1 00:00:00,380 --> 00:00:02,060 Anne Strainchamps: Welcome to Wonder Cabinet. 2 00:00:04,060 --> 00:00:05,600 Anne Strainchamps: I'm Anne Strainchamps. 3 00:00:05,880 --> 00:00:06,880 Steve Paulson: And I'm Steve Paulson. 4 00:00:07,380 --> 00:00:12,180 Anne Strainchamps: And we are so excited to welcome you to the first episode of our new podcast. 5 00:00:12,680 --> 00:00:17,180 Steve Paulson: These are intimate conversations with scientists, poets, and philosophers. 6 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:22,820 Steve Paulson: People looking for ways to add more meaning and substance to our lives, more wisdom. 7 00:00:23,140 --> 00:00:24,140 Anne Strainchamps: And more enchantment. 8 00:00:24,600 --> 00:00:27,160 Steve Paulson: Together, they are shaping a new story for our time. 9 00:00:27,160 --> 00:00:29,700 Sophie Strand: Your body is an ancestor. 10 00:00:30,600 --> 00:00:33,740 Sophie Strand: Your body is an altar to your ancestors. 11 00:00:35,400 --> 00:00:40,240 Sophie Strand: Every one of yourselves holds an ancient and anarchic love story. 12 00:00:41,620 --> 00:00:42,720 Sophie Strand: Every decision. 13 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:44,880 Sophie Strand: Every idea. 14 00:00:46,120 --> 00:00:48,300 Sophie Strand: Every poem you breathe and live 15 00:00:49,120 --> 00:00:55,300 Sophie Strand: is a resurrection of elements that date back to the birth of this universe itself. 16 00:00:58,120 --> 00:01:01,960 Anne Strainchamps: Okay, that is the poet and writer Sophie Strand. 17 00:01:02,320 --> 00:01:04,420 Anne Strainchamps: And she's someone I only discovered recently. 18 00:01:04,740 --> 00:01:07,260 Anne Strainchamps: And I am knocked out by her work. 19 00:01:07,680 --> 00:01:11,200 Steve Paulson: Yeah, well, I have to say, you were obsessed with her this past summer. 20 00:01:11,280 --> 00:01:14,180 Steve Paulson: I mean, there were a few weeks when you really couldn't stop talking about her. 21 00:01:14,200 --> 00:01:15,440 Anne Strainchamps: Well, it wasn't just me. 22 00:01:15,660 --> 00:01:19,280 Anne Strainchamps: It was this summer where I could not stop hearing about Sophie Strand. 23 00:01:19,280 --> 00:01:21,240 Anne Strainchamps: And it was mostly from other women, 24 00:01:21,540 --> 00:01:25,840 Anne Strainchamps: this kind of very viral, organic, word-of-mouth thing. 25 00:01:26,100 --> 00:01:30,560 Anne Strainchamps: But the other thing is, this was the summer of the death of To the Best of Our Knowledge. 26 00:01:30,980 --> 00:01:34,140 Anne Strainchamps: It was both an end and a beginning. 27 00:01:34,580 --> 00:01:38,600 Steve Paulson: We were saying goodbye to this radio show, but it played out differently for each of us. 28 00:01:38,860 --> 00:01:42,440 Anne Strainchamps: Yeah, you didn't really want to hear that much about sadness. Yeah, 29 00:01:42,440 --> 00:01:43,960 Steve Paulson: I was kind of ready to move on. 30 00:01:44,020 --> 00:01:46,880 Anne Strainchamps: Meanwhile, I was crying, while recording our farewell show. 31 00:01:47,880 --> 00:01:53,640 Anne Strainchamps: But somehow in this time, Sophie Strand's writing just really resonated for me. 32 00:01:54,060 --> 00:01:56,280 Anne Strainchamps: She writes a lot about death in one way or another. 33 00:01:56,280 --> 00:02:00,960 Anne Strainchamps: She writes about processes of transformation and decomposition. 34 00:02:01,780 --> 00:02:10,140 Anne Strainchamps: And so her metaphors are all mushrooms and underground mycelial networks and spiderwebs and ghosts and dying gods. 35 00:02:10,340 --> 00:02:16,860 Anne Strainchamps: And somehow it just all fuses into this lyrical, interspecies kind of scripture. 36 00:02:17,620 --> 00:02:19,840 Steve Paulson: Okay, so I don't know that much about her. 37 00:02:19,920 --> 00:02:21,060 Steve Paulson: Who is Sophie Strand? 38 00:02:21,320 --> 00:02:24,300 Anne Strainchamps: She is a very young writer, 31 or 32. 39 00:02:24,300 --> 00:02:28,540 Anne Strainchamps: She writes a very popular Substack called Make Me Good Soil. 40 00:02:29,220 --> 00:02:32,780 Anne Strainchamps: She wrote a recent memoir called The Body is a Doorway. 41 00:02:32,940 --> 00:02:34,760 Steve Paulson: She seems too young to have written a memoir. 42 00:02:35,000 --> 00:02:35,560 Anne Strainchamps: Just wait. 43 00:02:36,320 --> 00:02:39,220 Anne Strainchamps: She goes back and forth between fiction and nonfiction. 44 00:02:39,380 --> 00:02:45,300 Anne Strainchamps: She has also written a historical novel about the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. 45 00:02:45,380 --> 00:02:46,400 Anne Strainchamps: It's deeply researched. 46 00:02:46,600 --> 00:02:47,200 Steve Paulson: Quite a range. 47 00:02:47,360 --> 00:02:47,700 Anne Strainchamps: Yeah. 48 00:02:47,940 --> 00:02:53,200 Anne Strainchamps: She's got this big mind and the scale of her thinking is kind of exhilarating. 49 00:02:53,200 --> 00:02:56,420 Anne Strainchamps: And she has a really interesting backstory, too. 50 00:02:56,740 --> 00:03:03,960 Anne Strainchamps: She grew up in the Hudson River Valley in the mountains in this very bookish, counterculture world of eclectic spirituality. 51 00:03:04,600 --> 00:03:06,980 Anne Strainchamps: And she also had a very free-range childhood. 52 00:03:07,300 --> 00:03:14,180 Anne Strainchamps: She writes about having lots of time outdoors in all seasons, barefoot, poking at frogs and salamanders. 53 00:03:14,180 --> 00:03:17,780 Anne Strainchamps: And then it all came crashing down. 54 00:03:18,240 --> 00:03:21,320 Anne Strainchamps: As a teenager, she was on a family trip in Jerusalem. 55 00:03:21,720 --> 00:03:26,040 Anne Strainchamps: And she suddenly collapsed and became debilitatingly sick. 56 00:03:26,140 --> 00:03:27,480 Anne Strainchamps: Like, couldn't eat, couldn't walk. 57 00:03:27,800 --> 00:03:35,120 Anne Strainchamps: And then had years when she was in and out of hospitals before finally being diagnosed with a genetic connective tissue disease. 58 00:03:35,640 --> 00:03:37,160 Anne Strainchamps: And her health still goes up and down. 59 00:03:37,160 --> 00:03:38,920 Steve Paulson: That's a huge amount to deal with. 60 00:03:39,040 --> 00:03:41,780 Steve Paulson: And, I mean, amazing considering all that she's done. 61 00:03:41,860 --> 00:03:46,860 Steve Paulson: But my sense from what you've said is that that's not the main thing that's drawn you to her. 62 00:03:47,160 --> 00:03:47,460 Anne Strainchamps: No. 63 00:03:47,680 --> 00:03:51,740 Anne Strainchamps: And, I mean, she did write about this whole story in The Body is a Doorway, that memoir. 64 00:03:51,740 --> 00:03:57,160 Anne Strainchamps: But she's actually not all that interested in talking about her own experience of illness. 65 00:03:57,400 --> 00:04:05,380 Anne Strainchamps: It's more that that experience led her to think pretty deeply about where our ideas of health and wellness come from. 66 00:04:05,460 --> 00:04:09,900 Anne Strainchamps: And then about ways of thinking about the body and what it means to be embodied. 67 00:04:10,720 --> 00:04:11,660 Steve Paulson: So, what are we going to hear? 68 00:04:12,480 --> 00:04:16,120 Anne Strainchamps: Well, this is a conversation that goes all over the place, which is what I love. 69 00:04:16,460 --> 00:04:19,020 Anne Strainchamps: But we began with a piece that she had just posted. 70 00:04:19,020 --> 00:04:25,220 Anne Strainchamps: I talked with her right around Halloween, depending on your spiritual background. 