Entangled World

Watch now on YouTube. Entangled World explores the interrelated, existential social, economic, ecological, and technological risks we face, their underlying drivers, and how a more beautiful world might emerge. In this episode, I am joined by Samantha Sweetwater, an author, thought leader, ceremonial guide, educator, and executive coach. For over 30 years, Samantha has facilitated individual and group transformational experiences in diverse communities, cultures, and industries on five continents. Her work leading conversations about our relationship with the Earth, spirituality, and systems change is transforming the way we think about what it means to be human. Samantha highlights that separation from the Earth that we are nested inside of has been our human predicament and that the next stage of evolution looks like a conscious reunion that organizes towards a purpose to co-harmonize and create abundance for all beings within the biosphere. We also discuss the metacrisis, that we're reaching existential tipping points we've never reached before at a planetary scale. Samantha imagines a vision 300 years into the future where we’ve managed to co-orchestrate, through climate catastrophe, through the migration of billions of people, through massive cycles of famine and disease, a more regenerative way to live in harmony with all life. Samantha’s divine feminine wisdom offers a perspective that is urgently needed as our world undergoes a profound phase shift. Whether this episode is new to you or a chance to revisit it, I hope her words provide space for reflection and inspiration as we step into a new year. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit najialupson.substack.com

Watch now on YouTube. Entangled World explores the interrelated, existential social, economic, ecological, and technological risks we face, their underlying drivers, and how a more beautiful world might emerge. In this episode, I’m joined by Alex Randall from the Civilization Research Institute to discuss Development in Progress, a recent paper released by The Consilience Project, an initiative of the Civilization Research Institute. I highly recommend taking the time to read it—this paper sheds new light on the widely accepted progress narrative, the idea that technological innovation, markets, and institutions have unambiguously improved our quality of life. While modernity has undeniably brought many benefits, such as medical advancements and technologies that connect us globally, this paper challenges us to question the costs of progress as we define it today. It argues that the overlooked side effects of our pursuit of progress have accumulated to a point where they now pose existential risks to life on our planet. The good news is that there are relatively simple ways we can start making changes that reduce these downsides. Alex emphasizes that progress itself isn’t inherently harmful, but by expanding our view of what progress encompasses, we can better recognize and address its unintended consequences. We delve into some innovative frameworks developed by the Civilization Research Institute, like prudent problem-solving and yellow teaming—approaches that can immediately enhance how we take meaningful action in both our organizations and our personal lives. For those of you who understand the metacrisis and are eager to know how you can make a difference, this episode is especially exciting! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit najialupson.substack.com

Watch on YouTube. Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Elizabeth Sawin, Director of the Multisolving Institute, which she founded in 2021 to develop tools and share research on "multisolving." This innovative approach addresses equity, climate change, health, well-being, and economic vitality as interconnected issues, helping to create solutions that tackle multiple problems simultaneously. Elizabeth developed this concept after studying successful "bright spots" around the world—places where people brought about systems change by breaking down silos and building connections. Elizabeth’s background is rooted in system dynamics and computer simulation, a field in which she was mentored by the renowned Donella Meadows at the Sustainability Institute. She has a forthcoming book titled Multisolving: Creating Systems Change in a Fractured World. It’s an inspiring and practical guide that I highly recommend to anyone interested in systems change work. In our conversation, we explore Elizabeth’s groundbreaking work in multisolving, where she shares real-world examples of how this approach works in practice—such as bringing together asthma advocates and environmentalists to craft holistic solutions for communities. These collaborative efforts not only address environmental concerns but also improve public health and community resilience, highlighting the power of integrated action. We also dive into the essential worldview shift that Elizabeth believes is necessary for meaningful change. The dominant worldview, particularly in the Western world, treats the world as a "collection of objects," where safety comes from domination, power is gained through control, and causality is viewed as linear. In contrast, the relational worldview, often associated with indigenous traditions, sees the world as a web of interconnected relationships. In this worldview, safety comes from partnership, power is built through consent, and boundaries are fluid and permeable. Elizabeth emphasizes that to transform the physical world, we must first transform our mental models, learning to recognize and act within this web of relationships. One of the most thought-provoking aspects of our discussion is the idea of fractals—how patterns that repeat in nature also appear in societal structures. Elizabeth explains how the "collection of objects" worldview manifests fractally in systems like supremacy, patriarchy, colonialism, and extractive economics. Conversely, the relational worldview gives rise to fractals of rights for nature, gender and racial equity, and sustainable economies. These patterns reinforce each other, so our work involves breaking harmful patterns and forging new relationships through which healthier, more sustainable fractals can emerge. Entangled World is 100% independent and will never take advertiser money. If you value it, and have the means, please consider subscribing on Patreon. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit najialupson.substack.com

