Upstream - Bonus The Turn Of The Year Or A Solstice Celebration W Manda Scott And Nathalie Nahai

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Happy Holidays! In this annual tradition, Della is joined by two fellow podcast hosts to reflect on insights and questions from the past year and share visions for the year ahead. They discuss how to not get stuck in embitterment, concerns and questions about AI, and where they are currently finding hope in these dark times.  Manda Scott is a novelist, smallholder, and host of the Accidental Gods podcast, which showcases individuals and organizations at the emerging edge of our world to set the foundation for a future we'd be proud to leave to the generations that come after us. Manda's latest novel, Any Human Power, is out now and available here.  Nathalie Nahai is a behavior science advisor, author and host of the podcast The Hive, which focuses on psychology, technology, and human behavior. Nathalie is the author of Webs Of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion and is also the founder of Flourishing Futures Salon, a project that offers curated gastronomical gatherings that explore how we can thrive in times of turbulence and change. One of Della's offerings in the new year is a course she designed about how to cultivate regenerative livelihoods. She created this course with insights that she has found most helpful in bringing Upstream theories and ideas into people's lives as a Right Livelihood coach. Whether you are in a livelihood transition, want to be in community with others trying to find meaningful work, or you just want to know more about work as a vehicle for post capitalist systems change, this course is a great fit. It includes live sessions, engaging module materials and activities including Upstream episodes, and a lively discussion forum to bring the material to life. Click here to learn more and to register and use "FRIENDS-20" for 20% off the course fee. Thank you to the Accidental Gods team for editing this episode. Upstream is entirely listener funded. No ads, no promotions, no grants—just Patreon subscriptions and listener donations. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. Subscribe to our Patreon for bi-weekly bonus episodes, access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, and for Upstream stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. Through your support you'll be helping us keep Upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project going—socialist political education podcasts are not easy to fund so thank you in advance for the crucial support. patreon.com/upstreampodcast For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

A quick announcement before we get started with today's episode. Next year, from January to April of 2026, Della will be offering a course to support you in cultivating a more regenerative livelihood. She created this course with insights that she found most helpful in bringing upstream theories and ideas to life. Whether you're in a livelihood transition, want to be in community with others trying to find meaningful work, or you just want to know more about work as a vehicle for post-capitalist systems change, this course is a great fit.

It includes live sessions, module materials and activities, and a lively discussion forum. The link to learn more and to register for cultivating regenerative livelihoods is in the show notes. And please use Friends dash 20 for 20% off the course fee. You're listening to Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. A show about political economy and society that invites you to unlearn everything that you thought you knew about the world around you. I'm Robert Raymond.

And I'm Della Duncan. Happy holidays. In this annual tradition, Della is joined by two fellow podcast hosts to reflect on the past year and set some intentions for the year ahead. Manda Scott is a novelist, teacher, and the host of the Accidental Gods podcast. And Natalie Nahai is a painter, folk singer, speaker, author, and host of the podcast, The Hive. And before we get started, Upstream is entirely listener funded. No ads, no promotions, no grants, just Patreon subscriptions and listener donations. We could not keep this project going without your support.

Subscribe to our Patreon for bi-weekly bonus episodes, access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, and for stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. Through your support, you'll be helping us keep upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project going. Socialist Political Education podcasts are not easy to fund, so thank you in advance for the crucial support. And now, here's Della in conversation with Manda Scott and Natalie Nehai. Well, welcome Manda, Della. Welcome listeners. We are back here for the fifth year running for our cherished tradition of having this winter solstice conversation. And it's been a very full year for all three of us, and I'm sure for many of you listening. So I'll give a brief sense of who I am

and some highlights for this year. And then Mandar and Delal I'll come to you and then we'll dive into a conversation looking at the questions that are most alive for us. So those of you who already know me, I'm Natalie Nahai. I am someone who works at the intersection of persuasive technology, human behaviour, the future of society and business. I'm a fine artist, a painter, I'm a folk musician, and I'm increasingly interested in how we can ask

more beautiful questions about what it means to flourish in an age of AI and automation when we're crashing through planetary boundaries and we really need to do everything that we can to live and deploy the resources is available to us in the service to the flourishing of life. So that's kind of a potted introduction. I'm also an author and I do other things.

But that's kind of a brief intro. Quite an important answer, actually. I think you should maybe lean into that one a little bit more. Thanks, Amanda. Says the Budaka dreaming author and all the extraordinary work that you do. So highlights for this year, I've actually taken a little step back from the podcast because so much else has been happening. I've been very interested in keeping my thinking.

finger on the pulse of hype and risk and rewards and developments around AI and what it means on a societal level when certain privileged few run the narrative around it being a panacea and a cural when it's extracting precious, dwindling freshwater supplies. It costs a huge amount of human labour, cognition. It has lots and lots of risks attached to it. And to try and cultivate spaces in which we can ask more sober questions that are wiser, more discerning, more analytical about using these technologies while also holding space for deepening my shamanic practice, my animist kind of nature-related practices and the art and the music, which all seem to be converging vibrantly together at a point when, if we're asking ourselves about how technologies can

reproduce and automate much of those activities that we hold dear as humans, then what does it mean to be human? And I find for myself at least that one of the big themes and the highlights of this year, which has actually been a thread woven throughout many different things, has been this question of how do we pursue healing and beauty and connection and meaning and agency collectively in our plurality when faced with such a prevailing narrative around. AI. So, there we go. Introduction for me. So Amanda, do you want to perhaps introduce yourself and talk about some of your highlights or threads of the year? Thank you. Yes. So for those not familiar, I'm host of the Accidental Gods podcast. The aim of which has been and remains to highlight people who are at

the emergent edge of into becoming. I say at the beginning and I absolutely believe that there is still time to turn the bus that is humanity from the edge of the cliff of oblivion, that window is narrowing and it's going to take all of us working together. And part of the reason we're not working together yet is that we don't have the narratives, we don't have the stories of how the future could be if it was different than it is. So this year has been really a year for me of intense thinking about Thrutopia. This time last year I was putting together a couple of grant applications. One of those I was asking, so I am a shamanic practitioner. I teach Dreamy Awake. It's been the core of my life for way over half my life now, 40, 50 years. And asking what you wanted me of the web of life and trying to

respond and offering myself in service to life is what I'm here to do. And in the process of that, I used to be a novelist, as you mentioned. I am still a novelist. But the last novel came and is out. by the time one comes out, I'm at least halfway of not three quarters of the way through the next one, and I'm not. And so I was asking, asking what do you want? And there was a gap, one of those fertile voids that's really scary. And then you need to be filling in these grant applications. You do what?