71 00:04:25,420 --> 00:04:28,240 Anne Strainchamps: All Hallows' Eve, Samhain, the Day of the Dead. 72 00:04:28,760 --> 00:04:30,480 Anne Strainchamps: And she was thinking about ancestors. 73 00:04:31,260 --> 00:04:31,500 Steve Paulson: Okay. 74 00:04:31,820 --> 00:04:32,380 Steve Paulson: Let's listen. 75 00:04:33,620 --> 00:04:33,940 Anne Strainchamps: All right. 76 00:04:34,020 --> 00:04:34,240 Wow. 77 00:04:34,360 --> 00:04:36,120 Anne Strainchamps: Sophie, I'm so excited to talk with you. 78 00:04:36,240 --> 00:04:39,460 Anne Strainchamps: I've been reading and loving your Substack and your work. 79 00:04:39,600 --> 00:04:40,520 Sophie Strand: Thank you so much. 80 00:04:40,800 --> 00:04:41,020 Yeah. 81 00:04:41,060 --> 00:04:42,380 Anne Strainchamps: Welcome to Wonder Cabinet. 82 00:04:42,860 --> 00:04:48,080 Anne Strainchamps: So, I wanted to start by asking you, on your Substack, you posted a piece not too long ago 83 00:04:48,080 --> 00:04:50,580 Anne Strainchamps: that I just keep thinking about. 84 00:04:50,680 --> 00:04:52,440 Anne Strainchamps: Like, I've been carrying this around in my head. 85 00:04:53,080 --> 00:04:57,240 Anne Strainchamps: So, I wanted to ask you to begin just by reading a section, if you would be up for that. 86 00:04:57,480 --> 00:04:58,740 Anne Strainchamps: And then maybe we can talk about it. 87 00:04:59,240 --> 00:04:59,460 Sophie Strand: Yeah, absolutely. Anne Strainchamps:. 88 00:04:59,460 --> 00:05:02,680 Sophie Strand: This is from the "Your Body is an Ancestor" piece. 89 00:05:05,480 --> 00:05:07,280 Sophie Strand: Your body is an ancestor. 90 00:05:08,180 --> 00:05:11,580 Sophie Strand: Your body is an altar to your ancestors. 91 00:05:11,580 --> 00:05:21,120 Sophie Strand: All you need to do to honor your ancestors is breathe in, slowly, knowing that your breath 92 00:05:21,120 --> 00:05:24,280 Sophie Strand: loops you into the biome of your ecosystem. 93 00:05:25,580 --> 00:05:29,620 Sophie Strand: Every seven to ten years, your cells will have turned over. 94 00:05:29,620 --> 00:05:36,540 Sophie Strand: If you live in a valley, chances are, the ancient glacial moraine, the fossils crushed underfoot, 95 00:05:37,180 --> 00:05:43,620 Sophie Strand: the spores from grandmotherly honey fungi, have all entered into and rebuilt the very 96 00:05:43,620 --> 00:05:48,500 Sophie Strand: molecular makeup of your bones, your lungs, and even your eyes. 97 00:05:49,460 --> 00:05:57,560 Sophie Strand: Even your lungfuls of exhaust churn you into an ancestor altar for Mesozoic ferns pressurized 98 00:05:57,560 --> 00:05:59,360 Sophie Strand: into the fossil fuels. 99 00:06:00,080 --> 00:06:01,900 Sophie Strand: You are threaded through with fossils. 100 00:06:02,400 --> 00:06:09,660 Sophie Strand: Your microbiome is an ode to bacterial legacies you would not be able to trace with birth certificates 101 00:06:09,660 --> 00:06:11,000 Sophie Strand: and blood lineages. 102 00:06:11,800 --> 00:06:18,060 Sophie Strand: You are the ongoingness of the dead, the alembic where they are given breath again. 103 00:06:18,760 --> 00:06:26,260 Sophie Strand: Today, I realize it is even possible that my body somehow holds the cells of my great-great-grandmother 104 00:06:26,260 --> 00:06:33,620 Sophie Strand: or your great-great-grandmother, or that I am built from carbon that once intimately orchestrated 105 00:06:33,620 --> 00:06:36,960 Sophie Strand: the flight of a hummingbird or a pterodactyl. 106 00:06:37,960 --> 00:06:45,580 Sophie Strand: Your body is an ecosystem of ancestors, a web of relations that ripples outwards into the 107 00:06:45,580 --> 00:06:48,140 Sophie Strand: intimate ocean of deep time. 108 00:06:48,140 --> 00:06:55,340 Anne Strainchamps: Oh, God, Sophie, that is so unbelievably gorgeous. 109 00:06:55,800 --> 00:06:56,340 Thank you. 110 00:06:56,840 --> 00:07:02,120 Anne Strainchamps: I remember the first time I read it, like that line, the image, "I am built from carbon that 111 00:07:02,120 --> 00:07:06,180 Anne Strainchamps: once intimately orchestrated the flight of a pterodactyl." 112 00:07:06,180 --> 00:07:11,960 Anne Strainchamps: There was a moment reading that, where I just stopped and looked up. 113 00:07:12,040 --> 00:07:14,080 Anne Strainchamps: I guess my eyes automatically went to the sky. 114 00:07:14,920 --> 00:07:19,520 Anne Strainchamps: And I just thought, it's more than that it evokes a sense of wonder. 115 00:07:19,640 --> 00:07:23,620 Anne Strainchamps: There is something explosive about that, I think. 116 00:07:24,360 --> 00:07:28,760 Anne Strainchamps: Where does that sense of explosiveness come from? 117 00:07:28,760 --> 00:07:38,020 Sophie Strand: I think that we are so blinkered by anthropocentrism and by a very short view of a single human life 118 00:07:38,020 --> 00:07:45,600 Sophie Strand: that we forget that we are part of a stream of evolutionary becoming, whereby every piece 119 00:07:45,600 --> 00:07:50,000 Sophie Strand: of matter has been used, decayed, recycled many, many times. 120 00:07:50,360 --> 00:07:56,760 Sophie Strand: I often times like to tell people that I believe in reincarnation, not metaphysically, but materially, 121 00:07:56,760 --> 00:08:00,260 Sophie Strand: that nothing is ever lost or squandered. 122 00:08:00,440 --> 00:08:02,900 Sophie Strand: Everything is used to build everything again. 123 00:08:03,460 --> 00:08:06,460 Sophie Strand: The metaphor I like to use is about the monarch butterflies. 124 00:08:06,660 --> 00:08:07,840 Sophie Strand: I love monarch butterflies. 125 00:08:08,040 --> 00:08:09,860 Sophie Strand: In fact, I'm going to be one for Halloween this year. 126 00:08:11,880 --> 00:08:16,520 Sophie Strand: It's so important to me that we focus on trying to rebuild their populations 127 00:08:16,520 --> 00:08:18,980 Sophie Strand: in the Hudson Valley and we protect them. 128 00:08:19,060 --> 00:08:20,500 Sophie Strand: We stop spraying glyphosate. 129 00:08:20,500 --> 00:08:27,140 Sophie Strand: We don't mow down our fields of milkweed and weeds where they will build their cocoons 130 00:08:27,140 --> 00:08:31,220 Sophie Strand: and feed themselves and stop on their long migratory process. 131 00:08:31,840 --> 00:08:36,640 Sophie Strand: And for me, monarchs really queer our idea of a single self and generations. 132 00:08:36,640 --> 00:08:42,920 Sophie Strand: Something that I think about also is the Haudenosaunee confederacy, the indigenous confederacy 133 00:08:42,920 --> 00:08:44,540 Sophie Strand: that predates colonialism here. 134 00:08:44,620 --> 00:08:49,600 Sophie Strand: This idea that every decision you make as a community, you have to think 135 00:08:49,600 --> 00:08:56,220 Sophie Strand: like seven generations ahead, that you really have to think beyond your own lifetime. 136 00:08:56,680 --> 00:09:03,080 Sophie Strand: So those monarchs for me are this great, more-than-human realization of the Haudenosaunee's 137 00:09:03,080 --> 00:09:08,620 Sophie Strand: idea of making decisions for more than one generation, because when they migrate down 138 00:09:08,620 --> 00:09:13,420 Sophie Strand: to the South every winter, it takes five different generations. 139 00:09:14,480 --> 00:09:18,420 Sophie Strand: The butterfly that starts the journey is not the butterfly that ends it. 140 00:09:18,940 --> 00:09:24,400 Sophie Strand: And I think about what does it mean to start a journey knowing that you are not going to 141 00:09:24,400 --> 00:09:25,180 Sophie Strand: see the end of it? 142 00:09:25,500 --> 00:09:26,820 Sophie Strand: You are not the destination. 