Watch now on YouTube. Entangled World explores the interrelated, existential social, economic, ecological, and technological risks we face, their underlying drivers, and how a more beautiful world might emerge. Entangled World is a labor of love, I am deeply grateful for the generosity of my listeners and fans. Please consider supporting the project at https://www.patreon.com/entangledworld Today on the podcast, I talked with Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti. Vanessa is the author of Hospicing Modernity: Facing humanity's wrongs and the implications for social activism, which is a beautiful and critical read for our times in which we must all navigate the global crises we face. In this episode, we discuss the implications of modernity and what is required of us today, to plant the seeds for a more just, beautiful future for all. Vanessa shares insights from her work in Brazil and with Indigenous communities, highlighting the artificial divide between humans and nature and modernity's impact on our neurobiology. We discuss cultivating a sense of relational maturity, emotional sobriety, and intellectual discernment and why a move from narrow boundary intelligence, or “either/or,” thinking to wide boundary intelligence, which considers “both/and,” is essential to perceive and then appropriately and morally navigate our actions. We also discuss how the pattern of modernity is to project an image of the future with fixed form and fixed meanings, so that we can engineer a perfect world. But this is actually a trap that keeps us bound in problematic ways of thinking that have resulted in the existential crises we face. So rather than trying to imagine objective forms, such as what does the future we want look like, we can focus on the vibrational field, how do we want it to feel and how do we work backwards from that? What does it require of us today? What control and certainly must we give up? This was a thought-provoking conversation about what it means to live more consciously in our paradoxical world and the role that each of us can play as we navigate from modernity to relationality. 00:00 Introduction to Entangled World 01:03 Meet the Host: Najia Shaukat Lupson 02:07 Guest Introduction: Vanessa's Story 02:34 Vanessa's Background and Family History 04:11 Challenges and Paradoxes in Vanessa's Upbringing 06:25 Vanessa's Journey in Education and Indigenous Work 10:55 Exploring the Root of Global Crises 13:12 The House of Modernity: A Metaphor 19:43 Navigating the Meta Crisis 23:54 The Role of Education in Addressing Crises 30:36 Imagination and Relationality 34:09 The Concept of Entanglement 35:33 The Role of Imagination in Creating the New 36:07 Wisdom and Intelligence: A Southern Perspective 37:25 Navigating Modernity: From Narrow to Wide Boundary Intelligence 38:27 The Complexity of Wisdom 41:53 Educational Challenges and Breadcrumbs of Wisdom 48:45 The Seven A's and E's of Modernity 57:12 Neurobiology and Modernity's Impact 01:03:36 Final Thoughts and Future Conversations Vanessa’s Links: Portfolio of Vanessa’s work Hospicing Modernity: Facing humanity's wrongs and the implications for social activism by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira: Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures Arts/Research Collective Art-Life Rituals for Radical Tenderness This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit najialupson.substack.com

Watch now on YouTube. Today on the podcast, I had the distinct honor and pleasure of speaking with Fritjof Capra. Fritjof is the lead teacher of the Capra Course and Systems View LAB. Fritjof is a scientist, educator, and activist who has written and lectured extensively about the philosophical and social implications of modern science. He was a founding director (1995-2020) of the Berkeley-based Center for Ecoliteracy and serves on the faculty of the Amana-Key executive education program in São Paulo, Brazil. He is a Fellow of Schumacher College and serves on the Council of Earth Charter International. He is also the author of several international bestsellers. including The Tao of Physics (1975), The Turning Point (1982), and The Web of Life (1996). He is coauthor of the multidisciplinary textbook The Systems View of Life (2014). Fritjof is the rare person who has engaged in not only a tremendous amount of research, theory and writing, but also actuation in the world through his activism and bringing ecology education into public schools. In this episode, Fritjof talks about 4 key principles that summarize the culmination of his life’s work and what he calls the “systems view of life”: We discuss how the mechanistic worldview which originated from Renee Descartes who viewed the mind (which he called the “thinking” thing) as separate from matter (which he called the “extended” thing) and which has been the dominant worldview is now finally being upended by a network-based worldview. The network worldview acknowledges that all of life is interconnected, co-evolving and complex and therefore cannot be controlled. We explore how the mechanistic worldview is still espoused by many technologists leading AI development who view intelligence as solely residing in the brain, discounting the embodied, felt ways of knowing that reside in the body. Ultimately, we discuss the importance of putting life at the center of everything we do, of everything that is worth doing in this time of metacrisis. Fritjof’s Links: https://www.fritjofcapra.net/ https://www.capracourse.net/ (Fall 2024 course starting Sept. 18, 2024) Other Resources Mentioned: Robert Reich Owning Our Future by Marjorie Kelly Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake When Corporations Rule the World by David Korten Ecological Civilization: From Emergency to Emergence by David Korten The Social Dilemma by the Center for Humane Technology The AI Dilemma by the Center Humane Technology This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit najialupson.substack.com

Watch it now on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKcb4D7qEfU My guest today is Schuyler Brown. Schuyler is a strategist, futurist, facilitator, and coach. She founded The Art of Emergence and her gifts include executive coaching, corporate shamanism, navigating spiritual awakening and crises, and hosting online and in-person retreats centered around embodiment, emotional intelligence, and leading from the heart. She has a rich history as a futurist and is sought out for her intuitive and empathic gifts and her ability to guide people into opening into their own full potential. In this episode, Schuyler and I talk about the relational aspect of living in a time of metacrisis, the balance of masculine and feminine energies, the impacts of generational trauma, and the role non-human consciousness can play in our journeys. We talk about how the important emotional content of our lives is often ignored in our existing systems, partly because it’s inefficient and messy. We explore how even amongst people working to address the metacrisis, there’s an extreme focus on productivity, efficiency, speed, and results, and with good reason, you only have to open your eyes to see the many entangled, existential crises we face. But we also need to feel the pain, it cannot just be an intellectual exercise. Emotions aren’t a distraction, they’re useful bits of information meant to guide our actions. To actually feel them helps us to know what to do about our current predicament. We talk about how humanity’s survival is not guaranteed and how that means we are in a time we’re each one of us that’s alive today, young or old has a deep responsibility to current and future generations of all human and non-human life on this planet to do whatever they are able to shift our trajectory. How do we walk through this world as ensouled beings and simultaneously create “heaven on Earth”? We end our conversation discussing how it’s only non-human sentience that can see humanity’s blind spots. In the upcoming weeks, how can YOU listen to the non-human world? What messages are meant to be coming through to you and uniquely only you? What are you meant to do at this time? What are you meant to sense into, not intellectually figure out? 00:00 Introduction to Entangled World 01:37 Meet Schuyler: A Journey of Self-Discovery 09:51 Exploring the Metacrisis 24:07 Parenting in the Age of the Metacrisis 36:34 The Role of Trauma in the Metacrisis 45:05 Challenges of Addressing the Metacrisis in Organizations 49:58 Standing Outside the System 51:15 The Trap of Power and Status 52:39 Partnership Societies and Feminine Principles 54:42 Creating Balanced Organizations 56:31 The Sacred in Group Dynamics 59:33 The Dance of Masculine and Feminine 01:08:34 The Concept of Time and Urgency 01:24:21 Communion with Nature 01:30:53 Closing Reflections and Future Guests Schuyler’s Links & Resources: The Art of Emergence Schuyler’s Substack Tenacious Magic, Schuyler Brown (being readied for publication) Other Resources Mentioned: The Emerald podcast, Joshua Schrei, For the Intuitives episodes Bonnitta Roy Entangled World explores our greatest, interrelated social, economic, ecological, and technological global challenges, their underlying drivers, and how a more beautiful world might emerge. Entangled World is a labor of love, I couldn’t keep this podcast going without the generosity of my listeners and fans. Please consider making a donation at patreon.com/entangledworld. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit najialupson.substack.com

