The Holy Wild with Victoria Loorz

In this conversation, Victoria Loorz speaks with Dr. Vanessa Wijngaarden, social anthropologist and founder of ANICOM, a European research project exploring intuitive interspecies communication across cultures and contexts. Vanessa reflects on her years living with Maasai communities in East Africa, where immersive fieldwork cracked open a radically relational way of seeing the world, rooted in the cosmology of Osotua, a word meaning "umbilical cord," in which who you are is defined entirely by your relationships. 
Together they explore what it might mean if animals, land, and the more than human world have something urgent and necessary to say to us right now, and whether we still have the capacity to hear them. Vanessa's research brings together indigenous knowledge holders, professional animal communicators, and hard scientists to ask whether other beings might be participants in knowledge making rather than objects of study. The answers emerging are surprising, humbling, and full of hope — and why recovering our ancient capacity to truly listen across species may be one of the most profound spiritual and scientific invitations of our time.

Connect with Vanessa:
Vanessa's Website: vanessawijngaarden.com
ANICOM's Website: anicom.uliege.be
Film: Maasai Speak Back (Trailer)
Article (osotua): Wijngaarden, V. & Paul Nkoitoi Ole Murero. 2023. Osotua and decolonizing the academe: Implications of a Maasai concept. In: Curriculum Perspectives 43(Suppl 1): 33-46. Special Issue: Narrowing the Gap Beyond Tokenism: Transdisciplinary Search for Innovative Approaches in the Integration of Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Epistemologies in Higher Education. DOI : 10.1007/s41297-023-00190-2. Abstract and full text
Article: Wijngaarden, Vanessa In print. Secularization and decolonization of the academe: In conversation with African faiths and knowledges. In: The Palgrave Handbook of Decolonising Knowledge in Africa.
Article (lion and cat): Wijngaarden, Vanessa 2023. Interviewing animals through animal communicators: Potentials of intuitive interspecies communication for multispecies methods. In: Society and Animals 32 (5/6): 519-539. DOI: 10.1163/15685306-bja10122. Full text
Mentioned in the episode:
Wiki: Maasai Mara
Book: The Little Soul and the Sun by Neale Donald Walsch
Connect with the Center:
Website: wildspirituality.earth
Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com
Email: [email protected]
Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality
Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality
Timestamps:
00:00 — Introduction
03:58 — Interview Begins
05:39 — The Land Who Raised Vanessa
08:30 — Osotua
11:19 — Building Trust in Relationship
16:56 — Humpback Whale Encounter
17:52 — Wallaby Encounter
18:26 — Fasting During Deer Encounter
20:23 — Normalizing Relationship
21:13 — Research in Animal Communication
25:17 — Starting with the Experiential
26:31 — Unseparating Professional and Personal
31:05 — ANICOM
34:44 — Lion Says
36:09 — The Theme of the Alive World
38:38 — Intuitive Interspecies Communication or IIC
39:23 — Conversation with a House Cat
43:08 — Restoration of Trust and Earth Power
51:01 — Victoria Falls Tourists
54:12 — Wonder in the Mountains
55:24 — Elephant Encounter
57:24 — Changing the Ethics of Relational Research
61:39 — Reciprocity of Approach
66:03 — Next Threshold
68:51 — Real and True
71:49 — Wild Invitation
74:38 — Credits

In this one-year anniversary episode of The Holy Wild, Victoria Loorz is joined by producer Stephen Henning for a reflective conversation marking the close of Season One and the threshold of what’s next. Together, they revisit the heart of the podcast, sacred conversation as a living practice, and explore how a year of dialogue has deepened their understanding of relationship with the more-than-human world. Along the way, they reflect on the challenge of language itself, and how learning to speak, however imperfectly, about encounters with the holy and the wild is part of restoring those relationships.
The conversation then explores the Seminary of the Wild Earth journey and the invitation it offers, not as a program to complete, but as a container for transformation through practice, community, and deepening relationship with place. Victoria and Stephen reflect on the process of discernment for those considering entering this immersive year of rewilding. They explore what it means to feel the pull toward this work, what it asks of those who say yes, and how to recognize whether this is the right season to step more fully into a life shaped by the holy wild.

Connect with the Center:
Website: wildspirituality.earth
Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com
Email: [email protected]
Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality
Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
2:34 Welcoming in Our Neighbors
5:08 Reflecting on Season 1
11:27 Languaging About Language
20:39 Seminary of the Wild
25:24 Midroll
25:57 Rhythms of the Seminary
34:09 Discerning the Call of the Holy Wild
40:23 Stephen’s Dream of White Crow
53:07 Sacred Invitation
54:32 Credits

In this conversation, Victoria Loorz speaks with Daniel Cooperrider, writer, ecotheologian, and pastor of Flicker Wild Church in Madison, Wisconsin, and author of Speak with the Earth and It Will Teach You and the forthcoming Live Each Season as It Passes. Daniel reflects on what he calls his lifelong “ecological conversion” and on the growing Wild Church movement, which is reimagining wild spiritual with community through outdoor gatherings rooted in the land, the seasons, and relationship with the more than human world.
Together, they explore what it means to practice a “liturgy of the land” through outdoor spiritual community, seasonal ritual, and what Daniel calls “campsite thinking,” a way of gathering that embraces impermanence and presence rather than institutional permanence. The dialogue also reflects on earth empathy, mortality, and how sacred practices like communion and baptism might be reimagined through deeper relationship with water, landscape, and place, inviting us to rediscover our place within a living Earth.