143 00:09:27,180 --> 00:09:29,600 Sophie Strand: You don't get to see the ending, but you can participate. 144 00:09:29,600 --> 00:09:36,240 Anne Strainchamps: And I do think this is a worldview that, if we're going to use language of reincarnation, 145 00:09:36,420 --> 00:09:39,160 Anne Strainchamps: that is cycling around and coming back. 146 00:09:39,440 --> 00:09:47,500 Anne Strainchamps: We are all, I think, learning to be more responsible about the way we treat 147 00:09:47,500 --> 00:09:50,480 Anne Strainchamps: the earth, the waste that we cause. 148 00:09:51,640 --> 00:09:56,520 Anne Strainchamps: Usually, I think those realizations come with, for me at least, a fair amount of guilt. 149 00:09:56,740 --> 00:09:57,880 Anne Strainchamps: And I don't think that I'm alone. 150 00:09:57,880 --> 00:10:03,460 Anne Strainchamps: I mean, you've written a lot about the religious roots of so many of our attitudes. 151 00:10:03,840 --> 00:10:08,320 Anne Strainchamps: It seems to me that one of the challenges facing us today is to hold on to the sense 152 00:10:08,320 --> 00:10:15,560 Anne Strainchamps: of wonder and not slip into this feeling of being sinful, guilty. 153 00:10:16,240 --> 00:10:16,320 Sophie Strand: Yeah. 154 00:10:16,640 --> 00:10:22,100 Sophie Strand: I think something very interesting is, so I wrote a historical fiction novel about Second 155 00:10:22,100 --> 00:10:27,520 Sophie Strand: Temple Period Palestine and about all of the different types of Jewish traditions at the 156 00:10:27,520 --> 00:10:28,860 Sophie Strand: time of Roman imperialism. 157 00:10:28,920 --> 00:10:29,840 Anne Strainchamps: The Madonna Secret. 158 00:10:30,220 --> 00:10:30,460 Sophie Strand: Yeah. 159 00:10:31,040 --> 00:10:35,920 Sophie Strand: And in it, I was very interested in the Aramaic and Jewish roots of the idea of sin. 160 00:10:35,920 --> 00:10:42,900 Sophie Strand: So the idea of sin has really been mistranslated from Aramaic to Greek through different cultures. 161 00:10:43,220 --> 00:10:47,420 Sophie Strand: It actually carried a lot less moral baggage originally. 162 00:10:47,420 --> 00:10:51,300 Sophie Strand: The word meant to miss the mark or debt. 163 00:10:52,040 --> 00:10:58,880 Sophie Strand: And so sin was a way, actually, of attuning to your relationships, attuning to the 164 00:10:58,880 --> 00:11:00,980 Sophie Strand: ways that you were affecting other beings. 165 00:11:01,440 --> 00:11:01,660 Anne Strainchamps: Really? 166 00:11:01,760 --> 00:11:07,200 Anne Strainchamps: It wasn't part of this idea that we're fallen, where our nature is sinful? 167 00:11:07,200 --> 00:11:16,000 Sophie Strand: Well, this becomes, with Augustine, you have a progression of Gentile Roman people misinterpreting 168 00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:21,620 Sophie Strand: the idea of sin over many, many successive generations as Christianity becomes 169 00:11:21,620 --> 00:11:23,680 Sophie Strand: codified outside of its original culture. 170 00:11:24,100 --> 00:11:28,000 Sophie Strand: But sin is a more complicated, more nuanced term in Aramaic. 171 00:11:28,480 --> 00:11:34,600 Sophie Strand: And so in the original folk traditions of Northern Galilee, where we can place Jesus, it had a much 172 00:11:34,600 --> 00:11:36,680 Sophie Strand: looser understanding. 173 00:11:37,140 --> 00:11:39,660 Sophie Strand: But sin has become something that paralyzes us. 174 00:11:39,760 --> 00:11:46,380 Sophie Strand: I think for me, sin is more of a verb of attunement in its original Aramaic sense, which is, well, 175 00:11:46,500 --> 00:11:53,880 Sophie Strand: if I'm out of right relationship, if there's a debt, if I've eaten the berries and I've accepted 176 00:11:53,880 --> 00:11:59,920 Sophie Strand: the gifts of the land, how do I keep feeding the land so that that relationship is constantly 177 00:11:59,920 --> 00:12:00,820 Sophie Strand: rebalancing? 178 00:12:00,820 --> 00:12:08,600 Anne Strainchamps: It's more complicated even than that, though, because what goes along with the idea 179 00:12:08,600 --> 00:12:14,520 Anne Strainchamps: of sin is the idea of, well, at least I'm thinking about St. Augustine, the 180 00:12:14,520 --> 00:12:16,480 Anne Strainchamps: idea of the body itself. 181 00:12:16,780 --> 00:12:17,040 Sophie Strand: Yeah. 182 00:12:17,160 --> 00:12:23,560 Anne Strainchamps: And especially women's bodies, as being somehow dirty, impure. 183 00:12:23,560 --> 00:12:29,340 Anne Strainchamps: And the opposite of where we want to go, which is, I don't know, up in the sky, to a 184 00:12:29,340 --> 00:12:31,500 Anne Strainchamps: purer, better kind of state. Absolutely. 185 00:12:32,260 --> 00:12:37,600 Sophie Strand: I mean, I've written a lot about the history of monotheism and empire. 186 00:12:37,600 --> 00:12:42,840 Sophie Strand: I don't have any answers, but I'm very curious about how you see the schism of mind 187 00:12:42,840 --> 00:12:47,640 Sophie Strand: and matter, purity and impurity, humans and nature, men and women. 188 00:12:47,640 --> 00:12:51,740 Sophie Strand: And you see these value dualisms emerge post-Bronze Age collapse. 189 00:12:52,300 --> 00:12:56,560 Sophie Strand: So before that, in the Mediterranean basin and Europe, you see much more earth-reverent, 190 00:12:56,680 --> 00:12:58,000 Sophie Strand: partnership-based cultures. 191 00:12:58,680 --> 00:13:03,640 Sophie Strand: Rianne Eisler, who's one of my favorite scholars of these early states, says— 192 00:13:03,640 --> 00:13:04,400 Anne Strainchamps: Oh, I remember. 193 00:13:04,520 --> 00:13:06,480 Anne Strainchamps: She wrote The Chalice and the Blade, right? 194 00:13:06,660 --> 00:13:11,580 Anne Strainchamps: Early feminist, kind of archaeological, let's go back and look at the earth goddesses and 195 00:13:11,580 --> 00:13:12,420 Anne Strainchamps: the divine feminine. 196 00:13:12,420 --> 00:13:18,740 Sophie Strand: Yeah, and she writes that what a culture doesn't depict in its art is even more important than 197 00:13:18,740 --> 00:13:19,760 Sophie Strand: what it does depict. 198 00:13:20,200 --> 00:13:27,400 Sophie Strand: And one thing that's so interesting about many of the early Mediterranean states and cultures, 199 00:13:27,760 --> 00:13:35,680 Sophie Strand: and I'm thinking of Cabal Hayek, Mohenjo-Daro, these early states, they don't depict violence, 200 00:13:35,900 --> 00:13:37,060 Sophie Strand: they don't depict murder. 201 00:13:37,060 --> 00:13:44,720 Sophie Strand: And I'm curious about this period of time of collapse in the Mediterranean basin 202 00:13:44,720 --> 00:13:51,580 Sophie Strand: where there were droughts, famine, plagues, genocide, mass exodus of 203 00:13:51,580 --> 00:13:51,960 Sophie Strand: people. 204 00:13:52,360 --> 00:13:57,900 Sophie Strand: And after this mass cultural traumatic event, you see a schism between mind and matter, men 205 00:13:57,900 --> 00:14:01,660 Sophie Strand: and women, humans and nature, and purity and impurity. 206 00:14:01,660 --> 00:14:07,500 Sophie Strand: That the body where you can suffer — from plague, from dislocation, from 207 00:14:07,500 --> 00:14:10,100 Sophie Strand: battles — is unsafe and impure. 208 00:14:10,280 --> 00:14:14,820 Sophie Strand: And that there's some other place that's safer, that's abstract, that's in the sky. 209 00:14:15,520 --> 00:14:16,520 So I'm curious... 