THE SPACESHIP EARTH PODCAST Dan Burgess

Originally released in June 2022, I’m rebroadcasting for Earth Day Episode 60 with Dr Stephan Harding - Holistic Scientist, Deep Ecologist, Author and Co-founder of Schumacher College who was mentored by the scientist James Lovelock - responsible for the Gaia Theory Hypothesis.
Earth Day began in 1970 the year before I was born, and here we are 54 years later experiencing the accelerated unravelling of our Earth’s System, essentially from a perception problem, a relationship problem, a separation crisis.
Capitalist Modernity has failed to understand or accept that the Earth is alive, an ongoing complex, mysterious entanglement of intelligent living relationships which have created the conditions for life to emerge, including human life.
This is Gaia. A way of seeing the Earth that humans throughout the majority of our time as a species on this planet have always known.
The Earth and all life on it is sentient, animate and sacred.
Decades of destructive and extractive ways of being in relationship with the Earth means we’re facing into the consequences of that in profound ways now, how quickly can we wake up at scale and re-learn to see the Earth as alive ?
What Stephan would call Gaian consciousness…
“So lets call it a Gaian consciousness. It’s gradually taking root inside people, people are waking-up to it more and more. But it’s slow. Waking up is far slower than the rate of destruction. And what we need now is the rate of waking-up to overtake the rate of destruction. And the waking-up has got to happen on a massive scale. But I don’t know how that is going to happen.
The positive side is that cultural revolutions can happen very quickly. Revolutions in consciousness can happen very quickly. This one has got to happen quicker than any other, and happen fast and on a global scale. And it has got to transcend national boundaries, political boundaries, all the sorts of boundaries that we humans have erected between ourselves, gender boundaries, all those boundaries they have got to fall down. And we all have to unify to protect our very own planet, for her own sake and our sake and the sake of all beings. Is that going to happen?”
In this episode we explore
- Who is Gaia and what’s her history? 
- James Lovelock independent scientist, mentor and Gaia Theory Hypothesis
- 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 time, for the sake of all life
- 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?
- Finding your Gaia place
I hope you enjoy this conversation.



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Something a bit different this week from the deeper more than human dive we’ve been on in the last few episodes.
I’m in conversation with Matthew Barr of Adventure Sport Podcast Looking Sideways
Matt has released nearly 250 episodes on his podcast with some of the biggest, humblest and most interesting names in Surfing, Snowboarding, Skateboarding and related pursuits.
Many of the conversations Matt hosts explore the big challenges of our time through the lens of these sports, experiences and communities.
Aside from being a fan of the pod I wanted to get Matt on for a few reasons:
* I’m a life long trail runner and a keen surfer  - both of these pursuits have kept my awe for the living Earth alive and my humility in check - as a little human-being on a vast, powerful, complex, intelligent more than human planet .
* I’m always curious about adventure sport and the obvious relationship with our living Earth that offers potential not just for connection, but protection, activism, regeneration and stewarding from within these communities, if they could be more widely mobilised.
* I really appreciate how Matt digs into the multiple tensions and issues we are facing today from climate and ecological breakdown, to structural racism, to gender rights and much more - he explores them, through the stories of some amazing humans that he hosts.
* Like this podcast tries to do, Matt creates space to explore the complexities, nuance and difficult things we must all learn to face into, the uncomfortable conversations we need to learn to welcome if we’re to find ways through these crazy times into more peaceful, co-operative ways of being, between humans and all life on this Earth.
* Podcasting can be an extraordinary medium for learning and unlearning which is what keeps me going with this podcast and what I learn in this conversation drives Matt to continue with his.
We explore:
* The need for more spaces for true dialogue to help us move through the stuck binary, divisiveness of modern culture and media.
* How so many tensions are often based on poor information and limited understanding, especially when it comes to our relationship with a complex living planet.
* The elephant in the room when it comes to the meta crisis - ‘the spell of Capitalism’ - and our collective inability to imagine anything different.
* The impacts of a deeply commoditised, extractive and often entitled culture on our personal sense of responsibility to look beyond ‘nature as transaction’, and act as stewards, protectors and active participants in change.
* ‘The Announcement’ - a 3 part audio documentary that Matt is creating with Patagonia based on their recent decision to ‘convert all the wealth Patagonia creates to protect the source of all wealth - the Earth.’
* This is also a conversation from two ‘Gen-X’ middle-aged white men about the pursuit of the podcasting medium, the role for longer form content, the challenges of pervasive technology and social media platforms on our attention, and how to be of service in these unravelling times.
As Matt put it:
“We were both born in the analogue era and we’ll die in the AI era”.
I hope you enjoy, please share if you do and let us know how this lands for you in the comments
Links
Looking Sideways Website
Looking Sideways Substack
Instagram
Patagonia Announcement


