This week, on The Conscious Consultant Hour, Sam is pleased to welcome Author and Speaker, Sophie Strand.
Sophie is a writer based in the Hudson Valley who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. But it would probably be more authentic to call her a neo-troubadour animist with a propensity to spin yarns that inevitably turn into love stories.
She is the author of The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine. Her eco-feminist historical fiction reimagining of the gospels, The Madonna Secret was just recently published in 2023.
Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous projects and publications, including The Dark Mountain Project and poetry.org and the magazines Unearthed, Braided Way, Art PAPERS, and Entropy.
Tune in and join the conversation as Sam and Sophie discuss how to connect to nature to inspire us in everyday life.
Please comment on our YouTube channel, Facebook Page, LinkedIn Page, and even our Twitter feed. Join in and ask your questions live!
https://amzn.to/3QKdvVy
https://amzn.to/45yYD0y
https://sophiestrand.com/
Tune in for this enlightening conversation at TalkRadio.nyc
00:00:30.230 --> 00:00:48.830 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Good afternoon, my conscious co-creators. Good morning. Good evening. Wherever you're tuning in from welcome to that conscious consult now awakening humanity. I am very, very pleased that you are all here with me today. We've got a fascinating guest
00:00:48.830 --> 00:01:00.979 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: in store for us today. A woman who I'm I'm looking very much looking forward to bringing her on the show. But first, of course, we have our little section from my book
00:01:00.980 --> 00:01:07.509 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Everyday Awakening, and this section. Probably very apropos for what we're gonna discuss today.
00:01:07.610 --> 00:01:09.540 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: It's entitled
00:01:09.960 --> 00:01:22.000 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: by changing ourselves, we change our world. Changing our surroundings is easy. We can pick up and move to a different building or a different town.
00:01:22.330 --> 00:01:25.560 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: We can change our job or our business.
00:01:25.860 --> 00:01:32.900 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: but unless we change ourselves, we will eventually end up in similar circumstances.
00:01:33.370 --> 00:01:44.609 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: like that friend of yours, who always ends up dating the same type of person. or the relatives who always complain about their coworkers, no matter where they are working.
00:01:45.370 --> 00:01:51.710 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Yes, sometimes a shift in our location is what we need to grow and expand.
00:01:52.180 --> 00:01:58.980 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Then, again, if we are expecting the change in environment to change our world completely.
00:01:59.010 --> 00:02:02.280 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Then we then we will be disappointed
00:02:02.820 --> 00:02:06.460 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: because our energy and internal states
00:02:06.470 --> 00:02:12.030 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: dictate what kind of people and situations unfold before us.
00:02:12.550 --> 00:02:16.589 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Our energy attracts a certain kind of partner.
00:02:17.100 --> 00:02:22.069 Our beliefs draw various opportunities and experiences to us.
00:02:22.160 --> 00:02:28.390 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Our attitudes will determine how we respond to what is presented to us
00:02:28.450 --> 00:02:41.240 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: which will lead to specific results. If we find that we constantly end up in the same type of situation. then it is about something within us.
00:02:41.560 --> 00:02:53.029 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: not the outside world. When we change profoundly, change on a deep level. our world changes.
00:02:53.200 --> 00:03:10.710 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: our friends change. are family changes. our boss changes our job, our business, our career changes. It is a great opportunity and a source of empowerment that we can change ourselves.
00:03:11.070 --> 00:03:15.910 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: and by changing ourselves. change our world.
00:03:16.930 --> 00:03:20.949 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: What do you want to change in yourself today?
00:03:21.830 --> 00:03:23.470 So
00:03:23.910 --> 00:03:30.620 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: yeah, th, this this section I wrote a while ago that really came to me because,
00:03:31.150 --> 00:03:32.890 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: So often.
00:03:33.040 --> 00:03:34.350 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: I've
00:03:35.330 --> 00:03:40.519 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: counseled people, especially on the relationship side.
00:03:40.900 --> 00:03:45.450 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: where they're always complaining about their partner.
00:03:45.910 --> 00:03:54.780 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: it. And and it's like from one person to the next. It's almost like they're dating the exact same person.
00:03:55.910 --> 00:04:07.839 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: And it just was really highlighted to me in a big way of how it's really all about
00:04:08.490 --> 00:04:12.329 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: who we are. the energy we give off.
00:04:12.830 --> 00:04:15.080 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: and and what we
00:04:15.090 --> 00:04:16.880 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: present to the world
00:04:18.420 --> 00:04:35.860 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: perfect. And and it's so interesting how we always we have this tendency to think that. you know it's these external circumstances. It's it's it's this other person, it's it's my boss. It's my coworkers. It's it's
00:04:36.050 --> 00:04:43.240 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: it's about other people that we happen to be in whatever situation we're in.
00:04:45.460 --> 00:04:49.509 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: and have worked with enough clients over the years to know that
00:04:51.470 --> 00:04:59.290 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: once a person starts to shift themselves. starts to really work through
00:05:00.330 --> 00:05:07.329 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: whatever stories, whatever feelings, whatever experiences we've had in life
00:05:07.540 --> 00:05:15.269 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: that brought us to feel a certain way about ourselves, about others about life, about the world in general.
00:05:16.300 --> 00:05:19.499 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: When we shift that internal landscape.
00:05:20.950 --> 00:05:25.130 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: That's when the external world starts to change around us.
00:05:28.480 --> 00:05:37.429 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: And and and I guess it was really this, this sort of Rev. really, this, this this section came from the revelation that, like
00:05:38.510 --> 00:05:41.950 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: we can move out of our existing environment.
00:05:43.510 --> 00:05:50.269 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: To, you know. I've heard it often, like, Oh, I just need to change. I need to get out of New York City, or I need to get out of the United States, or wherever
00:05:52.030 --> 00:06:03.059 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: and sometimes that can be a great catalyst for change. But if we just change our external environment without changing our internal environment.
00:06:04.730 --> 00:06:11.289 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Things are not going to be that different in the new place. Yeah, might be different for a few weeks, couple of months.