Pardon? And so I did. And we didn't get the first one, and we did get the second one, which is absolutely reeking, scary. It's really easy crafting. You've got 2,000 words of A4, and you just need to make it sound really. really plausible and that we have to make it happen. Oh. So the outline is to change the hegemonic narrative on page, stage and screen. That's the headline of what we're doing, me and how Rob Hopkins working together. And it feels increasingly relevant and increasingly

essential that we find the stories that are not dystopic because where we put our attention is where we get to. And I also don't think there's a lot of dystopian survivalist stuff around. And I don't think there will be bands of plucky humans. If the ecosphere goes down, we're going down with it. I don't care how many cans of beans you've got stashed. No one survives 3% oxygen. And everyone's focused on the CO2, and nobody else other than me seems to be really concerned

about the fact that the oceans produce most of our oxygen. And if we just take the seas and turn them into one big dead zone, the definition of a dead zone is it's anoxic. No oxygen. and at the same time we're simultaneously turning the forests into net CO2 emitters instead of net CO2 sinks and when they're CO2 sinks they're producing oxygen. So we are deoxygenating our atmosphere quite effectively and quite fast by accident. So how do we create the stories of a different world and the different world has to be one

where we have done the inner work where one of the things that really landed for me this year, I did a podcast with Bob Faulkner, who's an independent. Internal Family Systems, practitioner who wrote the book, The Others Within Us. And as part of the research for that, I was listening to him, and he quoted Dick Schwartz, who is the founder of IFS therapy, saying almost all of us, almost all of the time, are walking around in the state of internal civil war. And whoever I'm talking to, that lands. Everybody recognizes that in themselves, wherever they are on the spectrum. And that hooked into another conversation with Bill Plotkin, who is of the opinion that our culture, that any human being goes from childhood through adolescence to adulthood to elderly, there are two sections within each, and our culture, all of us, pretty much, are locked in early adolescence,

and we no longer have the capacity to move into late adolescence, which is finding what we're for and then into adulthood, which is being what we're for, and then into adulthood, which is seeing what we've been, and helping the new generations to come through. And this is part of the reason I think that AI is such a catastrophe is it's being driven by the early adolescent egos that are trying to prove how smart they are. And essentially, I had a dream last night and the cadence over and over in the dream was, none of them really wants to be God emperor for all time, but they're afraid that if they're not, the others will be and they do not want to be subject to the others. And that's driving things that should not be happening. I am in the process of reading.

If anyone builds it, everyone dies. And it's terrifying. So there's all of that. And welling up through the middle is the understanding that the world is changing so fast. And that more people than ever are understanding that we do need to do the inner work. We need at least to declare an internal truth.

We need to make the connections with other people that actually work. And we need to make the connections with the web of life so that all of us can have. ask what you want of me and that we could become as a species, self-conscious nodes in the web of life, being creative, doing the amazing biomimicry. I did a podcast with Michael Paul in his book is biomimicry in architecture, third edition. And it's huge and it's packed with color pictures and it's completely inspiring of what we could do, what we can do if we listen to the web

of life and then go, oh, yeah, you could do that. We could make a 300-meter version of that. Where would you like us to put it? But not, I think this is where we should put it. Where does the web need it to be? So I feel oddly hopeful and aware that we are still in the bus and the old straight white men still have their fossilised fingers clumped on the wheel and they are still stumpy on the gas and it's really going to be hard to turn it from the edge of the cliff, but not impossible. Oh, and I got a new puppy this year. Well, that makes me also feel very sleep deprived but also extremely happy. Over to Della. Thank you and happy solstice to you both and everyone listening. I'm Della Z. Duncan and I am beaming in from San Francisco, California. And I would say the

mythopoetic identity that I hold right now to give a nod to Bill Plotkin is a renegade economist. And of course that is in appreciation for Kate Rayworth, who is called a renegate economists. So I still hold that. And yet there are many plants in my livelihood garden. The biggest one from this year is becoming a mother. So that's my new plant and really savoring and enjoying that. And other things are hosting, co-hosting the upstream podcast with Robert Raymond. And write livelihood coach teaching financial permaculture, post-capitalist consulting, and we're with Dr. Fritjof Capra on teaching the system's view of life. And this year in review for the podcast, well, one big thing for me personally has been a lot of passing away of mentors and

teachers. So last year we had Dr. Stephan Harding, who was my teacher but also Monda's teacher, and he passed away. And then this year, Joanna Macy and Dr. Haventot, who, are both folks that I've gotten to have on the podcast, but just so much more depth and inspiration and understanding has come from those beings. So that's definitely been a real theme of this year is like what happens when our elders and our mentors and our teachers pass and just contemplating and reflecting and appreciating their wisdom and then, you know, stepping into, you know, what is next? How do we take their work? Right. As we're given a bit, a branch, make a bud, when we're given a bud, make a flower when we're given a,

a flower make a fruit. So continuing on with their legacies. So for this year for the podcast, you know, I started with a conversation with Janus Varofocus on techno feudalism. So that was pretty heavy. And then I kind of more took a step back. So I'm just appreciating Robert for doing many of the episodes, most of the episodes for this year. And we really had some major themes of looking at imperialism and connecting it with capitalism and also doing series on different places. So there's actually been a lot of unlearning, I think, for both of us. So we did a whole series on China, on Venezuela, we're doing one on Mexico. We have an ongoing series on Palestine. So we just have all these series where we're getting to just go deeper and deeper into particular

places and themes. One that I've gotten to do is post-capitalist parenting. So that's been quite fun, is getting to speak with people either who are parents or who think about the birth process. I spoke with someone who's a midwife or just parenting and the systems that uphold parenting or make parenting challenging. And also visioning for a post-capitalist parenting way. And then I did get to interview Rob Hopkins. So you mentioned Rob, Amanda. So that was wonderful to talk about how we fall in love with the future. Timothy Parake talking about degrowth, just returning to degrowth, that was fun.

