Interconnectedness in Action: Exploring Collective Intelligence with Extinction Rebellion’s Gail Bradbrook

In this episode, Gully engages in a profound conversation with Gail Bradbrook, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, delving into the complexities of creating a sense of interconnectedness within activism. They discuss Gail's personal experiences with plant medicine and spirituality, the theoretical role of separation in modern capitalist systems, and the challenges of implementing regenerative cultures and organizational methods based on interconnectedness. The episode explores the tension between getting things done and addressing trauma, power dynamics, and the limitations of hierarchical and horizontal organizing structures. The dialogue seeks to find practical approaches to fostering interconnectedness within social movements.

00:00 Building Community and Facing Challenges
02:36 Introduction to Gail and Her Work
03:57 Exploring Separation and Organizational Dynamics
04:56 Addressing Violence and Scarcity
05:38 Indigenous Wisdom and Avoiding Assimilation
06:26 Life's Intelligence and Personal Reflections
07:26 Neurodivergence and Personal Growth
08:26 The Role of Trauma and Resilience
09:02 Organizing from Elsewhere and Collective Intelligence
09:50 Challenges in Activism and Regenerative Practices
15:14 The Importance of Shared Purpose
36:13 Holacracy and Organizational Methods
45:07 Leadership and Group Dynamics
54:09 Exploring Fractal Growth and Decision-Making
54:51 Decolonizing the Mind and Somatic Approaches
56:06 Facilitation and Resource Allocation
58:34 Scaling and Collective Intelligence
01:01:44 The Pink Boat Story: A Lesson in Non-Violent Organizing
01:07:57 Reflections on Interconnectedness and Power
01:16:55 Practical Approaches to Interconnectedness
01:40:03 Final Thoughts and Future Directions

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Transcript

Gail: 0:00

People make community together and they think this is beautiful, you know, we're making a community together and we're taking a stand and we're protecting the trees, we're protecting life that Experience of being together, cooking for each other, holding each other, integrate new people, getting meaningful work, being. able to serve, being able to find your place in something quickly and feel part of it. It was incredible. And then power dynamics happen, people are living together and of course, all the shit shows up, right? had that magic moment on the streets, you've done something, and then everybody wants to grab the reins of power, and it becomes an argy bargy, right? So I think you have to find ways to integrate that movement towards purpose with the regenerative practices that we do together,

Gully: 2:36

Hi, I'm Gully and today I have the real honor of interviewing Gail, who's the co founder of Extinction Rebellion and has a background in activism and in science and is a champion for systemic transformation, who's got a keen interest in exploring spirituality and social change and science. And I don't know, maybe it's a bit cliché to put, but is, is really. Committed in the shit show that is facing us in finding a path towards a more beautiful future. Um, welcome Gail.

Gail: 3:14

Thank you. Thank you. Nice to be here.

Gully: 3:17

yeah. I, um, think I just told you just before I've been sort of immersing myself in 320 slides and, blog posts. But having this incredibly excited feeling as I see, um, overlaps. And one of the things I've most appreciated about what I've seen is your ability to hold many, many, many moving parts all sorts of scales with all sorts of theories and to, to really pull them together into a roadmap. And I found that very, very very exciting, um, to see, and I guess. If I was to sort of frame the three areas that I have some questions about, it's oversimplistic, but it seems that right at the center, you're placing the role of separation as sort of underpinning modernism, underpinning so many forms of oppression, um, and damage and pain.

Gail: 4:20

Yes.

Gully: 4:21

And yet there's very, very little focus, at least in what I've read, in the nuts and bolts of how we relate differently organizationally. So how do we move and decide together, organize together, deal with power together? Um, and that was curious because, you know, I met you in Extinction Rebellion and to be fair, Holacracy didn't exactly support, the aims of Extinction Rebellion. The second area that I was curious about, was the role of, violence and scarcity. So it seemed to be that you were sort of saying, well, as collapse comes to Europe, there is an opportunity to meet people's needs. material needs. and if we do that, we can build power. But when we look to where collapse has already happened in the global South, we see that actually surveillance and violence is very, very good. At preventing us from, organizing power. So in a time of scarcity, how is that approach going to work? How do we deal with violence and oppression? And the last curiosity that I, I had on reading it that I thought would be interesting to engage with today is you point to indigenous wisdom as offering perhaps a path to moving differently, to moving from a sense of interconnectedness. But again, what is your thinking about avoiding assimilation? Avoiding, again, extracting information from an already colonized and, decimated people. And I guess all of that I throw in with, you know, we're suggested some approaches at""Organizing from Elsewhere"" for dealing with that. So your critique of our approaches to that, as well as your own thoughts on how to deal with it. So that would be my very long winded dyslexic framing. And then I throw the ball.

Gail: 6:24

Gosh, there's a lot there. Thank you, for the questions and I mean, I think the first thing to really say is, you know, I feel at times, and this is not always by any stretch, that there is, I feel it rather than think it, that there's an in life's intelligence and that life's intelligence is having a go at some stuff, including through us, through this conversation, right? Through when we're curious and through when people try things together and certainly not just through humanity and human beings. Um, so when things happen and they don't go so well, it's kind of like, well, our intelligence tried that thing. What else might we try? Of course, life's intelligence might want to find ways to remember what it's tried or yeah, and that sort of thing. Thank you also for saying the thing about having that generalist's perspective and looking for patterns. I, just a couple of years ago as part of the perimenopause started to wonder about my own neurodivergence and um, without having a full diagnosis it seems pretty clear that I'm probably autistic and I think that's my version of autism and um, there's something to, reason to name that because. It's helping me to remember to unmask, so I might not look at you as much as I might have made myself in the past, even subconsciously, and yeah, like, autistic people show up in specific ways, specific to us as individuals, so yeah, it's just something there. It's um, not always easy being a working class young woman and being clever and

Gully: 8:12

Yeah.

Gail: 8:13

like it's not a thing that's necessarily welcomed in the world or seen or got.

Gully: 8:17

I can

Gail: 8:18

Um, and um, And it's okay, because I think, again, the things that are tricky and challenging in life are also what shape us and make us. You know, there's a beautiful podcast called the Emerald Podcast,

Gully: 8:29

Yes.

Gail: 8:30

he talks about trauma and the vegetative gods, is it? I think one of them where he says, well, is it, is it, you know, this tree is this incredible shape? Is it because of trauma? It's just like, is that what you want to say? Or is it just that, you know, it's had droughts, it's had lightning, and this is how it's grown off the back of that. It's beautiful still. Right. I kind of has been in those, therapeutic settings that make you sort of see yourself as a bit broken and

Gully: 8:58

Yeah.

Gail: 8:58

has its value, but it has its limitations. So when you mentioned, yeah, you know, again, being autistic, I'm probably, I'm about to spin my way through all these points you've made cause I made notes and that won't really be a conversation then, will it Gullyso? You feel free to, to sort of let me know you want to respond,

Gully: 9:18

Yeah, But I also feel really excited to listen. So spin away. Yeah. Spin away.

Gail: 9:23

I've learned it's called information dumping. I have to do quite a bit of managing in my brain to think, is this communicating, or is this just me? I feel like I've got box files in my head and it's like, Ooh, this one's open, boom, out you come, all the All the info, but So, I mean, as well to say I'm a real studier in uh, of things that people say. Miki Kashtan's work is amazing. I wish she was more well known in the world. A true visionary, and I had the honour of being. mentored and eldered by her. And, um, I have met Charles Eisenstein on a couple of occasions. Um, both of those have really centered separation in their work, as I'm sure you know.

Gully: 10:09

Yes.

Gail: 10:10

Miki talks about separation, scarcity, and powerlessness as a combination of impacts of patriarchy. I mean, in the ways in which we organize society these days, not meaning something particularly about men. Um, and my friend Skeena Rathore, Kashmiri adds soullessness to that list. You know, um,

Gully: 10:32

What does she mean by that? Do you

Gail: 10:34

well, would never dream of speaking on behalf of our Skeena, but what I think I would mean when I would use that would be. We de animate the world, we make the world stuff,

Gully: 10:46

Yes.

Gail: 10:46

our experience of it as being stuff, so I mean, it can be another way of talking about separation, I suppose, but it's that sense of that soul's feeling of the oneness, the connection, the interbeing.

Gully: 11:02

Alone. Alone. Looking out through these eyes. Into a dead world.