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In this episode I’m in conversation with Natasha Lythgoe, Vision Quest guide, retreat leader and mentor, who’s work and approach has been profoundly shaped by her life as an artist and through her buddhist practice.
Natasha works with mind, body, psyche/soul and mystery, sharing the skills that have been shared with her over the last twenty five years of practice.
I’ve been following Natasha’s work since we trained together as nature guides on Chris Salisbury’s inaugural Call of the Wild program 11 years ago and was excited to invite her onto the podcast this year.
This is a conversation which explores the messy work of integration or incorporation as Natasha prefers.
It’s about the work we must all do if we’re serious about paradigm shifts, letting go of destructive behaviours that no longer serve us,  and becoming the change we seek, especially following rites of passage, threshold work or peak experience.
This is a conversation which invites us to explore different intelligences within us and around us.
Especially our own body intelligence, learning its language and clock which defies the very paradigms of extractivism and capitalism.
We explore
* Natasha’s journey as an artist, her buddhist practice and her connection back to the land and a wilder intelligence.
* How do we begin to trust the messy, wild , aliveness inside us and around us in contrast to the linear, rational, limited ways of ‘making sense’ in modernity.
* How to learn to trust different ways of knowing to help us navigate these times. Ways which are not always comfortable and clear.
* Somatics and the body - this episode is a bit different, in that it features a very spontaneous co-created somatic practice which Natasha offered me as we were in mid conversation.
So I invite you to follow along when Natasha guides the body intelligence practice - see it as a playful sensory exploration. 
Christina Figures said recently:
“Systemic transformation is deeply personal. “
I think this episode is touching on that.
It invites us into the uncomfortable, messy and I’d suggest most beautiful work, which doesn’t fit neatly into the commercialisation of  peak experience, spiritual transformation and purpose/leadership work.
Learning to lean into your authentic purpose, with a process and journey which is often being guided by wilder, unpredictable, more feral, more than human life forces. 
Which I think is really the invitation of becoming crew.
As Bayo Akomolafe once said to me:
“May your road be rough “
I hope you enjoy this conversation.
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We are planning an On-Land Wilderness Solo with Natasha and Becoming Crew guides with ongoing incorporation 20-22nd of September.
If you’d like to register interest mail us: hello@becomingcrew.com
Links
The Art of Rewilding
Natasha Lythgoe Instagram
Becoming Crew - The Remix
Play Out Track
Will Flisk - Long Pig


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In this episode I’m in conversation with Vision Quest guide David Wendl-Berry.
David trained as a wilderness guide in the 1980’s at the School of Lost Borders in California, under the guidance of Steven Foster and Meredith Little – pioneers who first brought the Vision Quest into Western culture.
David brought this Vision Quest approach back to the UK and has been guiding people through this powerful process for 32 years on these lands.
This approach to Vision Quest involves:
Several months of preparation.
10 days out on a wild landscape.
4 days and 4 nights of those alone, fasting.
2 days of returning and story sharing with a community of fellow questers and guides
And one year of integration or ‘cooking’ as David calls it.
In July 2023 David and his fellow guide Jen Gold guided me through my first Vision Quest.
The experience for me was wild, profound, challenging, mysterious and is definitely still ‘cooking’ 9 months on.
The Vision Quest is a rites of passage that was completely missing from my life.
The tragic absence of rites of passage in our culture of modernity, along with the deeply troubled times we are facing into, compelled me to sit down and record a conversation with David.
This episode is I think an intriguing sharing of David’s fascinating story of how he came to dedicate his entire life to guiding people through this extraordinary journey of Vision Quest.
And full of insights and learnings from supporting hundreds and hundreds of people from all walks of life through this rites of passage.
This is beautiful and vital work for these times for sure.
And David has served and given so much to this practice on these Islands.
“For over three decades David Wendl-Berry has been at the wildest edge of rites-of-passage work in the U.K. No one else working today has the breadth of experience and profound wisdom David holds in this area. His heart and canniness cut through all racial and social barriers; his humour and guts have helped facilitate hundreds of men and women through this delicate process of soul-awakening. This man is a national treasure and hugely gifted.”
Martin Shaw- Mythologist, storyteller and author
We explore:
The context we find ourselves in today and how much of this mess was predicted 30 years ago by the Medicine Men David encountered.
David’s journey into Vision Quest following a chance meeting in the 1980’s with Sun Bear, a Native American Medicine Man which ended up changing his life direction.
His first Vision Quest experience.
His journey from apprentice to guide.
Surrendering yourself to the ‘Spirit of the Quest’, to trust that the ‘medicine’ you really need is not up to you.
Rites of passage, becoming adult and finding our true place in serving the wider communities of life.
I really hope you enjoy this episode.
Let us know in the comments what it brings up for you.
And please share it to someone else if it speaks to you.
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If you’re interested in a guided overnight Wilderness Solo with ongoing integration from Becoming Crew, we are now planning for September in the UK.
Please mail us: hello@becomingcrew.com
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Links:
David Wendl-Berry Website
The Remix 6 month action learning course from Becoming Crew
School of Lost Borders


