What is this?

Sophie Strand & Andreas Weber: Risking New Shapes, Queering Biology, Becoming Good Soil 88

• you can't do it and and in in in in greek myths um eros was a god um and it's it's it's the god of of

SOPHIE STRAND on Myths as Maps /312 84

• techno-narcissists are the new marduk the new theseus they want the myth of progress to subsume the older although
• an age of duracinated mythologies but myth used to be a context-sensitive relational experience a dialogue with a
• told it and adapt it and it came from the specific you know myth was created to be a vessel for ecological wisdom
• the best way to help that travel was by putting it in a myth that had fruited it up like a mushroom from the mycelial
• ground my horizal system is a map of relationships and so a myth can also be a map of relationships in a place that
• um but we live in a moment where the there's this idea that a myth can be uprooted deracinated from its location
• mythic mycelium below ground for a long time so i think of myth mythic systems in certain places as being like
• um support you know i i i write a lot about myth and folks and i oftentimes think that in
• not even really a myth but i was very interested that when you actually go back

Ep.74: Sophie Strand on Mycorrhizal Myths, Magic, and Golden Roses 52

• mycology and uh myths and so on but you know you could take it as a
• non-fiction essays that are really focused on myth and storytelling and ecology and mycology
• well i read hamlet's mill which is about all of the myths in the world are from like astral lore
• of hudson valley people and hear their stories because there's so many myths and
• um another topic of myths like in stories what like what is a myth to you and
• topic of myths like in stories what like what is a myth to you and are they living or are they like
• right relationship with the precise ecosystem where you are like the myth of one place will not be easily
• of plants and animals and people um i think for me myths are reproductive flourishes of um
• me the great example that i use is i is myths as mycelium as mycorrhizal systems which is we see these stories that
• older system below ground and of course like every time a myth fruits above ground in our social world
• the problem happens when you think that a myth can stay the same and then still be relevant so what i'm trying to
• be relevant so what i'm trying to show is that myth needs to constantly be cycling that we've stopped the cycle of
• um so for me what i'm trying to give myth back is its flexibility um its orality
• like what are the relational constitutes like things that constitute this myth like what are the plans it's teaching me
• interact with my um actual ecosystem like i can't transplant that myth into my own world but it could be teach me
• play through you so that's how myths get made is by being an instrument
• that it is talking about how myths are so dependent on the ecological context
• back um and and i think it is important to learn the myths that were in the land that you occupied
• re i've been immersing myself in like the northern european myths but like this you know it's kind of
• um yeah make myths that are relevant now like do you think that like i mean i
• talk about marvel movies as like the new myths you know but i don't really know if i don't know
• trying to problematize a little bit how do we create new myths i i think new myths will be very humble
• how do we create new myths i i think new myths will be very humble i i mean i i think it's and i i think
• think i think myth making and storytelling needs to shift from being more about
• get like how can i learn to ask for stories and for myths um and i so i think i always want to be
• a questioning curious type of relational myth making that this is not going to be about us telling new stories it's going
• yeah it seems like a lot of myths have parts about how a certain
• there is one thing i'd like to to go back to the topic of myths yeah um what do you think about like
• what do you think about like contemporary myths like so
• like so for instance like the myth of progress of like technological progress leading
• star trek future where like other myths that we don't recognize are
• yeah yeah like do you see any other myths that we're like operating with well i i i think i'm really
• interchangeable we use terms the way i think about myth is very um it's very informed by the way that
• it's very informed by the way that indigenous cultures use myth which is it's it's oral it's teaching you about
• you know overflows the human so i think we use the term myth of progress but it does you know progress isn't really a
• there but i would hesitate to call them myths within my own personal terminology i
• like like for some you know myth often in our contemporary culture just means like
• is the phrase from uh solas celestias uh myths are some are something that is
• well yeah i guess like even studying the myths that the way the way i have been it's like they are often divorced from
• well yeah but i mean i'm also i'm going back to myths from the lands of my ancestors not places i live now places
• actually you know robert bringhurst the poet and translator of haida myths often says
• um that science and myth are not opposed myth seeks to explain nature
• that's one of the best ways like you guys are making myths like you're weaving yourself in and like and