00:06:11.620 --> 00:06:22.269 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: But then eventually, we find ourselves back in very similar situations because the our environment does not dictate our situations.
00:06:23.650 --> 00:06:25.270 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: It's our
00:06:25.630 --> 00:06:29.220 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: attitude, it's our energy, it's our.
00:06:30.470 --> 00:06:35.000 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: It's the way we show up in the world our presence that
00:06:35.200 --> 00:06:44.959 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: dictates our situation in our life more than anything else. I'm I'm not saying there aren't external influences, not at all.
00:06:47.450 --> 00:06:54.980 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: But I'm saying that our internal environment is far more important
00:06:55.720 --> 00:06:58.780 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: than any external environment.
00:07:01.180 --> 00:07:05.610 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: So yeah, so that's my section of our book
00:07:05.630 --> 00:07:23.190 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: kind, kind of a little. Take on the old phrase, you know, be the change you want to see in the world. But I say, by changing ourselves, we change our world. because I've just seen it over and over again when somebody really does do the deep inner work.
00:07:24.960 --> 00:07:39.170 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: when we really work towards healing whatever wounds are most present for us when we do the work of shifting. how we internalize our experiences.
00:07:39.330 --> 00:07:42.109 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: That's when things truly
00:07:42.380 --> 00:07:44.260 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: change around us.
00:07:44.850 --> 00:08:13.459 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: And that's from my book Everyday Awakening, which, of course, you can get it. Www, dot everyday awakening book. And that just takes you to the Amazon listing. But if you're like me and you like to support those small independent bookstores, just just go to them and ask them to order the book. We're in a major distributor. So any bookstore can really get everyday awakening. Just make sure everyday awakening by Sam Leeboards. Alright, wonderful!
00:08:13.610 --> 00:08:19.670 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: So now it is my extreme pleasure to welcome to the show
00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:24.450 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: author and speaker, Sophie Strand.
00:08:24.720 --> 00:08:33.459 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Sophie is a writer based in the Hudson Valley, who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology.
00:08:33.679 --> 00:08:46.889 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: but it would be probably more authentic to call her a neo troubadore animist, with a propensity to spin yarns that inevitably turn into love stories. I love that. She's the author of
00:08:47.430 --> 00:08:52.819 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: the flowering Wand. rewilding the sacred masculine.
00:08:52.930 --> 00:09:17.210 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: and her echo feminist historical fiction reimagining of the Gospels. The Madonna Secret was just recently published. In this year her poems and essays have appeared in numerous projects and publications, including the Dark Mountain Project and poetry.org and magazines, such as an Earth braided way, art papers, and entropy.
00:09:17.560 --> 00:09:24.130 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: It is my pleasure to welcome to the show Sophie Strand. Sophie. Thank you for joining us today.
00:09:24.250 --> 00:09:38.360 Sophie Strand: Well, Sam, thank you so much for having me and and II will take that quote as being the wisdom I needed tailored to my day. It feels very, and I deeply believe it. So thank you for starting us up that way.
00:09:38.410 --> 00:09:45.309 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Oh, you're quite welcome. You're quite welcome. It. It's kind of funny, you know. I'm just going through my sections of the book.
00:09:45.620 --> 00:09:59.560 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: chronologically, you know, just from Chapter one on, and somehow they always seem to be so apropos for for who's coming on the show this week, and and what we're talking about?
00:10:00.340 --> 00:10:05.690 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: But I'm I'm really curious. I mean, obviously, you're a writer. You're an artist.
00:10:05.900 --> 00:10:09.080 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Yeah, And and you have a very
00:10:09.380 --> 00:10:15.810 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: spiritual, let's say, take on on your view of the world. Was this something that
00:10:15.920 --> 00:10:32.999 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: you know you kind of developed throughout life. Was this something that was really sort of part of you from a very young age? Or was there something that sort of shifted? How you saw the world that sort of brought you to this deeper understanding of the way things are.
00:10:33.550 --> 00:10:51.979 Sophie Strand: Thanks. Well, there are 2 parts to the there are 2 answers. One is that I was raised by, you know, feral environmental animus, who studied the history of religion, you know. My dad ran near Xendo and was an editor at tricycle, so he was inside of Buddhism. For a long time.
00:10:51.980 --> 00:11:15.799 Sophie Strand: My parents write about the history of monotheism, and how these early partnership and ecologically responsive traditions get turned into. You know the monotheism of today? How does that transformation happen? What does it mean? What are the implications? So it was raised at a dinner table where there were Terabad and Buddhist monks there were none. Rabbis, theologians and eco anarchists.
00:11:15.800 --> 00:11:38.710 Sophie Strand: and I was I was. I was as a child invited to come in and ask questions, so I was lucky to grow up in a compost deep of every spiritual text in my household, and I was told to respect all of them, that they all had a different kaleidoscopic perspective, and that I should, I should entertain each one. But perhaps the most important thing that my parents gave me was that
00:11:38.930 --> 00:12:07.110 Sophie Strand: the world was alive. Every stone, lizard, blade of grass was alive, and it was alive differently and than me, so that sparked humility and conversation, and so that I should be deeply responsive and good at listening to the world around me, so I'm very lucky that that was gifted to me in my childhood, and ripened and fermented as I, you know, followed my own interest, and went to school and studied the history of Christianity.
00:12:07.220 --> 00:12:10.399 Sophie Strand: But then the other answer is that when I was 16
00:12:10.440 --> 00:12:27.939 Sophie Strand: I fell dramatically and mysteriously ill, and I think that was a real pivot point in my life, and it made me get more serious about questions of spirituality and environmentalism, and that really, I think, cemented my interest in these mystical realms.
00:12:28.110 --> 00:12:36.530 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: I see, I see. Yeah, it's often I found wh, when we're hit with a big challenge that we have to deal with.
00:12:37.100 --> 00:12:38.729 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: that that really
00:12:38.750 --> 00:12:46.190 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: kind of shifts our perspective on life in the world and often moves us into some deeper realms.
