Thursday Aug 31, 2023

TNP205 Sophie Strand on Mary Magdalene + Miracles

Sophie Strand is a poet and writer with a focus on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and
ecology. If you love Mary Magdalene and fondly remember Anita Diamant's The Red Tent, you are in for a real treat! Sophie's new book, The Madonna Secret, is a passionate retelling of the story of Mary Magdalene and Jesus, rewilding the Gospels with the forgotten voices of defiant and oppressed women, the nature-based storytelling of oral communities, and the embodied eroticism of a lovable rabbi with appetites and desires, doubts and shame, and a playful sense of humor. Plus, his awesome mom – aka The Virgin Mary – is a raucous and wonderful surprise, giving big time Baubo of Greek myth vibes, (who in my mind could be played wonderfully by Shohreh Aghdashloo of The Expanse fame).

In this conversation, we talk about what it's like to write about miracles while living with an incurable disease, (Sophie lives with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder - something that many members of the Numinous Network are all too familiar). We also discuss animism, magic, patriarchy, and the realness she brings to the landscape and the characters of her novel.

Sophie's poems and essays have appeared in numerous projects and publications, including Spirituality & Health, Atmos, Braided Way and Art PAPERS. The author of The Flowering Wand, she lives in the Hudson Valley
of New York.

Purchase The Madonna Secret anywhere
(and please do leave a review!)

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References in this episode:

older Dev Patel

Louis Garrel

Golshifteh Farhani (Oh now that I see who she is, I LOVED her in that dystopian show, Invasion)

young Javier Bardem

article about Bruce Chilton