Gail: 11:07

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure you've seen it, but it is worth a mention that most wonderful TED talk by Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight. It's a brain scientist. She comes on stage talking about the brine with the accent she's got and showing you the two hemispheres in her hands, these two things squashed together in your head. And she had a stroke, took out her left hemispheres, which is what. modernity pushes us into being in this sort of separated self, in McGilchrist's work. And she had the experience of being in the right hemisphere whilst realizing she was having a stroke. It's quite a wonderful talk, My Stroke of Insight. So, um, yeah, there's the, the separation and the soullessness, you know, the de animating the world. It's, when you talk about"Organizing from Elsewhere", The meaning I most took from what you were saying was, and the place that I feel I have organized from elsewhere, if I'm understanding you right, which I may not be, but is by trying to ask, uh, humbly for something bigger than myself to give instruction and guidance and, um, yeah, like, help. Um,

Gully: 12:25

You have an experience of that, a story about that, that you'd want

Gail: 12:28

quite a lot, actually. Once that box file's open, golly, we're off, but, um. I mean, and possibly most people, many people, not most people, people may have heard the story of the Foundation of Extinction Rebellion from my point of view is they're going to make a huge prayer with lots of medicines and it was a bit intense when you think about it really. It was two workings with Iboga and three Ayahuasca and Cambo in a two week period with this prayer, um, wanting to start mass disobedience and the many different aspects of that prayer was answered. It takes a while to describe that, and there is a video with my name and breaking convention, the psychedelics thing, with that story in, but I've had that experience, so I feel like If you, open yourself up to guidance and, um, humbly and in service to life, you know, you're not asking for a Porsche because you fancy a, you know, a new car or something. You're asking for help in service to life, um, with willing, and sometimes you have to ask more than once because maybe what you're going to get. In response to that, you better be ready for it, you know, it might have been warned by my medicine woman to be careful what you pray for because, you know, it has consequences. It's a sense that things line up and, um, people arrive at the right time and when you look back, even though things were painful, they were lessons in them or whatever. Even very specifically, I mean with Extinction Rebellion, I made a specific request for the Codes for Social Change. And then I met Roger Hammam, and at the end of the meeting, having given me a lot of useful information, he told me, given me the codes for social change, which, why he would have used that phrase, I don't know. It was quite a moment I'm saying all this, and I want to really balance that, because another thing my medicine mum once said to me, which has been super, supremely helpful, is that there is a big part of ourselves, you know, that Is that sovereign person inside us that can be in connection with life and in that. Be life, you know, and you bring your gifts that you want to serve in the world And you want to bring to the world and you open yourself up. It's a beautiful thing and it's quite when it happens and um it can what in our culture we can put people on pedestals when that Happens, you know, and I really wish for everybody to know that about themselves. There's that Sovereign, beautiful part of yourself and like, what is your gift and gifts and how do you want to serve and open yourself up and I think that's where exceptional behaviours and results if you like to use that language, not quite the right language result but at the same time there's like broken me that's a dick and I still got little girls, still got hungry ghosts. And, you know, all the nonsense and all the, all the problems and the trauma, they, they both exist, um,

Gully: 15:51

if I sort of say a little bit back to you, I think you sort of conveyed this experience of Stealing both guided by and receiving insights from an intelligence beyond yourself and expanded in stepping aside. And yeah, I'm, I'm curious, like, have you had an experience where you've had that as a group, where sort of that's been the basic assumption of how you've moved as a team, as a group?

Gail: 16:29

yeah, yeah, I mean, well, limited, but what I would say is that I, we have, as part of my activism, I have been with people who are willing to be in connective prayer together, sometimes with more, you know, just openness to it and sometimes more, more, um, experience of doing that. So before we launched Money Rebellion, we went into the city of London and we Uh, smoked, uh, a tobacco together and that leads me to the cultural appropriation question actually, but, um, I made prayers there, but it has been more of an individual experience, um, that several times where we've, we've, um, a group of us have worked in that way and things have shifted, but we are not Sort of a quite tied together team, and I would like that to be part of my organizing more. I'm organizing at the minute with a group and we just made a collective dedication and, um, in that way for the work going forwards and, yeah, I, I, I feel quite Strongly that I want that to be part of how I organize with people, but you know, then again, you know, there could be somebody who comes along with super important, useful skills to has who have are also running the kind of that's woo woo or whatever, you know, stuff. So I don't want to be excluded either. Um. think, you know, it'd be interesting if she's willing to interview Skeena. That's what Skeena's work on co liberation, as I've understood it, has been aiming towards. When the hearts are really aligned, actually, um, and resonant, and that there will be flow that comes through, and that's what we're aiming for, is to feel very aligned at the, at a heart intelligence level, and co listening and co sensing. I think that would be, like, if it's the right word even, you asked for any critiques of the paper.

Gully: 18:32

Yes, that would be really lovely to hear.

Gail: 18:34

I think the main thing is just to be in that, and I'm sure you've said it, but the feeling of we don't know how to do that. You know, you said I talk quite a bit about separation in some ways, and yet it's not really clear the how. How do we go about this in groups? let's start from that point of view that we're trying things and we don't really know. So there's quite a lot, um, and I don't know if that's a fair critique of what your paper, by the way, but I just feel that, you know, let's just be clear that we don't, we can have a vision of what we would like to have happen. There's something about that combination of being in a system, part of a system of capitalist, colonialist modernity. You're in that and that system has got its You know, teeth in your neck, metaphorically speaking, and, um, it's trying to turn you into a zombie as well, and all the rest of it, right? Uh, it's up to stuff. And you know, we're not in a community that holds us, where our needs will be met and we can proceed from there. We're showing up with our own and, and intergenerational traumas and what some people call burdens, you know, the, um, legacy burdens, that's what they say in internal family systems. But. All, all the patternings and the habits and the problems and the oppressions that our lineage has been subject to, we're with that in this system. Right? And then we are wanting to work together probably with not enough resources,

Gully: 20:08

yes.

Gail: 20:09

and then we're trying to move towards a particular purpose. Um, just the very thing of tending, tending what the system's doing to us and tending, well, our own ways and collective ways of showing up together when trying to organize from elsewhere together. That could easily take us, you know, just into endless process because there's so much to tend. Like, how do we also move towards purpose? Because purpose is part of what keeps us together. So, and I have been in spaces where it feels like there's a sort of merry go nowhere of process, you know,

Gully: 20:43

Absolutely.

Gail: 20:44

uh, and, and people will leave, um, so one of the things that Miki how do you create a container that it's invitational, but people will choose not to join it because it's clear whether it is or isn't for them, and the capacity The capacity within that container is also clear, you know, so it's, it's never a question that a particular human being is not wanted because there's something in quotes wrong with them. But if, I'll give you a practical example, right? People set up, um, climate camps or anti fracking camps or whatever, um, you know, protest camps, HS2, it's happened many times in our activist movements. People make community together and they think this is beautiful, you know, we're making a community together and we're taking a stand and we're protecting the trees, we're protecting life and people are living together and of course, all the shit shows up, right? And people joined the camp who maybe got addiction issues, um, issues around violence and so on. And the whole camp ends up slightly imploding and focusing on trying to manage these internal issues. It's a sort of more obvious version of what I'm talking about, even if we're not on a camp or on Zoom calls. So, um, to some extent then the container has to say Something about capacities of people to be there, and I guess

Gully: 22:15

The container has to say. Can I push back just a little bit and sum up, just to give it maybe a little bit more shape. If I was to sum up with what you're saying, you're sort of saying, well, there's a bit of a dichotomy here. On the one hand, there is a need to do the work on our trauma, on our colonial mindsets, on our patriarchy, on all of this work in order to be able to come together from that felt sense of information coming from outside of interconnectedness. On the other hand, there is a need to get shit done. There is a need to take action and that these two things can sit in tension with each other. That was sort of the heart of what I was understanding. you to say, would that be right?

Gail: 22:56

I mean, Daryl Wolfgang, who you work with, once wrote a paper about the sort of, the split in XR, the split personality of the sort of regenerative cultures people, they get shit done people, and did feel like very right and left hemisphere, and they need to be together. So I, I, I don't think it's. Um, let's, let's refine this. Let's be, like, in this together. It's, you, you need both. And, um, it's more that I don't know if we know how to be in the both together. Rather than one's fighting for attention over the other. It's like, how do you bring that whole self? You know, and this is a very particular fractal of what McGilchrist talks about with brain science. You know, the right hemisphere is meant to lead and the left hemisphere then goes into, you know, the right hemisphere. If you're a, a composer, we'll feel and hear the music and then the left hemisphere will type the notes out and get it down. Right. And the instruments. So there's, those all has to work together, but it's, um, how does it work

Gully: 23:57

Yeah. How does it,

Gail: 23:59

Well, we need to know, don't we? We need to work that out, and I guess that's all I'm saying is, I've been in that curiosity for some time, including working on co liberation, um, with Skeena with Open Edge, including, The work that we did behind the scenes in Extinction Rebellion and the experiments, um, that we were trying to move forward with Mickey and others, it's tricky and I haven't got it figured. And also partly, you know, the reason why people are coming to be together is because there's a purpose. You know, it's, I mean, I have heard, for example, that before any business has been done, when indigenous peoples have come together for meetings, there's at least two days of ceremony and journey and, you know, so one could imagine that's this kind of thing that needs to happen. As I, I just hosted a meeting at my house, me and my partner did for the collapse preparing communities work that we're doing that was. you know, two and a half days of being together, which had some dedication, some eating together. They had a version of that. Yeah.

Gully: 25:04

how did that go? Do you think that made a difference? I'm

Gail: 25:08

Oh, people need to be together. I mean, I have this joke about myself that I'm like a Labrador. I need to smell people's pheromones and, you know, just, we need to be in the same room. Um, but I, I'm not trying to make out that that was the thing.

Gully: 25:25

this because I am curious, because I think you've probably got some very interesting thoughts about this, but if, if I'm hearing you right in several movements, one, we're saying things need to be a fractal, two,

Gail: 25:37

yeah,

Gully: 25:37

two, I think we're saying That this notion of separation is, um, a problem and the, the left and the right sort of needs to work together. And then the third thing is, well, sometimes things just need to emerge and you just need to practice. But if I was to posit to you that when there is a space. Often the fractals that fill it are the fractals that we come in with, that, um, you know, I think a lot of what you've just shared was understood by Extinction Rebellion, but it didn't stop us sort of, in terms of how we related to each other and organized together and the methods we used sort of much more closely recreating the culture we were trying to change. What wisdom have you come up with with all of this thinking about literally the nuts and bolts of organizing,

Gail: 26:29

yeah,

Gully: 26:29

where we don't do that?

