Introducing the Annual 2024 - the official * Episode 100 of the Spaceship Earth Podcast.
Back in November I had an idea to do a reflective episode of the last year of the podcast with a view to getting it out before the end of December, but it turns out it was a lot of work!
So here it is finally, and January actually feels like the right time to me for reflecting back on what was and forwards to what could be, as our world continues to fracture and unravel.
2025 is the 7th Year of this podcast experiment, Episode 1 was released on the 22nd Jan 2018.
We’ve come a long way, the project has ebbed and flowed with me and my family’s life, some years have been more prolific in output, others less so, as is the flow and complexity of life.
But we turned things up in 2024.
And to get to Episode 100 for an ad-free podcast, still mainly self-funded in its 6th year feels like something to honour.
So this is an episode which I’m calling The Annual 2024.
As a kid growing up in the 1970’s I would often be gifted an annual, a physical book - a curation of the year of my favourite comic at the end of a year.
And then I remember in the 1990’s the Ministry of Sound creating ‘the annual’ a compilation of the best tunes of the year.
So taking inspiration from all that - this episode is a curation of the highlights of 2024 on the podcast, it features clips, reflections, insights and learnings from many of the episodes.
It’s not exhaustive, not every guest is featured but I’ve included clips that feel to me to be fertile and important insights for these times we are travelling in.
A curation of the year gone by with a nod to what it might be showing us about the future that is unfolding.
There’s so much intelligence and insight in these podcast conversations, and in our increasingly frantic, noisy worlds, where content seems to be everywhere and attention spans are shrinking - I recognise that much of these remain hidden.
So if you are a regular listener I hope this captures some of the highlights for you and you might appreciate the reflections and insights we share.
If you are new to the podcast I hope this gives you a flavour of what we’re doing here and inspires you to dig into these conversations and episodes more deeply and jump into the becoming crew community.
We’ve put a lot of time into creating this episode, I recommend putting the headphones on or turning up the speakers.
It’s a sonic journey.
I also hope the Annual might bring more support for the podcast in 2025.
We have new format plans, so many extraordinary guests, topics, stories and projects to feature, but we really need to find more support financially, to cover the increasing time and cost of creating and distributing this podcast.
We’ve always gone about this work quietly, growing organically, but something is shifting, we are reaching more people and we know that interest in these conversations, ideas and topics is growing.
We don’t avoid uncomfortable, challenging conversations and topics here, you won’t find these explored in mainstream media.
Because the stakes are so high.
We are in a lot of trouble as a species, so we are trying to understand more deeply and from different perspectives the context we are in, how we got here:
Learning to notice and see differently, to understand the relationality and entanglement of life on Spaceship Earth.
To face into the challenges we are witnessing, to respond in new ways, to learn through experimentation, participation, and community and find alternative ways through together
To do so with care, connection and kinship with all life.
Love for all life.
We don’t often feature solutionists or those claiming to have THE answers, but rather those dedicated to the inquiry, practice, participation, experimentation, transformation, to unlearning and learning and becoming differently with humility, curiosity, compassion, creativity and care at the centre, life at the centre.
Love at the centre.
As modernity continues to unravel and the only systems we’ve ever known in our lifetime breakdown, more people are knowing in their hearts and guts that we are being called into profound changes to how we relate to this Earth, to ourselves and to each other, how we organise ourselves and how we respond to these accelerating crises.
The old divisive binary ways of responding, of thinking and of being, the single story of progress and centralised control are exhausted, expiring, we are stuck - more people are feeling this.
As our ‘constructed reality’ makes less and less sense, we need more ways to discover, explore and connect with the many other possibilities, projects, perspectives, stories, ways of knowing and organising that are emerging everywhere on Spaceship Earth.
So perhaps you may be a potential sponsor or a funder interested in supporting this project over the next year.
Please reach out if you’d like to chat about that.
hello@thespaceship.earth
Or maybe as a listener you might switch to a paid subscription on our substack, or a one off donation if you have the financial means.
Or maybe you might share an episode, spread the word, feature our work, rate and review on your podcast provider
It all really helps this project to continue.
Buckminster Fuller, systems thinker, designer, futurist, author of Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth whose work among many things helped me begin to see everything on this Earth as part of an entangled whole, a regenerative entity, a living Spaceship capable of replenishing its finite supplies.
We have managed to bring some of Bucky’s wisdom into this episode.
Bucky thought we were all astronauts on Spaceship Earth.
And it was philosopher Marshall McLuhan who once said ‘we are all crew’ on board Spaceship Earth - this idea of crew fascinated me, it spoke of community, adventure, participation and being in service to something bigger and more mysterious.
We are exploring a different crew story here - a crew story which sees the Earth as a living entity, an ecological, biological, mythological Spaceship.
And over the years I’ve become increasingly interested in learning from the most experienced crew on board the Spaceship…
The more than human , the living world, nature as we call it.