00:12:47.040 --> 00:13:15.899 Sophie Strand: Yeah, menu, I always say it's it's it's not what you would want, but then you get it, and you have it. Kind of it goes back to the quote, you said, which is, if you, if you choose to contract and be frustrated and upset, you have all the excuses to do it. But if you can't move it, you have to collaborate with it. So yeah, that's my teacher, my tricky dance teacher, it's been genetic illness that has yeah, has forced me to get pretty sober about life.
00:13:16.200 --> 00:13:40.809 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: And and who? Who's that little fur baby who's joining us? I totally get. I totally get it? I just got back from Colorado, and and while I was there I was house sitting for some friends.
00:13:40.810 --> 00:13:54.649 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: and I was house sitting for this adorable Portuguese water dog, who was 6 months old and she was so sweet. But oh, yeah, it's like you. You had to be playing with her constantly.
00:13:54.980 --> 00:14:09.590 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: He's usually pretty good, but I just moved to a new home, so he's he's a little confused. Gotcha gotcha, and and just out of curiosity. Where did you grow up? Did you cause I know you're in New York State? Did you grow up in the city? Did you grow up upstate.
00:14:09.680 --> 00:14:37.330 Sophie Strand: Well, I got the best of both roles. I was born in the city. My parents were working in the city, so my first couple of years were there, and then they moved up to Woodstock, so I was raised in the shadow of overlooked mountain, and I kind of feral unofficial farm, where we rehabilitated possums and swans, and you know, raccoons but I still had a lot of contact with the city, and my parents still worked there and commuted there. So I kind of grew up between the 2.
00:14:37.330 --> 00:15:01.669 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Yeah, I was actually before we're out in Colorado a few weeks before we we just went up to Phoenicia for the weekend, and and visited th. There's a boot just monastery up there, and then we went, and of course into Woodstock, and I just. I hadn't been in Woodstock in years, and really a long, long time. And so it was. It was nice just to be around that area and and
00:15:01.810 --> 00:15:03.759 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: be in that environment again.
00:15:03.980 --> 00:15:14.959 Sophie Strand: it's beautiful. Yeah, it's actually it was the monastery that brought my parents up here because my dad taught there. So I had a Buddhist baptism there. So
00:15:14.960 --> 00:15:39.900 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: that's wonderful wonderful. And I do have to say, cause you mentioned the Terravada and Buddhist monks at the dinner table. So the former owner of the station, who I took it over from 13 years ago. I took it over from him because he became a terrified and monk. He donned his robes, and and he moved to to back to Australia, where he's from. And now he spends like 3, 4 months out of the year in the forests of
00:15:40.170 --> 00:15:56.980 Sophie Strand: Thailand and Malaysia, meditating in the forest. So th there's always a special place in our hearts for Terravad and Buddhists in Thailand, and he is a Terabon Buddhist monk.
00:15:57.330 --> 00:15:59.180 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Wonderful wonderful.
00:15:59.230 --> 00:16:23.039 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Okay. So we're gonna take a a quick break. And when we come back I'd like to talk about sort of your writings, and and and what sort of brought you to sort of think about? This book, the flowering wand, you know how long the process was to create it. But I don't really wanna get into the subtitle of this book
00:16:23.040 --> 00:16:38.080 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: which is rewilding the sacred masculine. So W. We, I wanna find out, why do we need to rewild it? And and what was it about the sacred masculine, that sort of drew you in to do to to all this writing about it. Okay.
00:16:39.340 --> 00:16:56.490 Sophie Strand: wonderful. So everyone. Please stay tuned. Oh! And a big shout out to Patty, loyal listener Patty, who tunes in every single week on our Youtube Channel. Thank you, Patty, for tuning in and and sharing let us know as the conversation goes along. If you have any questions.
00:16:56.680 --> 00:17:11.519 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: so everyone, please stay tuned. You're listening to the conscious consult now are weakening humanity. We're speaking this hour to our guest. Sophie Strand, author of the book, The Flowering Wand, and we will be right back in just a moment.
00:19:26.260 --> 00:19:35.930 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: and welcome back to the conscious consult. Now we're awakening humanity. We're speaking this hour with Sophie Strand, author of the book, the following one. So.
00:19:36.040 --> 00:19:47.739 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Sophie, you've been a a poet, a writer most of your life. What was it that kind of drew your attention to the the concept of the sacred masculine?
00:19:48.610 --> 00:19:57.419 Sophie Strand: It's a strange answer, which is. It was not what I intended. I had spent 5 year, 3 and a half years
00:19:57.480 --> 00:20:24.780 Sophie Strand: writing a book about the Magdalene. So writing an eco feminist reimagining of the story of Jesus, you know, resurrecting the ecology, the plants, the women, the voices that are erased from the canonical standard Gospels, account and in quarantine I at the very sort of quarantine I was supposed to sell that book, move it out of being a ghost writer and writing other people's books into promoting my own writing.
00:20:24.780 --> 00:20:48.339 Sophie Strand: and things really did not work out that way. You know, quarantine was a real, you know. It was a it was a bend in the river. It was a strange moment, and I was dealing with ha health crises, the death of friends, and was in some pretty serious depression, and I thought, and I had, because I have very serious health issues. I was quarantining alone
00:20:48.580 --> 00:21:13.729 Sophie Strand: alone for almost a year, and so dealing with isolation of a order I couldn't quite grow, couldn't even understand. And so I started writing on social media, these experimental essays about the research I had done about the Mediterranean basis based in ecology and mythic systems. So I was writing about my research that had inspired my novel that hadn't been published.
