My guest today is Sophie Strand, a writer who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. Though she admits, it would be more accurate to call her a neo-troubadour animist with a propensity to spin yarns that inevitably turn into love stories.

I first encountered her work on social media, reading her surprising and beautiful essays from her forthcoming book: The Flowering Wand: Lunar Kings, Lichenized Lovers, Transpecies Magicians, and Rhizomatic Harpists Heal the Masculine.

In our conversation today, we explore the connection between mycelium and myth, and how various gods from Jesus to Dionysus, can be seen more clearly as related to specific ecosystems and specific times. Sophie makes the case to dissolve toxic masculinity by dispersing it within a chorus of diversity, and why the Hero’s Journey would benefit from a little intentional pruning.

And finally, we unpack the wild nature of emergent systems, and how wedding our wounds to the wounds of the earth could invite a kaleidoscopic empathy for an ecocentric activism rooted in participation, not salvation.

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