Connect with Daniel:
Personal Website: danielcooperrider.com
Flicker WC Website: flickerwildchurch.org
Instagram: @greatlakeswanderers
First book: Speak with the Earth and It Will Teach You: A Field Guide to the Bible
Next book (Pre-Order, 1 May 2026 Release): Live Each Season as It Passes
Mentioned in the episode:
Holy Wisdom Monastery Website: holywisdommonastery.org
Book: The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
Book: Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard
Book: The Overstory by Richard Powers
Book: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Connect with the Center:
Website: wildspirituality.earth
Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com
Email: [email protected]
Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality
Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality
Timestamps:
00:00 — Introduction
05:09 — Interview Begins
06:37 — Daniel’s Ecological Conversion
08:58 — Inviting In Daniel’s Neighbors
10:14 — Hearing the Call of Seasonality
14:06 — Welcoming Victoria’s Neighbors
14:46 — Flicker Wild Church
15:51 — Cathedral and Campsite Thinking
19:39 — Holding Space with Mortality
23:32 — Availing and Allying
27:10 — Kinship All the Way Up and All the Way Down
27:47 — Midroll: Wild Church Network
28:41 — The Waves of Possibility
31:52 — Ancient Wisdoms Integrating with Technology
35:14 — Finding and Becoming Indigenous
38:28 — Re-Story-ing Our Place
42:45 — Engaging the Rituals of Aliveness
46:01 — A Sabbatical of Water Spirituality
49:02 — Closing
50:48 — Wild Invitation
52:58 — Credits

In this conversation, Victoria Loorz speaks with legal scholar César Rodríguez-Garavito, founding director of MOTH (More Than Human Life) at NYU School of Law and a leading voice in multispecies justice. César has led landmark climate change, rights of nature, and Indigenous rights cases, including serving on the Science Panel for the Amazon and as an expert witness before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
Together, they delve into César’s collaboration with Project CETI, which uses AI and non invasive technologies to study sperm whale communication. They explore the audacious possibility that whales might one day be heard in court not as property or evidence, but as subjects with legally recognized voices and interests. At its core, this dialogue is about dismantling human supremacy, crafting ethical guardrails for emerging technologies, and midwifing a shift from dominance to kinship.

Connect with Cesar:
Website: mothlife.org
Podcast: Crossing The River
Mentioned in the episode:
Ecology Law Quarterly Journal (2025 Publication): What if We Understood What Animals Are Saying?: The Legal Impact of AI-Assisted Studies of Animal Communication
Organization: CETI
NYU Article: Marine Biologists Are Using AI to Decode Whale Speech. NYU Law Scholars Are Exploring What That Means for Animals’ Legal Rights
The New Yorker Article: Can We Talk To Whales?Plus: The New Yorker Companion Video

NYU Article: MOTH Unveils New Framework for Nonhuman Animal Communication Technologies
PEPP (Prepare, Engage, Prevent, Protect) Framework: Nonhuman Animal Communication Technologies
City of Ojai Ordinance No. 940
Book: An Immense World - How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong
Connect with the Center:
Website: wildspirituality.earth
Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com
Email: [email protected]
Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality
Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality
Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction
07:35 – Interview Begins
08:16 – Formed By Columbia
10:52 – Spiritual Formation
11:50 – Learning the Language of Sperm Whales
14:44 – Expanding The Understanding of More Than Human
18:41 – Letting the Whales Testify For Themselves
21:17 – The Birthing Rings of Sperm Whales
26:28 – Gentle Technology and Ethical Guidelines
32:19 – Imagining the Future of Multispecies Justice
38:59 – How To Connect
41:45 – Wild Invitation
43:37 – Credits

In this conversation, Victoria Loorz connects with speaker, writer, and mentor Mac Macartney, founder of Embercombe, a UK educational charity and 50-acre retreat and rewilding site dedicated to the flourishing future of all species. In Victoria’s words, Mac is one of our generation’s true elders. He speaks from decades of lived apprenticeship, shaped by not fitting the dominant culture, by failure that became a gift, and by a lifelong search for home. His voice carries the embodied wisdom of someone who has moved through exile, betrayal, and the seduction of power, and chosen integrity.
Mac reflects on decades of learning and on the unlearning required to remember the value of the miracle we were born into. He speaks of decency over brilliance, of integrity in the face of power, and of offering one’s gifts for the sake of future generations. At its heart, this is a conversation about integrity, about remaining in the field as long as one is able, and about creating places where there is no hiding truth.

Connect with Mac:
Website: macmacartney.com
Talk Video: The Children's Fire
Mentioned in the episode:
Organization: The Earth Elders theearthelders.org
Connect with the Center:
Website: wildspirituality.earth
Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com
Email: [email protected]
Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality
Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality
Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction
05:15 – Interview Begins
12:09 – Embercombe
18:57 – Finding the Teachings We Need
24:30 – Letting the Gurus Go
26:58 – The Cycles of Human Becoming
29:53 – Born Into Cosmic Ceremony
32:14 – The Grief of Worldview Shifts
34:48 – Visited by Earth Elders
40:22 – A Benediction for Being Human
44:11 – Wild Invitation
46:12 – Credits