00:21:13.730 --> 00:21:36.729 Sophie Strand: And I was interested. I thought, Okay, I'm a person who is allergic to patriarchy. But I can see that masculinity and patriarchy have been completed, and that's not very kind to the high diversity of masculine expressions that existed for many thousands of years before patriarchy eclipsed that forests of expressions. And so I was really trying to heal my relationship with the masculine
00:21:36.730 --> 00:22:00.930 Sophie Strand: by looking at these older archetypes and seeing how they were extremely fertile, and could be much better to offer to our sons and our our lovers and husbands and friends, and it wasn't fair to men to say that, you know. Oh, here's one story, and it's a bad story. So I was doing it on my own for free closing it on social media, and never expected to publish the book ever especially cause I was combining
00:22:01.080 --> 00:22:17.830 Sophie Strand: fungal science and forest biology and myths, and and it was breaking a lot of rules in a funky way, but people seem to respond to it, and it kept me alive at a moment when I was in a real crisis, and then luck would have it that
00:22:18.380 --> 00:22:47.630 Sophie Strand: inner traditions reached out and offered to publish it. And I said, of course, yes, rewilding the sacred masculine was not my subtitle. It was their suggestion. My original subtitle was way too queer and strange. It was transpecious magicians, rhizomatic harpists, lichenized lovers, and lunar kings heal the masculine. So it was a bit of a mouthful, and I'm glad that they directed me to something that was a little bit more legible. But rewilding for me is really just saying.
00:22:47.670 --> 00:23:10.909 Sophie Strand: there's healthy soil here. We don't have to start from the beginning, we can compost. We don't have to throw anything out. Either. Rewilding for me is not about subtraction or antibiotic approach. It's about composting. Everybody is allowed to the table even people with bad stories, and we hope that when all these things inappropriately combine and meld, it will make good soil to grow something new
00:23:10.910 --> 00:23:29.130 Sophie Strand: and so I always say work by process of addition. And that's how I tried to operate in this book would just take figures that sometimes been problematic or have inspired, you know, complex cultural paradigms, and say, All right, can I compost to you? Can I put something else in here that makes you a little bit healthier.
00:23:29.360 --> 00:23:31.789 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Wow, wow! It's it's such a
00:23:31.840 --> 00:23:49.420 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: wonderful perspective and and and sort of unique way, because I have heard over the years of so many people talking, and I and I totally agree with you that people couple the idea of masculinity with patriarchy, and and they're not necessarily they're not the same thing.
00:23:49.470 --> 00:24:08.310 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: And and although, you know, quote unquote, paid, and patriarchy even itself is not necessarily a bad thing, it like anything else. It's when something becomes out of balance. Right? It's it's when we go too far. And the same thing for me, for femininity, right? If femininity to out of balance
00:24:08.310 --> 00:24:20.940 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: cannot be a good thing, and it's finding that dance between the feminine and masculine, and and the appropriate way to ways of being at the appropriate times
00:24:21.080 --> 00:24:26.040 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: that that really, we need to learn the most.
00:24:26.180 --> 00:24:42.250 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: so yeah, II would. Skimming through. II apologize. I did not have a chance to read the book before. The interview. But I did see you talk about Jesus. You talk about Dionysus, you talk about merlin and the King Arthur legends.
00:24:43.220 --> 00:24:51.810 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Is there one particular legend or myth around masculinity that drew your imagination in the most?
00:24:52.760 --> 00:24:55.230 Sophie Strand: Well, I would say that my argument is that
00:24:55.280 --> 00:25:07.530 Sophie Strand: any mono myth is a narrative dysbiosis. But in I think of us as having a cultural guff, and in a and your gastrointestinal track you have help because there are more microbes rather than less.
00:25:07.530 --> 00:25:32.360 Sophie Strand: and you into trouble when you kill everything off. And that's when a monologue pathogen gets to take up too much space. That's when patriarchy becomes it's unhealthy expression. You know it has too much space to expand. It's not kept in check by other stories, so I always hesitate to, you know. Ha! Create a hierarchy of importance. Say, one story is more important than the other. I'm really interested in resilience, ecology that says, forward
00:25:32.360 --> 00:25:48.589 Sophie Strand: and ecosystems are more resilient in as much as they have more connectivity, more species, more chaos, more generative friction. And so for me, I have the stories that I'm drawn to personally, but I think the most important thing is that we all bring our stories to the table.
00:25:48.590 --> 00:26:01.119 Sophie Strand: II mean, then, of course, my other answer is that I have been fascinated with how a Galilean healing storyteller, who is anti-imperial and perhaps even anti agricultural.
00:26:01.120 --> 00:26:27.480 Sophie Strand: becomes the figurehead of patriarchy, extractive capitalism and ecosy side. How does that mistranslation process happen? And you know I've devoted time. I wrote a novel about it. He features prominently in this book. He features prominently in a lot of my work, because I'm really curious about how that happens. And I don't think that's necessarily a healthy story. But it's a story we all need to collectively work to replant, rewild, and retell.
00:26:28.160 --> 00:26:32.320 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Yeah, I there used to be a gentleman.
00:26:32.380 --> 00:26:35.300 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Well, unfortunately, as as transitioned.
00:26:35.330 --> 00:26:46.670 who was an astrologer, used to do a show on the network called living consciously, and he was a Union astrologer, and he was very well educated in the ancient myths, the Greek Roman myths.
00:26:46.730 --> 00:27:03.300 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: and and Campbell's work, and the archetypal archetypals, theories and stuff. and and he was always able to point out how like there's certain attributes to Jesus that
00:27:03.640 --> 00:27:20.120 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: predated him, that there's that there's a lot of mythology around that story that if you look at it, it's a mythology that actually predates. And that was sort of co-opted into the story.
00:27:20.310 --> 00:27:24.839 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: but that doesn't mean that there's not value in those
00:27:24.870 --> 00:27:26.949 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: myths, does it?
00:27:27.510 --> 00:27:40.710 Sophie Strand: Yeah, I mean, my working theme of the book is that we can think of myths as being like mushrooms which look like an individual above ground, but the real reproductive flourish of a networked fungal system below ground.
00:27:40.710 --> 00:28:04.589 Sophie Strand: So I oftentimes say, Jesus is the last mushroom in a rhizomatic continuity of vegetable gods in the Mediterranean basin. So you you Osiris, you've Addis Adonis, you have Dionysus, you have all these gods that are associated with death, decay, refruteation, liberatory movements against Empire festivity. They're often the gods of women. They're
00:28:04.590 --> 00:28:20.230 Sophie Strand: tradition having been able to make sure that it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's, it's, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's a great
00:28:20.230 --> 00:28:36.059 Sophie Strand: could immediately assimilate. You know the Dionysian priests. And priestesses into the new Jesus movement. So Jesus is definitely like, you know, continuation of Dionysus and Addison Adonis. However, he is an interruption in the cycle, because his body doesn't go back into the ground.