210 00:14:16,520 --> 00:14:22,680 Anne Strainchamps: Well, are you suggesting that in some ways, we are all survivors of this civilizational 211 00:14:22,680 --> 00:14:27,240 Anne Strainchamps: collapse, and we are carrying the memory of this trauma? 212 00:14:27,240 --> 00:14:29,780 Sophie Strand: Yeah, I mean, I do think 213 00:14:29,780 --> 00:14:31,220 Sophie Strand: so. Our cultures are stories. 214 00:14:31,520 --> 00:14:39,520 Sophie Strand: So I think it's important to understand how these collapses may have inspired certain 215 00:14:39,520 --> 00:14:44,940 Sophie Strand: kinds of narrative survival mechanisms that made sense in the moment, but are perhaps obsolete 216 00:14:44,940 --> 00:14:45,460 Sophie Strand: now. 217 00:14:45,620 --> 00:14:46,780 Anne Strainchamps: Play that out a little bit. 218 00:14:46,920 --> 00:14:52,380 Anne Strainchamps: What's the narrative that you think that we are subconsciously holding on to? 219 00:14:52,380 --> 00:14:57,360 Anne Strainchamps: And in what way would that have been a refuge from or a response to trauma? 220 00:14:58,320 --> 00:15:03,820 Sophie Strand: Well, as a survivor of violence in my own life, I know that one of the ways that you 221 00:15:03,820 --> 00:15:08,380 Sophie Strand: survive insurmountable violence is you dissociate, that you leave your body. 222 00:15:09,100 --> 00:15:13,420 Sophie Strand: And it can protect you from psychologically breaking. 223 00:15:13,420 --> 00:15:20,480 Sophie Strand: But that dissociation, when it is carried out over a long period of time in a personal life, 224 00:15:20,540 --> 00:15:23,020 Sophie Strand: can mean that you're not paying attention to your body. 225 00:15:23,280 --> 00:15:31,480 Sophie Strand: So I see a period of time where people experience natural disasters, drought, dislocation, plagues, 226 00:15:31,680 --> 00:15:36,940 Sophie Strand: a lot of things that are deeply traumatic and that make you hyper aware of how fragile the 227 00:15:36,940 --> 00:15:37,560 Sophie Strand: body is. 228 00:15:37,880 --> 00:15:37,980 Anne Strainchamps: Right. 229 00:15:37,980 --> 00:15:41,000 Sophie Strand: And that maybe your God isn't going to save you. 230 00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:43,540 Anne Strainchamps: Or that the earth is going to kill you. 231 00:15:43,780 --> 00:15:46,160 Sophie Strand: Or that your neighbor is going to kill you. 232 00:15:46,520 --> 00:15:52,280 Sophie Strand: And so for me, I'm interested in what happens when a culture dissociates, when it goes into 233 00:15:52,280 --> 00:15:59,580 Sophie Strand: its head and leaves behind its body, is really seeded with this base separation between mind 234 00:15:59,580 --> 00:16:01,560 Sophie Strand: and matter and good and evil. 235 00:16:02,160 --> 00:16:06,920 Sophie Strand: Another thing I will say is that when we are in situations that are very threatening, 236 00:16:06,920 --> 00:16:10,220 Sophie Strand: we seek to simplify them so that we know where is safe. 237 00:16:10,760 --> 00:16:12,720 Sophie Strand: So we simplify everything into binaries. 238 00:16:13,100 --> 00:16:14,920 Sophie Strand: We live in a highly binaristic culture. 239 00:16:15,220 --> 00:16:18,460 Sophie Strand: It does not have a high threshold for ambiguity and complexity. 240 00:16:18,980 --> 00:16:22,600 Sophie Strand: And especially when we're stressed, it gets worse, as we're seeing right now with 241 00:16:22,600 --> 00:16:24,140 Sophie Strand: the American political landscape. 242 00:16:24,320 --> 00:16:24,680 Anne Strainchamps: Absolutely. 243 00:16:24,960 --> 00:16:31,320 Sophie Strand: And you add in a pandemic, you add in COVID, you add in the onslaught of information and 244 00:16:31,320 --> 00:16:35,600 Sophie Strand: misinformation online that our neurobiology is not built to accommodate. 245 00:16:35,600 --> 00:16:39,960 Sophie Strand: Yeah, of course, our very organisms are overwhelmed. 246 00:16:40,180 --> 00:16:44,600 Sophie Strand: And so we seek ways of simplifying our environment so that we can feel safe. 247 00:16:44,940 --> 00:16:48,540 Sophie Strand: So I have a lot of compassion for survival mechanisms. 248 00:16:48,940 --> 00:16:54,660 Sophie Strand: And I also think that we have to be conscious of the ways in which they can inspire our worst 249 00:16:54,660 --> 00:16:55,060 Sophie Strand: behavior. 250 00:16:55,560 --> 00:16:55,700 Anne Strainchamps: Yeah. 251 00:16:55,700 --> 00:17:03,240 Anne Strainchamps: Going back to the idea that when your body feels too much pain, 252 00:17:03,800 --> 00:17:08,860 Anne Strainchamps: and your psyche feels too much pain, body and psyche, when it's more than you can handle, 253 00:17:09,220 --> 00:17:16,040 Anne Strainchamps: we leave. We leave the body and live up in our minds and our heads. 254 00:17:16,040 --> 00:17:18,820 Anne Strainchamps: And so you can look at where we are culturally today. 255 00:17:18,960 --> 00:17:25,740 Anne Strainchamps: And, I mean, I don't want to pathologize the entire development of Western science and 256 00:17:25,740 --> 00:17:29,460 Anne Strainchamps: enlightenment thought, but there is a strand of that. 257 00:17:29,820 --> 00:17:35,640 Anne Strainchamps: And so that's why I said, going back to where we began with that 258 00:17:35,640 --> 00:17:37,620 Anne Strainchamps: piece that you wrote, and I said it felt explosive. 259 00:17:37,620 --> 00:17:44,860 Anne Strainchamps: That's what I feel like you are implicitly exploding all the time. 260 00:17:45,060 --> 00:17:56,820 Anne Strainchamps: The idea that we are a singular self or that decay, rot, the body, that these are things to flee from. 261 00:17:57,100 --> 00:18:04,520 Anne Strainchamps: You keep taking us back into earth, the body, decay. 262 00:18:04,520 --> 00:18:11,940 Anne Strainchamps: Exactly the opposite of where our culture tells us to look for wonder. 263 00:18:12,580 --> 00:18:18,260 Anne Strainchamps: Sorry, that's a very large statement to get you to react to, but that's kind of what I see happening over and over, 264 00:18:18,340 --> 00:18:20,500 Anne Strainchamps: the movement I see over and over again in your work. 265 00:18:21,060 --> 00:18:21,420 Sophie Strand: Thank you. 266 00:18:21,520 --> 00:18:21,740 Sophie Strand: Yeah. 267 00:18:21,840 --> 00:18:25,500 Sophie Strand: I mean, I always say I want to stitch ascent back to descent. 268 00:18:25,800 --> 00:18:27,460 Sophie Strand: I'm much more interested in cycles. 269 00:18:27,460 --> 00:18:36,080 Sophie Strand: One metaphor I've used in my book about myths, The Flowering Wand, is mushrooms send out millions of spores. 270 00:18:36,680 --> 00:18:43,660 Sophie Strand: And we now know through modern science that these mushrooms sprout up from underground mycorrhizal systems. 271 00:18:43,880 --> 00:18:50,140 Sophie Strand: So filamentous, lace-like fungi in the soil that connect plants, bacterial colonies, and trees. 272 00:18:50,140 --> 00:18:56,540 Sophie Strand: They send up their fruiting bodies, these mushrooms, that then sporulate millions of spores. 273 00:18:57,000 --> 00:19:01,060 Sophie Strand: And the wildest thing is that these spores cloud seed. 274 00:19:01,700 --> 00:19:10,480 Sophie Strand: There are so many millions of tons of spores in the air that they act as the nucleus of water droplets. 275 00:19:10,880 --> 00:19:15,040 Sophie Strand: And then they actually create cloud systems and thus rain. 276 00:19:15,040 --> 00:19:16,500 Anne Strainchamps: Wait, wait, wait. 277 00:19:16,720 --> 00:19:20,920 Anne Strainchamps: The spores of the mushrooms create clouds? 