Sophie Strand - The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine

Dedicated to the memory of my grandfathers, Matthew Finn, Dave Tapper, and Mark Rogosin

THE FLOWERING WAND

If we want to locate the underlying source of our civilizations head-long rush to destruction, we must dig deeper than capitalism, deeper even than the Western worldview, until we encounter the bedrock of patriarchy. In this exuberant tableau of resurrection, Strand reveals how even our most archetypal myths have been molded and devitalized to fit the patriarchal straitjacket, and Strand lays the groundwork for a regenerated masculinityone that is liberated to explore life-affirming possibilities grounded in the deep wisdom of long-buried ancient lore.

JEREMY LENT, AUTHOR OF THE WEB OF MEANING

Sophie Strands beautiful and poetic book is a game changer. With The Flowering Wand as a tool, it is possible to rewrite the mostly traumatizing patriarchal narratives Western males so often base their identity in and reconnect them with the underlying story of a cultural and natural deep history of mutual transformation with other beings beyond all modern binaries.

ANDREAS WEBER, BIOLOGIST, PHILOSOPHER, AND AUTHOR OF ENLIVENMENT: TOWARD A POETICS FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE

Sophie Strand writes with the urgency of a prophet and the musicality of a bard. Weaving myth together with botany, history with theology, her virtuosic linguistic skeins would do her beloved mycorrhizae proud. In The Flowering Wand,, the masculine appears as lover, as partner, as inspirer, as friend. This is a book important in its joy, powerful in its loveexuberant in its curiosity. Taking us by the hand, Strand leads us into a garden of delights: tarot cards, ancient scriptures, Shakespearean comedies, sky gods, the Minotaur, the Milky Way. Strand holds the gates of wonder open and love comes flowing out. These are the birth waters breaking. Rejoice! The masculine is reborn.

AMANDA YATES GARCIA, AUTHOR OF INITIATED: MEMOIR OF A WITCH AND HOST OF THE BETWEEN THE WORLDS PODCAST

A magnificent weave of ecology and mythit is evident theres some pretty rich dirt, culturally speaking as well as actual dirt no doubt, under the fingernails that have written this lyrical journey. A book filled with magical insight, revealing Strands wondrous curiosity and impressive learnings of the complex relationships between humans and nature.

SAM LEE, MUSICIAN AND AUTHOR OF THE NIGHTINGALE

The wisdom in this book is almost beyond expression. Sophie Strands The Flowering Wand reveals the full potency and profligacy of myth.

MANCHN MAGAN, AUTHOR OF THIRTY-TWO WORDS FOR FIELD: LOST WORDS OF THE IRISH LANDSCAPE

Sophie Strands work is a must-read for lovers of mythology and the Earth. Her work is poetic yet practical. Its whimsical and transportive, yet its describing the world around you, inviting you back home to the reality of this mystical life and world we inhabit.

ANNABEL GAT, AUTHOR OF THE ASTROLOGY OF LOVE AND SEX AND THE MOON SIGN GUIDE

The Flowering Wand is a wild thing and seeks out other forms of recombination and transformative fusion and gives them life. The surprising conclusion is, we humans have always been more-than-human. Are you wild enough to find out why?

GLENN ALBRECHT, PH.D., PHILOSOPHER AND ENVIRONMENTALIST

Sophie Strands new book offers a luminous exploration of the radical mythic underpinning of the masculine narrative. Here the autocratic sky gods and sword-wielding dominators of people and landscapes are replaced by a dynamic ensemble of dancers, lovers, and liberators. Strand reminds us how these actorsfrom the Minotaur to Merlininspire people of all places and genders to break out of the straitjacket of patriarchal control and become more embodied, protean, dramaturgical, and emergent in our lives. Get entangled!

CHARLOTTE DU CANN, AUTHOR OF AFTER ITHACA: JOURNEYS IN DEEP TIME

Acknowledgments

Thank you to my family. Thank you to my parents, Perdita Finn and Clark Strand, for your magical and practical support. Thank you to my brother, Jonah Strand. Thank you to my oldest friends, my cousins Daniel and Adam Finn. Thank you to my animal kin: Fujiyama, Sputnick, Rosamund, and Oliver.

Thank you to the friends who supported, celebrated, and inspired me during the intense season I spent writing this book: Mary Evelyn Pritchard, Emily Rose Theobald, Marion Albers, Edith Lerner, Ilana Silber, Harper Cowan (and Poppy), Shea Settini, and Fiona Saxman. Thank you to Luke Otwell for holding down the fort. Thank you to Abbe Aronson and my French bulldog muse Tugboat. A very deep and special thank-you to Hannah Sparaganah for the mirth, for the conversation, and for never turning down an invitation to the underworld.

Thank you to the tarot deck that guided me through my own version of Tristans night sea journey.

The Flowering Wand began as a short essay I shared on social media and quickly, within the space of a month, ballooned into a book with a devoted, supportive community of readers and collaborators. I wish I could thank each and every one of you, but if I did the acknowledgments would truly be as long as the book itself. In particular, I extend deep gratitude to Rafael Alvarez, Jana Astanov, Leah Baer, Sabin Bailey, Carrie Bills, Juliet Blake, Melea Britt, Polly Paton Brown, Katharine Burke, Caroline Casey, Suzette Clough, Nicola Coombe, Liliana DeGiorgio, Maria De Los Angeles, Patrick Dodson, Cathy French, Jennifer Gandia, Rene Janiece, Meg Johnson, Mary Porter Kerns, Erica Klein, David Levine, Ian Mackenzie, Clayton Masterson, Betz McKeown, Leah McNatt, Karen Morrissey, Averi Ohman, Mat Osmond, Cathy Stevens Pratt, Clifford Rames, Carole Ribner, Diana Rowan Rockefeller, Miriam Ropschitz, Kelly Sophia Rose, Kimberly Saward, Daniel Schneider, Josh Schrei, Finn Schubert, Bee Scolnick, Emily Simpson, Camellia Stadts, Michael Steward, Matthew Stillman, Carole Taylor, Jane Lillian Vance, Robert Burke Warren, and Pamela Clare Wylie Samuelson.

A juicy, floral, delicious thank-you to Emily Shurr.

Thank you to Ann Lauterbach for your mentorship and guidance. Thank you to Robert Weston for teaching me how to read critically and encouraging me to turn my final college paper into an experiment titled You Are in a Rhizome with This Text. It could be said that it was my first fungal foray.

A deep-rooted thanks to my editor, Richard Grossinger, for believing in this manuscript and coaxing a few last blossoms out of the ground. Thank you to Lyz Perry for your fine editorial guidance. And to everyone at Inner Traditions, including Manzanita Carpenter, Nancy Ringer, Erica Robinson, and the wonderful design team that dreamed up the cover with me.

Thank you to my fierce and canny agent, Anne Marie OFarrell, for the laughter, for the wisdom, and for recognizing me, early on, as a writer.

I always write with musical accompaniment. The Flowering Wand exists thanks to the music of Dorothy Ashby, Emahoy Tsegu-Maryam Gubrou, Sam Lee, Hailu Mergia, Angel Olsen, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Nina Simone, and a healthy dose of disco.