00:28:36.060 --> 00:28:43.239 Sophie Strand: He interrupts certain elements of that archetypal fungal system in a way that doesn't let
00:28:43.290 --> 00:28:45.150 Sophie Strand: it. The myth keep moving.
00:28:45.270 --> 00:29:08.100 Sophie Strand: I always say that myths need to move just like oral culture keeps stories adaptive and tailored to specific political socioeconomic needs. When a story gets written down and is no longer responsive when it when it fossilizes. That's when it can become a weapon. And so G stories is is not flexible. It doesn't move. It doesn't update
00:29:08.690 --> 00:29:16.619 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: right? Right? Right? Yeah, yeah, you you kind of touched upon. And I wanted to to talk a a little bit about
00:29:16.740 --> 00:29:28.249 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: the the flowering wound and and sort of the cover art of a gentleman holding a mushroom, and and and why the mushroom sort of became so significant in this.
00:29:28.780 --> 00:29:50.009 Sophie Strand: Well, I've always been very in love with fungal systems. you know, there are millions of different species of of Fung guys. They all have different life patterns. It's hard to create a kind of homogenizing universal idea of what fungi is. But they're very interesting beings that have been, you know, underrepresented in scientific studies.
00:29:50.010 --> 00:30:00.389 Sophie Strand: And I found out, when I was in my early twenties, that I have a connected tissue disease, and felt that my love, the connective tissues of ecosystems was a way of me.
00:30:00.390 --> 00:30:17.320 Sophie Strand: understanding the insufficiency of connected tissue in my own body. So there's no cure for my condition. But perhaps there's a cure beyond my skin silhouette in my relationship to these mycorrhizal systems that keeps forests alive. And keep the soil regenerative.
00:30:17.340 --> 00:30:43.840 Sophie Strand: so I'm very tied to mushroom science. I also think mushrooms in the way they work, complicate, and interrupt our idea of atomized individuality that you know we live in in a culture, you know, informed by capitalism that tells us that individual progress and New Darwinism tells us we're always optimizing. We're always evolving. But the truth is that the most biological novelty happens in moments of symbiosis, when 2 bodies burn the bridge to their old bodies
00:30:43.870 --> 00:30:48.640 Sophie Strand: and fused together. So my favorite working metaphor
00:30:48.710 --> 00:30:54.410 Sophie Strand: with myth, with story, with with with our, you know, journey as human beings is.
00:30:55.400 --> 00:31:15.109 Sophie Strand: Early plants when they came on to land, didn't have root systems, and they fused with fungi who acted as their surrogate root systems for millions of years, and even to the state plant root systems, have a very small radius, and 90 over 90 of plants still depend on those mycorrhizal.
00:31:15.130 --> 00:31:27.259 Sophie Strand: co-evolved, fungal systems. We can look outside at every plant, every perfume, every flower is the product of this anarchic bodily merger. It never stopped.
00:31:27.260 --> 00:31:46.270 Sophie Strand: And so for me, someone's a symbiosis where we choose to collaborate with people, with species, with stories that are a little risky are the moments where the most potentiality lives. So for me, fungi really teach us to risk thinking differently, risk changing and risk collaborating with other people.
00:31:46.660 --> 00:31:50.209 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Yeah, you know, I find it fascinating that
00:31:50.740 --> 00:32:11.020 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: you didn't hear. At least I didn't hear much talk about the Mycel network and and fungi and mushrooms, and and and the beauty that they are, and and the the capacity they have to help us until about maybe 10 years ago. And and I really credit Paul Stamitz.
00:32:11.020 --> 00:32:23.119 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: who who the the documentary fantastic fungi is all about, and and his kind of life's work, and really sort of bringing it to the consciousness of people.
00:32:23.120 --> 00:32:33.640 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: And now I much more hear about it out in in that necessarily the mass conversations. But in certain conversations out there.
00:32:33.640 --> 00:32:53.549 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: and I mean for me, I'm I'm with you. I love mushrooms as a kid, and and I've you know, been hiking for years, and I love hiking like in the autumn time, when you see a lot of different mushrooms starting to flower along the hiking trails. And I've seen some mushrooms that they just looked other worldly. I was like, how
00:32:53.630 --> 00:33:06.659 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: could this thing even be created? And and it was just so fascinating to then start to learn about the Mycel network, and how through the the sort of underground network
00:33:06.660 --> 00:33:20.430 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: of of the the roots of the mushrooms, like connecting trees and forests and plants for miles and miles apart, and how it really is acting as an interactive system.
00:33:20.430 --> 00:33:45.650 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: not as such an individual thing. And and, as you pointed out, like, we have this tendency in our very Newtonian brains to think of things as discrete and separate, whereas we're now we're finding out more and more in in more, the quantum realm, that things are much more interconnected, and that life on this planet is so much more interconnected than we ever gave it credit for.
00:33:46.030 --> 00:33:54.249 Sophie Strand: Yeah, I mean, that's what I love is that you know, for me, fungal systems as stay stitched together diff different species.
00:33:54.270 --> 00:34:02.539 Sophie Strand: and because their cognition doesn't have a central node, they don't have like a brain. Their brain is dispersed. It's a distributed cognition.
00:34:02.610 --> 00:34:29.349 Sophie Strand: They tell me that my intelligence is not in here. It's at the interface between me and my relationships, so they show that intelligence is interstitial. It's that my cellial system connects different species. And so it makes me more humble about how I think how my ideas come to me. They come to me at the Ecotones, the overlaps where I meet other people and places and change in those relationships.