278 00:19:21,420 --> 00:19:21,720 Sophie Strand: Yeah. 279 00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:22,920 Anne Strainchamps: Create weather? 280 00:19:23,200 --> 00:19:23,960 Sophie Strand: Create weather. 281 00:19:24,460 --> 00:19:28,160 Sophie Strand: And so for me, spore gods or storm gods are rock gods. 282 00:19:28,480 --> 00:19:33,340 Sophie Strand: It's a way of tying all of these movements together. 283 00:19:33,820 --> 00:19:37,960 Anne Strainchamps: I mean, somehow this is also reminding me, we were talking about monarchs, 284 00:19:38,020 --> 00:19:44,500 Anne Strainchamps: but you wrote about the cocoons and the way the caterpillar melts and becomes a butterfly. 285 00:19:44,500 --> 00:19:44,940 Sophie Strand: Oh, yeah. 286 00:19:45,420 --> 00:19:48,260 Sophie Strand: I'm very interested in consciousness studies. 287 00:19:48,680 --> 00:19:50,060 Anne Strainchamps: You have to talk to my husband, Steve. 288 00:19:50,780 --> 00:19:52,180 Anne Strainchamps: That's his whole thing. 289 00:19:52,280 --> 00:19:53,920 Sophie Strand: It's so fascinating. 290 00:19:53,920 --> 00:20:00,340 Sophie Strand: And a lot of my scientist friends are saying that we're on the edge of what they call a Copernican shift. 291 00:20:00,800 --> 00:20:00,880 Anne Strainchamps: Really? 292 00:20:00,880 --> 00:20:06,980 Sophie Strand: Which is like our ideas about consciousness are about to change so radically that it will feel that big. 293 00:20:06,980 --> 00:20:15,420 Sophie Strand: Some of my favorite thinkers are beginning to say that brains and thinking have been conflated, but they're not the same thing. 294 00:20:15,740 --> 00:20:23,780 Sophie Strand: And you brought up the butterfly, which is this great problematization of the idea that thinking or memories are stored in the brain. 295 00:20:23,780 --> 00:20:25,520 Sophie Strand: So you have caterpillars. 296 00:20:26,040 --> 00:20:28,980 Sophie Strand: Caterpillars are eating leaves, getting fat, getting ready. 297 00:20:29,740 --> 00:20:31,140 Sophie Strand: Then they create a cocoon. 298 00:20:31,760 --> 00:20:34,300 Sophie Strand: There's this hormone that gets stimulated. 299 00:20:34,460 --> 00:20:35,900 Sophie Strand: I think it's called ectosine. 300 00:20:36,240 --> 00:20:38,660 Sophie Strand: And they basically begin to melt. 301 00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:41,540 Sophie Strand: And I always wonder, what does that feel like to a caterpillar? 302 00:20:41,640 --> 00:20:42,580 Sophie Strand: It probably feels like dying. 303 00:20:43,020 --> 00:20:44,520 Sophie Strand: And their brain liquefies. 304 00:20:44,640 --> 00:20:46,000 Sophie Strand: That's the craziest thing. 305 00:20:46,360 --> 00:20:47,360 Sophie Strand: Their brain liquefies. 306 00:20:47,360 --> 00:20:50,600 Sophie Strand: And there are numerous studies of moths and butterflies. 307 00:20:50,960 --> 00:21:01,140 Sophie Strand: And it's so fascinating that butterflies have the same memories as they did when they were caterpillars, even though their brains have been liquefied and rearticulated. 308 00:21:01,140 --> 00:21:02,280 Anne Strainchamps: How is that possible? 309 00:21:02,560 --> 00:21:08,060 Sophie Strand: They'll remember the leaves that they originally ate and go back to the same leaves and the same plants. 310 00:21:08,380 --> 00:21:10,220 Sophie Strand: They did a study where I think they shocked — 311 00:21:10,520 --> 00:21:12,180 Sophie Strand: I hate studies like this, by the way — 312 00:21:12,180 --> 00:21:16,840 Sophie Strand: but they hurt the caterpillars when they exposed them to a certain smell. 313 00:21:17,360 --> 00:21:20,840 Sophie Strand: And the butterflies remembered to associate that smell. 314 00:21:20,840 --> 00:21:21,500 Anne Strainchamps: Stay away from that smell. 315 00:21:21,760 --> 00:21:22,000 Sophie Strand: Yeah. 316 00:21:22,280 --> 00:21:24,820 Anne Strainchamps: In that case, where 317 00:21:25,120 --> 00:21:26,020 Anne Strainchamps: are the memories? 318 00:21:26,600 --> 00:21:27,360 Sophie Strand: What are the memories? 319 00:21:27,840 --> 00:21:30,340 Sophie Strand: And for me, that's where my wonder is. 320 00:21:30,420 --> 00:21:35,260 Sophie Strand: My wonder is in the questions we can live inside rather than answer immediately. 321 00:21:35,980 --> 00:21:36,300 Anne Strainchamps: Yeah. 322 00:21:38,220 --> 00:21:41,780 Anne Strainchamps: This journey, it's been personal for you, right? 323 00:21:42,140 --> 00:21:45,320 Anne Strainchamps: I mean, you got really sick in your teens. 324 00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:49,040 Anne Strainchamps: Maybe you can just tell a little bit of that story. 325 00:21:49,740 --> 00:21:49,980 Sophie Strand: Sure. 326 00:21:50,120 --> 00:21:50,400 Yeah. 327 00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:52,840 Yeah. 328 00:21:52,840 --> 00:22:06,760 Sophie Strand: At the age of 16, I went from being a very athletic, very physically fit young woman to being so radically ill that I was in and out of the hospital overnight. 329 00:22:06,760 --> 00:22:19,680 Sophie Strand: And it took many, many years of misdiagnosis, mistreatment, and really degenerating health to finally get a diagnosis of genetic connective tissue disease. 330 00:22:20,060 --> 00:22:21,120 Anne Strainchamps: Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. 331 00:22:21,220 --> 00:22:21,560 Sophie Strand: Yeah. 332 00:22:21,820 --> 00:22:22,260 Yeah. 333 00:22:22,480 --> 00:22:23,760 Sophie Strand: And many other co-morbidities. 334 00:22:24,700 --> 00:22:24,940 Yeah. 335 00:22:25,100 --> 00:22:26,780 Sophie Strand: And then some other autoimmune things. 336 00:22:26,940 --> 00:22:29,600 Anne Strainchamps: Like what you can eat is pretty limited, as I recall. 337 00:22:29,600 --> 00:22:30,200 Sophie Strand: Yeah. 338 00:22:30,460 --> 00:22:41,540 Sophie Strand: I have mast cell disease, and Ehlers-Danlos predisposes you to gastroparesis and autoimmunity and many gastrointestinal metabolic issues. 339 00:22:42,120 --> 00:22:42,640 Anne Strainchamps: So, 340 00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:43,280 Yeah. 341 00:22:43,820 --> 00:22:49,040 Anne Strainchamps: I mean, reading your memoir, you've come close to death many times. 342 00:22:49,660 --> 00:22:50,380 Sophie Strand: I have indeed. 343 00:22:50,380 --> 00:22:56,580 Anne Strainchamps: You've gone into anaphylactic shock, I don't know how many times, been revived, and I don't know how many ambulances. 344 00:22:57,260 --> 00:22:57,420 Yeah. 345 00:22:58,860 --> 00:22:59,300 Sophie Strand: Yeah. 346 00:22:59,380 --> 00:23:12,120 Anne Strainchamps: So, first, I want to just pause there and just say you're about the age of my own daughter, and I could not read any of that without reacting as a mother. 347 00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:17,980 Anne Strainchamps: I began thinking about your own mother, wondering how the hell she handled any of those. 348 00:23:17,980 --> 00:23:18,700 Sophie Strand: I know. 349 00:23:18,860 --> 00:23:23,320 Sophie Strand: I mean, I think about what it's like to have a sick child. 350 00:23:24,360 --> 00:23:42,500 Sophie Strand: I've had friends who've had children die, and I think of my own parents and how terrifying it was for them, especially when they realized, the meaning of our for-profit health care and COVID has completely destabilized the way people can access health care in America. 