How do we all respond to the seismic events of the US election? Specifically, how do those of us over 50 respond? (and how would the younger generations like us to respond)?

This is the question of now. It would be hard to discuss anything else, but my guest this week is uniquely placed to address these questions. As you'll hear, John Izzo was once an ordained Minister in a Presbyterian Church. Now, he's a bestselling author, speaker, and thought leader focused on social responsibility. He's a Board Member of the Elders Action Network and the Elders Climate Action group and one of the co-hosts of a podcast called The Way Forward Regenerative Podcast which is expressly aimed at people over 50 who want to explore what it means to be an elder.

I met John on that podcast back in the summer and was so impressed with his approach to things. John is a deeply thoughtful, deeply spiritual person who takes his time to look at things from all angles. He's dedicated his entire career to helping individuals and organisations discover purpose and foster meaningful change. He is absolutely committed to exploring the role of elders in creating a regenerative future. And we need this now, more than ever.

Originally we had scheduled this week's guest for a recording on the 4th of November. Clearly this wasn't going to be as constructive as a conversation held in the wake of the election, whatever the outcome. And so we rescheduled and spoke together on Thursday 7th, which gave us time to process the

John's website https://drjohnizzo.com
John's books https://drjohnizzo.com/books/
Elders Action Network https://eldersaction.org/
Elders Action Network on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/EldersActionNetwork/
Elders Action Network on YouTube https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCMAJFT3jmRlQHnM4p6Rrh7g&ved=2ahUKEwjF-Iq3ubuJAxXRVkEAHZtzH98QFnoECBgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3JK2afgUEPwxIJz-tO0ZRM
Elders Climate Action https://actionnetwork.org/groups/elders-climate-action
The Way Forward Regenerative Conversations podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-way-forward-regenerative-conversations/id1651941803

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Manda Scott

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Manda ScottIntro
Thrutopian Novelist: ANY HUMAN POWER. odcaster @AccidentalGods. Smallholder. Evolutionary economist
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Works at Self-employed
Studied at Schumacher College

If you're over 40, the world you grew up believing in no longer exists. The younger generation approaches the polycrisis with open eyes, striving to find and nurture resilience, to listen to the whispers of synchronicity and let it lead them - and us - to a world that works for all life.
Today, we're talking to Elliot Riley. Elliot is an educator, permaculture designer and practitioner working to bring wellbeing, reforestation and perennial food production into schools.

Elliot graduated during the pandemic. When he left school, he was planning to join the paratroops, but after what he describes as a 'Thunderbolt moment', he shifted tack and, despite not having the grades, was able to get a place to study history at the New College of Humanities. One pandemic and a degree later, he realised that mainstream education struggles to equip us for the challenges of a changing world. After two years upstream, studying Trauma-Informed Education and permaculture in the Dominican Republic, Elliot returned to his hometown, where he now works at The Saint Leonard’s Academy, leading a wellbeing programme called Future Growth, which supports students whilst transforming the community’s waste into a regenerative food forest. Through an initiative called OFFSET, Elliot’s working to spread the mission further.

Elliot's Patreon Page for OFFSET https://www.patreon.com/offsetfoodforests/about/

Elliot's instagram account for OFFSET food forest: https://www.instagram.com/offset_food_forests/

The One World Orchestra's first single https://open.spotify.com/album/62UZvSNV1gtBXdqLQLdfrw?si=WIdwzar_RvivoA-P3dBiA

The Human Hive https://www.thehumanhive.org/our-story
Vaughan Wilkins and links to his PhD thesis on the Zoochosis of humanity https://www.vaughanwilkins.com/thesis

Accidental Gods Membership https://accidentalgods.life/enrol/

How does an understanding of what makes dogs tick, help us to understand ourselves and our place in the world? What does it take to feel safe - as a human, or as a dog (or cat, or horse, or... anything)? And how can we help ourselves and each other find regulation in a VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous)?

Andrew Hale is a Certified Animal Behaviourist who specialises in working complex behaviour cases, especially those involving 'Reactivity and Aggression.' Look around you at the world. Look at the news. What two words best describe the nature of our local, national and geo-political processes?

Andrew is one of those remarkable people committed to a Dog Centred Care approach, working with empathy and compassion to understand why any being is behaving in this way. His focus is on dogs, but what we're learning - and the reason I have invited Andrew onto the podcast - is that all the theories of secure or ruptured attachment, of the need for autonomy, agency, confidence and safety, apply in dogs as much as they do in people -or indeed, any sentient being.

This conversation dives deep into trauma (or at least, trauma responses), our capacity for secure attachment in the modern world, our parenting skills, our skills as people who choose to share our lives with other animals - and ultimately, our skills in helping ourselves cope with a culture that's increasingly going off the rails. It's not about to get any better, either. So the more we can find our own stability, the more we can help others. Which is what this episode is all about. Relax, get yourself a cup of tea and let's explore what really makes us tick.