Watch the video episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/IsZaVuRktXY My guest today is Olivia Lazard. Olivia is a research fellow at Carnegie Europe where her research involves investigating how to support a move towards regenerative foreign and security policy within the European Union. She also leads projects at the University of Exeter on the ecological costs of the energy transition. Essentially, Olivia works on the geopolitics of climate-disrupted futures and ecological breakdown. With a background in conflict resolution, and deep field experience in some of the world's most fragile contexts, she now focuses on preventing and mitigating the risks associated with a global competition over specific renewable and non-renewable resources. Her work tackles the decarbonisation-regeneration nexus, the core pillar for the future of global security and peace. In this conversation, Olivia and I discuss the major “blind spots” of the energy transition and how competitive resource extraction is likely to lead to conflict, violence, ecological destabilization, and the dangerous potential of simultaneously compromising multiple major ecosystems for the sake of resource extraction. She describes how COVID and the Ukraine War revealed some important vulnerabilities in our interconnected systems and how resources can be powerfully weaponized by those who control them. She puts the Ukraine-Russia conflict in context as part of a larger story that has major implications for the future; a possible future in which Russia may be able to use its control over energy, critical minerals, agriculture, and other natural resources to threaten the stability of other increasingly dependent, destabilized nations. We also talk about how China has perfected the verticalization of supply chains for several critical minerals needed for the advanced tech revolution, particularly the development of AI. China has become not only an industrial heavyweight leading in manufacturing but also a technological heavyweight, which has massive geopolitical implications for the global balance of power We explore the rationality behind different realms of human conquest throughout history, from colonialism to the nuclear age, highlighting how these revolutions came about in response to needs and threats in key historical moments. We discuss historical cycles of attempts to control, extract, expand, and conquer, and the resulting long-term consequences. In other words, how our current problem-solving approaches works to solve narrow goals while externalizing harm in other places. Olivia shares about her experience staying with an Indigenous community in the Amazon during which she had a profound spiritual experience in which she felt more connected to the natural world than she had ever felt before and it completely shifted how she thought about her place in the world. We end the conversation talking about how in reality, we are not separate from nature and to understand that is to come to view ourselves and the world in all its holistic beauty. Olivia Lazard’s Links & Resources: https://carnegieendowment.org/people/olivia-lazard?lang=en The Blind Spots of the Green Energy Transition | Olivia Lazard | TED https://www.iwm.at/europes-futures/fellow/olivia-lazard https://x.com/OliviaLazard?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor https://muckrack.com/olivia-lazard/articles Other Resources Mentioned: Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David R. Montgomery The Human Planet: How We Created The Anthropocene by Simon L. Lewis and Mark A. Maslin Stockholm Impact Week (Olivia’s talk and others) Benchmark Minerals James Dyke (tipping points research and more) International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Emily Robinson, PhD Researcher in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, University of Exeter The European Green Deal This is a public episode. If you would...

My guest today is Dr. Nate Hagens. Nate is the Executive Director of The Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future (ISEOF), an organization focused on educating and preparing society for the coming cultural transition. Nate is also a fellow podcaster as the host of The Great Simplification, in which he has conversations with experts in energy, ecology, human behavior, geopolitics, technology, and the economy to provide a systemic view of the world around us, inform more humans about the path ahead, and inspire people to play a role in our collective future. As a backdrop for The Great Simplification podcast, Nate also produced a short animated film by the same title that you can find on YouTube. And he has also co-authored two books Reality Blind - Integrating the Systems Science Underpinning Our Collective Futures - Vol 1 and The Bottlenecks of the 21st Century. In this episode, we talk about our current collective predicament, especially, a way of life built on unsustainable energy consumption, also known as the energy dissipating “superorganism” of humanity. One core aspect of our current predicament is the climate crisis and many people believe that all we have to do is get off fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy but this is an ecology-blind view that ignores the fact that the minerals that power our EVs and solar panels are finite and their extraction has devastatingly complex environmental and human costs. Nate emphasizes how our cultural values, goals, and aspirations must evolve if we want our technological advancements to affect positive change rather than accelerate our current unsustainable extractive way of life. Nate paints a picture of the bifurcations between technology and ecology, masculine and feminine, right brain and left brain, and how these forces have fallen out of balance throughout human history. We also talk about Nate’s recent visit to India, where he experienced firsthand some of the differences between Eastern and Western cultures, and close our conversation by honoring ancient traditions and opening an inquiry into how we might both remember the wisdom that was hard earned over thousands of years by our ancestors and apply it to our modern-day metacrisis predicament. Watch the full video episode on YouTube. Nate Hagen's Links & Resources: The Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future The Great Simplification (Nate’s podcast) The Great Simplification (short film)n Reality Blind - Integrating the Systems Science Underpinning Our Collective Futures - Vol 1 - Nate Hagens and DJ White The Bottlenecks of the 21st Century - DJ White and Nate Hagens Economics for the Future: Beyond the Superorganism University of Minnesota Reality 101 course videos Reality 101 short course overview Other Resources Mentioned: The Ministry For The Future by Kim Stanley Robinson Josh Farley, ecological economist and Nate’s PhD advisor Sir Ian McGilchrist, neuroscience researcher, philosopher and literary scholar Geoffrey West, theoretical physicist at Santa Fe Institute This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit najialupson.substack.com