Sophie Strand: Rewilding and Retelling 22

• wrote trying to kind of i i like to rewild and retell myths with ecological metaphors to reroute them in um their
• idea well you know in in a sense so many of these ancient myths are really nature-based metaphors
• it's a great question i think it's so hard to analyze myths that become taxed and become written
• down because the truth is that most of myth for 99 of all of human history has been
• know the environmental conditions of the time period and so myth used to be highly contextual and highly rooted and
• fed into and so i think it's very hard to read myths that have been written down as representative of the original
• um i think one of the interesting things to me about the tristan this old myth is i oftentimes say that by the time a myth
• to me about the tristan this old myth is i oftentimes say that by the time a myth becomes written down
• of the fascinating aspects of the tristan is old myth is tristan that you know archetypal hero is said to come
• your question it does and it's making me think of myths almost like you know plants or as you say you know like like
• think that's yeah i think i sometimes say that myths are like my soil systems so my soil
• become a map of relationships and i think that myths do the same thing is they're often they're vessels for
• know there's the oldest piece of scientific data and myth it's both simultaneously that we have access to
• so i oftentimes think that you know myth is a vessel where you place your relationships and and that
• thinking now even some of the greek myths are like that they're more um geo myths like i'm thinking of like the myth
• myths are like that they're more um geo myths like i'm thinking of like the myth of phaeton for example which was based
• have the scientific tools to access and that we can use the myth often precedes scientific data
• have to to read that because i i you know i i see myth as kind of you know pre-science it's um it's yeah it's just
• they've got no other way of explaining it then a myth is going to to bubble up and then over hundreds of years that
• um kind of dissertation on on the tristan and it's old myth and where a lot of people see it as the difference
• between romance and love for example um when they're talking about that myth so how does how does that work sit with
• without a root system and that i'm much more interested in planting myths in a particular place and seeing the actual
• um yeah and i would argue in in the tristan myth is that um a part of him knew to take the hub
• they're i love having multiple interpretations of myths and stories it's just you know a biodiversity of
• yeah i think that's fascinating and we've seen a lot of um in a lot of myths the the wounded hero often gets some

Revisiting Iron John & The Wild Man with SOPHIE STRAND 20

• much that i'd read particularly around masculinity and myth uh mycology and so
• pre-pre-roman mythology so he's often like using romanized versions of myths that actually have pre-greek origins i
• a very bly level interpretation of the myth but if you go deeper and you actually look at
• and you know he's he's the pro arthurian myth he's you know he becomes joffrey of monmouth in 1136
• fantasy where he kind of creates the arthurian myths and enshrines merlin by combining all of these feral creatures
• which is it's a it's a very playful retelling of the arthurian myths where the figure of merlin comes in and tutors
• i've um we've approached myth in different different conversations but how they're
• uh bly's journey also as a man that you know he he got to men's work and myth you know way later like i've heard yeah
• those of us also who are continuing to wonder and bring forth the myths and new contexts and in his spirit and in new

The Story Is In The Soil | Sophie Strand | Sacred Sons Podcast Clip 17

• fungi taught plants how to root into place myths teach us how to root into ecosystems and if you look at
• ecosystems and if you look at ancient myths and stories it's always about right relationship with land

Ecological Storytelling with Sophie Strand | REC 2.0 16

• intersection between spirituality and myth and ecology i have some books coming out
• a little nerdy about these things i loved arthurian myths and then i went way deeper
• seasonal mythologies our myths may be grass myths fungal myths bacterial myths
• our myths may be grass myths fungal myths bacterial myths we are infected with fungal stories
• you know when we we look at older myths my favorite is the story of the bard
• what an amazing book about storytelling and myth um
• book coming out of the next year which is about rewilding myths with ecology but i do offer a lot of writing for free

Myth, Mycelium and Masculinity with Sophie Strand | Sacred Sons Podcast | FULL EPISODE 10

• eight years researching into myth folklore and the history of these things i'm really curious about
• practical level i used them when i was thinking about myths which is i think they
• and honestly i feel like there's like you do you feel like these myths um were were brought forward for that
• fungi taught plants how to root into place myths teach us how to root into ecosystems and if you look at at ancient
• ecosystems and if you look at at ancient myths and stories it's always about right relationship with land
• ecologically situated politically situated it it's a myth is constituted by its relations and when you take it
• language of the person who killed that myth and then try and disseminate it to
• how do we how do we avoid that is it is it by creating the new myth is it you know what i'm saying because
• by rerouting and and and understanding these myths trying to put them back in their original context and see if they
• um i've always loved myths and i've always loved men
• loved men and i always love myths about men i mean the truth i mean i think that
• about looking at how certain myths that are offered to men aren't nourishing
• and so i've always loved myths of the masculine but i never thought that it
• i love men so much and i love these myths so much and yet i also
• these figures that like are inside the myths of empire that are stowaways and king david seems like what i mean
• about what's complicated about the only myths we offer to the masculine is that we
• yeah i love that is are there any modern myths um in the making that you feel like attracted to or
• dividing and conquering like you can watch myths of male friendships get destabilized and like turned into
• that's already arriving um but yeah i would say for modern myths hmm who are people who are doing this
• really really well well here's something interesting this isn't a myth but i really loved this album
• together about an ancient friendship and updating this old myth in this kind of melodic um experimental way and i
• next time we'll i'll skip the alien stuff and we'll do more myths i don't know i'm down here's something i don't