Gail: 26:31

Well, and you maybe have some notes to share with this podcast, but I mean, for example, we did have some consultants, and I mean that in the best possible use of that word, um, Ken Zhee in particular, he spent quite a bit of time wrestling with where Extinction Rebellion was at in the UK and came up with a toolkit for collaborative practices, though has since said they feel like sort of dialogical approaches are missing. It needs a lot more people just being together and talking, as I understood it. So I'm happy to share that. It's like, what are your decisions? You know, you can talk about seven living systems. That's what Navigate talk about, who've, again, worked with Nikki. But, um, What are your decision making practices, what are your feedback practices, what are your conflict practices, how do you take care of each other, so on and so forth. So what we had in XR were these ten principles and values that I had the biggest, you know, it was my lead on writing those really. And I had a sense of the how for each of them to some extent, but not enough, that there was such a strong specific source around the, um, how of civil disobedience. And that was what was being really driven at the heart of XR and the regenerative cultures piece, I had a sense that we, you know, we would need to make sure that people were committing to doing inner work, whatever means for them, and that we would need people to have intergroup practices, but we didn't know all the how. Of course, there are books written about this, Daniel Weil and others, but, um, I did also find, if I'm really honest, and again, no disrespect, and I don't mean this to everybody who's ever done anything around regenerative cultures, but you would tend to get the regenerative cultures people being sort of therapist type people that came. And, um, regenerative cultures don't just need a therapeutic basis, they also need a how. How are you going to do this en masse, right? So the sort of action team would have all these kind of action orientated, sort of masculine energies. I don't necessarily just mean men, but they were like out there, right, come on, recce, let's get the action design, let's get the affinity groups up. and the regenerative cultures pieces, it felt like they went into a bit of a spin and, it led to this kind of thing of like, well what the fuck is regenerative cultures? Because it just seems to be this group of people with their heads up their arses, right? If I'm just paraphrasing. And um, so we, we had lots of intentions around regenerative cultures, and requests and even bits of money for it, but it, I wouldn't, I didn't think it ever really had its. time in the movement. The best, the best of it, the best of it possibly, at least from my perspective, was in the April 2019 rebellion, when we were doing, and this is the integration, right? We were doing, and again, this is Miki Kashcan's wording, but vision holding actions, you know, those actions that demonstrate the vision that where you want to be and feel regenerative to be part of them. So we blocked Um, Waterloo Bridge and we made it a garden and we made it a community and people just, there was an attraction field that happened. People were in FOMO, gotta be there. And like Woodstock, Excel was like Woodstock for a very short period of time, you know, but so people come and that experience of being together, cooking for each other, holding each other, integrate new people, getting meaningful work, being. able to serve, being able to find your place in something quickly and feel part of it. It was incredible. Um, so I think you have to find ways to integrate that movement towards purpose with the regenerative practices that we do together, if I'm going to use that language.

Gully: 30:27

keep coming back to a certain degree to, we need to find ways and we don't have answers and there is sort of action being taken. So for example, right now, you know, you are thinking with a number of other people about, what actions need to be taken to create the container within which an effective metastrategy might. Emerge. And again, if we come back to separation is key, fractals are necessary, we live in a complex system, then the movements you're making now. You know, we'll, we'll have ripples and I don't know if you agree with sort of the analysis that we're saying we're sort of saying all horizontal and vertical forms of organizing, you know, relying on assumption of separate entities that are, um, have different needs and desires and organizational methods sort of tried to mitigate that. And because of that assumption, we tend to replicate the core idea in our, in our ways of organizing. Um, and that this plays at least a part in why there is a breakdown in culture or cultures, um, replicate the, the, the system we're trying to change. And I'm just curious, what organizational methods are you using at the moment, formally and informally, to create this meta strategy? And what do you, how do you think that will shape and limit the meta strategy that you're going to create? Absolutely.

Gail: 32:02

I, with the metastrategy work, and again, this has been on a bit of a journey, so, um, just over two years ago, I met a lady called Julian Siddiq, who does nature based systems thinking at a particular gathering that I was invited to speak at, um, and she was talking about the next social movement, and I was saying, I don't really feel like it's going to be a movement, it's more like a framework, and that there's, it's an ecology. And it's how that can live and be together. And, um, so we sort of started thinking about that together, and asking who might like to be part of a paradigm shift group, hubristically named. Um, so we went through a process of inviting people, and we had a gathering in Devon. Um, quite a powerhouse of people, but very busy people and at least to check, I think what that managed to do was to check that, our thinking was not wildly off track, you know, and there was some possible ways of, of change happening. Although, you know, again, some people would think more about hospicing modernity using the Nespicado de Oliveira's. phrase as part of, again, Alno Lada would say this, the Kali Yuga, you know, this time of sort of destruction and unraveling, as I understand it. Uh, as, uh, how we meet these times and that impulse to push for change can also come from a place where there's something that wants to die and be composted and let go of, you know, so it's finding that balance in each of us. I felt like it was, uh, An intelligent group of people that could hold that within them and we, uh, invited a person, um, I don't know if this is just too much detail really, but Jose Barco, who's experienced in Theory U, where's the facilitation and in, um, a variety of, you know, when I say we don't know how, like it's not like there aren't tools and techniques out there, like it's, there are things out there, but it's, It's that thing of how do you build something together with whom, with their willing, and move forward. And then you get somewhere with that and then the next thing happens. So we, we did this paradigm shift gathering and then after that next phase of work came and I've been reaching around with Julian and others to try and find specific people interested in movement ecology work. Um, it, it, what it reminds me of is, um, if you think about a landscape that's been laid waste by the destructive forces of, colonialist modernity and it's going to regenerate itself, there are pioneer species, the silver birch, the dandelion that will make the first, will do the first things. So, it's kind of who arrives first and what do they do? How do they prepare the ground for the next arrivals? Like, it's not just, it's not just that you sort of suddenly have, you know, a thousand people working together and you make something happen. It starts with two people, what do they do, and how does the third join? It starts with one person, how do additional people join and what's needed before the next species joins. And so when you were saying earlier about that sense of interbeing, my most beautiful experiences with Extinction Rebellion is when you just feel that, you feel that murmuration, you feel that murmuration and it's kind of like, whoa, you know, Claire Farrell made me laugh my head off one time, but she said, Somebody, somebody asked a question in a meeting. She said nobody knows what's going off in this movement because we've decentralized the fucking tits off it. But it, nobody had that sort of overall steer on it, which to some extent, um, created some problems because it was just doing its own thing, you know, and it, Could dissipate energy and whatever, but it, at its best, would have that murmuration feeling of like, and you felt that everybody was playing their part and it was making this thing happen and yeah, so quite incredible. The experience, by the way, of setting up the holocratic system. Yes, everything's my fault if it's gone wrong in XR, I do feel that as a source person for it.

Gully: 36:22

Why did you choose it?

Gail: 36:24

honestly, honestly. My friend Anna O'Brien said you might want to use Holacracy Gale. I know somebody who knows about it, but I wouldn't personally recommend it. So that was why. That was as strongly as it was recommended by somebody I trust. We didn't have a different thing on the table. Somebody called Nick came and helped us set it up, and we started drawing these circles and guessing. It's sort of mapped on with a lady called Amber Greeter, who's a Stroudie who runs Butterfield's Festival. And so they had a sort of version of that running. The sort of idea of, um, supporting different groups to get on with their job and feeling empowered to get on with it, you know, I don't think that's, like, wrong. Where it gets really rigid, um, is a problem. And where I think a real mistake is when you haven't got your purposes clear and the nested purposes clear. Like if you're If you're there to run the Twitter account, you're within the nest of the communications work and you're in the nest of the purpose of the movement, for example. So, um, there needs to be some really shared agreements around what we're trying to do together.

Gully: 37:48

how do you think it sort of shaped and limited what Extinction Rebellion UK were able to do then, the fact that you used holacracy?

Gail: 37:55

I mean, one of the things is that it's very self replicating. You know, people can come into roles and there's, cause there's a person, there's at least a role that advertises. We need new people and so new people, so energy comes into the system and then they integrate them into a place and then after a while there's people think, oh, I wouldn't mind doing that and they move around and then at some point they might leave pissed off, burnt out. But some more people have come in. So it's like, I have sort of gone, Oh my God, I set up a fucking system and it's never going to die because it's still self replicating. The systems are, you know, so that's. But it, I, I, I personally think at the heart of it, those principles and values need to be very much felt at, uh, at an individual level. Like I, do you mean this and what are you doing personally to live that, um, to live those things? Because it doesn't, it hasn't felt like that for some time with XR, it's felt like people are kind of coming. Because they're scared about climate change, they sort of sign up to these things and then they get on with the real deal, which is organizing some actions, you know.

Gully: 39:04

May I ask, so if I hear back, you're saying that it's less of a problem of holacracy itself and more about the way it was implemented? Would that be?