My guest today is Indy Rishi Singh. Indy is a cultural creative with Cosmic Labyrinth, a collective of edutainers producing biocultural ecorestorations and collective care events in public and at conferences and festivals. Indy is also a co-developer in a technology cooperative designing a bioregional citizen based communication platform that serves as both a tool for effective mutual aid and improving civic literacy. He recently joined the California Doughnut Economic Coalition, focusing on policy change and grassroots cooperation to create an economy that cares for both people and nature. And he’s also a board member with Cultivating Self, a nonprofit transforming and reimagining healthcare by focusing on the education and empowerment of caregivers, and regularly shares Neuroplasticity and resilience techniques with corporations and organizations around the world. This was a wide-ranging conversation and we explored many topics of a personal nature as well as what responses to our entangled global crises might look like. Indy talked about his experience in medical school where he witnessed many contradictions and found that an integration of different perspectives was lacking, which then led him on a journey to explore ancient practices of healing like Ayurveda, a 5000 year old practice originating in India through which knowledge was embedded within stories as a way of transferring information in case some of it got destroyed. Indy also talks about how “systems doing” is very different from “system thinking”. He says when you’re engaged in “systems doing”, you have to go to those places, you have to ask questions, you have to humble yourself and be willing to learn and let what you learn change you. You have to allow emergence to happen rather than having a strict agenda for what YOU want to have happen. We also talk about the importance of sacrifice, that IF we truly want things to change, we have to be willing to sacrifice something. He says oppression and tyranny take advantage of our fear of sacrifice. We also talk about ancient practices for sensemaking and how in Samkhya, in the Sanskrit tradition of philosophical debate, you actually take on your opponent's perspective and then you take on other perspectives beyond just those two polar perspectives. You attempt to look at things from multiple angles and even then you can just grasp a small portion of reality. I’ve been thinking about questions like, “Where does our knowledge come from?”, “How has it evolved?”, “What can we learn from ancient civilizations that lived sustainably in relative harmony and balance with all of life?”, “How might we incorporate ancient wisdom into new civilizational design?” Indy and I used some terms in the conversation that I understand because of my South Asian heritage, which may be unfamiliar to you, so I've included them below. Terms Mentioned: Desi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desi Bhangra: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhangra Ayurveda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayurveda Rig Veda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda Dosha: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dosha Pranayama: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pranayama Karma: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma Dharma: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma Sikh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikhs Kali Yuga: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali_Yuga Satya Yuga: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Yuga Indy’s Links & Resources: www.CosmicLabyrinth.world interfaith eco-restorations & care-based collective www.caldec.org Communications & Outreach for California Doughnut Economic Coalition www.nola.chat/neuroplasticity organizational & community wellbeing coaching www.cultivatingself.org nonprofit transforming healthcare Political Hope podcast: Spotify, Apple Other Resources Mentioned: Hermes Trismegistus - The 7 Hermetic Principles We Deepen founded by Christina Weber The Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt This is a public episode. If you would like to...

Watch the video episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/EjhDCW12IAQ My guest today is Phoebe Tickell. Phoebe calls herself an Imagination Activist to describe a new kind of activist she sees emerging worldwide. Her interest in different ways of perceiving the world informed (and was informed by) her studies in neuroscience, cognitive science, molecular structures, and plant science. It was this interest in perception that eventually led her to found Moral Imaginations in 2020. In her work, she seeks to reimagine our relationship with ourselves, each other, the planet, and the future. Moral Imaginations works with municipalities across the UK and Europe to cultivate and train imagination activists and has trained a thousand people in their methodology. In this episode, we explore the word, “imagination”, what it means, and why it matters globally in THIS moment that we now find ourselves, in this time between worlds. We explore how shifts in perception change how we make sense of the world and how we can actively expand our perception, which is critical if we want to play a role in creating radical systems change in light of the metacrisis. Phoebe emphasizes the seriousness of imagination as a tool for change and she seeks to give people practices to leverage their imaginations to create freedom from within and to redefine the good life for themselves. Phoebe’s Links & Resources: www.phoebetickell.com https://www.moralimaginations.com Multispecies governance practices: https://phoebetickell.medium.com/towards-complex-governance-systems-cfd79c4ecf1 Phoebe’s imagination activism in Camden: https://issuu.com/moralimaginations/docs/camden_report_200623_digital_ Tool for Regenerative Renaissance course: https://niafaraway.com/tools-for-the-regenerative-renaissance/ Other Resources Mentioned: Joanna Macy: https://www.joannamacy.net The Consilience Project: https://consilienceproject.org The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley New School of the Anthropocene: https://www.nsota.org Imagination: A Way To Remake The World (Phoebe’s talk with Ian McGilchrist): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c9vyj_0zSs Joanna Macy on shifting from an Industrial Growth Society to a life-sustaining civilization: https://www.ecoliteracy.org/article/great-turning Lynn Margulis’ work on endosymbiosis: https://evolution.berkeley.edu/the-history-of-evolutionary-thought/1900-to-present/endosymbiosis-lynn-margulis/ Warm Data: https://warmdatalab.net/warm-data UNDP Labs: https://www.undp.org/acceleratorlabs Club of Rome: https://www.clubofrome.org/ Pat McCabe: https://www.patmccabe.net/ Bronte Velez: https://weavingearth.org/staff/bronte-velez/ Lead To Life: https://www.leadtolife.org/ Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/675703/hospicing-modernity-by-vanessa-machado-de-oliveira/ Peter Wall Institute (Vanessa Andreotti’s page): https://pwias.ubc.ca/community/vanessa-andreotti/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit najialupson.substack.com

