhibition, It will be wild, I'm sure. (All water sonics in this Episode are from the streams at Ghostwood Down) LINKS The Waters are Speaking Exhibition Wellspace Get full access to Becoming Crew at becomingcrew.substack.com/subscribe

My guest in this episode is the wonderful Laura Storm. Laura is a visionary, a pioneering human in the field of regeneration. Laura first appeared on this podcast in EP 13 in 2019. Laura is a highly in-demand keynote speaker, advisor and teacher and launched the regenerative leadership learning platform - Regenerators dedicated to reimagine leadership systems and ways of living to align with the wisdom of living systems. I reached out to Laura recently, not to talk more about the possibilities of regenerative leadership, but really to have a chat about this moment, the moment of stuckness, as I tend to describe it. I wanted to explore some of what Laura has been tending to following her intentional withdrawal from the limelight in 2024 - to investigate the topics of death and endings and how that's showing up in the world of business and organisational leadership and what was pulling her towards that. I really appreciate these kinds of moves from leaders like Laura, this integrity, honesty and humility and being true to oneself right now. So this conversation asks - what if regeneration begins not with new ideas, but with learning how to let go? It's an open, vulnerable chat on why our current moment calls for more than new strategies or better leadership models. What does it mean to become life-affirming in a world shaped by extraction and why every genuine transformation seems to require paying real attention to some form of grief, surrender and ending. The conversation moves from corporate boardrooms to forests and rivers between inner and outer regeneration, exploring how resilience might be found not through hardening ourselves, but through deeper relationships, connection, belonging, listening, and our capacity to stay present with uncertainty and loss. This is a conversation about endings, but even more, it's a conversation about the kind of presence that allows something genuinely new to emerge. I hope you receive something through this conversation and please do let us know, comment, and share with someone else who might appreciate this if you do. Get full access to Becoming Crew at becomingcrew.substack.com/subscribe

Sol-stice Sun stands still. The longest day. The shortest night. here’s an Earth Sessions mix from me inspired by dancing at sunrise and sunsets. or as Bucky Fuller put it… Sun-sight and sun-eclipse As the sun isn’t moving But we of course are on Spaceship Earth. Gratitude to all the artists and producers for creating these tracks. Full tracklist on https://www.thespaceship.earth/podcast Listen on Apple Podcasts, substack and Souncloud Enjoy Get full access to Becoming Crew at becomingcrew.substack.com/subscribe

This episode was a live panel recording from the We Are Avon community gathering in May.  If you're a regular listener, you'll know about place-based initiative and bioregional project, We Are Avon, based in the Avon Valley in the West of England, where I live. A movement working to regenerate the landscapes, rivers, and communities of the Avon catchment. This conversation is an exploration around the power of pilgrimage, the ancient practice of walking land and rivers as a way to connect us back to self, each other, and the landscapes we're part of. I hosted special guest, Zofia Page, Executive director and Co-founder of Friends of the River Medway, an innovative non-profit restoring the river while reconnecting people to it as a living presence. Her work weaves together ecological action; the Rights of Nature movement; and a renewed, enchanted relationship with the more-than-human world. Over six years, she has brought the Medway from background to foreground through conservation, citizen science, advocacy, art, storytelling, and ceremony. Her vision found its fullest expression in the River Medway Pilgrimage, a pioneering source-to-sea journey that led to two councils acknowledging the Rights of the River Medway. Alongside Zofia was Hamish Evans, Regenerative Farmer of Middle Ground Growers, River Pilgrim, prefigurative activist, and co-director of We Are Avon. This was a beautiful conversation with two extraordinary young change-makers who carry incredible vision, wisdom, humility and dedication to our home planet. In a time where mainstream reality is falling apart rapidly, perhaps these ancient practices of walking the land, moving through landscapes together in community might offer us different perspectives, deeper connections, and other ways of seeing this moment and the future that we're being invited into co-creating. The We Are Avon pilgrimage is this solstice weekend 20-21st June. The Medway pilgrimage is 18th to the 27th of July. Everyone is welcome to walk as much or as little as you like, links below, there are river movements rising like springs all over the UK. Find one near you and find out what's yours to do. LINKS We Are Avon pilgrimage River Medway Pilgrimage Get full access to Becoming Crew at becomingcrew.substack.com/subscribe

