OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts and Fisher Center Present
The Body Is a Doorway: Ecological Embodiment and Healing beyond the Human
Friday, October 7, 2022
Bard Community Garden; Community Garden
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
A reading and conversation on disabled ecologies and building alternative futures with author Sophie Strand ’16
Our wounds don’t just show up in our bodies. They show up in our ecosystems. When we feel pain, we must ask where that pain is asking us to direct our gaze. What plant, landscape, ocean, mountain, or fungus resonates with our particular plight? How can we let personal illness galvanize us into greater connection with our ecosystem? What if the bodies of the disabled, survivors abuse, the neurodivergent, the chronically ill were not broken and in need of constant fixing and problematization? What if they were compasses that directed us out of anthropocentric narratives? In an age of mass extinction and ecological crisis, coming back to our bodies will not necessarily be pleasurable. But those people that live with conditions that give them non-normative physical experiences may have much to teach us about how our pain is a portal into greater participation with the “flesh of the world.”Sophie Strand ’16 is a writer based in the Hudson Valley who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. Her first book of essays The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine will be published by Inner Traditions in fall 2022 and is available for preorder. Her ecofeminist historical fiction reimagining of the gospels The Madonna Secret will also be published by Inner Traditions in spring 2023. Subscribe to her newsletter at sophiestrand.substack.com. And follow her work on Instagram: @cosmogyny and at sophiestrand.com.
For more information, call 860-992-6472, or e-mail [email protected].
Time: 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Location: Bard Community Garden; Community Garden