351 00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:45,740 Sophie Strand: It's a mess and expensive and complicated. 352 00:23:45,740 --> 00:23:56,760 Anne Strainchamps: I think it's really hard for my generation, looking around and seeing so many people our children's age and younger are sick. 353 00:23:57,260 --> 00:23:57,660 Yeah. 354 00:23:57,660 --> 00:23:58,980 Anne Strainchamps: They're getting earlier cancers. 355 00:23:59,340 --> 00:24:01,840 Anne Strainchamps: They're getting autoimmune diseases. 356 00:24:02,520 --> 00:24:03,180 Anne Strainchamps: It's hard. 357 00:24:03,500 --> 00:24:12,760 Anne Strainchamps: I don't know whether this is true or not, but in my head, it's impossible not to conflate — oh, the earth is sick, and so are the young people. 358 00:24:12,760 --> 00:24:24,340 Sophie Strand: Yeah, I mean, very scientifically and practically, there are all these boundaries that if you violate them, we can't actually predict how the earth will rebalance. 359 00:24:24,340 --> 00:24:39,840 Sophie Strand: And one of them are called novel particles — creating chemicals and novel particles and introducing them into the chaos of earth systems without knowing how they might cascade into feedback loops and change how things work. 360 00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:49,720 Sophie Strand: And we have well exceeded the amount of novel particles and molecules we have introduced into our ecosystems in the past couple of years. 361 00:24:50,020 --> 00:24:55,820 Sophie Strand: We're in an experiment right now, biologically, with plastics, with all of these things. 362 00:24:55,900 --> 00:24:57,800 Sophie Strand: We don't know what the long-term effects are. 363 00:24:57,880 --> 00:25:01,600 Sophie Strand: I'm not surprised that we are sick. 364 00:25:01,780 --> 00:25:04,660 Sophie Strand: We have really created a very interesting soup. 365 00:25:04,660 --> 00:25:14,000 Anne Strainchamps: Well, so where I was going with that, I think, is kind of thinking we need new myths, right? 366 00:25:14,380 --> 00:25:21,380 Anne Strainchamps: The old mythic structures that we were talking about, they're just kind of part of the problem. 367 00:25:21,380 --> 00:25:32,660 Anne Strainchamps: And it seems to me that you're interested in both myth and the ecological language of science and bringing those things together, like your image of the hermit crabs. 368 00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:33,180 Sophie Strand: Yeah. 369 00:25:33,360 --> 00:25:36,560 Anne Strainchamps: Lining up on the sand to exchange— 370 00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:37,480 Sophie Strand: Shells. 371 00:25:37,740 --> 00:25:39,500 Anne Strainchamps: Helping each other. 372 00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:40,240 Sophie Strand: Yeah. 373 00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:43,100 Sophie Strand: I do love that metaphor of the hermit crabs. 374 00:25:43,100 --> 00:25:47,900 Sophie Strand: And for people who are listening who don't know it — hermit crabs don't grow their own shells. 375 00:25:48,120 --> 00:25:50,520 Sophie Strand: They steal them or they borrow them. 376 00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:53,660 Sophie Strand: They find them and they eventually outgrow them. 377 00:25:54,140 --> 00:26:03,040 Sophie Strand: And so what they do is they'll find a new shell and it probably is not the right size, but they'll exit their old shell and wait next to the new shell. 378 00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:14,520 Sophie Strand: And slowly over time, a bunch of hermit crabs will coalesce into a gathering and then they'll all exchange shells so that every single one finds the right sized shell. 379 00:26:15,460 --> 00:26:23,200 Sophie Strand: I love that because it's about communal storytelling and how the only way to compost these older toxic paradigms is together. 380 00:26:23,460 --> 00:26:24,400 Sophie Strand: We can't do it alone. 381 00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:33,220 Sophie Strand: Learning to listen and to dialogue with beings and people who are different than us is a really important part of whatever comes next. 382 00:26:34,040 --> 00:26:39,080 Anne Strainchamps: I want to pause on that image of hermit crabs lined up together on the beach. 383 00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:41,140 Anne Strainchamps: This is Wonder Cabinet. 384 00:26:54,400 --> 00:27:20,260 Thank you. 385 00:27:20,860 --> 00:27:22,040 Hey, it's Steve. 386 00:27:22,360 --> 00:27:25,440 I want to invite you to visit our Wonder Cabinet website, 387 00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:29,320 where you will find more information about the show and Anne and me. 388 00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:32,120 And I really hope you'll subscribe to our newsletter. 389 00:27:32,620 --> 00:27:35,160 We'll tell you the story behind the name of this podcast 390 00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:39,220 and some of the amazing guests we'll be talking with in future episodes. 391 00:27:39,820 --> 00:27:43,080 You can find us at wondercabinetproductions.com. 392 00:27:43,380 --> 00:27:45,800 And please, tell your friends about Wonder Cabinet. 393 00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:50,360 This is a brand new podcast, and we'd love your help in getting the word out. 394 00:27:50,360 --> 00:28:00,360 Anne Strainchamps: I'm Anne Strainchamps, talking with writer Sophie Strand, and I want to pick up on that 395 00:28:00,360 --> 00:28:05,020 Anne Strainchamps: idea of communal storytelling. What does that look like for you in practice? 396 00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:13,920 Sophie Strand: Well, in practice, it means I have been hosting on and off for years potluck events. Sometimes 397 00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:19,680 Sophie Strand: they're clothing swaps, sometimes they're just meal sharing. And usually a lot of people show 398 00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:25,160 Sophie Strand: up locally, people invite other people, friends of friends, you share food, you light candles. 399 00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:31,940 Sophie Strand: And then I always invite people to share a story from their life that in telling it threatens to 400 00:28:31,940 --> 00:28:37,680 Sophie Strand: make them look insane, or whatever word you want to use. It threatens their credibility. 401 00:28:38,300 --> 00:28:44,820 Sophie Strand: So tell a ghost story, tell a weird, spooky story, something you can't explain. And the incredible 402 00:28:44,820 --> 00:28:49,660 Sophie Strand: thing about it is you can have people from many different generations, many different walks of 403 00:28:49,660 --> 00:28:56,360 Sophie Strand: life. And if you get them laughing, eating food together, sitting on the ground, trying on each 404 00:28:56,360 --> 00:29:01,680 Sophie Strand: other's old ratty sweaters, you get them into this kind of intimacy, and then you turn off the 405 00:29:01,680 --> 00:29:06,560 Sophie Strand: lights and you light candles, and you ask people to share stories that they don't understand, 406 00:29:07,300 --> 00:29:13,420 Sophie Strand: really amazing transformation starts to happen. People start opening up and sharing things 407 00:29:13,420 --> 00:29:18,100 Sophie Strand: that are outside our modern framework of how we know things. 