In this solo offering nested with the Hazels on Ghostwood Down - I’m rambling on: * Relationality, mystery, place and local participation. * Spaces for sanctuary and falling apart. * Regeneration through transformation and the deeper shifts required in times of unraveling and overwhelm. This is not reflections about fixing the world through better ideas, but about changing the way we relate - to ourselves, to one another and to the living, more-than-human world around us. What if regeneration is not just about solutions but also about consciousness, presence, attention and participation? What if the future asks us not just to think differently, but to be differently? Becoming-with-life. This offering was created among ancient Hazel trees on Ghostwood Down. There’s Hazel wisdom in ere. Guest conversations returning soon. But until then I hope you enjoy my ramblings. Links Famous for Five Miles Community Solo June 26th/28th We Are Avon Join the Avon Pilgrimage 20/21 June Get full access to Becoming Crew at becomingcrew.substack.com/subscribe

A new Earth Sessions mix from me: Springing To mark the light returning, the sun rising, warmth, blossoms popping, life coming back, possibility… love. A mix of vinyl and digital spanning 30 years - deep, housey, organic, trippy, vibey, and lively. I hope it makes you move wherever you are. With gratitude to the wonderful artists, producers and labels for these creations Tracklist via the Spaceship Earth Listen on Soundcloud, Apple Podcast and Substack Let’s stay together Let’s dance. Peace and Out Dan Get full access to Becoming Crew at becomingcrew.substack.com/subscribe

We are kicking the podcast off this year with a warm spring offering from Dan and a few Willow trees up at Ghostwood Down. ‘Ghostwood Down?’ You may be wondering - where is that… what is that? Well, we welcome you friend Up into the hills surrounding Bath. There rests a magical Ghostwood - a land which was once the place of a great forest A land riddled with scars, gold dust, earnest joy and deep sorrow. On this land we are slowly nurturing a return to woodland, while honouring the place as it is now. The ghost of a wood. Hence Ghostwood. And as it is downland , well… you guessed it... Ghostwood Down. Anyway enough of my attempts to ramble lets get into the real ramble. Today’s episode is a little unusual. Unusual you may ask? Thank god I hear you say - ‘that’s why I am bloody subscribed to this podcast. Because the world… Well, the world is a little more than unusual, it’s quite frankly insane. Insanity is kind of why Dan has chosen to make this episode. The rigidness and immediacy that feels expected of us to make sense of the world around us and in us is so ludicrous that often we feel like we don’t have the words to express them. And that’s where Rambling comes in. Rambling almost has a negative connection… To ramble is to be indecisive. To ramble is to not know what you’re talking about. To ramble is not know. But, what if that’s what we need in these times? To not know? So, if you’ve read this far, go give Dan a listen - you may be surprised by how infectious the ramble can be. Rambling on: Rambling as social technology Ghostwood Down  - place of intergenerational regeneration Exhaustion of life within collapsing modernity Psychopathic war mongering leaders Tuning into Hedge Media ‘Unhoming’ - hat tip @Ece Temelkuran A politics of care and community Belonging Liminal spaces for creativity and connection Willow trees Enjoy Get full access to Becoming Crew at becomingcrew.substack.com/subscribe

I originally recorded this episode with Chris Hines, EP 17, seven years ago in 2019. I’ve decided to repost it now. This week in the UK we had the launch of the Channel 4 real life drama series - Dirty Business A three part doc-drama based on a decade-long investigation into England’s water companies, it follows the story of two unlikely citizen detectives who notice that the fish in their local river are dying and are determined to find out why. Telling the real stories of whistleblowers and victims who believe their lives have been destroyed after encountering sewage polluted water, Dirty Business is a factual drama investigating one of the biggest corporate scandals in British history. And it is well worth a watch. It also features Chris Hines (through an actor) - surfer, environmentalist, sustainability innovator who over 35 years ago co-founded environmental surf charity Surfers Against Sewage in Cornwall UK. Their work has been pivotal over the years in connecting the s**t and pollution in the British seas and rivers to the gross negligence of the privatised water companies, extractive economics and short term politics. This conversation I hosted with Chris in Dublin back in 2019 explores that journey, what was happening at that time in the early 90’s and what drove Chris and fellow founders to build out this movement despite having no real idea what they were up against and with absolutely no resources. But this is a story to inspire all of us, that if you care enough about something then go and make stuff happen. It’s worth a listen in my view because it’s more relevant today for those who are feeling outrage and fury about all manner of things around them and want to do something about it. How with no resources and getting creative and working with your community extraordinary things can and do happen. Chris is wise, humble, a true elder. Let me know what you receive if you listen and do share with others that might appreciate it LINKS A Grain of Sand Surfers Against Sewage Get full access to Becoming Crew at becomingcrew.substack.com/subscribe