My guest today is Four Arrows also known as Wahinkpe Topa or Dr. Don Trent Jacobs. Four Arrows is internationally respected for his expertise in Indigeneity and applications for living life in balance. He is a prolific author of many books and writings about the vital necessity of restoring our pre-colonial worldview. I first came across his work when I read the most recent book he co-wrote with Dr. Darcia Narvaez, Restoring the Kinship Worldview: 28 Precepts for Rebalancing Life on Mother Earth. It is absolutely worth the read, it is a thought-provoking exploration into how we’re living and what we can learn from Indigenous and ancient cultures that have lived in harmony with all of life for centuries before colonization and industrialization became the norm. The book was selected as one of “the most thought-provoking, inspiring, and practical science books of 2022” by U.C. Berkeley’s Science Center for the Greater Good. In September of 2023, Four Arrows presented before the 9th annual Sustainability Summit at the 76th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York. He is truly a unique human being, he’s a former world-class equestrian, a horse whisperer, a world champion old-time piano player, holds two Ph.D.s and lives next to and surfs on the Costalegre waves of Jalisco Mexico. In this episode, Four Arrows takes me on a journey exploring the Indigenous worldview, non-duality, and origin stories and myths. We talk about anthropocentrism, this idea that humans sit atop the pyramid of life and that everything else on Earth is inferior to and here for humans to use and then discard as they see fit. This human-centric worldview lies at the root of our entangled crises and we explore some untraditional ways that worldviews and ultimately culture, might shift. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qi4OPdVQ4X8 Four Arrow’s Links & Resources: https://www.fourarrowsbooks.com The Indigenization Controversy: For Whom and By Whom? The Red Road: Linking Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives to Indigenous Worldviews Unlearning the Language of Conquest Primal Awareness Differing Worldviews in Higher Education - Don (Four Arrows) Trent Jacobs & Dr. Walter Block Hypnotic Communication in Emergency Medical Settings - Don (Four Arrows) Trent Jacobs & Bram Duffee Critical Neurophilosophy & Indigenous Wisdom - Don (Four Arrows) Trent Jacobs, Greg Cajete & Jongmin Lee Other Resources Mentioned: Yanatin and Masintin In the Andean World - Hillary S. Webb Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution - Peter Kropotkin https://provensustainable.org/ A Time Before Deception - Thomas Cooper This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit najialupson.substack.com

My guest today is Darcia Narvaez. Darcia is Professor Emerita of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame. Born in Minnesota, U.S., she grew up living around the world as a bilingual/bicultural Puerto Rican-German American but calls Earth her home. Her earlier careers include professional musician, business owner, music teacher, Spanish teacher, and seminarian, among other endeavors. Darcia uses an interdisciplinary approach to studying evolved morality, child development, and human flourishing. Her most recent books include Restoring the Kinship Worldview, and The Evolved Nest: Nature’s Way of Raising Children and Creating Connected Communities both of which I’ve read and highly recommend. Darcia explores how compassionate morality in humans unfolds and what we can do to nurture it. In our conversation, we talk about how early life experiences are SO critical because they shape and mold our personality, our desires and values, and our capacities. Darcia says when you undermine early experience, you’re setting up the brain to be a dominator brain because you don't develop all the social skills that naturally emerge from an immersed and nested experience early in life. Darcia and I talk about how we’re living in ways that are very disconnected from the Earth and that the disconnection starts at birth. We actually evolved for cooperative child raising with kin AND non kin (meaning animals, plants and other living matter) all actively participating in raising our children, not just one or two parents as is the case in many industrialized nations. And if you think about it, there’s no society unless you’re taking care of mothers and children. Imagine if we created a society around caring for mothers and children? What might that world look like? How might we act today to support the emergence of that world? Each one of us has a gift to give the world and in this episode, Darcia and I invite you to consider what your unique gift might be and how you might share it with the world. I think this episode will resonate particularly if you’re a parent who feels like you’re struggling day to day, just trying to survive. Human history tells us we’ve actually evolved to live a very different way than the way many of us who are caught in the web of modernity are living. I invite you to listen to this episode with an open mind and an open heart. Watch the video episode on YouTube Darcia Narvaez’s Links & Resources: EvolvedNest.org & KindredWorld.org Restoring the Kinship Worldview, Darcia Narvaez & Four Arrows The Evolved Nest: Nature’s Way of Raising Children and Creating Connected Communities, Darcia Narvaez & G.A. Bradshaw Entangled World is a labor of love, I am deeply grateful for the generosity of my listeners and fans. Please consider making a donation at patreon.com/entangledworld. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit najialupson.substack.com