Gail: 39:13

Well, I, you know, I, like, maybe somewhere in between those two things, I wouldn't sort of make it quite to black and white. I, I, I, I would be interested in a different system other than holacracy, if somebody was showing me them.

Gully: 39:28

Can

Gail: 39:28

I, I, I would, I'm, I'm not, um, Signed up to Holacracy. I'm not a kind of process nerd. I mean, I was in touch with Frederic Laloux at the time, right? Who was working on reinventing organizations. And I was saying to him, look, we're trying to do this sort of decentralized organizing. Can you tell us, is there anybody can help us? You know, what should we be doing differently? And he said, you're at the cutting edge. So I was like, well, that's a bugger because who's going to help guide us?

Gully: 39:56

I lead this a little bit somewhere? And I might share something, but it's also maybe a little, it's a question and it's a bit of a challenge. So first I'd like to say why I think holacracy.

Gail: 40:07

And I'm like, please, tell me what we should do next.

Gully: 40:09

no, no, I'm not going to tell You what I did, but I'll give you my critique of holacracy within Extinction Rebellion UK. So I think that basically there was an assumption of mandates. So a mandate basically would say, you know, this is my mandate.

Gail: 40:25

Yay.

Gully: 40:26

the circle's mandate. So again, this notion of separation, um, meant that this idea of competition, you know, you know, I'm media circle, uh, action circle saying, well, I'm going to do this and media circle, but it's going to impact this, this sense of competition and rivalry really was underpinned by this notion of separation. And I saw that play out from my limited time within extinction, rebellion. And for me, that was, you know, that really got me thinking, um, on quite. a deep level about that. And then there was this, this other sort of linking back to what you were sort of saying, where you say, well, we don't know how to move from this sense of interconnectedness. And then you said, well, we didn't know what to do. So we took this thing off the shelf. So another reason I think that Holacracy doesn't work is because of the ways that we innovate organizationally. We see something working over there and we apply it over here. And because of the way complex systems work, that has lots and lots of unintended consequences because you, you know, it has a different effect and you are changing different constraints. So that would be my critique of it, and my concern about some of the ways that you're, you're speaking a little bit is that, you know, decisions are being made sort of collectively, you know, for instance, you described a team of people and who is in, who's going to be invited, and how decisions are emerged, and even if we don't name it in that vacuum, We tend to default to varying forms of hierarchy, the person with most power deciding whether it's formal or informal or various horizontal sort of forms, all based on this assumption of separation. And there is a danger, isn't there? Despite the best intentions, this sort of, at this crucial time, we could replicate some of those. patterns in, in, in unhelpful ways. And you said, well, you know, what do we do? And I'm not sure I can tell you what we, what you can do at all. Cause I think it's the hard question. I noticed that in some of your things, you talked a lot about citizens assemblies, filling that gap of organizing, um, in your blog post that was sort of, well, we can form a citizens assembly and somehow this can sort of face some of these challenges. I wonder if it would be interesting at this point in the conversation or, or not. If I shared maybe some of the things that we are thinking about possible way of filling that gap, and you could like criticize the hell out of it and tell us why it won't work so that there would be an attempt to sort of, sort of, grow from that, would that be an interesting thing to

Gail: 43:13

I'd love to hear. Yeah, I think I just wanted to clarify what I think where we are in agreement. Gully is like, it's this thing about nested purpose. It's sort of you really, really need to be clear on the purpose. So, um, If then, then it's not a separation thing. It's like, if life has this purpose of being more complex and beautiful and sustaining life, then everything is interacting within that purpose, even though it may feel there's a competition, you know, even though deer and the, and the rabbits might both want the, to eat the grass or whatever playing a role, the wolves playing a role in, in, in that ecosystem. There's a, there's a, there's a genuine shared purpose. If, if, if what happens, and it's a power, it's a question of power here. You, you get all these people with mandates, wearing them like sort of badges and going around saying, I've got this mandate and, and this mandate means this, and it's kind of like, it's, you're not in a sense of shared purpose because this is part of the issue, I think, with the holacracy and how we set it up. Is that, um, the purpose needs to evolve over time. So, XR was actually founded on the back of something called Compassionate Revolution that I'd started. Which was, um, rebranded Rising Up. And XR was just a campaign, rather than a movement. But it became a movement, with some of the scaffolding for a movement, but not most of it. And so it's sort of, how was it going to evolve to do the next thing when it was then locked into this sort of rigid system that was replicating, let's, it's all about getting everybody on the streets, get the three and a half percent and then it's all going to change. Well no, we're just trying that for a bit, we're rolling the dice. And then the power dynamics happen, and some of these people, you've had that magic moment on the streets, you've done something, and then everybody wants to grab the reins of power, um, and it becomes an argy bargy, right? Um, and because you haven't set up. a way of evolving the purpose, and that actually requires visionary leadership, and visionary leadership is, in my view, right, is, is something that's limited. Within capitalist modernity and it actually requires, it actually requires deep listening to people who've got at least, you know, part of their soul, psyche, history, somewhat outside of capitalist modernity, um, and that there are the people that precisely got marginalized in Extinction Rebellion and named it as racism, right? I've just been in a two year battle around that. Um, I mean, there's many ways to tell that story, but I, I think

Gully: 45:53

I'm

Gail: 45:53

part of the problem. Yeah, it, it, it, it, it, it comes back to what we were saying earlier, it's like, how do you stay open to life flowing through you? I mean, I'm actually help, I find it helpful to name this because, because the group that I'm in at the minute, we're in this quandary around, sort of, in quotes, spirituality. I feel very, very intuitively strongly that that needs to be the heart of what we do, but I don't want to exclude people, and it's like, how do we How do we support that? And it's because as things, as you're trying to make decisions, I don't want them just to come from the mind, right?

Gully: 46:25

Absolutely.

Gail: 46:26

You know,

Gully: 46:27

Absolutely. And I would be very interested in your thoughts about how we do that without, I'd be very interested. I mean, I think you've got much more interesting things to say. I mean, for us, it's the body. So first of all, so it's the body and it's about ontology. So for instance, we've got, um, you know, Christian Plankhurst and Rachel Rickards in particular, but also Sylvia, I never pronounced her surname. And it's, it's really interesting because they're very, very good at emergent facilitation and they don't use spiritual language. So they go in and you'll, you'll come in and they will talk about, um, co regulation of nervous systems and how, you know, the, the language of physics in terms of distributed intelligence and distributed cognition, or, you know, Peter Russell, the basic assumption that you know, a lot of hard scientific problems. Could be solved if we say that the fundamental building block of the universe is self awareness is consciousness rather than matter that perceptual sciences is right now within that you start to create an ontology and a language that is scientific, you know, how did I support Wolfgang to arrive at a lot of the places he's at was not by talking about how the ideas of this project came in a vision in the jungle. Or spirits or entities because he completely switches off, but he was arriving at very, very similar conclusions through scientific language. So if we take the points that there isn't one language and there isn't one approach. So we think that we start with what language, where do you meet people where they're at, this particular group, what language enables them to start to believe that there is an intelligence. beyond the self. And then what embodied practices give them that experience, in a quite strong way, that they can then explain with this new ontology? And then how do you create these self reinforcing patterns that the more they feel it, Because of the breath work, because of the micro dosing mushrooms, because of, you know, the, the collective cathartic coming together over theater and stories, and then they have a language to explain it. The more you can support a group to genuinely believe that decisions and ideas are emerging from a collective intelligence rather than an individual intelligence. So that's how we're thinking about at least that part of it, and then, and then the symbology for discerning that when there's sort of digressions between psychedelic experiences. So with the Maztecs, they would, if there was different people, fundamentally different visions, would see that as further investigation. They wouldn't then go into your right and your wrong, and they'd go deeper until there was some symbolic sort of way of understanding it. So I guess that's how we're starting to, to think about that. But obviously key to that is at least dealing with enough of the trauma through somatic techniques and enough of making people aware of their current mindsets to even be aware. So those seem to be the kind of the first step. So that's some of how we're thinking about developing bespoke organizational methods. Um, What do you think, you

Gail: 49:34

think, I think, truthfully, I'm doing a version of that, actually, as you've described it. So thank you. But so, so, so part, although I, I, I, I do a bit of a number on the physics side of things. You know, there's this sort of concept of the cosmic hologram, which Jude Corrivan's written

Gully: 49:52

don't know that, but yeah.

Gail: 49:53

My first husband was, who's Britain's best young physicist, did a piece at the, um, Cheltenham Science Festival on it. It's the latest physics is that the world is informational. And so you can sort of at a stretch talk about morphic resonance from, through that lens. It's why I'm a deep, deep fan of McGilchrist's work, because he's, he does 5, 000 science papers behind the matter with things, right. So if anybody's, gonna go, Ehh, woo, you know, I, I will, you know, this is a problem though, Gully. I will slightly, if I'm not careful, sort of baffle them with a bit of science, you know, and I think it can be

Gully: 50:30

Why is that a

Gail: 50:31

I, I think, well, because I think I can use it as a bit of, I, you know, I have a scientific background. I think I can use it at times a bit like a bathroom ram if I'm not careful. Yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, I'll sort of get the box file out on the, I can, I can do, like, I'm doing a witchcraft course at the minute and do a version of that. Or I can say, ah, but, you know, science. So I think I'm doing that ontology switching. In fact, the, the Pan African elders I work with, the key word that they use is pluriversality. that there are many ways of knowing and being in the world and that we need to be with the plural of us. So we're in a wrestle with this at the minute with the Collapse Preparing Communities Convening Group, just in terms of different languages. but what's good is there's a real degree of like group and, and personal intelligence and willing. So that bit where you said, where it feels like there's a difference and instead of feeling that's a problem, you'd be curious about it. And I, what I work with there is, you know, Miki Kashtan, I've mentioned her five times now, but because she should be, um, but you've probably seen her book, Convergent Facilitation, where you drop into, okay, there's a contested word, leadership, right? To me, there's something that people need to get their heads around. And I don't, I don't need it to be that word, but I, I mean, a specific thing with that word, right? For an

Gully: 51:53

want to define it? Do you want to define it so that for the audience, or?

