The Holy Wild with Victoria Loorz

REBROADCAST: While Victoria is working hard to submit her new book for publication, we bring forward the very first published interview of the Holy Wild with Four Arrows (Don Trent Jacobs). Explore the newly free library of Wild Weavings offered at wildspirituality.earth . It includes over 70 eco-spiritual practices led by Seminary of the Wild guides and graduates to nourish your call of the Holy Wild and deepen your wild spirituality. And, follow along with the all new Substack at victorialoorz.substack.com ! --- In this moving episode of The Holy Wild , Victoria Loorz is joined by Four Arrows (Don Trent Jacobs)—Cherokee author, scholar, and Lakota pipe carrier—for a profound conversation centered on reclaiming a kinship-based worldview. Drawing from Indigenous wisdom, never-before-told personal vision stories, and decades of advocacy, Four Arrows shares how restoring sacred relationship with the Earth begins with shifting our deepest ways of seeing and being. May this conversation serve as a powerful reminder that Indigenous worldviews hold essential guidance for healing our fractured relationship with the more-than-human world. Mentioned in the episode: Book: Restoring Kinship Worldview by Four Arrows and Darcia Narvaez, PhD Video: Indigenous worldview can preserve our existence Morobe Development Foundation: mdfpng.com Book: The Descent of Man - and Selection in Relation to Sex by Charles Darwin Book: Mutual Aid: A Factor In Evolution by Peter Kropotkin Article: "False Doctrine" and The Stifling Of Indigenous Political Will by Four Arrows Quote: "“We must be compelled to hold this doctrine to be false, and the old and new law called the Old and New Testament, to be impositions, fables and forgeries.” by Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason Book: Amerindian Rebirth by Antonia Mills Book: The Hidden Life Of Trees by Peter Wohlleben Podcast: Radiolab on the secret life of trees Connect with Four Arrows: Website: fourarrowsbooks.com Chart Download: worldviewliteracy.org Connect with the Center: Website: wildspirituality.earth Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com Email: hello@wildspirituality.earth Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality Timestamps: 0:00 Introduction 6:50 Lakota Prayer 7:51 Indigenous Worldview Video 10:47 Statistics Challenge 12:39 Anthropocentrism Harms Relationship 13:16 Four Arrows Near Death Experience 14:03 There's No Question The Animals Talk With Us 15:11 How Do You Know It's The Animal Speaking? 20:17 Sharing The Sacred 21:25 Binaries 24:38 How To De-Other 25:50 Human Nature In Our Own Captivity 31:20 Noun Verb 34:38 Relationship Is Action 37:41 Humans Are Not A Cancer 38:46 Differing Worldviews 41:49 Asking Permission Of Plants 43:16 The Science Is Catching Up 45:18 Closing Flute Song 48:33 Wandering Invitation 50:18 Credits

In this conversation, Victoria Loorz speaks with Father Pete Nunnally, Episcopal priest, author of Catching Hope , and founder of Water and Wilderness Church, a Wild Church community along the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Pete’s early encounters with the sacred in nature shaped everything, even when he didn’t know it. Water and Wilderness Church is what happened when he finally recognized what he’d been trying to recreate all along. Pete shares the spiritual wisdom of reading the beach: how the breaks in a sandbar reveal where the fish actually are, and how the disruptions in our own lives might be exactly where new life is gathering.Together, they explore what it means to play jazz with inherited religious traditions and to return in fidelity to the same place, season after season, until a real relationship with the living world becomes possible. Connect with Father Pete: Website: petenunnally.com Book: Catching Hope: The Hidden Spiritual Wisdom of Fishing Church: Water and Wilderness Church Substack: fatherpetethewildernesspriest.substack.com Instagram: @fr_pete_the_wilderness_priest Mentioned in the episode: Book: The Body of God by Sallie McFague Connect with the Center: Website: wildspirituality.earth Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com Email: hello@wildspirituality.earth Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 03:47 Interview Begins 08:26 Moving Outdoors 12:39 Surprise as Indicator of Sacred 14:45 The Potomac 16:34 Not Alone 18:02 Vulnerable to the Seasons and Elements 21:01 Intellecting and Theologizing 22:22 Fidelity to Place 23:54 A Lesson In Co-Regulation 25:46 Francis' Vision of The Body of Christ 27:40 The St. Francis Service 31:06 Fishing, Death, Destruction 37:28 Reading 42:32 Wild Invitation 43:59 Credits