Dog Centered Care https://dogcc.org/
Dog Centered Care TV on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DogCentredCare/videos
Dog Centered Care Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/dogcc

Candace Pert Molecules of Emotion https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/molecules-of-emotion-why-you-feel-the-way-you-feel-candace-pert/355476
Attachment and Bonding in dogs and people https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4348122/

How can we achieve total systemic change? And are there politicians anywhere who are ready to make it happen (in a way that supports the continuation of complex life on this planet, not the scorched-earth destruction of the right)?

The short answer is that yes, there are people deeply embedded in politics who know how dire things are and that we need urgent change. One of these is Natale Bennett, former Green Party leader and now Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle, one of two Green Party members of the UK’s House of Lords.

She is also the author of the book Change Everything: How We Can Rethink, Repair and Rebuild Society, which was published by UnBound in 2024.

Her thesis is that what has been called political common sense over recent decades—that greed is good, inequality doesn’t matter and we can keep treating the planet as a mine and a dumping ground—has been a recipe for disaster. The ideology of neoliberalism has delivered poverty and destruction, with a few benefiting while the rest of us pay. We need urgent change - and we have the routes to do it. Many ideas and arguments in this book have been inspired by the people she has met around the UK. Every idea in it has been road-tested, honed by interaction. We can only get through this dangerous stage by relying on the collective ingenuity, talents and creativity of millions of people, all empowered to “do politics”. This book aims to synthesise the voices Natalie has heard and read –and encourage them to step forward. They collectively represent true common sense.

That’s why she chose to publish it with Unbound using crowdfunding. You can order it through them, or it should be in your local bookstore.
YouTube Introduction to Natalie's book https://youtu.be/US7EaCHR0Zs

Other links of things we mentioned

Planetary Health Checks https://www.planetaryhealthcheck.org/
Florida Congressional Race - details of where you can support this are in the blog https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/10/15/2275160/-Hard-evidence-that-having-a-candidate-in-every-district-makes-a-big-difference
The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-dawn-of-everything-a-new-history-of-humanity-david-graeber/5715204?ean=9780141991061
Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/bullshit-jobs-the-rise-of-pointless-work-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-david-graeber/2523934?ean=9780141983479
Christian Felber's book, also called Change Everything, exploring the Economy for the Common Good https://christian-felber.at/en/books/change-everything/

We know we need to shift from our Trauma Culture to a resilient, connected Initiation Culture where we can open our heart-minds to the Web of Life, ask 'What do you Want of Me?' and respond to the answers in realtime, with flexibility, authenticity and a grounded awareness of our place in the huge complex system of the More than Human World.

Knowing this, and being able to do it are two different things. But it's possible, and our guest this week is someone who walks this path with enormous grace and huge integrity.

Cynthia Jurs met her root teacher, Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in the early 1980s, and in 1994 received his transmission of Dharmacharya, becoming a teacher in his tradition, the Order of Interbeing. In 1990 she traveled to a remote cave, 13,000 feet up in the mountains of Nepal to meet the 106-year-old Lama Kushok Mangden Rinpoche, from whom she received an assignment - she was to engage with an ancient tradition of Earth Treasure Vases - that's our English transliteration. The actual translation is 'vessels giving life-essence to the earth'. And so she did. She received these small pottery vessels and has spent the past 34 years making pilgrimages around the world to engage in sacred practice with local communities, gathering prayers and whatever is sacred to the people of the land she is in, as an offering to be interred with these vessels in the earth. There have been three generations of vases, and there may be a fourth so that in the end, there are 108 of them. The practice is still on-going and engages people all around the world. In 2018 she was given the honorary title of Lama at Tolu Tharling Gompa in Nepal by Ngawang Tsultrim Zangpo Rinpoche.

She has written of her experiences in a book, 'Summoned by the Earth: Becoming a Holy Vessel for Healing our World,' and if you're interested at all in how we can connect with the web of life, I absolutely encourage you to read it.

These days, inspired by her years of service and connection with others who care, Cynthia is forging a new path of dharma in service to Gaia—a path deeply rooted in the feminine, honouring indigenous cultures, and devoted to collective awakening. If you want to join her, Cynthia leads meditations, retreats, courses, and pilgrimages to support the emergence of a global community of engaged and embodied sacred activists.

You can find her offerings and join the global healing community at: www.GaiaMandala.net

and

there is more about her book at https://www.summonedbytheearth.org/

Her book is here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/summoned-by-the-earth-becoming-a-holy-vessel-for-healing-our-world-cynthia-jurs/7556979?ean=9781632261328

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

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

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

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

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