Gail: 51:57

It's about care for the whole, so it's, you don't just show up to a group and think what am I doing? What am I getting out of this? Um, when, when shall I speak? What have I got to say? You're like, how is this, how is this going for everybody? Oh, does that, is that person feeling a bit on the edge? Have we remembered that person's got a hearing impairment? Um, has everybody spoken? You know, does, does everybody, um, uh, who's the sort of slower person who, who speaks up more? You know, all that stuff, right? You care for the whole. Um, You could say that at a dinner party though, make sure everybody has a nice time. The other bit is that you're trying to support the group to move towards purpose, so you're sort of thinking, sensing, well maybe, I do work somatically, we'll do that thing of, okay, we've all just arrived on a Thursday at 5pm, should we just start by being quiet? You know, should we just start by doing some stroking ourselves, you know, to give a sense of safety or breath work or whatever. So that piece, um, and it's trying to, that care for the whole bit, you're trying to Support everybody to be somatically well, you know, to be, uh, as well together as possible. But you're also going, you're not just spending the whole time checking in then, you're, you're on then going, well, because it lifts people's spirits to know that there's been some progress happened. So, oh, tell us how that's gone, Bob, you know, and he reports in and how's, what's the process for feeding back. So there's a feeling of being part of something that's moving towards purpose.

Gully: 53:32

I find that an interesting definition of leadership. I guess I kind of subscribe to the kind of notions of full circle leadership. I don't know which sort of disentangles authority or power from leadership qualities. And, um, Yeah,

Gail: 53:44

word in it. Sorry, this is an autistic thing I do. Not saying every autistic person does it. I butt in because I'm interested in what

Gully: 53:51

yeah, yeah. I like it. I like it. I do it a bit too.

Gail: 53:54

I'm with you and also we're running out of time.

Gully: 53:56

Yeah. Okay. Then I'm going to try and direct this to where I want this

Gail: 54:00

Yeah, forest fault leadership, leaderfulness, but they still have that leader thing and still, still, still people will react. But I love what you said. I agree with you. The one thing I would say about it, though, is when you've got explosive growth, and maybe that's the thing to avoid, um, how you replicate the fractal, how you let that fractal repeat and grow, is, that's a, issue.

Gully: 54:23

okay. I'm going to, I'm going to ask you some questions, maybe some contained answers because there's two other areas I want to gather with you. But just to sum this up, I think if we at"Organizing from Elsewhere" would, would quite appreciate Okay. the feedback. We're sort of saying that that space, who decides and who decides, who decides and the nuts and bolts of sort of, um, making decisions the approach to that needs to be specific to any particular group. It needs to really start with a sort of decolonizing the mind, becoming aware of how you're seeing the world and it's sort of patriarchal neocolonial basis. These things don't happen linearly, but. Interwoven in this is some other important elements. Somatic approaches to trauma that maintain separation. The mapping of power so that it is kind of named and out of the shadows. And then the development of an ontology that the group can buy into that really supports them to believe that there is knowledge and intelligence arriving rather than originating from within individuals in the group and somatic practices that give them quite a strong embodied sense of that, that they're then explaining with this new story and then sort of structures, um, symbolic systems to sort of piece together collectively the information that's arriving through individual mouths from a collective intelligence that they can then piece decisions. Um, an increased belief in the body and intuition and images and shutting down the mind and we're trying to develop a facilitation process around that to, I

Gail: 56:06

See, so here's the thing though, like, so this is coming from scarcity in me, so I'm just naming that, right? I love what you're saying, like, how do I have all of you be involved in our, all of our meetings and have them all go well, right? Because,

Gully: 56:24

we, we wouldn't be doing that. We would be facilitating you as a team

Gail: 56:29

sure,

Gully: 56:29

come up with that way of doing it for yourselves.

Gail: 56:32

but what I'm, what I'm getting at is it still requires your resource to be part of what we're doing, doesn't it?

Gully: 56:38

No, no, not at all. It's a little bit, it's a facilitation process. We would support your team to basically believe that there is an intelligence greater than yourselves and to come up with your own specific ways of accessing that and making decisions from that.

Gail: 56:53

Yeah, I, I'm not, I understood that. I think what I'm trying to say though is that's a sort of, it's a thing that takes a certain amount of time and investment of time, right? And, and that's the scarcity feeling of, and I know, I know what the answer is, right? Because if you don't do this, it's not going to go well.

Gully: 57:11

you don't, if you don't do it, you could end up, you could end up with, um, hierarchies and power plays and all of these cultures undermining the very thing that you're trying to, to do because of the arguments that you are making that everything is a fractal

Gail: 57:27

yeah.

Gully: 57:28

and repeats out.

Gail: 57:29

honestly think we're on the same page and I, I'm, I'm sort of wrestling with what you're saying. With a group of people in, in, not in a, you know, in a, it's interesting because it, One of the people that I'm working with that's, um, yeah, we, like, it's really important that him and I have a lot of dialogue and we're both really, really up for that And yeah, there's differences emerging and it takes some time to sort of unpick those. So it's that kind of, I suppose the scarcity is it's sort of like if you don't get that much progress, the people that are potentially or currently funding things, it's like, well, what have you done? You know, I keep saying to some people, they're building the container and it takes time. Um, INE Institute used to say it takes at least nine months, you know, and this is, this is not with. this would be with people with time to hang out together. So it's what I was saying earlier on, Gully, we're saying you're in this system, it's got its teeth in your neck and all of that. So it's, it's sort of, but I, I, like, look, what you're saying, I agree with. Yes, it is that. And then there's sort of, the next bit then is because you can have that fractal layer, like, let's say there's like, I don't know, three to ten people coming together to make something happen, but what they're trying to do is mobilize millions of people. That scaling thing,

Gully: 58:54

yeah.

Gail: 58:55

question, you know, like how, how the, how the pioneer species that makes space for the next layers of the fraction. Yeah. Have you got an answer for that one?

Gully: 59:05

I mean, the interview is the wrong way around, but the answer would be because that small group now believes that they're receiving information from outside and they're accessing, if you want the scientific language, their full body intelligence or our spiritual language, that literally they're now able to listen to a vast intelligence. The answer for that would arrive. to them and it would be appropriate and harnessing a bigger intelligence rather than them breaking out and infighting about what the right way is or them copying a specific thing so it would fractal out the core thing is that that those people are really moving from a heartfelt belief.

Gail: 59:42

yeah.

Gully: 59:42

ideas aren't theirs.

Gail: 59:43

yeah. yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gully: 59:45

but they, they really are, you know, working through the body. Um, so, I mean, that's how we're thinking, um, about it and experimenting with it and exploring and we will fail. But I guess the point of this sort of interview and this podcast is to get people like you to sort of. Think about that a little bit and to say what's wrong with it, or what's the different way of approaching it? Because if we say that the key is that we don't move from separation, then one way perhaps is our way, but then the way that you're experimenting with your team. I guess if I was going to influence you in one area, it would be not to leave that black hole wide to sort of say, well, we need to get here. We need to get to meeting material resources and we need to sort of, um, you know, all of the kinds of things and how we organize getting that will just emerge. Because I think there is a real chance of taking other organizational methods that are based on separation off the shelf and undermining yourself before you get there or affecting it. But to ask that fundamental question about how you in your small groups are going to make those decisions from this fundamental assumption of interconnectors, and I'm sure you'll come up with better solutions than us, but that's like real curiosity.