Andrew Fanning talking about donut economics 3.0, just the updated donut. That's been fun, as well as a conversation with Savannah from All Power Books on Marxism for the masses. So I would say one of the main themes has been, we used to be a podcast that we said, unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics, and you don't hate. Mondays, you hate capitalism. And we've kind of expanded, and even in our intro, to more about political economy. So that's been an interesting theme. And also really deepening our focus and also emphasis on the global South and just the whole planet as a whole instead of being U.S. focus, because that can be quite easy to do is to really focus on what's happening in the United States.

So those have been some themes for this year. And yeah, really grateful to. to be in conversation with you. So with that, I'll pass back to you, Natalie. All right. So what we often touch upon is this question of what's most alive for you right now. Is there a question, a theme? And so I don't know, maybe Della, would you like to weave back in what question is most alive for you at the moment? Yes, I would love that. So one thing I did recently was I revisited the book Women Who Run With Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. And I was reflecting that I think I gave that book to you both as a gift one year in our gift giving. And so it was interesting to just revisit it. It's just such a gym. All of her work is so powerful. And I was reminded of a

quote that struck me the first time I read it and again the second one. And the quote is, there is a time in our lives, usually in midlife, when a woman has to make a decision, possibly the most important psychic decision of her future life, and that is whether to be bitter or not. And this really struck me. And she goes on to say, you know, like a woman, but I would say all humans, go through such trials and tribulations, such disappointment, such heartbreak, such, you know, challenges in life. And I certainly feel this, but I see it in others, that you do come to a point where you're like, I could be resentful and bitter.

And this is not just in our interpersonal relationships, although it very much is, but also in our systems, in our activism, in our livelihoods. And so this is the question alive for me is how do we honor our emotions, our frustration, our anger, our grief? how do we honor those emotions and yet not turn to coldness or embitterment or resentment and instead continue to as Joanna Macy would say turn towards life. And so for me where I've come, and I think the word from 2026 for me is going to be kindness. I'm just really like meditating and focusing on this word kindness, being kind to myself, to my body, to my emotions.

to my partner, to my family, to my community, to others, to my work, to my time. So just kindness is something that I'm really exploring. But I'm curious for you both if that has come about for you, this choice point between being rightfully indignant or embittered or turning towards life. And if so, how do you continue to turn towards loving kindness, compassion and connection. I had a series of curious synchronicities that came about this year that resulted in my attending a beautiful retreat called Artist Warrior Meditator at the Zen Buddhist Monastery

called Plum Village, which was established by a Tick-Nat-Han many years ago. And I don't know why I felt the urge to go. I've never been to a monastery, Zen Buddhist or otherwise in my life. and I ended up going in just early summer and took all my devices away from myself, turned everything off and had the most profound experience of reconnection and also voice, which might sound like a curious thing, but thinking about kindness and thinking about bitterness

versus embracing life, I've come to realize, and I don't know how it is for you, you both, I'd be curious to get your sense on this, that there is something about finding one's voice, whether through song or speech or writing, where any sorrows that you hold can be found in the way that we reach for the ways that we express ourselves. And so for me, that's always been song. And I found through the course of this week just this release of joy but also deep grief and orientation towards song and music is something which allows us to move out of this inner conflict.

You were talking about that inner civil war, Mandar. And I think there's something about this quality of being embodied, singing together, doesn't mean you have to be in tune or out, like it doesn't matter, where you are all in this act temporally, spatially, in an embodied way, in service to this song that you create together. that can just move you into a completely different space where that sense of interbecoming or into being, that sense of compassion, that sense of being at once part of this river that flows

that is never the same but always moving, it is a phenomenal experience. And we ended up singing a group of us kind of by accident, this mantra, and I'm not someone who's particularly oriented towards mantras, for 40 minutes. And as we sang, the room just shifted, people sobbed, people were transported. And it's so curious that there are so many ways in this world from different traditions to find these rivers of connection, belonging, transcendence, embodiment,

rootedness, all of these things all at once to experience this panoply of horror, beauty, grief, joy, delight, eros, death held within a sound that brings you into contact with that means you don't have to cut bits off, you don't have to quiet and conflicting voices, they can all be held in this space. And it was such a profound experience for me. And since then, I've ended up going on to go back into the recording studio and start recording this album. I have a lot of heartbreak around music. And so it was beautiful to revisit that. But I think there's something around these practices that outside of the theory and the reading and the kind of shouldering our conflicts and leaning towards integration, that there are simple practices in

community that we can engage in that can allow all of these things just to drop and not for one person to hold, but for all of us to collectively hold each other. Yeah, so I think that's kind of what I have to share on that. I don't know what either of you would like to reflect on or I spent some time in Norfolk and September. I was invited. to a retreat by an animist group. And we were basically animist systems thinkers, which is quite a niche group of people. But I think there were 54 of us,

and there were two brothers from Plum Village there. So it was the first time I had engaged deeply in ceremonial space. And it was so beautiful and so moving. And so affirming of the fact that there are a lot of people thinking, in these ways. It was one of those places where the conversations started, where most of my conversations sometimes get to and then end. And we could take all of the baselines for granted, and then we're okay, so where do we go and how do we get here? What is the systems change? What does it feel like? What is its granularity? And what are examples in your life? It was genuinely, heartbreakingly

amazing and heart-openingly amazing. And so to Della's question, I think this is such an interesting thing because I have felt catastrophic grief at what's happening in the world and despair and watching some of the politics around the world and having a sense that I think we've spoken about or I've spoken about before in this podcast that there's that which is holding and in service to life energetically and there's that which is the opposite and that these are feeling increasingly alive the two of them and increasingly dropping the masks, dropping the shields, stopping the pretends. So nobody can pretend that the current system is either fit for purpose or is in any way rooted in anything that's valuable for anybody except the tiny fraction of people at the top.

And not even for them, but they're at least harvesting all of value. And so bitterness hasn't really arisen this I'm aware of. And I'm looking inside and thinking maybe I just don't see it, maybe the bitter parts are just, you know, hiding under the carpet somewhere. I made a commitment at the winter solstice last year, really to commit every day in service to life. So I incorporated it into my morning practice, my morning ceremony. And then it has to become more than just a thing that I say it has to be, I have to talk to the shamanic, let's call them, guides that I work with, and ask for help to do that. because I don't actually know what it's a nice sounding word

and it was an appropriate thing to offer to the fire, but what does it mean? What does it look like? What does it feel like? And what it feels like is that astonishing sense of being utterly in love with the process of being alive while also still grieving and despairing and occasionally raging at what's happening.