408 00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:20,300 Anne Strainchamps: Let's do it now. 409 00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:20,980 Sophie Strand: Totally. 410 00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:25,220 Anne Strainchamps: What's a story, something that's happened to you that you can't explain? 411 00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:33,760 Sophie Strand: Absolutely. One of my favorite stories that I sometimes tell is — me and my friend 412 00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:43,120 Sophie Strand: Nora lived during the summers between college in a tiny little upstate town that was nearer to a much 413 00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:48,580 Sophie Strand: bougier town with lots of fancy restaurants. So occasionally we would treat ourselves, we would 414 00:29:48,580 --> 00:29:55,900 Sophie Strand: drive from our tiny little town over to this much fancier town to go out for dinner. So we finished 415 00:29:55,900 --> 00:30:02,620 Sophie Strand: our work, we drove over there, we had done the drive many, many times. And we ate dinner, 416 00:30:02,620 --> 00:30:10,520 Sophie Strand: we were totally sober. It was dark, but early. And we started to drive back. The drive should have 417 00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:16,700 Sophie Strand: taken 15 minutes, we'd done it many times. And suddenly, we were out of service. Our phones 418 00:30:16,700 --> 00:30:23,080 Sophie Strand: weren't working. And suddenly the clock on the car wasn't working. And we were driving through farm 419 00:30:23,080 --> 00:30:29,640 Sophie Strand: field after farm field. And we had no idea where we were, we were totally lost. So we kept driving. 420 00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:33,960 Sophie Strand: And I said, Nora, I have to pee really badly. Will you pull over so I can pee on the side of the road? 421 00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:39,080 Sophie Strand: She was like, no, we're not stopping the car, which is amazing, because she was beginning to feel like 422 00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:44,740 Sophie Strand: something really intense was happening. So the distance between Rhinebeck and Tivoli is very short. 423 00:30:45,220 --> 00:30:51,840 Sophie Strand: But we were driving for a long time. And we had no street signs, no markers that we recognized, 424 00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:57,740 Sophie Strand: nothing. And then all of a sudden, a giant owl flew down in the road in front of her car, 425 00:30:57,740 --> 00:31:04,240 Sophie Strand: causing her to slam on the brakes. And we screamed. And then the owl put out its wings, 426 00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:11,760 Sophie Strand: looked at us and flew off. And then our phones got service. And the clock started to work again. 427 00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:16,820 Sophie Strand: And suddenly we kept driving. And there was a street sign. And we were five minutes from Rhinebeck. 428 00:31:17,220 --> 00:31:22,820 Sophie Strand: And we'd been driving for a long time. And we were both so spooked that we actually 429 00:31:22,820 --> 00:31:28,720 Sophie Strand: parked the car, got out of the car. We had no way of making sense of what 430 00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:33,600 Sophie Strand: had happened. What I now know is, this is the area where Rip Van Winkle was written. And it was 431 00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:38,380 Sophie Strand: written because this is an area where there's a deep folkloric tradition of something called time 432 00:31:38,380 --> 00:31:46,500 Sophie Strand: loops. People will report getting stuck in loops where you don't know where you are. Time moves at a 433 00:31:46,500 --> 00:31:50,280 Sophie Strand: different pace. And then you get out of it. And you can't quite make sense of what happened. 434 00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:59,040 Sophie Strand: The beautiful thing about these stories is I hold them lightly, which is if there happens to 435 00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:04,500 Sophie Strand: be an explanation that does describe it, I'll accept it. I want to be able to update my understanding. 436 00:32:04,940 --> 00:32:10,260 Sophie Strand: But I also don't want to rush to a bad description of what happened, just because I need an answer. 437 00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:14,400 Anne Strainchamps: So when I said, let's share one of these stories. 438 00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:20,920 Anne Strainchamps: And then I thought, oh, shit, I don't have any. And then I started thinking, what the hell is 439 00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:26,780 Anne Strainchamps: wrong with me that I don't have any? I'm sure you do. So here's the thing, I probably do, 440 00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:32,200 Sophie Strand: but I guess I've repressed them. You're not the only person. At these gatherings, this is what happens 441 00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:38,240 Sophie Strand: without fail. And I've done this dozens of times. There will be two people who are certain and have 442 00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:42,900 Sophie Strand: very intense stories who break the ice, and everyone else will say, I don't have any stories. 443 00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:49,640 Sophie Strand: And then as everyone begins to listen, they're like, I've never told anyone this. And I haven't 444 00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:55,940 Sophie Strand: thought about it in 15 years. But I haven't told this. 445 00:32:55,940 --> 00:33:03,060 Sophie Strand: I haven't even thought about it. But it's a relational communal thing. When we live in a culture 446 00:33:03,060 --> 00:33:09,100 Sophie Strand: that tells us to deny other ways of knowing, and mocks us and tells us that these things are 447 00:33:09,100 --> 00:33:15,780 Sophie Strand: not real, it's very hard to hold them in our own bodies and our own psyches. I will also 448 00:33:15,780 --> 00:33:24,920 Sophie Strand: say that it is a pretty recent, modern veneer of culture that doesn't believe in ancestors, that 449 00:33:24,920 --> 00:33:30,660 Sophie Strand: doesn't believe that we can be contacted by the dead, that the trees can speak. But I do think that our 450 00:33:30,660 --> 00:33:37,480 Sophie Strand: culture has been so good at making us feel scared about even acknowledging these stories to 451 00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:45,240 Anne Strainchamps: ourselves. I mean, this is why I read fantasy. And in certain moods, magic and fantasy can feel 452 00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:51,520 Anne Strainchamps: like medicine, like the best medicine or vitamins that you need when you feel like you've been sucked 453 00:33:51,520 --> 00:34:00,200 Anne Strainchamps: dry by the culture that we live in. You can kind of just feel it in some ways, what makes 454 00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:07,960 Anne Strainchamps: you feel better. And if for me, it's the story of some children who wander through the back of a 455 00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:16,060 Anne Strainchamps: cupboard and find themselves in another magical landscape, or a young woman who's starving in a 456 00:34:16,060 --> 00:34:26,680 Anne Strainchamps: forest and shoots a wolf who turns out to be fey.. An avatar. I love that reference. Amazing. 