Flowering wand by Sophie Strand claims in its intro to be a reclaiming of a more ancient archetype of masculinity – one that isn’t based in power and domination and rigidity, but more like some chaotic, shroomy eco-wizard. It’s a beautiful idea that I want to have a basis, but the book does not rise to its promise, which I get into in the last paragraph.
I’m looking for a book that somehow fulfills this promise. Doesn’t need to be super rigorously academic, but I want to be convinced of and inspired by the legitimacy of an alternative archetype of the masculine, perhaps based on figures (as Flowering wand suggests) like Dionysus and Merlin. I want the book that Flowering Wand promised to be but wasn’t – a literary/classical/semi-anthropological investigation into the idea that the modern masculine archetype is a suppression of something else that actually existed before.
Any recommendations? Btw, I’d like to avoid books with too much emphasis on “divine feminine / divine masculine”. I have nothing against those concepts, just looking for something different.
My issue with Flowering Wand: I feel like all the analogies are extremely contrived. Like she’s just projecting her own desires for new interpretations of the myths onto them without evidence that they would ever have been interpreted that way. I had the impression from the intro that it’s sort of a classical/anthropological investigation into a more ancient interpretation of masculine archetypes, and I’ve seen none of that. It’s just her liking mushrooms a lot and seeing them as an analogy for anything she wants.
by im_having_pun