My guest today is Dr. Brad Kershner. Brad is a school leader, independent scholar, and meta-theorist, currently serving as the Head of School at Kimberton Waldorf School. His research, teaching, and writing cover a wide range of entangled topics, including education, leadership, parenting, cultural diversity, technology, integral theory, meditation, complexity, and developmental psychology. His first book is Understanding Educational Complexity: Integrating Practices and Perspectives for 21st Century Leadership. Brad is also a longtime student of multiple Buddhist lineages, a practitioner of Zen meditation, and describes himself as a lifelong student of developmental psychology and early childhood education. What’s so unique about Brad is that he’s a Waldorf educator who is also metacrisis-informed. As listeners of this podcast know, many of our conversations explore the metacrisis, or the entangled web of global crises that we’re facing and that have common underlying generative dynamics that we must navigate to support the continued emergence of life. Brad and I talk about why it’s so critical to not only work to deeply understand the metacrisis in all the ways we come to know and understand anything but to also have a contemplative practice alongside that often very cognitive exploration. When referencing the metacrisis, Brad says, “...it's an educational problem. It's a consciousness problem. It's a cultural problem”...and Brad’s focus is on helping people to understand the psychological, emotional, and cultural roots of the technological and scientific challenges that we face. We talk about the importance of slowing down, beyond the personal benefits, but highlighting how it's necessary to be able to engage with these wicked crises, in ways that veer towards the direction of more life and love and away from the direction of destruction and fear. We talk about the Waldorf approach to education and human development, its roots, and why so many of the teachings of its founder, Rudolph Steiner, remain relevant for our modern world. One thing to clarify is that when Brad says he is a “techno-optimist” he means he sees the value and potential in technology to improve our lives, not that he’s aligned with the “techno-optimist” movement whose adherents claim that market capitalism and technology will solve the world’s problems. This version of techno-optimism simply justifies elite power and promotes indifference to human suffering rather than the alleviation of that suffering. If you’re a parent of any age child, I think this conversation will be well worth your time in your already very crunched schedule. Watch the video episode on the entangledworldpod YouTube channel. Brad Kershner’s Links & Resources: Understanding Educational Complexity: Integrating Practices and Perspectives for 21st Century Leadership Waldorf Education, Stolen Focus and the Crisis of Attention Other Resources Mentioned: Stolen Focus, Johann Hari Rudolf Steiner Waldorf Education The Social Dilemma film John Vervaeke Entangled World is a labor of love, I am deeply grateful for the generosity of my listeners and fans. Please consider supporting the project at patreon.com/entangledworld. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit najialupson.substack.com

My guest today is Jonathan Rowson. Jonathan is the co-founder and Chief Executive of Perspectiva. A London-based charity that describes itself as "A collective of expert generalists working on an urgent one-hundred-year project to understand the relationship between systems, souls, and society in theory and practice". He was Director of the Social Brain Centre at the Royal Society of Arts from 2009-2016, where he authored a range of influential research reports on behavior change, climate change, and spirituality, and curated and chaired public events. In 2018 he was awarded an Open Society Fellowship to apply his philosophical and strategic approach to challenges faced by the human rights movement. Jonathan holds a first-class degree in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics from Oxford University and did his post-graduate work in theoretical psychology at Harvard and Bristol Universities, including a Ph.D. on what it means to become wiser. He is also a chess Grandmaster and was the British Chess Champion for three consecutive years from 2004-2006 and worked as part of former World Champion Viswanathan Anand's analytical team in 2008. He is the author of five books, including most recently The Moves that Matter – A Grandmaster on the Game of Life which was published by Bloomsbury in 2019. Jonathan’s Links & Resources: Perspectiva Substack Twitter Prefixing the World by Jonathan Rowson Tasting the Pickle: Ten flavours of meta-crisis and the appetite for a new civilisation by Jonathan Rowson Living in the Metacrisis with Jonathan Rowson short film by Katie Teague The Seven Deadly Sins of Chess by Jonathan Rowson The Moves that Matter – A Grandmaster on the Game of Life by Jonathan Rowson Other Books, Articles, Videos Mentioned: Education is the Metacrisis by Zak Stein The Psychological Drivers of the Metacrisis: John Vervaeke, Iain McGilchrist, Daniel Schmachtenberger The Politics of Virtue: Post-Liberalism and the Human Future by Milbank and Pabst Rowan Williams Review of The Politics of Virtue Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World by Timothy Morton Eye of the Heart: A Spiritual Journey into the Imaginal Realm by Cynthia Bourgeault Economics for the future – Beyond the superorganism by Nate Hagens The Great Simplification podcast hosted by Nate Hagens The Politics of Waking Up by Indra Adnan Zoom Conversations vs In-Person: Brain Activity Tells a Different Tale This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit najialupson.substack.com

My guest today is Nora Bateson. Nora is an award-winning filmmaker, research designer, writer, educator, international lecturer, as well as President of the International Bateson Institute based in Sweden. She’s also the creator of the Warm Data theory and practices. Nora’s work brings the fields of biology, cognition, art, anthropology, psychology, and information technology together into a study of the patterns in ecology of living systems. Her work asks the question “How can we improve our perception of the complexity we live within, so we may improve our interaction with the world?” Nora has written two absolutely beautiful, thought provoking books, Small Arcs of Larger Circles and her latest book, Combining, where Nora challenges conventional fixes for our problems, highlighting the need to tackle issues at multiple levels, understand interdependence, and embrace ambiguity. Nora and I talk about double binds, which in some cases are similar to multipolar traps or predicaments that feel impossible to get out of, what we might call “lose, lose” situations. Nora says in these situations, the question becomes, “How do we move with our predicament in a way that allows movement?” And so we discuss how we cannot solve our current global challenges or the metacrisis with direct correctives. Nora says you don’t meet something head on, you meet it around, you meet it within, you meet it totally. In ecological systems nothing is happening one thing at a time. There’s not A solution to A problem. We also discuss that while we can point to aspects of the metacrisis with language and statistics and measurements, that the real issues are insidious and underground and in our baseline presumptions of our understanding of what life is. I absolutely LOVED this conversation and I hope you do too. Nora Bateson’s Links & Resources: International Bateson Institute https://batesoninstitute.org/ Warm Data Host Training (Next in-person training Feb 19th-26th 2024 in Singapore) Books: Small Arcs of Larger Circles by Nora Bateson Combining by Nora Bateson I hope you enjoy the episode, if you do please subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app or the entangledworldpod YouTube channel. Entangled World explores the interrelated, existential social, economic, ecological, and technological risks we face, their underlying drivers, and how a more beautiful world might emerge. Entangled World is a labor of love, I am deeply grateful for the generosity of my listeners and fans. Please consider making a donation on Patreon. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit najialupson.substack.com

