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Home > To The Best Of Our Knowledge > Sophie Strand: Ecological Storytelling and Mythic Imagination


	Podcast:		To The Best Of Our Knowledge
	Episode:		Sophie Strand: Ecological Storytelling and Mythic Imagination
	Category:		Society & Culture
	Duration:		00:38:07
	Publish Date:		2026-01-31 07:00:00
	Description:		Writer and ecologist Sophie Strand thinks at a scale that can feel dizzying—in the best way. In a single conversation, she can move from the chemical structure of cells to mushroom spores, from ancient weather gods to mycorrhizal fungi, from Bronze Age collapse to the slow intelligence of soil. In this episode of Wonder Cabinet, we talk with Strand about wonder that doesn’t float upward but roots downward—into bodies, ecosystems, decay, and deep time. We begin with her essay “Your Body Is an Ancestor,” published shortly before Halloween and the Day of the Dead, and follow her imagery into our shared prehistoric past. The conversation also explores how Strand’s experience of chronic illness reshaped her understanding of nature, selfhood, and health. Rather than seeing the sick body as broken, she turns to ecological metaphors: spider webs, soil structures, caterpillars dissolving inside cocoons. What might it mean to understand ourselves not as machines that fail, but as landscapes that change? Along the way, we talk about fantasy and “romantasy,” Tolkien, Harry Potter, Dramione fan fiction and communal storytelling rituals. This is a conversation about wonder with dirt under its fingernails: embodied, mythic, ecological, and deeply alive to the cycles of death and regeneration that bind us all. --- Substack: "Your Body is an Ancestor": https://sophiestrand.substack.com/p/your-body-is-an-ancestor Sophie Strand’s website: https://sophiestrand.com/ You can follow her work on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cosmogyny/ Follow her on Substack: https://substack.com/@sophiestrand Order her memoir: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/sophie-strand/the-body-is-a-doorway-a-memoir/9780762487417/?lens=running-press --- Chapters: 00:00:00 Meet Sophie Strand 00:04:34 Body as Ancestor 00:10:08 Roots of Sin 00:18:21 Spores and Consciousness 00:27:49 Stories We Can't Explain 00:35:39 Science as Wonder --- If you love Wonder Cabinet, sign up for email updates and never miss an episode. https://wondercabinetproductions.com/
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