And they're being heart space for all of that. But I'm not aware of bitterness and I'm not even aware of having him had a choice point where I had to think of it or let go of it. What's coming up for me is that we are all slightly younger than Pinkola Estes, and we haven't had quite the same patriarchal crushing of what it is to be a woman that is guaranteed to evoke bitterness. I look at my parents' generation and the women of my parents' generation and the older generations, and there was a lot of bitterness to go around, because who they were was never allowed.

to be a thing. And I started a training in mediumship this year, which was one of those, again, again, shamanic push. I'm like, are you serious? Really? No? What?

And it's really interesting. I think it's not my thing, and I think a lot of projection happens, but it has, and I'm a really bad, mediumistic client, because I know nothing about any of my antecedents. So it's your great grandma. It could be, no idea.

So I'm not really. very useful for the people on the other side. But it has made me think a lot about how women had to use subterfuge to have any kind of agency in the world that we just don't have. And clearly there are aspects of the political world that would like to reimpose that. But at the moment, not. We are relatively free just to be human beings and to broadly ignore. the limitations of gender. And I'm sure that's a huge privilege of being in the West, being in a

country where it's still legal not to be heterosexual, just, and having enough of a kind of universal basic income to not be constantly panicking about the jobs market. So I have enormous privilege within a system that is designed to grind people down. But it seems to be grinding people down largely regardless of gender at the moment. So, so answers your question? No. I think it's an interesting question. I think there are a lot of choice points and I think there's a lot of choice points coming that will be, I think are more at the level of values. I think that we have to reestablish real baseline values that people can share wherever they are on any of the toxic cultural divides and finding those and finding ways to share them that are

accessible wherever you are in whatever spectrum, so that simply the fact that they're coming from somewhere else the spectrum doesn't create instant rejection is going to be quite crucial. And I think that's an interesting question, and I don't have answers of how to do it. But I think we have to establish what those values are first. I would be quite interested if either of you have been exploring what values our current system works under, Della. I'm thinking you're doing that with your work with Frithiof Kepra. and Natalie, you're doing it with your views of AI and what is promoting it,

which is broadly, let's make a lot of money. And what could we replace it with? What would an AI look like or feel like that was grounded in a different value set? And what would that value set be? Or what would capitalism be like if it wasn't capitalism and we had a political economy that was rooted in different values and what would those values be? Anyone pick it up?

I often look for kind of questions or North Stars or orientations of like, why are we here? Like, what am I doing? Why are we here? And for a while, one that I was working with was, I'm here to activate intrinsic values within myself and in culture. And this comes from Tom Crompton and the Common Cause Foundation. And so I'll just honor him and his work. But really, this idea that we have two sets of values, extrinsic and intrinsic. And they operate. like seesaw, right? If one set is activated, the other set goes down and vice versa. But also there's a bleed over effect. So if we have kindness activated, then our connection with nature is also activated. And so one intrinsic value activates the others. But, and I think his work more focuses on framing and how we get people to say donate or like care about a cause, right? He really says, don't use extrinsic values or mainstream economic rhetoric to get people to care about the environment or. inequality. So that was a huge thing. But I kind of took it in a different way, which was, you know, we on our own as individuals can activate intrinsic values and then we can also activate them

culturally. And so I've just been playing with this idea, like this can be music and art. And it can even be social media. Sometimes I love to play with social media as like a, you know, renegade influencer. Like how do you, instead of sell something, get folks to think differently or get folks to feel an activation of an intrinsic value. So that's one thing that I would say, and I have found it so hopeful that everyone has both sets of values and that it's possible to activate them. This really takes away the othering and the divide between those on the left

or those in the gray turning and those not, right? It's like, no, they too, those in power, those causing harm, extraction, exploitation, they too have intrinsic values. So they too can activate them and we can activate them for them as well. So Natalie, what would you add? It's interesting about the values thing. I think there's some, so weaving that in and also Amanda what you're saying about love of life. I have a friend slash mentor who's been telling me for 10 years, 10 years, to weave some of the intrinsic motivations like a desire to create with some of the external things that provide me with a living like my profession of speaking. And I've resisted and resisted

and this year finally, after enough nudges, mostly from shamanic practice, I had an opportunity to, or I created an opportunity to do it. I was giving a talk in Madrid. And it was one of these events where some people that I really respect were speaking, like icons of the world of psychology, which is a world that overlaps with the speaking that I do. So Brunay Brown and Adam Grant was speaking on the second day and I got invited to speak on the first. And I thought, fuck it. If not now, then when? Like, let's just, you know, if I'm going to go down as a fireball, let's make it count. And so I ended up, so I gave this talk on AI, what's visible, what's not, in the sense of the very human dynamics that play into how we develop, deploy, respond to

and analyse the risks of AI and how we can be more responsible in the ways in which we operate with it and perhaps ask better questions about its deployment. And at the end, I kind of wanted to bring this point around, I guess the question really is, what is it that AI cannot give us about being alive? Because there's such a rush, especially when there is so much grief and division. Della, you're talking about this kind of polarization and this, it's this race to the bottom of how can we make sure that we don't get fired or that we're the ones that adapt more quickly. There's this kind of us and them mentality and you see it a lot in some of these narratives. And I think the key thing here is just like, we're all in this together.

And we get to live in a very finite pocket of time. We're temporarily present. We're embodied for a brief moment in a cultural experience that may never happen again. So what does it mean to dare to be present in the face of the automation of so much of what we whole dear. And so I ended up asking these people to sing a song with me, 1,300 people. I was absolutely bricking it. And they sang. Almost everyone in the room sang. I got a lot of women coming up to me in person afterwards. And it was an animus ceremony song that I'd written about connection with nature and calling upon different qualities of life to help us live in greater harmony. And the flood of emails that I got from men afterwards on LinkedIn that were.

so unexpected, things like I felt so alone, and suddenly in this business conference, we were asked to sing and I could hear all these other voices around me, someone else saying, I haven't sung since I was little, and suddenly I was reminded of my father, and I was crying tears for the values that he represented in my life. Like, I've never had feedback like this from anyone, and it really made me realize that in this arid territory of optimise like this, use psychology for that, you know, which I'm part of, this is a world I've been part of for nearly 15 years. that people are desperate for a sense of, fuck, we matter, we're here, we want to show up, we want to sing together, be together, we want to belong.