Gail: 1:00:58

mean, that's why we jumped together for a weekend because it's sort of like, you, we need to be together and that, that, that life energy needs to come through. And that was the prayer, by the way, that was the prayer of dedication was to open the group up to the life energies. And I'm, um, I need to go very shortly, but I'm happy to do a second session with you, love. Um,

Gully: 1:01:20

be lovely. I'd love to carry the conversation

Gail: 1:01:22

I think so, yeah, we didn't get to the other things that you named about violence and scarcity and indigenous wisdom. But I just, I can share a story, um, that will, you know, maybe reassure in some ways that I get it. So, um, here's the story, right? You might, you might have even been there. So there, there was this pink boat in Oxford Circus, right? And the pink boat was a beautiful thing. If anybody got to be there, it was, um, I thought it was like a big vagina. I was like, fucking hell, we've put a big vagina in the middle of Oxford Circus, this big pink boat. And, um, it was led by the Southwest. There was lots of dancing and Southwest vibes and gray speakers. Um, yeah, it blew people's minds away. Many people came across the Pink Boat and they're like, we want to join this movement. So it's one of the beautiful vision holding actions. It was celebratory and meaningful, and it was held in place by these barnacles that were locked on. Do you know what about the Pink Boat, right? So, um, and to say, when I went to Costa Rica to pray for the rebellion, one of the things was I want to know who my guides and allies are and, you know, the bigger things that support the work. And it's very personal that to, to make those asks and to, to feel something about that and to have, I'm not going to say out loud exactly what came, but things came. Um, and, Anyway, we're all in this office and we're getting these phone calls, the police have finally taken the pink boat, it's been dragged away, and the people are going a bit, it's getting very lairy, it's getting, it's on the edge of violence, right, it's been a non violent movement, it's in its peak of its power, it's going big across the world, and it's potentially about to drop into violence, right, there were sort of two to three hundred rebels getting agitated. Right. Right. Somebody needs to come from the office and help sort this out, right? And we were all like, well, you know, it's all decentralized organizing. We've got, people on the ground need to make decisions, it's not up to us. And they were like, no, this is lessons. It was this dear old Rachel Lennon, actually. She was saying, no, somebody known to the movement, Gail or Roger needs to come and sort this out. Um, and so after like two, two or three back and forth, we're like, okay, we're going to come. So I thought, Christ, what are we going to do when we get there? And I'm looking around for. A, a, a megaphone to, you know, how are you going to even speak over this roar? And all the batteries were broke, nothing was working, there was this green horn, like a plastic green horn, and I stuck it in my belt. And we jumped on our bikes, Roger and I, and we raced down there. And it's actually in the film Conscientious Protectors this, and I have to say it's a bit male gaze this, the way the male camera guy, blessings on his life, chose to sort of show that story. It makes it look like Roger was very much in charge somehow. But I felt a little bit abandoned by him at the time, because he sort of said to me, Look, Gail, I'll go and talk to the police. You deal with the public. It's not the public, it's our people, right? And as we approached it, um, this guy threw himself at the boat and a police officer grabbed him and shoved his head down on the ground and put his knee on his head. Like, it was that level of aggression. There were about 300 rebels and about four times as many police. It was Heavy. So anyway, I went and stood in front of this group of people with this tension, right, with this plastic horn in my bell somehow, and with just Rogers going off to talk to the police. And I stood in front of this group of people and I thought, you know, I, I, I was, I thought to myself, um, this, this moment really, really matters. It's all down to me and I don't know what to do. And I, and I touched this green bat horn and like, it just dropped in, it just dropped in the download of what to do. And I sort of blew this daft horn and asked everybody to sort of sit down and we ran a people's assembly. Um, and, and what came to me was it's grief. People don't to let go of something that they're grieving and they need to go through a process. So I just blew the horn, everybody sit down, talk to the person next to you about what you're feeling right now. And it ran for about an hour. The police came up to me afterwards, even months later and thanked me for it. We had, um, a beautiful process. Everybody apart from one person, we honored that person, we applauded them, had made agreement about how to handle the situation. Which was to gracefully let go of the boat, with singing a morning song from Scotland, April Grief song, I did, gorgeous. And um, it was a beautiful moment of togetherness, and it came from beyond me. Uh, and the thing was, during the process, this guy came up to me, whispered in my ear, got more boats. Of course we've got more boats, the boats is just a symbol, right? We've got more boats. And before the hour was up and we were off and the boat was let go, a sign had gone up in, um, Oxford Circus, we are the boat. You know, that collective intelligence and it, from my point of view, it just came through life, right? And that's what I understand to be organizing from elsewhere, you know, to mean. It's not the great Gail. It's because of opening ourselves up to life's intelligence and finding the intelligence together as a group then. from that somatic sense of connection. So I get it, you brother. I really hear you, brother, what you're on to. You're on to something. Marimoo, your blessings. And let's carry on the conversation.

Gully: 1:07:31

So Wolfgang, what did you make of that?

Wolfgang: 1:07:34

I greatly enjoyed listening to it. I have to say. I mean, I know both you and Gail and it was really interesting to hear you both talk and feel into the dynamic between you two and see where you went exploring. So it was really an an enjoyable listen for me.

Gully: 1:07:52

Yeah, it was, it was an interesting experience for me.'cause you know, I've maybe seen her. Once or twice during the time I was in Extinction Rebellion. So it was like, you know, this, this woman that had ignited a worldwide movement and I was interviewing her and I, you know, I, I care passionately about the way that we currently are failing to bring about change, failing to find ways of organizing that don't replicate the cultures. And this felt like this opportunity to, um. Think with her, influence her, understand her and I, I was really, I was really, really nervous, you know, I was hiding it by being combative. I think. Um, I'm really curious as like, if you had to say like, these were my takeaways. this is what I found most interesting about that conversation. What would they be? Wolfgang?

Wolfgang: 1:08:46

I think mainly two things. One is an area where I felt a lot of alignment between our, and particularly my thinking and hers, which is I. This idea that it's, it's mainly our right brain hemisphere, our soma. So not the part where we put the world into boxes and into neat little models, but the other half of us, um, where all the information is streaming through us that is flowing through the systems that we're part of constantly. That it's this half of us that is connecting us and that is. the instrument of creating something like collective intelligence, collective consciousness. she referenced in McGilchrist, for example, as a source, as someone who has been thinking about this a lot. And I think that that kind of framing resonated very strongly with me. probably because it's also connected to. The way that I think about who we are as humans, how we function as systems, how we show up as agents in the world. And I think the other main point where I feel I have a lot of questions Scale. Talked a lot about experiences of interconnectedness, embodied experiences of interconnectedness, but most of the examples I heard were basically personal, individual experiences of interconnectedness. being a prayer with a small group of people, but doing that as if you will, a separate thing when compared to all the other things, the organizing, the decision making, the day-to-day stuff. That you're doing, in an organization, in a social movement. And so for me, I think the big question was how can we bring this sense of interconnectedness out of these isolated experiences, these one off basically, and into our day-to-day acting and doing together.

Gully: 1:10:45

Yeah, I mean, that makes. Of sense and I, I kind of agree with you. I guess the, the thing that made me most anxious was, was here with somebody who clearly, clearly had had these very, very, very powerful, experiences of interconnectedness, you know, through her journey with plant medicine, through her, experiences of sort of channeling and really feeling that she was being guided. And yet I saw that sit alongside power. Being in this sort of exceptionalist understanding, you know, the pioneer species, a small group of people that will sort of establish the frame for the ecosystem. I saw, you know, this powerful embodied sense of interconnectedness stiffing alongside an organization that was, you know. Despite holacracy sort of, you know, hierarchical Yeah. And realizing that actually un embodied an experience, a powerful experience of interconnectedness in and of itself wasn't a of Um, for that, I was really interested in this kind of contradiction of how. We can have this complete sense of being part of an nested system, of receiving all of this information, this, this very profound sense, and it can be boxed in an individual experience, but I have had this experience. I am being guided. Um, so in a sense in and of itself, I suddenly realized at the end of this conversation an embodied sense of interconnectedness, doesn't solve, Anything. And the other, striking thing from the conversation was here was somebody, and, and maybe it wasn't included completely in the conversation, but I felt that there was somebody who, from a very sort of robust theoretical analysis, sort of understood the role of separation in sort of the extractive system that we're in. And really understood how that sort of fractal of separation had undermined, had shaped and limited what Extinction Rebellion was able to achieve. And I, I heard that fundamental realization everywhere. And then I kept hearing, but I don't know what to do about it. I don't know what to do about it. And I felt that because she didn't know what to do about it preceding anyone. So establishing this new movement using hierarchical and horizontal forms of organizing, boxing interconnectedness within the framework of a language of spirituality that I think in my view, is bound to turn a lot of people off. Yeah. And keeping it compartmentalized on one side, just'cause it wasn't baked in, in the way that you were sort of saying and how, you know, the whole organization was, was moving and operating. So I think those were the. I.

Wolfgang: 1:13:39

I think I share a lot of this, but I think I also have a slightly different perspective on a few of these aspects. Maybe it's interesting to, to look into them a little and to try to unpack that a little more. Um, so for example, on this aspect of different languages and accessibility, I. Gail made the point explicitly and repeatedly that there's like spiritual Gail, um, who is in prayer and talks about plant medicine and share these personal experiences, and they're there. Scientist, Gail, who um, talks about the holographic principle and how universe is made of information. And tries to, frame things in a very scientific language. So I think there is a lot of consciousness for needing these different ontologies depending on who you're with and what their background, experience and their, their language for describing the world is. And From personal experience when talking with you, it's easier to find a common language with you that uses spiritual terms than one that uses scientific terms. So I think that's, that's in there as well. Then I think what's really interesting is this very like complex tangled up. Mess of aspects around how do we do this and how do we do it in a way that doesn't detract us or distract us from, from acting in the world? And how can we avoid naval gazing about these topics and how does that sit with, questions of power and hierarchy and implicit power and implicit hierarchy. And I think there are a lot of things. Tangled up in there. The, the question of implicit power was a big question for a really long time in exile, particularly around this small group of founders who were very well connected within the organization and had a lot of informal influence that wasn't fully reflected in the Holocratic system. And that was a source of, for a lot of conflict and, um. I know that I have a slightly different perspective on these things than Gail has. For example, she likes to talk about the concept of source, that there is a special role that people have that bring a certain idea to life or that, that imagine a certain path purpose for an organization, and the importance of of these sources being. Present and being influential. And I'm always slightly skeptical if that's not just another way of kind of cementing implicit power and, if that's really something we should further and not only acknowledge, but further and amplify. My guess would be that she would probably say, yes, we need that. And for me, I think, I'm way more skeptical about that, and I think that's one of the ways that separation and hierarchy and patriarchy kind of creep back in. But then there's also this question of how do we make sure we are not becoming naval gazers and, spend all our days, trying to get more interconnected and then don't get things done. I. She referenced this paper that I once wrote while I was in xr, where I said, in XR we have these two cultures where you have the getting shit done people and you have the leave, no one behind people. And this divide was really stark in xr and I think I share her, conviction. I would say that these can go together and that they should go together. This sense of care and this focus on interconnectedness with a sense of productivity and going forward and, and. Getting into action. But I also know from experience how difficult it is to, to achieve that. And for me it was a reminder of something that we talked about in the last few weeks, a lot, which is how do we find methods and what do these methods look like that bring. An experience of interconnectedness to the actual doing where it's not just the meditation, not just the prayer, not just the ceremony, but actually the decision making, the planning, the action itself. the debrief afterwards. Where are the methods that, that help us do things that we need to do and that we should do in a different way. My hope would be, and it's not a conviction yet, but I think we are working towards that, is that there are methods which can help us to be actually more productive and to be more in a flow together and to make things. Easier to do and yeah, to become more action oriented instead of less because there is a greater sense of we are in this together, we are doing this together, we are aligned, uh, a more natural sense of things flowing. Um, so I think in, in all of this tangled mess, that's for me the kind of the silver lining or the perspective that I think there is a way of bringing these things together and we are kind of seeing the first traces of it.