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In this episode I’m in conversation with Sam Lee.
Sam is a Mercury Music Award nominated folk singer, storyteller, song collector, climate and nature activist, conservationist, community builder and all round purveyor of life-centric vibes.
Oh and he sings with Nightingales too.
Sam is an inspiring and humble human, weaving so many beautiful threads through his work in service to life on this planet.
His 4th album ‘Songdreaming’ is about to be released, which is the catalyst of this conversation.
This is a vital, honest, open, expansive and playful conversation which I loved hosting.
We explore:
* Living, creating, working, participating and trying to stay well in decaying and collapsing systems.
* Good mischief and (h)edge living as an antidote to a constructed world that makes less and less sense.
* The interconnectedness of the collapse in nature, species decline and the separation and severing of our modern culture from place, story and land based communities.
* The potential for music and song as connectors, portals and maps to a living world full of story and intelligence in these times.
* Song collecting, keeping intergenerational stories alive and the power of folk song to connect us back and forwards to the places, landscapes and living world around us.
* Living in the entanglement of grief, love, loss, despair, joy and possibility of these times.
* The emergence of the album ‘Songdreaming’ and its rootedness in nature and a world that is alive.
The episode features music from the new album.
(details and links in show notes)
I loved this conversation with Sam, I hope you will too.
Support Sam's music and performances if you can, you are in for a treat.
(via links in show notes)
Let us know in the comments what it brings up for you.
And please share it to someone else if it speaks to you.



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Welcome to this first full episode kicking off 2024.
After a ramble from me reflecting on our break and the podcast intentions for this year - I’m in conversation with Dr Rosalind Watts someone who I think personifies the story of becoming crew on Spaceship Earth in 2024.
Ros is a clinical psychologist by trade, a mother and lover of our living world.
Her work as the clinical lead for Imperial College London's Psilocybin trials has made her one of the most prominent voices and minds in the field of psychedelic research.
She has been named as one of the 50 most influential people in psychedelics as well as one of the top women shaping the future of psychedelics.
What sets Ros apart is her focus on integration, harm reduction and inclusion in the psychedelic space.
And the tools and structures that she's been building to cultivate connectedness after psychedelic experiences in communities of practice - are finding inspiration for their design from the natural world.
Her key learning has been that safe and effective use of psychedelics requires substantial integration support within communities of practice.
Crews, basically.
Ros co-founded the UK's first psychedelic integration community, ACER, which stands for Accept, Connect, Embody, Restore, where participants follow a year long process in community to connect more deeply to self, others and the natural world.
This is not an episode about psychedelics.
Ros has shared her journey into psychedelics in detail on other podcasts.
Psychedelics are showing extraordinary benefits in guided therapies in supporting humans through a whole spectrum of traumas and suffering (as plant medicines have done for millenia) - but, when we come through therapy we are ejected back into what is if we’re honest, a profoundly unwell culture.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
Jiddu Krishnamurti
So maybe a question worth exploring is how do cultures heal themselves?
And this is the work Ros is dedicating her time and life to.
We spent time exploring this moment in time the beginning of 2024, the context we find ourselves in, how her learnings from years of research are shaping the direction of her work this year with particular attention on communities, place based psychedelic and healing infrastructure and trees, lots of talk about the wisdom of trees.
This is a conversation about:
The potential in human communities to care for each other,
To create spaces for connection and healing,
Acceptance of our individual diversity and suffering
Deepening our relationships with the more that human world.
Not as a nice to have but as an essential part of weaving life-centric cultures of place.
Cultures with strong resilient roots, able to face into the troubles and challenges coming down the line as the structures, systems and stories of modernity unravel.
I loved this conversation with Ros, I hope you will too.
Let us know in the comments what it brings up for you.
And please share it to someone else if it speaks to you.
Links
Acer Integration Website
@DrRosalindWatts
@acerintegration



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