00:34:29.880 --> 00:34:56.330 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: I see, we have a comment on Twitch that says, I remember previously huntering for more with my grandfather as a kid. Mushrooms are weird and cool and funky, awesome. Alright. So I first take a next break. When we come back. I would like to talk a little bit more about how we can use these lessons from nature to help us with what's going on in the world today.
00:34:56.340 --> 00:35:06.800 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Because I do have a lot of concerns about what's happening in the environment, and I would call it the unconscious or or lack of response to it.
00:35:07.490 --> 00:35:09.880 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: that in some ways is very
00:35:09.990 --> 00:35:21.969 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: suicidal of society. So I would like to talk about how we can take some of these lessons and and apply them to our lives to help to counteract that. Okay.
00:35:22.170 --> 00:35:46.879 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: definitely. Thank you absolutely. Thank you. So thank you for my listeners. Please stay tuned. You're listening to the conscious consult now, awakening humanity. We do this every Thursday 12 noon to one pm, Eastern time right here in talk radio, Nyc, and we live stream across on all of our social media channels to Youtube, Facebook, Twitter Linkedin twitch
00:35:46.990 --> 00:36:02.879 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: and if you have not yet subscribed to our Youtube channel, please go to youtube.com slash talking alternative and subscribe to the channel. So you can learn about all the other shows on the network, and we will be right back with our guest, Sophie Strand, in just a moment.
00:38:07.920 --> 00:38:29.750 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: and welcome back to the conscious. Consult now awakening humanity. So, Sophie, be before we move on to talking about nature. I do have to ask you one thing around the mushrooms, because psilocybin has become so popular lately. I'm just curious. A. Is your your connection to to fungi? Have anything to do with with the
00:38:29.790 --> 00:38:36.059 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: resurgence in the psychedelic community of of psilocybin and using ma magic mushrooms.
00:38:36.710 --> 00:38:58.769 Sophie Strand: I would say, well, predates that and while I think that I think there is great potential and psychedelics to help a number of different issues. But the way that they have been immediately digested by a an appetitive capitalist paradigm really worries me, and also, I think that
00:38:58.800 --> 00:39:25.300 Sophie Strand: we can begin to individualize health with these plants that are often contextual beings that come from indigenous traditions, and and we derassinate them from their web of relationality and from their indigenous heritage. And III see III always hesitate to just give a blanket endorsement of what's happening with psychedelics right now. I've taken it and found it to be enormously helpful, especially
00:39:25.300 --> 00:39:40.130 Sophie Strand: with regards to post traumatic stress syndrome, which is something that I'm not needed. So III would say that I'm I'm I'm in gray area, which is, I think, these are incredibly helpful beings. We have to be sensitive about the inheritances in the context. They're coming to us from?
00:39:40.420 --> 00:39:47.030 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Yeah, I think that's so important is is is not to separate sort of the the
00:39:47.030 --> 00:40:14.530 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: the medicine from the context of the cultures from which they come from. And and again, it's it's sort of the lesson of the mycelial network again, of the interconnection of it. And even what you spoke about of our intelligence being not so individualistic, but at that intersection between and that relational area between us and something else. So keeping that in in mind, I think, is is very important. So thank you for that.
00:40:14.530 --> 00:40:44.079 Sophie Strand: Yeah. And actually, this goes to kind of what you were talking about before, which is, what does nature have to teach us? And a friend of mine who has worked with the indigenous people who have taken care of these traditions and these these fungi for a long time, says that it's not about you going and having your boutique experience that helps you optimize your personhood. It's about letting yourself be borrowed by some purpose. Human, you know. How can you let yourself be borrowed in those instances, so that you become more responsive, and
00:40:44.080 --> 00:41:03.419 Sophie Strand: to your ecosystem, and to your web relationality. And I think that's an amazing question to just ask. In general. you know, we have our hero's journey of our own lives. But we are. We are part of a web of relationality. How can we let ourselves be borrowed by the birds, by the plants and the bees, and the flowers that are really suffering right now.
00:41:03.640 --> 00:41:08.259 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Yeah, as someone who once pointed out to me or made the comment is.
00:41:08.350 --> 00:41:20.860 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: how does life want to be lived through us like not. How do we want to live life? But how does life want to be lived through us? To to to
00:41:21.240 --> 00:41:24.350 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: place ourselves back in context to nature.
00:41:24.670 --> 00:41:35.759 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: And so speaking of nature. I've been following certain blogs and certain deep thinkers who are talking a lot. And and I've talked a lot in the past
00:41:35.840 --> 00:41:41.809 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: around the ecological crisis. and and but more specifically around
00:41:42.110 --> 00:41:49.969 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: almost the lack of response from the the Meta institutions of society
00:41:50.050 --> 00:41:52.970 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: to this severe
00:41:53.100 --> 00:42:03.830 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: challenge. because the ecological crisis has the potential to literally destroy all of life on Earth.
00:42:03.960 --> 00:42:09.840 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: If we don't stop unsustainable practices and don't stop
00:42:12.280 --> 00:42:22.840 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Thinking that everything is just separate, and that oh, we can keep going. And and what we're doing is not affecting the world around us. And so I'm curious. How do you see like
00:42:23.630 --> 00:42:31.440 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: what you've learned through about the myths, about the ecology like? What can we learn? And how can we
00:42:31.510 --> 00:42:46.980 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: take it in with without getting depressed and without getting sort of fatalistic about what's going on. But how can we learn from it and use it to help us to live more in alignment with nature as opposed to misaligned with nature.
00:42:47.400 --> 00:42:48.980 Sophie Strand: Hmm, yeah.
00:42:49.050 --> 00:42:56.489 Sophie Strand: I mean, I oftentimes go to the microcosm, and the microcosm is that I have a condition that will kill me and has no cure.
00:42:56.840 --> 00:43:12.909 Sophie Strand: and that I so I've been exiled from healing narratives that have me healing, or getting better, or optimizing, or or relying on a kind of facile hope. And so for me, I always say, like what healing is available beyond hope
00:43:12.960 --> 00:43:26.610 Sophie Strand: and beyond human. And I think that as someone who has been an environmental activist, I see that our kind of solution is to activism has not amounted to anything except to exhaust us.