Gully: 1:18:54

I like where you've got to.'cause if I was an audience member of this podcast and I just sort of listened to this very interesting interview with Gail, sort of, but if there had to be like a, a one line subject, it's, we understand the problem, but we don't know what to do. I. Maybe we don't want, um, a discussion about that, interview where we go, yeah, I hope, but there's a big problem and we don't know, what to do. I'm remembering, the interview and, there was this very striking moment where she was sort of saying, well, you know, to get there, we've got all of these, this, all this trauma. We've got all of this stuff, we could spend years working through that to get to a sense of interconnectedness and this sense of hopelessness. So, so sort of to move us away from that. Okay. Uh, maybe I'll comment on, on a little bit. So one of the things I just wanna come back to with what you said,'cause I think it's very important, and I think one of the reasons it's useful for us to speak to that is I think there is a critique, which would sound something like. Okay. Capitalism, is underpinned by a sense of separation, okay? the mental health epidemic is underpinned by this diet of separation, okay? Dominion over nature. Okay. Individualism. Okay. Competition. Okay. Okay. Okay. We agree with you. We agree with you, right? But the planet is burning. Fascism is on the rise, and I don't wanna sit around and fucking meditate and chant some, you know, fucking mantra. And this is a load of bollocks. Listening to some of the stuff we're saying, like there's a version that interconnectedness is. Dangerous and that narratives of interconnectedness and dangerous, and what I mean by that was something that you pointed to. So if you combine sort of one of the narratives, I'm not saying that Gail meant this, but there's a version of this that could be true, which is, I have heard the word of God. I channeled this source, God the divine, whatever you want to call it in an altered state, gave me a vision and I therefore know the truth. Therefore do, as I say, there is a version of that that we've of seen in religion, that we've seen in cults, that we've seen, you know, really play out in very destructive ways. Moreover, I think another critique could go and look how culturally appropriative this is. You're adopting techniques and words and language that you know that don't arise. Yeah. From, if want to culturally appropriate to our lineage, our culture, our world, you know, okay, your analysis is good, man, but I'm not gonna get into bed with you because it is so full of danger that you are not offering a solution. You are just offering another version of the problems. And if I was to throw that ball at you, which I think is a legitimate criticism, um, or challenge to what we're saying, what would you say Wolfgang?

Wolfgang: 1:21:53

I would first of all acknowledge that this is a legitimate criticism or, or it points out a very, very real risk. And I think my reply would be this way of, of interpreting, our vision or this idea of focusing on interconnectedness. Again, has separation baked in, um, into its heart because it operates from this perspective of the individual where I am connected, I am the source, I have this experience. And then as you say, this is why you need to follow me. so I think what, what I'm. Really interested in, and I love that the work that we are doing, like behind the scenes is actually going exactly in this direction, is how does interconnectedness show up on a much smaller scale where it's not the inside, where it's not the experience. But it's, um, a range of insights, a range of experiences. How does it show up in our relationships? How does it show up? In the beginning of our meeting, in the middle of our meeting, at the end of our meeting, for example, one, one experience I had very recently where I realized, oh, this is one of the. Places where I need to look into, if I want to learn how to do this differently, was the recording of one of the conversations we had, um, like two or three weeks ago. And I felt like, wow, I'm really, trying to dominate the discussion and I'm talking over you and I'm, I'm going on as many theoretical tangents as I felt like, and you kept saying things like, um, I know that you see it this way and I understand this point. but there's still this question that I had like three sections of the discussion ago and I still haven't responded to it. Where I felt like, okay, it's, it's so easy for me to, to go down this, this road of, because that's the way I think. That's the way I experience things. That's what I think is a good argument. This what I think is the right language to talk about things. I keep pressing for it and for me, I think. Getting to a place of being more connected and creating, less separation, for example, means to think about how do I show up in these conversations and how important do I think my ego should be in these conversations? And then, yeah, that's work that I need to do. So in a way that's like also an an individual task, but it's something that shows up in. In a conversation, in, in a personal relationship in lots of small things that I do and then looking at these points and thinking about what can I do differently here? What can we do differently here? What can we try, what can we experiment with, I think is way more promising than focusing on these big life changing moments. Where I might feel interconnected, but then that's my personal experience and nothing more.

Gully: 1:24:56

I find that interesting and I agree with you and maybe I want, I think it might be helpful to let the audience, this is the first. Interview in the first episode to sort of maybe understand a little bit about the framework that we are thinking, about this in. So, I mean, the first thing to say is, everything that I have sort of said isn't necessarily just my perspective, it's the team perspective. I mean, there are so many people within the decolonization movement in, in so many perspectives that would, would highlight these dangers. And we come into this, um, with an awareness. Of these dangers. And on the other side, a sort of theoretical framework where we're sort of saying the organizational methods that we use hierarchically or horizontally, all are underpinned by this, this notion of separation where, you know, decision making. Organizing is seen as, you know, d individual entities each with sort of differing needs and desires and somehow having to sort of negotiate between them. And if you use an organizational method based on a certain assumption, you you replicate that assumption. And if we keep replicating this assumption of separation, we end up where we are. If we picture a painting as only possible, if we limit the size of the canvas and the the numbers of colors. We can understand where we are now. Being paintings continually done on the canvas of separation. The fractal of separation again and again and again within this complex system, results where we are and an understanding, and I don't necessarily think it's either my place or the right time to go into it, that we live within a complex rather than a complicated system. And that fundamental change can only be brought about. Through a fractal of interconnectedness. So if we are looking at this in any way, we are thinking, how can we create feedback loops of more interconnectedness? So these are a small questions, these are a small notions. It's how can me and Ni Wolf going right now in this moment, feel more interconnected. Use scientific language for interconnected. There is a wealth of information being communicated from my cells, to my organs, to my body, from the environment that I'm in, from. There's so much information being picked, picked up between nested systems, but'cause of the language and worldview that I have, my higher order systems, my sentient. Believing that it's all alone in the back of my brain doesn't pick up on it. So we need to bring our attention to our body where this somatic information is giving us all of this information. And as a very rough framework, we are asking that question organization, you know, how can we have a conversation? How can we have a team meeting? How can we develop a strategy with more of a sense of interconnected? What is the role of The in particular and what is the role of our sort of colonial mindset in maintaining separation? What soon the role of our worldview, and I know I've waffled on enough, but if we look at perhaps the interview with Gail and what happened in Extinction Rebellion as what we're doing through the lens of how we're thinking about things, maybe I again, pass the, the ball over to you.

Wolfgang: 1:28:31

I think that. the first insight or key point that stood out for me in your interview that I mentioned in the beginning of our conversation revolved exactly around this idea of it's this. Information that we pick up with our senses, that we process with, um, our soma. This is what we need to focus on. This is what we need to tune into. And I think there's a lot of alignment between our thinking, between Gail's thinking and her experiences. There was a lot of alignment in the conversation with you around this. And I think we are seeing glimpses of what that could look like by looking at methods that focus on this, that, that ask in this specific moment, how can I get access to this information in this specific interaction? How can I be more attuned to, I. My bodily sensations, my intuitions, the things that, um, I usually shut out when I box my thinking into this left hemisphere. Neat little models and packages of the world that we are getting indoctrinated into in, in our western societies. And as you say, I think there's a lot of unlearning to do. but that can start. Very small, that can start with the, the actual things we do, the conversation that we have, the relationships that we form and nurture. And yeah, my hope would be that that's also something that people are interested in, maybe even intrigued by, um, and want to experiment with and want to share. Their experiences in with us. so that could become a larger scale learning process where lots of little experiments and lots of little experiences can kind of. Become interconnected, if you will, and, and create an exchange that goes beyond just the two of us or the three of us. If you bring Gail back into this web of relationships or the organizing from elsewhere team, because I'm sure that there are many, many, many, many ideas out there, what that could look like, how an experiment could look like. What we could try that we don't even think about at the moment.