Because this vast diverse web of species, beings, bacteria, plants, ecosystems, places and processes that through their own unique participation, interdependence, relatedness and mystery create the very conditions for all life to flourish.
So here’s a thought experiment…
What if us humans, as the last to arrive here, the youngest species, the least experienced crew on the Spaceship - actually had the most (un)learning to do ?
We need to find our way back into the mysterious operating system of life, to find our own unique roles and responsibilities and duties on board the Spaceship that bring us back into right relationship with life onboard.
Because we are not separate, we are part of the Earth in its complex evolution, part of the Spaceship itself.
So what if the invitation in these times is one of becoming, of ongoing evolution…
Asking for example…
How do I participate in ways that honour the conditions for life to sustain life where I am?
What is my unique role and duty on board the Spaceship ?
What is mine to do ?
What can I learn from the compost heap, the honey bees or the oak forest ?
What might the flight of the buzzard teach me, or the flow of a river, or the darkness of the winter?
The future is uncertain.
It will require all of us to help grow cultures of humility, honesty and care.
It will need community and connection.
Courage and creativity.
Resilience and rest.
It will take joy and grief.
Unlearning and not knowing.
Playfulness and localness.
That I think we can be sure of.
For me becoming crew is an invitation to step into service and into community with a wider web of life, human and more than human.
Recognising that we are part of a living sentient planet, which operates through relationships, interdependence, entanglement, co-operation, reciprocity, experimentation, mystery and ultimately…
LOVE
So let us begin.
Lets travel through some of the conversations from 2024 and what they are signalling as learnings for the year ahead.
This Annual episode features sections from about 20 conversations across 2024 in just over 2 hours.
I have curated these through the following themes which were very alive in 2024 and we are carrying into the podcast and the becoming crew offerings for the journey ahead:
1. The importance and possibilities of non-ordinary experiences through nature based rites of passage and rituals
Featuring ..
2. Decolonising and growing post capitalist realities
Featuring..
EP 84 - Alnoor Ladha & Lynn Murphy
3. Practice-driven change for ways through the divisiveness and violence of these times
Featuring ..
4. Honouring death, grief and composting our shit as vital regenerative practices
Featuring…
EP 84 - Alnoor Ladha & Lynn Murphy
Episode 96 - Vanessa Andreotti
Episode 79 - Dr Rosalind Watts
5. Shifting our relationality, seeing the natural world from transactional to sacred
Featuring…
Paul Powlesland from Episode 98 - We Are Avon
6. Imagining and re-membering alternative futures
Featuring…
Episode 99 -Azul Carolina Duque
7. The Future is Local - we can network for the rest
Featuring…
Episode 88 - Immy Kaur & Kavita Purohit
Hamish Evans from Episode 98 - We Are Avon
8. Centering the Young/ Intergenerational by Design
Featuring…
Episode 96 - Vanessa Andreotti
9. Now is the Time for Crews
Featuring…
EP 84 - Alnoor Ladha & Lynn Murphy
Episode 88 - Immy Kaur & Kavita Purohit
Episode 44 - Dr Wallace J Nichols
So thank you for being here and if you give this Episode a listen
I recommend putting the headphones on or turning up the speakers.
I really hope you receive through it.
And enjoy this Annual experiment.
Please let us know if you have.
We deeply appreciate your support.
Big Grateful Shout Outs
A massive thank you to all our listeners and readers in 2024, to our group of paid subscribers here thank you so much for your commitment and belief.
A huge gratitude and respect to all our guests on the podcast in 2024.
To all our guest teachers on our events, gatherings and courses.
To everyone who has shared, reviewed, rated, commented, left us messages - thank you - it really does mean something to hear from you and it helps others to find us.
So please do share this if you’re receiving something, send to a friend, send us a message
If you are someone who has interest in sponsoring or funding the podcast in 2025 please do reach out - hello@thespaceship.earth
A massive shout out to the Crews
To the podcast crew - Charlie Shread,
, Seemah Nahome-Burgess, Willow and Fin Burgess ( yes we are a family affair) thank you all for your energy, creativity, resourcefulness, patience and willingness to work with my emergent and divergent ways.To the Becoming Crew basecamp collective - My fellow guides and co-creators
, , Mark De-lisser, Kamara Venna, - so much beauty, wonder, inspiration and service you bring to these times.To the growing community who continue to gather for our live sessions, our open spaces, and our wheel of the year gatherings - you all give so much in your unique beautiful ways of showing up.
If you’d like to get involved with any of our offerings this year check out the website and sign up to the substack as the best way to stay in the loop.
We are going into a short hibernation
To compost ourselves in the darkness.
We will be back some time in Spring.
Look after yourselves out there.
Keep carrying the love
Being the peace
Becoming the change.
Peace and Out.
* Unofficially there are 125 episodes - a series of lockdown audio experiments and music mixes colliding with an Autistic/ADHD mind means the numbering went off piste)
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