E166 – Sophie Strand on Ecological Embodiment, New Myths and Healthism // Compost Heap Wisdom

Mar 30, 2023

“We are porous, and that porousness avails us the same pollution that’s affecting the frogs and the rivers, but it also opens us up to nourishment and communication from these beings.” Sophie Strand

E166 – Sophie Strand on Ecological Embodiment, New Myths and Healthism

Compost Heap Wisdom

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About this interview:

How can our stories be useful to our communities and become live saving myths and ecologies?


“We are porous, and that porousness avails us the same pollution that’s affecting the frogs and the rivers, but it also opens us up to nourishment and communication from these beings.” Sophie Strand
 
In this episode Amisha talks to Sophie Strand. Sophie is a writer and thinker that takes us to new heights and deep crevices on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. We could call her a neo-troubadour animist with a propensity to spin yarns that inevitably turn into love stories. In every neighbourhood she has lived in, she has been known as “the walker”. She believes strongly that all thinking happens interstitially – between beings, ideas, differences, mythical gradients. Her first book of essays ‘The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine’ was published by Inner Traditions in Fall 2022. Her eco-feminist historical fiction reimagining of the gospels ‘The Madonna Secret’ comes out in Summer 2023 and is available for pre-order..
 
Amisha and Sophie speak about the magic of myth-making and the possibilities of adjacent live-saving realities they open up; places where we may envision humankind as part of an ecological niche. Sophie shares about her life with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a rare genetic connective tissue disease that affects her entire body. By recognising the porousness of her body, she reveals the messiness of decay, ego death and life’s anxieties. As a result she brings alive life-affirming myths and new ideas around communities rooted in the deep wisdoms of the compost heap.
 
They delve into healthism and its exiling consequences. They reveal that its prevalence in Western medical paradigms and New Age spirituality, holds us personally responsible for coming into normativity distracting from the nourishing essence that exists within our diverse survival strategies. Sophie speaks about Eco grief, a natural outcome of Earth that is surviving outside its window of tolerance.
 
We learn that sharing our profoundly messy and psychedelic stories along with the small fixes we have learnt through survival is an important form of activism that boosts our communities; whilst gathering in dance and joining hands to distribute feelings of grief and anxiety might be our lighthouse of survival.
 
“When we come together in therapeutic settings, healing settings and body work settings, can we understand that we are two ecosystems creating a shoreline together. We are bringing all of our baggage, all of our birds, all of our microbes, and it’s that place of relationship where we overlap, that is going to create the beauty.” ~Sophie Strand
 
 

 

Sophie Strand is a writer based in the Hudson Valley who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. Her first book of essays ‘The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine’ was published by Inner Traditions in Fall 2022. Her eco-feminist historical fiction reimagining of the gospels ‘The Madonna Secret’ comes out in Summer 2023 and is available for pre-order.

 

To connect or work with Sophie, visit sophiestrand.com

To connect or work with Amisha, visit amisha.co.uk

artwork video: Emily Paranthoen

 

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