457 00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:32,540 Anne Strainchamps: So what I'm trying to figure out is how do I go from thinking it's okay for magic to live inside the 458 00:34:32,540 --> 00:34:39,780 Anne Strainchamps: covers of a book, but I don't know how to feel like I'm walking around inside a magical 459 00:34:39,780 --> 00:34:46,620 Sophie Strand: world. Well, for me, science is my magic, to be perfectly honest. Yes, I have weird stories. But 460 00:34:46,620 --> 00:34:53,160 Sophie Strand: the thing that's most magical is the monarch butterflies. I actually find the most magic in reading 461 00:34:53,160 --> 00:35:00,340 Sophie Strand: scientific papers, findings about the sensory worlds of mantis shrimps that see colors 462 00:35:00,340 --> 00:35:05,400 Sophie Strand: we can't even imagine. I just kind of bring that up because I do think there are different ways of 463 00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:10,220 Sophie Strand: knowing than we allow within our material reductionist world. There are different ways of knowing. People 464 00:35:10,220 --> 00:35:16,000 Sophie Strand: experience their ancestors talking to them. People have dreams that give them advice. We can begin to weave 465 00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:22,560 Sophie Strand: those back in. But for me, my access point is my relationship to plants and animals and reading 466 00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:29,220 Sophie Strand: about them and learning about them and thinking about the just pure synchronicity and magic that we 467 00:35:29,220 --> 00:35:34,720 Sophie Strand: are all here at once, that we all evolved to do these things. That to me is deeply magical. 468 00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:40,740 Anne Strainchamps: You're reminding me, Steve and I chose the name Wonder Cabinet for this new podcast. 469 00:35:40,740 --> 00:35:48,980 Anne Strainchamps: It's great. Thanks. Well, so the original Wonder Cabinets were created by wealthy collectors 470 00:35:48,980 --> 00:35:54,320 Anne Strainchamps: beginning in the 16th century, 16th until 18th century. And it was really this period of time 471 00:35:54,320 --> 00:36:01,120 Anne Strainchamps: when there was an older magical worldview coinciding with the birth of the age of science. And so you 472 00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:11,940 Anne Strainchamps: get people collecting preserved skeletons and fossils and rare minerals and magical objects that they 473 00:36:11,940 --> 00:36:18,740 Anne Strainchamps: thought were unicorn horns or the philosopher's stone that would turn anything into gold. And all these 474 00:36:18,740 --> 00:36:26,940 Anne Strainchamps: things coexisted. Science and a magical worldview were not opposites. And so maybe that's what you're 475 00:36:26,940 --> 00:36:35,640 Anne Strainchamps: saying, I mean, at some level, that's why I think our larger project is essentially a 476 00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:41,840 Sophie Strand: Wonder Cabinet for the modern age. I love that idea. That's amazing. I mean, we forget that Newton, 477 00:36:42,260 --> 00:36:49,540 Sophie Strand: that most of the big heavy-hitting scientists, were alchemists. They were 478 00:36:49,540 --> 00:36:56,840 Sophie Strand: dabbling in something we think of as being wizardry now. And magic isn't about something being like 479 00:36:56,840 --> 00:37:02,500 Sophie Strand: from fairy. It's more about the wonder and the edges of our understanding. I mean, quantum 480 00:37:02,500 --> 00:37:09,100 Sophie Strand: physics is very magical in that. Oh, absolutely. That things are much more verbs than they are 481 00:37:09,100 --> 00:37:14,520 Sophie Strand: objects, much more becoming than they are foreclosed. And that's exciting to me. 482 00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:19,680 Anne Strainchamps: One of the very next interviews we'll be airing is a conversation Steve had with Carlo Revelli, 483 00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:24,780 Anne Strainchamps: the discoverer of black holes, who says pretty much exactly what you just said. 484 00:37:24,780 --> 00:37:30,680 Anne Strainchamps: Talks about how all of us are constantly becoming. And so why would we be afraid of 485 00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:35,060 Sophie Strand: death? It's just another step in a long dance. 486 00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:41,520 Sophie Strand: You know, just one monarch in a migratory circle. I think about that with myself also as I've had to 487 00:37:41,520 --> 00:37:49,720 Sophie Strand: really confront mortality in a fairly real way. And I think about, okay, maybe I'm not going to 488 00:37:49,720 --> 00:37:56,760 Sophie Strand: finish all my projects or finish all my books in time, quote unquote. But can I weave myself in where 489 00:37:56,760 --> 00:38:02,240 Sophie Strand: I create enough nourishment, I make enough good soil that something can grow from my unfinished 490 00:38:02,240 --> 00:38:07,840 Anne Strainchamps: projects? Yeah. That's the beautiful title of your Substack, "Make Me Good Soil." 491 00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:09,360 Sophie Strand: Thank you. 492 00:38:10,620 --> 00:38:16,320 Anne Strainchamps: Sophie Strand is a poet and writer and author of a memoir called "The Body is a Doorway." 493 00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:20,740 Steve Paulson: I'm Anne Strainchamps. And I'm Steve Paulson. And this is Wonder Cabinet. 494 00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:24,340 Anne Strainchamps: And by the way, that conversation with Carlo Rovelli that we just mentioned, 495 00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:28,200 Anne Strainchamps: that is in our next episode on the beauty of physics. Carlo Rovelli: 496 00:38:28,760 --> 00:38:36,260 Anne Strainchamps: At that precise moment, I fell in love with physics. It was madly falling in love with physics. 497 00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:40,780 Anne Strainchamps: Quantum mechanics and general relativity are the most beautiful human creations. 498 00:38:40,780 --> 00:38:45,980 Anne Strainchamps: I mean, there's this curving of space, stretching on time. It's better than LSD. 499 00:38:46,540 --> 00:38:47,760 Anne Strainchamps: I hope you'll join us. 500 00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:52,400 Steve Paulson: Wonder Cabinet's audio engineer is Steve Gotcher, theme music by Joe Hartke. 501 00:38:52,620 --> 00:38:58,280 Anne Strainchamps: Send questions and comments and sign up for our newsletter at wondercabinetproductions.com. 502 00:38:58,700 --> 00:38:59,700 Anne Strainchamps: See you next time. 503 00:38:59,700 --> 00:39:00,400 Bye. 504 00:39:24,460 --> 00:39:26,620 Bye. 505 00:39:26,620 --> 00:39:27,500 Bye. 506 00:39:27,500 --> 00:39:27,560 Bye. 507 00:39:27,560 --> 00:39:27,660 Bye.