In the last few years I’ve been recording DJ mixes at particular moments in the Earth cycle and putting them out on the podcast - Earth sessions - they are a way for me to mark the season, the moment in the year and how it makes me feel and how it makes me want to move through electronic and dance music. This is a new one. A live mix to honour this darker time of the year, and the darker times unfolding on Spaceship Earth. Recorded in my kitchen on a Friday night after a long walk in the woods. I wanted to start slow and ambient, to acknowledge the slower liminal space of winter and gradually pick up the pace. This was a mix of vinyl and digital - spanning 30 years of releases. From ambient electronica, early rave inspired house, breakbeat, melodic techno, tech house and some progressive bits. Respect to all the artists and producers for these sonic offerings. I hope the mix moves you in some way Movement, dancing and connection is a way through these unravelling darker times. We must stay together. Get full access to Becoming Crew at becomingcrew.substack.com/subscribe

Right then, this is our final episode of this year. But first up to say a big hearty thank you to all who have listened, shared and supported the podcast this year. To all the guests who’ve joined the rambling - respect for your time, wisdom and open-ness. And to my podcast crew who help make this a reality - Charlie Shread, Seemah Nahome-Burgess and Fin Burgess. And a massive shout out to those who subscribe with a monthly payment to this project. So to Episode 113… My guest, Sam Crosby, is an oral storyteller and myth-informed guide whose work braids together story, psyche, ancestry, eldership and the living Earth. This episode was recorded around the fire at Ghost Wood Down - two men sitting in the half-light, speaking honestly about what it is to search for meaning in a world that feels increasingly senseless. Across two hours we wandered, wondered, and returned again and again to the mythic ground beneath our feet - the place modernity keeps trying to concrete over. But there were core themes and patterns we were carrying throughout: 1. Myth as orientation, not entertainment Myth isn’t a story about long ago - it’s a technology for staying human in ambiguous, unraveling times. We kept returning to myth as a compass when the rational mind fails. 2. Eldership vs.“Oldership” A core wound: we’ve lost the adults who know how to hold the whole. Modernity extends lifespans but not wisdom.Sam goes deep into the distinction between age and elderhood - and the hunger for guidance that can hold complexity without collapsing into certainty. 3. The mythic roots of the AI moment What if the crisis with AI is not technological — it is mythic.Humanity is generating intelligence way faster than it is generating wisdom. Our conversation suggests AI as a kind of mirror, revealing our disconnection from story, meaning and long arcs of time. 4. The crisis beneath the crisis: meaninglessness What makes these times unbearable is not the data - it’s the absence of orientation. Sam repeatedly speaks to the human need for story, ritual and shared containers of meaning. 5. Rites of Passage & thresholds One of our deepest shared passions: Cultures that lack thresholds create perpetual adolescence.This is why the absence of elders is so severe — there is no one to midwife beginnings or endings. 6. Stories as living beings Sam treats stories as alive, with their own agency. This shifts storytelling from performance to participation - a relational act where story chooses the teller and carrier. 7. The danger of speed & the loss of the underworld Modernity has flattened the vertical dimensions of being -no descent, no soul work, no underworld, no mysteries. We point toward slowness, ambiguity, and unknowing as necessary conditions for true wisdom to spread. Sam is a wonderful human who speaks beautifully with great humility, courage, and imagination, and is doing really extraordinary work, especially the project on rekindling cultures of eldership, which we speak to at length here and I link to in the show notes below. LINK Sam’s work Eldership Manifesto Into the Dark from Becomin Crew- Register by 9th January Get full access to Becoming Crew at becomingcrew.substack.com/subscribe

This is a short share about a winter learning journey we are hosting for the 4th year- Into the Dark It begins on the evening of 20th January 2026, registration is open until 9th January. Into the dark invites us to enter a container over five weeks, to co-create our orientation and intentionality for the year ahead in community - human and more-than-human. It's a deep, gentle, experiential  journey.   Creating space for connection, contemplation and creative practice,  exploring parts of ourselves and the Earth, and ways of knowing that modernity doesn't allow us to attend to.  Its an invitation to actively reject the urge to accelerate into productivity and growth as the year begins . To dwell instead with attention and intention in this darker, slower time. Unfolding over 3 consecutive weeks, peaking with a threshold walk, a self paced, powerful ancient ritual on land near you with a follow up incorporation session a week later. A time to plant vital seeds for the year ahead. As the light begins to return. Into the dark is guided by Dan Burgess, Ally Kingston and Mark Sears. Full details and how to register via link  Get full access to Becoming Crew at becomingcrew.substack.com/subscribe