My guest today is Zineb Mouhyi. Zineb is the co-founder of both YouthxYouth & the Weaving Lab. YouthxYouth is a movement to radically reimagine the future of education with the goal of accelerating the process of young people influencing, designing, and transforming their education. The Weaving Lab is a global community of practice with the mission of advancing the field of weaving, understood as the practice of interconnecting ideas, people, projects, organizations, places, and ecologies to support systems change. Zineb is also a PhD candidate in Anthropology and Social Change where she explores the questions “How might we facilitate a planetary transition to a thriving planet? & How could education lead to a planetary transition?” Zineb and I talk about why education is one of the root causes of the many interrelated global crises we’re facing, also known as the metacrisis, as it is the core human-making function of society. Zineb believes that despite decades of adults working to reform public education, the system, on average, is producing dismal results and it's time for a youth-led education revolution! Her work with young people has confirmed her hunch that THEY need to be the ones leading the change. We also talk about the benefits and risks of artificial intelligence (AI) in education and agree that it is of the utmost importance that those in positions of educational leadership work to deepen their understanding of AI and how it is and will impact children moving forward. I hope you enjoy the episode, if you do please subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app or the entangledworldpod YouTube channel. Entangled World explores the interrelated, existential social, economic, ecological, and technological risks we face, their underlying drivers, and how a more beautiful world might emerge. Entangled World is a labor of love, I am deeply grateful for the generosity of my listeners and fans. Please consider making a donation at patreon.com/entangledworld. Zineb’s Links & Resources: YouthxYouth The Weaving Lab Books Mentioned: Education in a Time Between Worlds, Zak Stein Other Resources: Education is the Metacrisis, Zak Stein Entangled World explores our greatest, interrelated social, economic, ecological, and technological global challenges, their underlying drivers, and how a more beautiful world might emerge. Entangled World is a labor of love, I am deeply grateful for the generosity of my listeners and fans. Please consider donating at Patreon. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit najialupson.substack.com

My guest today is Manda Scott. Manda started life as an equine veterinary surgeon and is now a novelist, host of the Accidental Gods podcast, (r)evolutionary and smallholder. Her Boudica: Dreaming novels were international best-sellers and led to her teaching shamanic dreaming for the past two decades. She is the co-creator of the Thrutopia Masterclass, aiming to furnish writers with the ideas and concepts necessary to create stories that will carry us through to a future we’d be proud to leave behind. Manda’s story is fascinating and she shares insights she’s gained through unconventional ways that expand how we think we come to know things. She talks about the need for a conscious evolution in human consciousness and how our current worldview paradigm is deeply rooted in a story of scarcity, separation, and powerlessness. But this is not a “true” story…and we can collectively re-write a new one. Manda says that it's time for humanity to evolve our consciousness and understand our place in the web of life and she believes we can play an active role in its evolution and that connecting to the web of life is HOW we do it. This is a wide-ranging conversation, we talk about shamanic practices, economics, artificial intelligence (AI), mass social movements, and much more. I hope you enjoy the episode, if you do please subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app or the entangledworldpod YouTube channel. Entangled World explores the interrelated, existential social, economic, ecological, and technological risks we face, their underlying drivers, and how a more beautiful world might emerge. Entangled World is a labor of love, I am deeply grateful for the generosity of my listeners and fans. Please consider making a donation at patreon.com/entangledworld. Manda Scott’’s Links & Resources: Manda’s Site Accidental Gods Thrutopia Masterclass Boudica Trilogy Books mentioned: The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber and David Wengrow Debt, David Graeber The Eagle of the Night, Rosemary Sutcliff The Patterning Instinct, Jeremy Lent The Web of Life, Jeremy Lent Building Tomorrow, Paddy Le Flufy Other people and work mentioned: Audrey Tang Daniel Schmachtenberger, The Civilization Research Institute Tristan Harris & Asa Raskin, Center for Humane Technology, Your Undivided Attention podcast The Other Side of Eden, Hugh Brody The Master and His Emissary, Iain McGilchrist Zineb Mouhyi https://www.youthxyouth.com Angharad Wynne https://www.angharadwynne.com/ Paddy Le Flufy https://paddyleflufy.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit najialupson.substack.com