And I think that really hit me, this sense that there are so many people in the most unexpected places, desperate to connect, yearning for something deeper, for something more, who perhaps haven't been given the opportunity to voice their deep-seated doubts about the trajectories that are on and that in these sorts of perhaps unexpected arid territories, these are exactly the kinds of places where we can have the beginnings of these conversations. Della, you talked about the bud. And it's really, it's like, well, let's step into a different garden for a while. What might we discover if we unfold some of these questions together, knowing that we don't

have to have any of the answers and the whole idea about emergence of new systems or phase transitions, you just have to orient towards that which brings a vitality. and then maybe other things emerge. And I think cracking that possibility open is something which I'm increasingly seeing as a ripe opportunity. And I think there are many places outside of our bubbles where people might be naturally oriented to have these conversations, that these conversations are desperately wanted and welcomed. How would you make that happen unamplify it? Because I don't know about you guys, but I think the time frame is quite short.

Yeah. We need to work at this at scale and in time. How would you create the scale? Or begin to, you know, take the pebble that rolls down the cliff and makes the avalanche. How would you, what pebbles would you spring off the edge of the cliff? I think some of it, thinking about the grant that you succeeded in getting, which is amazing, is moving into mainstream media opportunities and offering. I think it's any place where you don't hear these stories enough.

So for me, the obvious place would be conversations around AI. Can you bring animism and the love of the living world into a conversation about AI? Yeah, totally you can. And I think, so that, I think mainstream platforms that have large audiences, networks of people coming together, I think the business world, there are lots of people who are just kind of plodding on as usual, who are under tremendous pressure, who are feeling the stress. And I think those areas where stress cracks people,

open are really rich territory for you to kind of come in and offer, I suppose, like thinking about in Dharma terms, rain, to rain on these flowers of hope and possibility and imagination. But I think the areas that you would not necessarily expect to look. And I'm thinking of people like Rutger Breggman, who gave the Reef lectures this year, who talks about moral ambition, he does this really well. People like Grace Blakely, who wrote a book called Vulture Capitalism. I spoke at an event with her at IBTM, which is a travel event in Barcelona. She is my hero. Weird invitations are cropping up.

She's amazing. So mainstream media. Cori Docter is another amazing person who's got huge amounts of mainstream information media channels disseminating across all these different spaces because of his book around enshittification, which talks about the inherent obsolescence and breaking down of extractive systems,

especially technological ones. So like the territory is shifting, And I think it's up to us to find cracks with large audiences of thirsty people who also want their voices to be heard and to say, we need to hear from you. So Amanda, do you have any thoughts about how we scale the kind of shift or conditions for the shift required in the speed that we need it to happen? I have probably more thoughts than we have got time for, but I'll try and edit them down. So I think there are many levels. And for me, the core level is always spiritual and energetic. And I think there is energetic change shifting.

I think even I can feel it inside my own kind of energetic shape and the connections in our dreaming groups and our wider accidental gods group. More people are taking more seriously that fundamental change is happening at a spiritual level. And I think more people are actually committing themselves in service to life and committing to the concepts of a world that runs on a wholly different energetic set of rules, if you like. I don't think rules is not the right word, but a whole principles, energetic principles. And I think there will be a critical mass of that that will lead to a tipping point,

but we never know where tipping points are until we pass them. So let's park that one. I think that is essential, and if I was only putting energy into one thing, I would be putting it into that. However, I think there are also political economic tipping points, and I think the elections of Zoran Mamdani in the US and Zach Polanski in the UK and other people around the world, two positions where they have a voice, and they are using that voice very effectively,

is providing its opening doorways so that those of us who have the pebbles ready, this is Kate Rayworth always talks about Milton Friedman saying that when there's a crisis, the ideas that are lying around are the ones that get picked up, so they needed to make sure that their neoliberal ideas were lying around. We need to make sure that Thrutopian ideas are lying around. And I have tried the mainstream media, and it's so interesting. The incapacity, maybe I'm speaking to the wrong people, but they're really nice, really well-mining people,

and their idea of how we fix the planet is recycling sets and more climate-drafts. us. And the concept of total systemic change, just it's like trying to hurl bits of Velcro at Lino. It cannot stick. There's nothing on which it can stick. I would really dearly like that not to be the case, but I'm becoming increasingly of the belief that the change happens from the ground up. If we can show to the people who are the gatekeepers of the legacy media that there are stories to be had and there is an audience for those stories, then they will leap on them. that everybody's in a race to be second.

And we need the people who have the courage to be first. And so we need to show that there are stories that people want to engage with that are bubbling up irresistibly from the ground up. And just before I came on this call, I was talking to a couple of lovely young people from Bristol who have what's called Mafia Weekend, which is make a film in a weekend.

So you take the titles it spells Mafia. And they are helping people to create really well-produced movies in their communities of the stuff that they're doing. And I think the loosening hold of the legacy media on the stories that we tell ourselves and each other about ourselves and each other is one of the things that gives me hope that then there is room on TikTok and YouTube and Instagram and all the other things for the stories that we make ourselves

of courage and resilience and hope. And a lot of the stuff coming out of the US, So the people who are, you know, 3D printing whistles so that they can pass them out on street corners so that when ice turns up, there's just a barrage of whistles. And that's not total systemic change, but it's the beginnings of a new narrative. So I think that kind of thing. But having the concept that there is another world as possible, that total systemic change, we will not get where we need to get by tweaking the existing system.

That's just not going to happen. And so much of businesses is around, how do we, How do we create conscious capitalism? Like that. There is no such thing, I'm sorry. Capitalism has to go. Capitalism is a self-terminating algorithm and the only question is whether it destroys us all

before it destroys itself. And I would rather, it's the other way around. Let's get rid of the capitalism and create something new. And so I think having the stories of what that's something new looks and feels like are really important and spread them in a way that makes sense to people. There we go. Della, how about you?

Well, I, since we're bringing in Ticknat Han and Plum Village, there's that quote of Ticknanhanes that the next Buddha will be a Sanga. You know, this next kind of being, enlightened being, will be a group of people. And so one of the ways of scaling that I'm appreciating right now are networks. We have, for the Capra course, we have this alumni network of people who have taken the course who are really trying to bring systems thinking into their life. I know Jeremy Lent has a pretty big community that he has online. Manda, you're in several communities as well as you, Natalie. And he's just starting his whole new eco-civilization network, which is really exciting. Yes.

