Sophie Strand is a poet and writer with a focus on the history of religion and the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. 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. She lives in the Hudson Valley of New York.

Introduction The Sword or the Wand

PART 1
Back to the Roots

1 Sky, Storm, and Spore
Where Do Gods Come From?

2 The Hanged Man Is the Rooted One
Thinking from the Feet

3 Between Naming and the Unknown
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

4 The Minotaur Dances the Masculine Back into the Milky Way
Myths Need to Move

5 The Moon Belongs to Everyone
Lunar Medicine for the Masculine

6 Becoming a Home
The Empress Card Embraces the Masculine

7 Dionysus
Girl-Faced God of the Swarm, the Hive, the Vine, and the Emergent Mind

8 Merlin Makes Kin to Make Kingdoms
A Multiplicity of Minds and Myths

9 Joseph, Secret Vegetalista of Genesis
Plants Use Men to Dream

10 Actaeon Is the King of the Beasts
From Curse to Crown

11 A New Myth for Narcissus
Seeing Ourselves in the Ecosystem

12 Everyone Is Orpheus
Singing for Other Species

13 Dionysus as Liber
The Vine Is the Tool of the Oppressed

14 Rewilding the Beloved
Dionysus Offers New Modes of Romance

15 Grow Back Your Horns
The Devil Card Is Dionysus

PART II
Healing the Wound

16 Let Your Wings Dry
Giving the Star Card to the Masculine

17 Tristan and Transformation
Escaping the Trauma of the Hero’s Journey

18 Boy David, Wild David, King David
The Land-Based Origin of Biblical Kingship

19 Coppice the Hero’s Journey
Creating Narrative Ecosystems

20 Merlin and Vortigern
Magical Boyhood Topples Patriarchy

21 Parzifal and the Fisher King
The Grail Overflows with Stories

22 Sleeping Beauty, Sleeping World
The Prince Offers the Masculine a New Quest

23 Melt the Sacred Masculine and the Divine Feminine into Divine Animacy
The Sacred Overflows the Human

24 Resurrect the Bridegroom
The Song of Songs and Ecology as Courtship

25 Osiris
The Original Green Man

26 What’s the Matter?
A Mycelial Interpretation of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene

27 Knock upon Yourself
The High Priestess Wakes Up the Masculine

28 The Kingdom of Astonishment
Gnostic Jesus and the Transformative Power of Awe

29 Healing the Healer
Dionysus Rewilds Jesus

30 Making Amends to Attis and Adonis
No Gods Were Killed in the Making of This Myth

31 The Joyful Rescue
Tolkien’s Eucatastrophe and the Anthropocene

32 Sharing the Meal
Tom Bombadil Offers the Masculine Safe Haven

33 The Gardeners and the Seeds
Healing the Easter Wound

Conclusion
A Cure for Narrative Dysbiosis

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index