How can myths and fairytales help us, personally and collectively? What stories, often almost lost, can aid us with contemporary crises? Why does the imagination so very much matter?

Sharon Blackie will lead us in the exploration of these themes and more on the opening of the first day of the Realisation Festival, 2026. She will invite us to consider possibilities beyond the hero's journey and also how to draw on images, community and the land.

Sharon was talking with Mark Vernon.

For more on Sharon's work, not least her new book, Ripening, see https://sharonblackie.net/

For more on the Realisation Festival, see https://realisationfestival.com/

The Realisation Festival is a soulful response to the crises of our times. So, with two months to go before this year’s gathering, Nick Shaftesbury, Pippa Evans and Ed Haddon sat down with Mark Vernon to explore the shape of the programme this year.

Why does this space to share the complexities of today so much matter? What encounters are they hoping for? How might the big theme of story, that has emerged in planning this year, help us stay with confusion and worry, aspiration and hope?

Find out more about the festival online - https://realisationfestival.com/

The pre-festival in-person meeting on 21st April will be at Kairos in London. For more details, email olivia@realisationfestival.com.

Do listen to other episodes of the podcast, including conversations with economist Guy Standing and biochemist Pauline Rudd.

Guy Standing is an economist whose new book Human Capital: The Tragedy of the Education Commons has much to say about a key theme of the festival: bildung.

His thoughts on the corruption of education by policies that have lost touch with the public good are a provocative introduction to the kind of concerns explored when we meet.

In this conversation with Mark Vernon, Guy explores the extent of the challenges facing education in the 21st century, though his deep critique is, at once, an articulation of vision and what is means to be human.

As well as authoring a series of books on the commons, Guy is a Professorial Research Associate at SOAS University of London and a founding member and honorary co-president of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), a non-governmental organisation that promotes a basic income for all.

For more on Guy’s book see https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/461384/human-capital-by-standing-guy/9780241688182

For more on Guy’s work see https://www.guystanding.com/

For more on the Realisation Festival see https://realisationfestival.com/