Gully: 1:30:43

I agree and As you were sort of talking about that I had a bit of a, a flashback to the, the conversation with Gail where she was talking about the, the pink boat.

Wolfgang: 1:30:53

Mm-hmm.

Gully: 1:30:54

And she was using the words MURMURATIONS as this sort of,

Wolfgang: 1:30:57

Mm-hmm.

Gully: 1:30:58

the sense of, interconnectedness. And I, I certainly, you know, when I've been clubbing and dancing, or actually when. Something really bad has happened to me. You've been kettled or suddenly the group is moving. Yeah, with a. Wisdom and, um, and intelligence or, you know, in an occupation where, you know, until you're applying some sort of circle or mandate, the whole group for this moment just seems to know what the fuck to do. I mean, I mean, yeah, like you are the, uh, you are the scientist between us. What, what do you think's happening there? How do we have more of that, if you know what I mean?

Wolfgang: 1:31:40

I think through exactly what we were talking about, listening to the signals that our body is picking up all the time that go through all of our cells, our nervous system, our right brain systems, all the time. Murmuration. There's a very simple way of modeling murmurations in digital simulation where you only have, I think two or three simple rules, which is. Keep this far away from your neighboring bird, not closer than this. Not further away than that. And follow the bird before you. That's everything you need. And then these murmurations just emerge. So this, this collective intelligence that the group knows how to move and that it creates these beautiful shapes. That's just happening because the birds pick up on these very simple pieces of information and just do these very simple things, follow these very simple rules. There's not a lot of thinking involved. There's not a lot of individual decision making. It's really the, the, the intelligence happens at the level of the bigger system, not the individual one. And so I think what we need to overcome as humans is this idea of, I need. To know, I need to decide I know best. I am so smart, and get to a point where we realize maybe the best thing we could do is unblock the information that is flowing through the larger system, or that wants to flow through the larger system, and then the larger system will know what to do.

Gully: 1:33:12

So do you think, for example, that we could. Organize from elsewhere or organized from this sense of interconnectedness just by creating two or three rules, a little bit like a simulation? Do you think that's the sort of direction of travel, that it's as simple as that?

Wolfgang: 1:33:28

It's probably not The same kind of rule that that creates murmuration, and it's probably not the first rule that we can think about, but I think it's gonna be simple things. It's gonna be a central constraint. It's gonna be a simple set of rules. It's something that enables us to shift our attention. From the thinking brain, from the modeling the world to unblocking the information that wants to flow. Um, which for me, as you know, is, is unusually poetic and metaphorical language. But I think it's the best way that I have at my disposal at the moment to express these ideas. And I think that needs to be something simple. That's not a, a complicated theory that people need to learn or a practice that takes years to perfect. if there's something that's working, then it's gonna be something simple. I.

Gully: 1:34:19

I agree with you and maybe if these beautiful shapes of collective wisdom emerge from simple rules, simple constraints, what could that look like? And We journeyed a little bit with children of the stars, and for those cynical. People subside of you. That's magic. Mushrooms based on the idea that mushrooms are absolutely alien and were key to sort of intelligent life. We also worked with um, ma Plateau, which is while tobacco from the Amazon, and we wrestled around and perhaps we thought the constraint that an organization, a group. Gave a heartfelt commitment to whatever we do together, gives us more of a felt sense of interconnectedness. That's a commitment that whatever we do, whether it's having a phone call or organizing a meeting or developing a strategy, should give us more of a sense of interconnectedness and then some very subtle prompts, like how in this moment can I pay more attention to my senses, my sensations, my intuitions, the memories that pop up, the knowings, the images?'cause I think we believe that that is how all of this data is being communicated from the unconscious systems to the conscious awareness. How can I make sense of this non-linear. Seemingly irrelevant information to the linear mind in a way that is helpful for the task I need to do. Because, you know, if right now I suddenly felt like screaming, I might think that makes absolutely no sense at all. But there will be information in my body coming through that's wanting me to do that. so we thought some gentle prompts to ask those questions might question useful. And then what might be even more helpful is a review process. So if we think of those as enabling factors, how we make sense of it, how we can pay more attention to somatic information, there are disabling factors like my colonial mindset, my trauma, and maybe we could ask how did trauma get in the way? How did, um, my colonial mindset get in the way? Did the practices I use support me to have more interconnectedness? Did the way I made sense of it, help me get this task done, and then we can create these great big visual maps of deficits where we need to get more support and advice from the incredible wealth of expertise in dealing with trauma, the incredible wealth of expertise in terms of helping us decolonial our mindsets. and yeah, we're kind of thinking about these simple fractals and processes that I hope is very western language, means that we're very easily able to drop into flow state. And as we all know, writing that essay. Making up that song, coming on with that brilliant idea, running faster than we've ever run before, always happens so much easier when we are in a trance state so maybe to answer Gail's question, I understand the problem, but what do we do about it? Maybe we can say that that's the ways that we're starting, to think about it.

Wolfgang: 1:37:38

Yeah, exactly. And I think A crucial point for me in all of this is if we think about it this way, then we can start experimenting and learning right now. Then it's not something that we have to theorize that we have to think about where we need to spend months on designing processes. It's, we can ask these questions every time we do something, and then the only thing we need to do, and that's something we should do anyway, is take a little bit of time to reflect. How did that go? And that's something that I've been recommending to organizations for probably decades now and, and I've been trying to practice when, whenever I'm within an organization for at least as long, is how can we create opportunities to learn? How can we. Create space on a regular basis to look at how did this go? How did it feel? What do we want to change for the next time we try? Um, this is how you get actually working strategies, not by sitting down and designing a blueprint for two and a half years and then rolling it out, and then everything goes smoothly. It's by trying something, see if it works, and then go back and adapt it. And. For me, this approach of thinking in these learning cycles, if we can build that into, or, or bake it into what, what we are doing in in this quest for more interconnectedness, then I think can. Start now. We have a way better chance of something that really works than by, trying to to find the solution in the lab, in the ivory tower. and that's something that we all should do anyway, thinking, experiments, thinking and learning cycles. That's something that connects to so many different languages. You can talk to a software developer and, and ask him if he, if he or she or they have ever worked with Agile development and then say, this is what we're talking about. And you can talk to designer and ask them how do you come up with ideas? And then you'll get very quickly to the point where they'll tell you about the flow step they state they need to be in, and the kind of learning cycles they go through in order to find something. So, yeah, I think that's the way forward.

Gully: 1:40:03

I agree with you. And I guess that if maybe we understand this conversation with Gail as an interview with somebody who had a powerful, powerful experience of interconnectedness. And from that and her relationships with others spawned a worldwide movement that made a significant difference. But was very much shaped and limited by organizational methods that were underpinned by a notion of separate an interview where the problems, you know, yes we understand separation is the issue, but what the hell do we do about it is named. if maybe our conversation has focused a little bit on, well maybe this is an approach that we can take. I think in the next interviews I'd be really interested to explore some of these critiques. Would an approach that we are just describing actually affect our relationships? What does the approach that we're talking about, you know, how does that relate to this sort of. Interconnected washing. You are doing something, but it's not really making a difference. We're inevitably going to be using practices from, you know, non-Western cultures. How can we even understand those practices without assimilating them? How can we learn from. Peoples that we have decimated for hundreds of years without just continuing this extractive, process. And how can this you know how when we're so traumatized, so traumatized and so steeped in our own culture, how can we. Meaningfully have a sense of interconnectedness that could possibly create the kind of feedback loop of interconnectedness that can bring about saying over these systems. And I, I'm really looking forward to exploring, I think these very valued critiques, of what we're doing over the next episodes.

Wolfgang: 1:41:56

I totally agree and. I would very explicitly invite anyone who's listening to us right now, and who has an idea either about, this is where I had an experience in a small way maybe of flow, of interconnectedness of. Opening myself up to this kind of information or who has an idea of, this is something we could try. Is this something you have thought about? Or where they have a critique that says, yeah, but you didn't think about that aspect. Or How are you planning to deal with this kind of risk to share that? And to become part of this conversation and, yeah, help educate us in, in all of these things.

Gully: 1:42:43

Absolutely, and in the end, this has to help us to organize more effectively, and if we do that, then hopefully this. More of a sense of interconnectedness can create the kind of feedback loops to create the very different kind of cultures and systems in the same way as this notion of separation has had this feedback loop mainly through violence to really create the situation that we're in now. And there is, you know, we're letting go of control. So if you are happy to interview the next person. Come and be interviewed by us and then go off and interview someone on these sorts of topics that, um, you are excited and interested to learn from. I am really curious, uh, to find out who is the next person that, uh, I think you will interview. So, um, and then come back and see where the conversation takes us and if in some ways it builds on where we've got to today.

1:43:47

We hope this conversation has been as fascinating for you as it was for us if this episode moved you in some way. We would be curious to hear your insights and intuitions, and if you'd like to contribute to the conversation, be interviewed or suggest a guest do reach out to us on socials at organizing from elsewhere, or at org underscore elsewhere. Follow us and connect with a community of practice, a growing network of social movements and regenerative initiatives. Do spread the seeds of this needed conversation by sharing it with a friend who might find it meaningful. And if you'd like to support the podcast, the best thing you can do is give us a rating so more people can discover us. See you next time. Thank you.