00:43:26.650 --> 00:43:35.050 Sophie Strand: to make us less useful. And and it hasn't shifted this giant ship, which is, you know,
00:43:35.120 --> 00:43:50.129 Sophie Strand: corporate America, which is which is just, you know, capitalism that you know not. Everyone is equally responsible for what's happening right now. It's a small group of people who have decided to drive us into the ground.
00:43:50.180 --> 00:43:52.369 Sophie Strand: What I oftentimes say is that
00:43:53.220 --> 00:44:15.140 Sophie Strand: we can focus on how we live locally, like lately I've been trying to get smaller and slower. That friend and co-OP collaborator, Bioacomal, off. They oftentimes say, says the times are urgent, we must slow down, which is, there's a there's a urgency of of our culture. Our culture says we must fix things fast, but when we move fast we often make more mistakes.
00:44:15.140 --> 00:44:27.209 Nature teaches us to move slowly to stay with the trouble to to ask questions of the elders, the elders that are mountains and trees and deep time rhythms.
00:44:27.210 --> 00:44:40.039 Sophie Strand: And so I think we need to go into a period of radical listening to our environments rather than trying to solve our environments. We need to do less. And when we do less. We go. We put our tap root deep into where we live.
00:44:40.040 --> 00:45:04.360 Sophie Strand: I'm really interested right now in growing food where I live, making friends with people who live around to be, who have a different political ideology than me. How can I begin to be more local, to bring my life back into the ground to figure out how to actually plant my food, my waste into the ground, so that I'm feeding the earth that feeds me. I think these things feel small, but they're huge.
00:45:04.430 --> 00:45:20.420 Sophie Strand: and I, honestly, II looked at a statistic which is, if Americans just slept one more hour a day, it would make a bigger impact on emissions than almost any kind of like plan. Which is, it says, like we need to rest. We need to move.
00:45:20.470 --> 00:45:35.800 Sophie Strand: We need to really slow down. So I would say, that's where I'm at right now, which is I don't know if it necessarily have hope that we are going to curb this without major major cascading effects. I mean, this summer has been brutal and
00:45:35.860 --> 00:45:51.070 Sophie Strand: or people birds, animals alike. I don't know where we're headed, but I know that I want to join hands with the people who share my ecosystem, and I want to make them food and hear their stories, and dance and make life as rich and deep as possible.
00:45:51.250 --> 00:45:56.000 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Yeah, yeah, II totally hear you. I totally hear you. And I love that
00:45:56.040 --> 00:46:05.189 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: idea of slowing down to just be present to to what's happening around us.
00:46:05.200 --> 00:46:13.480 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: and I think that was one of the, in a way, gifts of the pandemic is, it was in a forced slowing down.
00:46:13.940 --> 00:46:21.610 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: And and I just recall how. during the pandemic, it was like nature started to come back
00:46:21.730 --> 00:46:47.030 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: and and be because they were less, you know, less travel, less ships, less everything. There were dolphins spotted in the East River that were well spotted in the New York Harbor. III saw last summer the summer before I saw bald eagles flying around New York City. Never in my entire life did I ever think I would see a bald eagle.
00:46:47.160 --> 00:47:00.769 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: wild, bald eagle flying in New York City. So it just goes to show that when we do slow down. when we do stop. we give Nature an opportunity to regenerate and come back.
00:47:02.430 --> 00:47:19.210 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: but that it it's takes us slowing down and stopping. And it. It was sort of a a force slowing down. But maybe there's something to learn from that. It sounds like what you're saying, and that if if we have, do a self imposed, slowing down.
00:47:19.530 --> 00:47:48.470 Sophie Strand: that that perhaps can do more for us than anything else. Yeah.
00:47:48.640 --> 00:48:11.469 Sophie Strand: Difficult screw you can. You can be the bug in the machine. We should just, you know, buy less, do less love, more, grow food, live smaller? Can you live in a way that doesn't photograph it doesn't show up legibly. You know, in the age of social media. It's it's very hard to think of an activism that's not photographable.
00:48:11.570 --> 00:48:16.799 Sophie Strand: But most of the most important work we we have to do. It doesn't show up on a camera.
00:48:17.110 --> 00:48:20.400 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's beautiful. That's beautiful.
00:48:20.630 --> 00:48:34.580 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Oh, II could talk to you for hours. Okay, it's time for us. Take our last break of the show when we come back. Let's talk a little bit about the Madonna secret, and and your new book coming out, and and what the future holds in store for. Sophie Strand. Okay.
00:48:34.750 --> 00:48:49.870 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Strand, author.
00:48:49.930 --> 00:48:53.990 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: the Madonna secret, and we will be right back in just a moment
00:51:00.850 --> 00:51:13.209 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: all right, Sophie, so tell us about the Madonna secret. This is the book that actually you working on before the flowering wand. But it it you didn't come out till afterwards. So tell us about it.
00:51:13.540 --> 00:51:40.929 Sophie Strand: So it is my eco feminist retelling of the Magdalene story. So I've I've always wanted to. I love the red tent by Anita Diamond which reimagines the women of the Old Testament. And really, I've I've always thought Jesus was a nature based storyteller who was profoundly woven into the animistic. You know storytelling Jewish traditions of the time period, and we lose that texture
00:51:40.930 --> 00:51:53.339 Sophie Strand: in in when Romans were the very people who executed him translate his story into their culture and their language. We lose so much of his environmentally radical wisdom.
00:51:53.500 --> 00:52:18.400 Sophie Strand: And so and I've also always wanted to resurrect the women. The women who we know from the Gospel of Luke, supported financially the ministry, the women of all different backgrounds, who, against all of the taboos of the time period, he invited to the table to share food and discussion. And of course I've always loved and been curious that the Magdalen definitely seemed to hold a key part in the folklore and the early Christian traditions that are
00:52:18.400 --> 00:52:29.279 Sophie Strand: deemed apocryphal. When Constantine tries to create a you know, a stable empire of Christianity, and so
00:52:29.280 --> 00:52:51.039 Sophie Strand: I thought the best way to go into this would not be with some kind of authoritative piece of scholarship, but through storytelling, because in storytelling you can explore the empty spaces. You can keep the uncertainty open. They're not making any kind of claim to an authoritative vision. You're saying this is what could have happened, maybe, but also you can tell it your own way.
