“Our very cells were created by the fusion of ancient free-living prokaryotes. The closer we look at our bodies, the flimsier the idea of an individual, bounded self becomes. We are walking communities, swarms in suits and ties, skin-silhouetted Towers of Babel.
Perhaps, then, it is time to expand our idea of archetypes.”
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— Sophie Strand on holobionts & archetypes from the book “The Flowering Wand”
“A holobiont is an assemblage of beings that creates a larger whole. The word was first used in 1991 by Lynn Margulis in an attempt to explain her study of hosts and inherited symbionts. With each passing day new research confirms that macroorganisms like us human beings are intimately tuned and shaped by the populations of microbes and fungi (or, as microbiologist Siv Watkins calls them, ‘smalls’) that populate our bodies.”
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"’Split a piece of wood. I am there. Lift up the stone and you will find me there,’ […] the ‘me’ he speaks of is not himself but the kingdom of astonishment. The fragrant pith of the cedarwood entering our nostrils is the kingdom. The awe we feel at the moonlight-silvered grub under the stone is the secret gospel.”
— Sophie Strand: “The Flowering Wand”
#SophieStrand
interpenetrative polyphony
“This is the interpenetrative experience of awe that occurs only when we realize the world is a polyphony of aliveness.”
— Sophie Strand: “The Flowering Wand”
#SophieStrand
@dirt susurration of subterranean water
“… intuition isn't solitary work. No. It happens between the pillars of duality. It happens in the river that flows between landscapes, carrying debris and sediment and pollen. In the roots that work through soil, listening for the susurration of subterranean water.”
— Sophie Strand: “The Flowering Wand”
#SophieStrand
attn: @dirt
soul is soil
“The importance is not in the mystical abstraction but in the very tactile reality of our embodiment […]. How can our spiritual investigations lead us into greater connection with the more-than-human world? When we meditate, let us not ascend, but descend. I'm less interested in the soul these days. I'm much more interested in the dirt. […] Ensoulment is ensoilment. Soul is soil.”
— Sophie Strand: “The Flowering Wand”
#SophieStrand
attn: @dirt