And also the political networks right now, like the DSA Democratic Socialists of America or PSL, Party for Socialism and Liberation, as well as global networks. and one of the biggest ones that I'm a part of, Dundit Economics. Every day, every week, there is a new group popping up somewhere in the world that is adopting Donut Economics to their place and creating either a snapshot or a portrait of their place to do an assessment of how their economy is doing and meeting the needs of the people while staying within the needs of the planet. So I would say that these tools of networked connection and sharing information, are hugely helpful for this scale.

And then the other thing that I'm noticing, too, is that we're at that time where obviously COVID and the ramifications of that and illness is still very alive for people, and a lot of people are turning towards being in person again, which I find really heartening because it's, yeah, COVID has done so much to isolate and make us afraid of one another

and afraid of gathering. And so seeing people gather in ways that are healthy and okay for folks and then be able to have that connection again, I think that's really heartening. So doing more in-person events and gatherings and, you know, the conferences that you spoke about, Natalie, I think that is a way to also share this information and grow these movements. Manda, I'm wondering, you know, I shared my alive question and you shared a couple questions. Do you have any other alive questions right now that you want to share with us? or you want to ask? Yeah, I'm still quite interested. So I am trying to evolve values and principles

by which an emerging new system could at least begin. I think once the emergent edge of into becoming is a flexible thing and it will have to evolve. But I am working with integrity, compassion, and generosity of spirit as ones that I think most people could sign up to. We might have slightly different interpretations of what those mean, but we could work towards. them and baseline principles non-negotiate, what should be non-negotiable within our political

economy of clean air, clean water, clean soil, and, and from Zinnab Muhi, who I talked to last week, it's just an astonishing young woman who, she's got such amazing energy and is going to be huge in the world. And she pointed out that we also need to have the concept that all life is sacred and everything also, everything that is alive and conscious has an absolute right to a clean and honourable death. So life and death are both sacred. And those seem to me together, the values and the baseline principles, whether we consider ourselves to be spiritually animist or not, because I don't think there's time for everyone to catch up to animism, I think those of us who can do, but it cannot and must not be a hard line. But those principles, I think we could all sign up to. It's really hard

to stand in front of people and go, no, I demand that all water is toxic and that the rain continues to be full of forever chemicals that are destroying everybody and we should definitely have more of those. And yet, we're in a world where I have just finished talking to the guy who wrote this book, which I totally recommend. And it's full of things that I didn't know, including the fact that we make a thousand new compounds per hour. For those listening, not watching, what's the title of it? Sorry, it's Nature's Genius. Evolution's Lessons for a Changing Planet by David Farrier.

And it's a fantastic book, we can talk about it later. But one of the data points, humanity is creating a thousand compounds, new compounds per hour, and unleashing them in the environment, in most cases, without any assessment of what they do on their own, and certainly no assessment of what they do. do in combination with everything else that we pumped out. Because we don't care about the web of life. We just treat the whole planet. It said it was one great big open sewer. And clean air, clean water,

clean soil, I feel if everybody took those on as fundamental baselines, capitalism would be over by the end of the day, because it's not compatible with those. So I would be really interested in what values and baselines would animate a world that you would really enjoy. promoting. Let's go to Natalie. Well, I was pondering about, so clean air, clean water, clean soils, and thinking about some of the stories that are in Karen Howell's book, she wrote a journalist who's been covering technology and AI in particular for many years. And she has written a book called The Empire of AI, which came out this year. And it's been really, really well received by many, many people for her critiques of all of the costs.

and in amacinations of the companies that develop these tools, what they can do, what the risks are and the damages that they cause. And one of the things that she talks about are the ways in which communities are coming up against companies that would establish, for example, data centres that would deplete water supplies or off-gass, really toxic, fumes that then cause spiking rates of asthma and lung disease of various kinds, and how people are actually standing up and saying, well, actually, this is in some ways

the epitome of us creating, like in the matrix, machines that are feeding off the life support of the world to our detriment taken to their extreme. And I think there's something interesting that happens when people are increasingly alert to the hyperbole of the things that they have been promised they will be given, bearing in mind that most people are being told, AI is going to take your jobs, but don't worry, you'll have 80 hours free per work week, it'll solve cancer, blah, blah. Like, there's all sorts of crazy shit going on that people are being told.

And one of the biggest issues, I mean, LLMs cause a lot of issues, but one of the biggest issues I think that people are seeing, that it gives me a cause for hope, is their replaceability in a hypercapital system where the only value of life is to create profit for whoever's the one driving the bus, right? And so I think that's become remarkably clear. Many people are coming together and saying, well, hang on. For instance, there was an example in Chile where a community had just had water supplies,

the infrastructure for clean water on tap having been laid in. And prior to that, they'd had water bused in, which is very unreliable if buses break down. Right. And so then one of these big companies comes in and says, well, actually, we're going to create a data center here. we're going to develop it, build it, and we'll need all your water. So you can go back to trucks. And they told them to fuck off collectively. And I think we need more of these visible drain.

And it's not that I'm wishing for this, but I think that there is a point at which people realize that all of our lives depend on exactly what you're saying, Manda, clean air, clean water, clean soils. And those resources, thinking of them in utilitarian materialist terms, are required for us to live. And if we're giving them over to companies that can poorly replicate a fraction of what humans do

within the context of LLMs, not talking about things like neurosymbolic AI or other types of AI where it could be really helpful, like in agriculture, renewables, there's all sorts of areas where it's absolutely brilliant, but of course that's not getting much of the funding because most of the funding is going to this other stuff that is frankly fairly useless.

So I think people are starting to realize and my sense from a lot of the conferences I've spoken at as well is that leaders might be pushing the narrative of this is going to solve for everything. So many people within positions of contact with the outputs of these machines are realizing that they are significantly limited. And so there's a reckoning coming

where people will start to see what they're actually useful for, which is specific things, and that the drain on resources and human hope and cognitive functioning and psychosocial well-being is too large. So a tide is coming and never mind the financials of it and the fact that I think that there's a big bubble that's going to burst before things course correct.

And I think that's coming sooner than people think. And I think when that happens, when there are no backups and everything's become more fragile as a result of not having analog versions or cash. Paper is the ultimate backup when we don't have it.

