Wonder Cabinet

Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee grew up in London with a Russian Sufi mystic living downstairs, seekers showing up at all hours and meditation happening constantly. Then his family moved to a coastal redwood forest in Northern California, where he learned to surf and fell in love with wilderness. Today, Emmanuel is the founder, executive editor and podcast host of Emergence Magazine – for nearly a decade, one of the most important venues for spiritually-infused ecological writing. His new book, Remembering Earth, is both a meditation on the sacred nature of the living world and a practical guide to re-entering it. In this conversation, we explore Sufism's radical vision of the divine as intimate and immanent, rather than distant and transcendent. We also talk about jazz — Emmanuel dropped out of school at age 16 to play acoustic bass — and the liminal space of creative improvisation. Other stops along the way: the epigenetic memory of birdsong, how breath and walking can become a form of prayer; what dreams are and where they come from; and the boundlessness of Earth’s love. Note: Wonder Cabinet is taking a summer break. We’ll be back in August with new episodes.— Emergence Magazine Emmanuel’s new book, “Remembering Earth” "The Nightingale’s Song," a film by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee and Adam Loften Anne’s conversation with Sam Lee —00:00:00 The Magic We've Forgotten00:02:15 Growing Up With a Guru00:06:55 One River, Many Names00:15:55 Spiritual Ecology and Practice00:29:05 Nightingales, Jazz, and Dreams Wonder Cabinet is hosted by Anne Strainchamps and Steve Paulson. Find out more about the show at https://wondercabinetproductions.com, where you can subscribe to the podcast and our newsletter.

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.--- Substack: "Your Body is an Ancestor" Sophie Strand’s website Follow her work on Instagram and Substack Order her memoir ---00:00:00 Meet Sophie Strand00:04:34 Body as Ancestor00:10:08 Roots of Sin00:18:21 Spores and Consciousness00:27:49 Stories We Can't Explain00:35:39 Science as Wonder---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. Wonder Cabinet is hosted by Anne Strainchamps and Steve Paulson. Find out more about the show at https://wondercabinetproductions.com, where you can subscribe to the podcast and our newsletter.