Bayo Akomolafe on Cracks, Tricksters, and Dancing Sideways with Collapse
What if the cracks in our world weren’t problems to fix, but portals to step through?
In this mythic, poetic, and gently disorienting conversation, Bayo Akomolafe invites us into the liminal, into the spaces between collapse and emergence, between logic and story, between the human and more-than-human. We explore what it means to become otherwise in times of profound unraveling.
Bayo shares what it means to be a “recovering psychologist” in the face of modernity’s certainties, and how Yoruba cosmology opened a different kind of knowing, one shaped by entanglement, slowness, and reverence for the unseen. We speak of the Trickster, of AI as a mirror and a myth, and of the strange ways the soul shows up when we stop trying to make sense and start sensing instead.
This is not a conversation of easy answers. It’s a dance of metaphors, memories, and micro-ruptures — and somewhere in the dance, a glimpse of sanctuary.
00:00 Opening: Modernity, psychology, and the cracks in our world
03:00 What “emergence” awakens: incompleteness and porousness
05:00 Yoruba cosmology, Brazil, and ancestral memory
09:00 A recovering psychologist: theology, psychology, and coloniality
13:00 Collapse, cracks, and radical non-completeness
19:00 Spells, narratives, individuation & collective shadow work
23:00 Chaos, polarization, and the gifts of confusion
27:00 Sideways movements, slavery, and the Trickster
31:00 Fragmentation, resistance, and eco-cognitive assemblages
37:00 AI as crack, mirror, and Trickster presence
45:00 Mythopoetic fields, Tarot, and Narcissus’ reflection
50:00 The Emergence Network and sideways politics
55:00 Seeds for the future: “Your soul is strange and you haven’t met her yet”
Voices of Emergence is a podcast about inner transformation and systemic regeneration, hosted by Alex de Carvalho and Rudy de Waele.
Subscribe to explore the edges of leadership, culture, and consciousness.
🎵 Intro & Outro Music
Used with permission from AWARË
Track: Journey Live 5
Listen on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/awaremusic/jurney-live-5
Explore more at: https://www.awaremusic.art
In this mythic, poetic, and gently disorienting conversation, Bayo Akomolafe invites us into the liminal, into the spaces between collapse and emergence, between logic and story, between the human and more-than-human. We explore what it means to become otherwise in times of profound unraveling.
Bayo shares what it means to be a “recovering psychologist” in the face of modernity’s certainties, and how Yoruba cosmology opened a different kind of knowing, one shaped by entanglement, slowness, and reverence for the unseen. We speak of the Trickster, of AI as a mirror and a myth, and of the strange ways the soul shows up when we stop trying to make sense and start sensing instead.
This is not a conversation of easy answers. It’s a dance of metaphors, memories, and micro-ruptures — and somewhere in the dance, a glimpse of sanctuary.
00:00 Opening: Modernity, psychology, and the cracks in our world
03:00 What “emergence” awakens: incompleteness and porousness
05:00 Yoruba cosmology, Brazil, and ancestral memory
09:00 A recovering psychologist: theology, psychology, and coloniality
13:00 Collapse, cracks, and radical non-completeness
19:00 Spells, narratives, individuation & collective shadow work
23:00 Chaos, polarization, and the gifts of confusion
27:00 Sideways movements, slavery, and the Trickster
31:00 Fragmentation, resistance, and eco-cognitive assemblages
37:00 AI as crack, mirror, and Trickster presence
45:00 Mythopoetic fields, Tarot, and Narcissus’ reflection
50:00 The Emergence Network and sideways politics
55:00 Seeds for the future: “Your soul is strange and you haven’t met her yet”
Voices of Emergence is a podcast about inner transformation and systemic regeneration, hosted by Alex de Carvalho and Rudy de Waele.
Subscribe to explore the edges of leadership, culture, and consciousness.
🎵 Intro & Outro Music
Used with permission from AWARË
Track: Journey Live 5
Listen on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/awaremusic/jurney-live-5
Explore more at: https://www.awaremusic.art
Creators and Guests
Host
Alex de Carvalho
Alex is a bridge-builder exploring how inner transformation and mythic intelligence shape outer change. He draws on a background in corporate leadership, ritual practice, and depth psychology to hold soulful, system-aware conversations for a new era.
Host
Rudy De Waele
Rudy is a futurist, regenerative leadership guide, and ecosystem weaver with over two decades of experience at the intersection of technology, consciousness, and systems change. He co-founded Unconditional Men and RegenerateX, and brings deep presence and visionary clarity to the Voices of Emergence podcast.
Guest
Bayo Akomolafe
Bayo is the host teacher at Dancing with Mountains, an educational consultation and the visionary founder of The Emergence Network, a planet-wide networking project and inquiry at the edges of the Anthropocene.