Yeah, like this happened, you know, anyway, I'm not going to go on about it. But I think the fragility of our existing systems as sophisticated as we perceive them to be is going to become more and more evident and people will start to revolt against it

and we'll have to find more life affirming, regenerative, distributed, decentralized ways of sustaining ourselves. That was a really long diatribe. I'm sorry, I've been thinking about there's a huge amount. No, no, it was great. Teller, what about you? Well, a few threads that are coming to mind. One, Leanne Fah, her phrase, the sign of a healthy economy should be a drinkable river.

You know, and just this idea of, you know, what ought to be the metrics of our economy. And you offered clean air, clean soil, clean water. But I just, I love thinking about those. And what are we actually trying to work towards or contribute to or grow in our economies? And then I'm also thinking about. this tide that you mentioned, Natalie, and this reckoning that's coming. And I'm thinking about the Luddites and also E.F. Schumacher and appropriate technology. And that, you know, there is a beauty in the simplicity and there are ways that we can live sustainably and regenerative on the planet and not just have a small ecological footprint, but actually have a large ecological handprint. I'm also thinking of half farmer half X, you know, growing your food and then doing something else that you love with the rest of your time. So, yeah, I'm very curious about this reckoning that you're noticing coming and feeling and what will turn towards and, yeah, just hoping that it will be

disaster collectivism and not disaster capitalism, which we can see many examples of around the world, that there are people who turn towards one another and turn towards the land. and towards what's important. So, Manda, any thoughts on this tide or this reckoning or the future of AI that you want to add? Oh, future of AI. Well, I need to finish. Anyone builds it. Everyone dies before I can speak about that.

It's just, it just seems to me that it is in the same way that capitalism is the end result of allowing the narcissists to take over. And, you know, our culture has been doing that easily since Roman times and probably before. They just accelerated quite a lot with a fossil fuel bubble. So AI, I'm sure it can do useful things, but I'm not sure it's worth the potential cost. And unless I'm aware that Vanessa Andriotti, the indigenous people she's working with, think that AI is a new consciousness

and they want to incorporate into their dreaming and she takes her laptop along to their circles. And absolutely I'm not going to say that they're wrong. But until I can feel it in the dream time, it feels more dangerous than good. I genuinely think that we have to work with the web of life. If each of us, each human being, was fully realized that we'd worked out what we're here for

and we were offering ourselves in service to life, being the best that we can be, being what only we can be, connected to the web of life asking what do you want me to do in this moment and doing it, then humanity would be an absolutely amazing asset to the living web. And it may be that AI could be a part of that. But at the moment, AI seems to be the playground of a particularly toxic, relatively small set of adolescent boys that I wouldn't trust with a hamster. And I am certainly not trusting them with the web of life.

Because I don't see that they care about it. I really don't think they know it even exists. I listen to podcasts where they genuinely talk about nature as an understanding. aesthetic option. And while that mindset exists, I just don't think it's safe. And the whole concept that, yes, it's going to kill us all, but I'd rather be the person who built the thing that killed us all, just isn't, isn't clever. And we need, we definitely need that bubble. But then, assuming that the bubble happens, it still feels to me halfway through the year, maybe it was, I can't remember, spring last year, one of my guides at a moment I really wasn't expecting, spoke in my ear

and doesn't happen often that they actually speak in actual English and said the world is not what you think it is. And so I have to remind myself that the world is not what I think it is and it feels as if there's a genuine energetic big shift coming and that riding the wave of that and being open to the world not being what I think it is and being flexible enough to respond so that my responses are appropriate to whatever the world actually is and whatever the world needs feels crucially important. I think there's something else that's really curious that's cropped up is that I was hearing someone talk about this, doing an interview about longevity and AI the other day.

And one of the guys was talking enthusiastically about the ways in which psychedelic therapies can help people. And he was saying, oh, you know, we just need to get some of these people on psychedelics. I was thinking, again, this kind of falls short because the papers that I've read talk about any kind of transformative healing work, having to be embedded in a whole panoply of different forces, cultural, historical, natural, temporal, like you need to be, like it's not just enough to take some, and again, it's this kind of sense of, I think it goes back to what you've both spoken to, which is this thing of looking beyond the capital, looking beyond the resource,

looking beyond the material and realizing that actually, if you cannot fundamentally recognize the end of being of all things, that's one of the primary lessons of those thresholds between, I just want to do what I want to do, like the id, if you like, to that place of adolescence when you start realizing that maybe your actions have impacts and it's not just you and if you're in solitary confinement you would go mad pretty quickly and yet so many people haven't realized I think not because of an inability but perhaps because Mandy is saying about it being raised in cities and not seeing the horizon if you're if you're if you're plucked out of it by virtue of the fact that you're living in an industrialized society then maybe that's also part of it's

kind of how do we get people back into contact with growing your own tomato plant? And it sounds so insignificant, but there's magic in that as well. Where shall we take this next? I don't know, yes. Well, I think Della looked like she has some response to that, so Della. I'm wondering, Natalie, if you have asked what alive questions you're carrying. You have several and you have asked several. But are there any right now in your life and in your work that you're really chewing on or exploring? It's more of a sensation, but it's this sense of how to create a moment of an experience which feels so rich and so heart-opening that you can touch something there

that allows yourself to remember what it is to belong, to feel love, to sense that feeling of yearning. It's that. It's kind of how can we each do that in large and small ways? And I think some of it is about the quality of presence, but I don't think that's enough. I think it's also creating conditions where you can be with others, either in conversations where shaming doesn't come up, where you listen and you ask more questions.

If it's someone that doesn't share your points of view, it's like, okay, I'm curious what led you to think this, for instance, and someone gets to feel seen or in the music side of things, creating a space where people can just let go of their stories and be transported. or so I think it's this, that's the kind of theme of the question that I'm asking myself is, what are the different moments and conditions we can create for people to feel a sense of connection with something deeper and bigger than themselves in which they are such a welcome part? It's that.

And it's really a felt sense. And I think the other part as well, and it kind of goes back to this inner civil war thing, is how can we create enough spaciousness? because I think getting rid of the civil war sometimes doesn't work. It's like, how can you create enough space around these warring factions for them to just take a bit more distance and see that there's stuff going on? They're not caught in the midst of that tangle. And I found that for me, that can be quite helpful to just,

instead of thinking, oh my God, I wish I would just shut up, it's like, okay, what spaciousness is there to be found for these voices to all take their space and me not to have to quell anyone and then bring that to our relationships and conversations with others. And I think some of the techniques that I've found include things like just being quiet and listening, but also the music, being out walking in nature. There's some simple hacks, I think. But I think some of the tools available to us to allow some of the bigger changes to happen

are actually really, really simple. And I think it can be very tempting and seductive. to think that we have to come up with these complex solutions when actually some of the most powerful, rapid and loving are very simple. So it's also that, it's like not getting swept up in this. Oh my God, the world is moving so fast. Yes, it is.