My guest today is Kathleen Rude. Kathleen is a shamanic practitioner, teacher and ceremonial leader and she fell in love with the natural world as a young child and found her voice for environmental activism at the tender age of 10. She was raised liberal Lutheran in a household steeped in Jungian psychology. She was initiated by Blackfoot, Northern Ute, and Lakota elders into indigenous spiritual practices and studied core shamanism with Betsy Bergstrom and Sandra Ingerman. She was also mentored by Joanna Macy, internationally acclaimed eco-philosopher and root teacher of the Work That Reconnects. She serves as a Weaver in the Work That Reconnects Network. Kathleen shares how the teachings of indigenous elders have profoundly influenced her beliefs about humanity not being separate from nature but part of it and brought an added dimension to her activism and conservation work. She also began to see how interconnected the issues she was working on were and how trying to solve them in isolation is not only not impossible, but also futile. We dig deeper into Joanna Macy’s work so if you’ve been curious about that either as someone who wants to experience it or facilitate it, this episode will give you a great overview. Kathleen’s journey is a wonderful example of how allowing your passion, interest, and values to guide you opens the doorway for you to offer what you are uniquely and meaningfully here to bring into the world. I hope you enjoy the episode, if you do please subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app or the entangledworldpod YouTube channel. Kathleen’s Links & Resources: Website Facebook group Redemption of the Red Fire Woman, Kathleen Rude Books Mentioned: We Are Water Protectors (Children’s book) From What is to What If?, Rob Hopkins Other Resources: Work that Reconnects Network Warm Data Labs led by Nora Bateson Entangled World explores the interrelated, existential social, economic, ecological, and technological risks we face, their underlying drivers, and how a more beautiful world might emerge. Entangled World is a labor of love, I couldn’t keep this podcast going without the generosity of my listeners and fans. Please consider making a donation at patreon.com/entangledworld. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit najialupson.substack.com

My guest today is Rachel Donald. Rachel investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. A climate corruption journalist, she is the creator of Planet: Critical, a podcast & newsletter read in over 125 countries, which explores the intersection of the energy, economic, ecological and equity crises. She also regularly presents on the relationship between systems and narrative, and is currently writing a book on violence. Rachels speaks about her experience as a climate corruption journalist and how her reporting has revealed patterns of exploitation and extraction that are rooted in perverse economic systems. She talks about how she initially thought business was the answer to the climate crisis and came to realize that our for-profit economic system is directly opposed to a liveable planet. Rachel explores how our capitalist system commodifies everything and pulls us apart so we can no longer rely on the collective and are forced to meet our needs in increasingly individualistic ways. We talk about where our ideas of separation might have originally come from…could it have been back in the days of Plato and Descartes who talked about the split between the body and mind, could it have been the invention of the plow which required us to feel like separate and superior beings to animals because you couldn’t torture an ox all day to do your farming work for you and still believe in its sacredness? However, our ideas of separation emerged, our fragmented consciousness may underlie the global challenges we face and a return to wholeness is now needed to avoid civilizational collapse. To close, Rachel shares inspiring examples of incredible work being done by people around the globe co-creating a more flourishing future. This is a wide-ranging conversation! I hope you enjoy it, if you do please subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app or the entangled world Youtube channel. Rachel’s Links & Resources: Planet: Critical Planet: Critical at OST Matt Leighninger, Planet: Critical podcast Simon Michaux, Planet: Critical podcast Ashish Kothari, Planet: Critical podcast Books Mentioned: The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber and David Wengrow Other Resources: Mongabay: independent news site that covers what’s happening to vulnerable people around the world, particularly indigenous peoples. Johan Rockstrum, Planetary Boundaries Black Mountains College Entangled World explores our greatest, interrelated social, economic, ecological, and technological global challenges, their underlying drivers, and how a more beautiful world might emerge. YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Entangled World is a labor of love, I couldn’t keep this podcast going without the generosity of my listeners and fans. Please consider making a donation at patreon.com/entangledworld. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit najialupson.substack.com

My guest today is Della Duncan, a Renegade Economist. Areas of her livelihood garden include supporting individuals as a Right Livelihood Coach, helping transition businesses and organizations as a post-capitalist consultant, teaching and facilitating courses and retreats on the Work that Reconnects and Regenerative Economics, and hosting the Upstream Podcast which challenges mainstream economic thinking through documentaries and conversations including most recently, The Green Transition: The Problem with Green Capitalism and The Myth of Freedom Under Capitalism. Our current global capitalist economic system has provided many benefits to humanity AND the system was designed for those benefits to accrue to those at the top, which is one of the reasons we have such massive inequality around the globe. Della and I talk about how capitalism is more like modern-day slavery and a tool for white supremacy and patriarchy. It is fueling the destruction of the planet, from which it is compelled to extract and it’s a system that can’t last forever and will eventually topple under its own weight. Della challenges the assumptions that are built into mainstream economics: that nature is commodifiable and we can objectify it and put a price on it, that humans are selfish beings out for our own self-interest, that work is something we don’t value or enjoy doing, that humans aren’t capable of collectively taking care of the land and that it must be privatized to be cared for, and the biggest assumption of all: that limitless growth on a finite planet is possible and even desirable. I hope you enjoy the episode, if you do please subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app or on the entangledworldpod YouTube channel. Della’s Links & Resources: Website Upstream Podcast Upstream Podcast, Ep 16: The Myth of Freedom Under Capitalism (Documentary) Social Media handles: @upstreampodcast and @dellazduncan Books mentioned: Less is More, Jason Hickel The Divide, Jason Hickel Winners Take All, Anand Giridharadas How on Earth: Imagining a Not for Profit World by 2050, Jennifer Hinton Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Persig 100 Years of Psychotherapy And the World’s Only Getting Worse, Michael Ventura, James Hillman Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer Other people and work mentioned: Does Studying Economics Breed Greed, Adam Grant Limits to Growth, Donella Meadows Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System, Donella Meadows The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance, Robin Wall Kimmerer Entangled World explores our greatest, interrelated social, economic, ecological, and technological global challenges, their underlying drivers, and how a more beautiful world might emerge. YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Entangled World is a labor of love, I couldn’t keep this podcast going without the generosity of my listeners and fans. Please consider making a donation at patreon.com/entangledworld. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit najialupson.substack.com