Writer and ecologist Sophie Strand thinks at a scale that can feel dizzying—in the best way. In a single conversation, she can move from the chemical structure of cells to mushroom spores, from ancient weather gods to mycorrhizal fungi, from Bronze Age collapse to the slow intelligence of soil.

In this episode of Wonder Cabinet, we talk with Strand about wonder that doesn’t float upward but roots downward—into bodies, ecosystems, decay, and deep time. We begin with her essay “Your Body Is an Ancestor,” published shortly before Halloween and the Day of the Dead, and follow her imagery into our shared prehistoric past. 

The conversation also explores how Strand’s experience of chronic illness reshaped her understanding of nature, selfhood, and health. Rather than seeing the sick body as broken, she turns to ecological metaphors: spider webs, soil structures, caterpillars dissolving inside cocoons. What might it mean to understand ourselves not as machines that fail, but as landscapes that change?

Along the way, we talk about fantasy and “romantasy,” Tolkien, Harry Potter, Dramione fan fiction and communal storytelling rituals. 

This is a conversation about wonder with dirt under its fingernails: embodied, mythic, ecological, and deeply alive to the cycles of death and regeneration that bind us all.

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00:00:00 Meet Sophie Strand
00:04:34 Body as Ancestor
00:10:08 Roots of Sin
00:18:21 Spores and Consciousness
00:27:49 Stories We Can't Explain
00:35:39 Science as Wonder

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Wonder Cabinet is hosted by Anne Strainchamps and Steve Paulson.

Find out more about the show at wondercabinetproductions.com, where you can subscribe to the podcast and our newsletter.