Over the past decade, the world has become increasingly chaotic and uncertain – and so, too, has our cultural vision for the future. While the events we face now may feel unprecedented, they are rooted in much deeper patterns, which humanity has been playing out for millennia. If we take the time to understand past trends, we can also employ practices and philosophies that might counteract them – such as focusing on kinship, intimacy, and resilience – to help pave the way for a better future. How might we nurture the foundations of a different kind of society, even while the end of our current civilization plays out around us?
In this episode, I’m joined by guide and author
Samantha Sweetwater to explore how separation is at the root of the metacrisis and how nurturing interconnection, relationships, and ecological maturity act as foundational components for systems change. Samantha delves into the distinction between power of life and power over life, emphasizing the need for personal transformation that aligns with collective evolution. She also describes how we could shift our cultural focus from the hero’s journey to a kinship journey through the practices of remembering, reconnection, and tending to collective emergence.
How might we reimagine humanity’s ecological role as that of stewards, rather than domination? Could focusing on reconnection, rather than separation, help us bridge the polarizing divides that currently prevent many of us from working together? And how might this work of remembering, which begins with ourselves, ripple out into stronger connections with our loved ones, communities, and ultimately to humanity and life as a whole?
Nathan John Hagens is the Co-founder and Director of The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future (ISEOF). Formerly in the finance industry at Lehman Brothers and Salomon Brothers, since 2003 Nate has shifted his focus to understanding the interrelationships between energy, environment, and finance and the implication this synthesis has for human futures. Allied with leading ecologists, energy experts, politicians, and systems thinkers, ISEOF assembles roadmaps for understanding how human societies might adapt to lower-throughput lifestyles. Nate also moderates the podcast The Great Simplification, on "illuminating the path for future generations, navigating uncertainty through understanding. and building a resilient future together."
Samantha Sweetwater is a wisdom guide, author, and founder of One Life Circle—a ministry of remembering. She works at the fertile nexus where unraveling systems make way for emerging forms of kinship, leadership, and value. For over three decades, she has facilitated individuals and organizations across five continents through journeys of personal, cultural, ecological, and spiritual emergence. She mentors leaders in business, technology, and finance, helping them to navigate awakening, develop systemic wisdom, and align impact with regenerative futures. She has sparked a global movement of embodied awakening and has trained hundreds of facilitators. She has also been a seed farmer—a practice that taught her the rigors of tending the real. She holds an MA in Wisdom Studies, a BA in Social Theory and Dance, and has been initiated into indigenous lineages of Africa, Latin America, and Turtle Island.