And also remember to come home to yourself. And here are some simple ways that we've known for thousands of years. The animals know, like, you know, you don't have to look far, but you have to be attentive to it. So I'm kind of finding ways to ask that question in day-to-day life. Yeah, I'm coming full circle to my initial question, this choice between embitterment and kindness. And after hearing all that we shared, you know, I'm reflecting on this idea of Donella Meadows and the leverage points. And she ranks those leverage points in orders of importance.

And she says that the highest leverage point is transcending paradigms. And really this idea that there is no truth with a capital T. and holding that with what we're saying about how it is actually very important for life continuing and even thriving or flourishing continuing for us to recognize interbeing in the web of life. So it's like, yes, there is no truth with a capital T and we can hold and transcend many paradigms, but there are also world views or paradigms that are actually very important to kindness and generosity and love and compassion. And there are worldviews that are unhelpful, right? Like seeing nature as an aesthetic or seeing the world as a dumpster or something that we can

own and exploit. So what I'm returning to is this choice between embitterment and kindness is really from this teaching from Ram Dass. He said that his teacher told him, I want you to love everyone and tell the truth. And he could do one, he could love everyone one day and like love, love, love, love, love, love, but he couldn't tell the truth because he'd be mad at someone or grumpy at something. And then the next day, he could tell the truth. And he could just be brutal and direct and just tell the truth, but it wasn't very loving. And so he had to work with this idea of loving everyone and telling the truth.

So all this to say, I think we can, I'm going to try this on, that how can I be kind and yet call things out, right? like speak truth to power is one way to say it. But how do we say no, to be a billionaire is as offensive as to be racist? Like, that's offensive. I think airplane, you know, class, first class and economy is class segregation. I think it's class segregation. I think that for-profit companies is wrong livelihood, you know, to be for-profit and to put profit above the well-being of people on the planet. So how can I say those things without a sense of bitterness or bitterness or resentment? So say that thing with a kindness, with a love, with a compassion. So

that's how I'm kind of putting what we're saying together, that there are these things that you all have known for many years. We've talked about each year, and we've written reminded of through our guests, this eco-spiritual orientation, this sacredness of life, this what's really important, right? And how do we hold that and say these worldviews and these ways of being and ways of holding power are actually deeply unhelpful for all of that? So we need to call that out and push back in a way that is loving and kind. Monda, what would you add? I'm not sure I have much to add to that. I thought that was really beautiful and it really resonated. The thing that arose for me was that if I were doing that, I would have to be very

clear which parts of me were speaking the truth, because different parts have different truths. And then knitting that to what Natalie was saying earlier, that crushing parts doesn't work. It just isn't a thing. And so how do we find that spaciousness inside to give all parts the room that they need, to honour them, to view them with compassion and curiosity and courage and all of the things that we need to do to let them lay down the burdens of belief that have knotted them up so that they can become in service to our system.

And so I think along with the values, along with the baseline principles of clean, air, clean, wash, clean soil, life and death are both sacred. I think there's also for me the really essential part of creating the clean, clear, courageous, compassionate connections between all parts of myself, myself and other people, myself and the web of life.

And living that, and coming back to that, along with, and what is the red kite doing, what is the tree doing? What happens if I spend an hour outside just being, just to reconnect, actually reconnect with the living web as it is here and now and trying not to have too many projections is what life is for. And again, I come back to, I am so privileged to be able to do that. And the fact that I get myself into complete state by the amount of work I have to do is irrelevant because actually I can just put it all down and go and sit outside and to heck with it. If I don't get everything done today, the world is actually not going to end. So those things, thank you. I'm really, really grateful that we three have this chance or a conversation.

once a year. So thank you. Natalie, anything that's coming up for you. The time. Because I'm realizing we're going to have to close. Yes, I realize we're right at the end. I mean, I have a poem that I'd like to share as by way of closing, but I wonder if there are any final reflections that you feel like you would. I want you to sing your song. All right. And then the poem, or the poem and then the song, it's a beautiful roomie poem. I'll do that. But do you have any. final reflections before that. I don't want to kind of know. Those were my final reflections. Della, you go anything? I'll just add as a parent that I've had, I have this lovely morning

ritual that's my ideal that includes like dance and journaling and meditation and I can't do any of that with an infant. And so instead of trying to sit with the infant and occupy her and journal and meditate, I was like, I'm just going to have coffee and be with her. And that's my morning meditation is, and it's like one of my favorite parts of the day. So I'll just say, Manda, to your point, that however we can come into presence, if it is going outside and sending under the tree, and Natalie, if it is through song or through chanting in community, or if it's just being with those around you, just making it accessible and possible for all of us, And yeah, I love that invitation of presence being something that we can bring in.

And then again, for me personally, kindness. And so a kindness to that presence feels important. So that would be my closing invitation in words. And now, Natalie, we would love to hear your song and poem. I haven't practiced a bit cold. But the poem. So the poem is a poem by Rumi, which feels pertinent to me, especially when there's so much information sloshing about.

And it's called Kiss the Ground. Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don't open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. So with that in mind, here is the people's song. Oh, by one by one, may all your voices come

By foot and fly to sing this night Until the dreaming's done Oh river root and stone Come lead your brethren home To gently stand upon this land and make your song our own. O sky and stars and sea, may all your children be.

As golden threads of this great web, be love it's strong and free. Beloved it's strong and free. That was beautiful. That was beautiful. Thank you. I will be recording it beautifully, not with a croaky voice, but you get a sense for it. Thank you. You got 1,300 people singing that. I got them doing the bit underneath and I sang harmonies on top and then we just all, yeah, it was lovely.

Wow, you probably changed the world just with that. Well, I don't know. It was a beautiful moment touching into something lovely. So thank you both. That was a beautiful gift. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, everybody. I love our tradition. Thank you. Until next year, may everybody's year be deep and kind and beautiful. Yeah, happy winter solstice. You've been listening to an upstream conversation with Manda Scott of Accidental Gods and Natalie Nahy of the Hive.

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ears. Thank you.