00:52:51.040 --> 00:52:56.500 Sophie Strand: So I tried my best to bring back to life the erased
00:52:56.500 --> 00:53:21.470 Sophie Strand: voices of the mothers and daughters and women, and the plants and the animals and the Jewish practices, the biodiversity of Jewish practices of the time period that we forget that Jesus, not self conceptualizes a Christian. He thought of himself as a Jew is offering interpretation of Judaism, and so it was really important to me to bring back to life, the complexity of the Jewish experience of the time
00:53:21.470 --> 00:53:43.179 Sophie Strand: period, and how the resilience of a people who had been submitted to exile an empire after Empire. Still making sense of life, you still able to create some kind of robust spiritual experience. I mean, we lose that when Christianity begins this anti-semitic miss translation process. And this is really, you know.
00:53:43.180 --> 00:53:54.929 Sophie Strand: half of my family are Israeli Jews, and it was really important for me to, you know, combat the ways in which this Jewish man has been used as a tool of anti-semitism
00:53:54.940 --> 00:54:00.210 Sophie Strand: for so long and so yeah, I would say that Madonna secret is
00:54:00.300 --> 00:54:22.469 Sophie Strand: It is my attempt to create a story that is lush and peopled that, you know. Maybe one person is telling the story, but it's a biodiversity of voices and experiences. I began to write it at a period in my life when I was very ill, and I was not sure if I would have much time. And I thought, What's the one story I'd wanna write. I had a limited amount of time. And I thought, It's this one.
00:54:22.500 --> 00:54:24.069 Sophie Strand: Yeah.
00:54:24.290 --> 00:54:53.769 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: wow! Well, I I'm I'm curious. Have you ever read or heard of the book? Holy blood! Holy Grail? I have. It was part of the family postulate about what happened to Mary Magdalene after Jesus died, and coming to Southern France with with Joseph of Arimathea, and and and I know people who've like gone to Southern France, and look at some of the churches there, and
00:54:53.770 --> 00:55:19.720 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: and how there is a very strong Madonna presence there. So you you know it. It's interesting how certain characters in history, especially female characters, kind of get lost to history like they're not deemed that important. And then we don't know. We don't have the records like we do of the men of what really happened to them. But it's actually quite fascinating to explore. You know. What is the potential?
00:55:20.010 --> 00:55:45.700 Sophie Strand: Well, I always say that you have a big tradition. The big tradition is is, you know, it's it's the victors, and the victors are usually the educated men, and then you have the little tradition which is folklore and fairy tales, and what the people practice, and what you have is a strong tradition of Magdalen devotees going back to the first century, and with a strong contingency in France. So my frame narrative is actually that Lucas.
00:55:45.700 --> 00:56:12.400 Sophie Strand: the author of the Gospel of Luke goes up to France to find Mary Magdalene. She is gone to get her story. So II have a strong feeling that you don't get folklore that dense and that sustained without some an initial germ. So I would personally say that I think somehow that Magdalen myth got planted in France pretty early, whether by her or by someone else, it's hard to say.
00:56:12.600 --> 00:56:15.299 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: yeah, yeah, wonderful wonderful.
00:56:15.410 --> 00:56:33.300 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Well, Sophie, I really appreciate your time today, and I appreciate the work that you do and the the voice that you're you're bringing to to the conversations. If if people want to learn more about you and more about your work. Where can they go? How can they find out more about you
00:56:33.940 --> 00:56:56.760 Sophie Strand: next? Well, I have a sub stack, and I have a free version and a paid version. If you want, you know, works in progress, book lists, classes. You can join the paid newsletter. I send it out like 3 times a month. And if you want the free version, you can also sign up for that. I'm on Instagram, where I regularly post podcasts interviews information excerpts at cosmogony.
00:56:56.870 --> 00:57:17.139 Sophie Strand: COSM. OGYN. Y. And II. I've been a poor starving artist, and I have been unable to access certain types of knowledge. So I give away a lot for free. I think I have hundreds of podcasts and talks online. You can search my name, and I'll have done something that should be easily accessible.
00:57:17.140 --> 00:57:39.500 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: wonderful! Wonderful! Well, III hope to support you in a way so that you can live a life not of a starving artist, but of a thriving artist. Yes, absolutely. And if you may ever make it down to New York City for a visit. Please let me know I'd love to meet up with you in person. Sometime
00:57:39.510 --> 00:57:48.329 Sophie Strand: I will definitely do that, and vice versa. If you come up to Woodstock. Give me a hoot. III probably will. I probably will sometime in the future.
00:57:48.330 --> 00:58:15.049 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: So again, we've been speaking this hour with Sophie Strand, author of the book, The Flowering Wand, highly recommended. It's very poetic, I think, in its writing, and I think it really reflects all the things we've been talking about today. So thank you, Sophie, for taking the time to come on the show. I wish you the best of luck, and best of luck with your health as well.
00:58:15.050 --> 00:58:41.589 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: Thank you so much, Sam. Have a lovely day, and have a lovely day to everyone else listening. Yes, and of course. Thank you, my loyal listeners, for tuning in every week to the show without you there is no show, and if you missed any part of today's show, you can always catch the replay on talk, radio, Nyc, and you can find the line streams and of course, the podcast on all the major podcasting platforms, apple, Google's
00:58:41.590 --> 00:58:56.030 Sam Liebowitz | The Conscious Consultant: spotify Pandora, Iheart, radio Amazon music. Wherever you love to listen to podcasts, you can find the conscious consultant hour there. Thank you all for tuning in. Take care we will talk to you all next week.
Talking Alternative Broadcasting
392 Central Park West Suite 17R - New York, NY 10025
Privacy Policy · Terms & Conditions
Thank You for Visiting TALKRADIO.NYC © 2022.