This Episode is a live panel recording. If you’re a regular listener you may know about a bio-regional regeneration project called We Are Avon - in the Avon River Valley in the West of England where I live. EP 98 and EP 102 have both featured the project. In the last few years I’ve been putting more intention, time and energy into projects rooted into the lands around me where I live. A big part of that is a deep knowing that the future is local. It’s how the operating system of life works on Spaceship Earth. I’ve come to learn that nature doesn’t commute. Nor does it scale exponentially. As our global civilisation with its extractive foundations rooted in a living Earth is rapidly find out. Life is inherently local. Local participation is fundamental to weaving a regenerative universe as Bucky Fuller once observed. We Are Avon is a grassroots movement for bio-regional regeneration rooted in the River Avon catchment. Our intention is to regenerate the valley ‘from the river out’, weaving a culture of care that empowers communities, farmers, creatives and wider stakeholders in becoming active stewards of land and water and participating in River Guardianship at a bio-regional scale. We have been convening community gatherings every three months to connect, share and hold space for co-creation - with our current focus on recruiting and establishing River Guardian groups along the river. For our last gathering in November I invited a panel of guests to help us zoom out and explore a wider theme of ‘listening to the river’: Intentionally making space to consider how we might collectively practice de-centering the human, tempering the urge to rush in and ‘fix’ To make time for listening, observing and sensing the more than human as an integral part of regenerative and bio-regional practice. I hosted three amazing women: Scientist, author and Explorer Dr Rosa Vásquez Espinoza, Ph.D. Writer, campaigner and river wife Meg Avon Sound Artist and Anthropologist Louise Romain All three with very different stories and approaches to listening, noticing and sensing the more than human. This is a recording of that panel, where we gathered upstairs at our friends Finisterre Bath store. Anyway I hope you enjoy this one, and receive something, and if you do please let us know, and share with someone else who might appreciate it. If you’d like to get involved with We Are Avon follow the links below LINKS We Are Avon We Are Avon Instagram We Are Avon WhatsApp Community Mrs Meg Avon Dr Rosa Vasquez Espinoza Louise Romain Into the Dark - Becoming Crew Winter Learning Adventure Meander Magazine Tjin Tjoelkler Get full access to Becoming Crew at becomingcrew.substack.com/subscribe

What if music isn’t just entertainment, but a remembering? A returning. A way back into the felt sense of being part of nature, not apart from nature. In this intuitive, playful, open and wide-ranging conversation, I sit down with Sophia Shnapp - an impact producer working with organisations like EarthPercent - the Music Industry’s Climate and Nature Foundation alongside the Wisdom Keepers Delegation and Futr Earth. Sophia works at the intersection of culture, music and systemic change but that doesn’t quite capture the essence of how she moves. She’s a pollinator. A bridge-being. A shape-shifter between worlds: From the dancefloor and the woodland, through policy rooms and prayer circles, within the music industry and the more-than-human world. Sophia is a proper Earthling,  culture lover and movement maker  She’s guided by deep purpose, and the power of music to awaken hearts, spark change, and remind us we all belong to this great big living Spaceship we call Earth. This was an insightful, honest, creative conversation that often led to us to riffing imaginatively on what could be and I really respect Sophia’s willingness to dance with complexity, nuance and contradiction. We spoke about music as something that wakes us up again, not just emotionally but somatically, in the body: How a bassline can regulate a room. How a melody can remind us we still have a heart. How a festival, a choir, or a dancefloor becomes a temporary village - teaching us something about belonging we didn’t know we were missing. Together, we explore: 🌬️ Music as a gateway into feeling, intuition and interconnection. 🌿 Nature as origin story - how childhoods shaped by land root the work we do today. 🎧 Culture as systems change - what happens when artists, activists and elders collaborate. 🔥 Fear, endings and uncertainty - and how feeling is not weakness but medicine. 🌀 Rites of passage & the 4 Ds - dance, drums, deprivation, and the “drug” of altered states ✨ Imagination as infrastructure - how new worlds begin inside conversations like this Sophia asked: What if music is one of the ways the Earth is trying to get our attention back? That question has stayed with me. Sometimes conversations I have on this podcast are like doorways and this one felt like that - a shared stepping-through into a wider field of possibility. It opened up space for imagining what could be and that in my opinion is vital exploration for these times. It’s an episode that wanders beautifully - honest, mischievous, open-hearted. I really enjoyed this one, I hope you do too if you give it a listen. And if you do please let us know what it brings up for you. And please give it a share to someone else who might appreciate it. This is how we grow together, through reciprocity and entanglement. Becoming Crew on Spaceship Earth. LINKS Sophia Shnapp Instagram Earth Percent Wisdom Keepers Delegation Into the Dark - 5 Week Winter Learning Journey from Becoming Crew Get full access to Becoming Crew at becomingcrew.substack.com/subscribe