In this conversation, Victoria Loorz reconnects with her old seminary classmate, author Tony Jones, whose book God of Wild Places explores hunting, conservation, and a deeper reckoning with the cycles of life and death that connect us to the living world. After losing his marriage, home, and church career in his forties, Tony found refuge outdoors, where a new spirituality slowly replaced the faith he had once known inside church walls. Together, they reflect on what our disconnection from land, food, and death has cost us, and widen the conversation to the collapse of institutional Christianity itself. As old sources of spiritual authority lose their hold, Victoria and Tony wonder what might emerge in their place, and how we might find new language, community, and practices for encountering the sacred in relationship with one another and the more-than-human world. Connect with [guest: Website: reverendhunter.com Substack: jonestony.substack.com Book: The God of Wild Places Novel Trilogy Out now: Son of Helena: Constantine the Great, Book I Out now: In This Sign: Constantine the Great, Book II Pre-order: The Thirteenth Apostle: Constantine the Great, Book III Mentioned in the episode: Article: Opinion | Don’t forget ― the Boundary Waters are still under threat by Tony Jones Book: The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why by Phyllis Tickle Website: thenonesproject.com Article: Pascal Was Wrong: There (Probably) Is No God-Shaped Hole by Tony Jones Book: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel Connect with the Center: Website: wildspirituality.earth Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com Email: hello@wildspirituality.earth Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 05:07 Interview Begins 08:34 Hunting and Predation 16:44 Necessary Collapse 21:22 The Spiritual Climate of Today 25:01 The Crisis of Authority 28:35 Spiritual Containers 36:18 Tony's Wild Edge 43:13 Wild Invitation 44:13 Credits

September and the Autumn Equinox have arrived and found us at the Center for Wild Spirituality in a season of both deep contemplation and action. The Crow Cohort of the Seminary Of The Wild is beginning our two year journey together while Victoria finishes the draft of her next book. So we've chosen to re-release a pair of our favorite episodes from our inaugural season. ======= In this conversation, Debra Rienstra, PhD, author of Refugia Faith and professor of English at Calvin University, joins Victoria Loorz to explore refugia , a biological term for small pockets of life that survive widespread environmental stress and become sources of regeneration after collapse. Debra invites us to imagine these protected pockets are also in our communities as forms of sanctuary amid increasingly uninhabitable social, spiritual, and ecological conditions. Together, they reflect on how small gatherings rooted in love for the land can counter paralysis in the face of global crisis and rewild our sense of vocation and voice. They explore the spiritual risk of loving places we may not own or keep, while naming how restoration begins through intimate, connected acts of care that allow life to persist and return. Connect with Debra: Website: debrarienstra.com Book: Refugia Faith: Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth Newsletter: refugianewsletter.substack.com Upcoming Book: Refugia Church (January 2027) Mentioned in the episode: Book: Great Tide Rising: Towards Clarity and Moral Courage in a time of Planetary Change by Kathleen Dean Moore Organization: blackchurchfoodsecurity.net Book: Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization by Bill McKibben Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' of the Holy Father Francis on Care For Our Common Home Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti of the Holy Father Francis on Fraternity and Social Friendship Connect with the Center: Website: wildspirituality.earth Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com Email: hello@wildspirituality.earth Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality Timestamps: 00:30 — Introduction 04:18 — Refugia 09:28 — Finding My Small Work 12:14 — Deciding the Work Based on Context 15:03 — Examples of Human Refugia 20:51 — From Passivity to Citizenship 24:51 — Loving Places That Are Only Yours for a Time 30:06 — Choosing to Belong 32:29 — Grieving Reality Together 34:48 — Mitigation and Adaptation 40:32 — A Kalo Farmer in Relationship With the Land 43:34 — The Book of Nature & Pantheism Paranoia 47:00 — The Wild Edge 50:33 — Wild Invitation 53:54 — Credits

September and the Autumn Equinox have arrived and found us at the Center for Wild Spirituality in a season of both deep contemplation and action. The Crow Cohort of the Seminary Of The Wild is beginning our two year journey together while Victoria finishes the draft of her next book. So we've chosen to re-release a pair of our favorite episodes from our inaugural season, starting today with our dear friend, Randy Woodley. ======= In this conversation with Victoria Loorz, Randy Woodley shares stories from his Cherokee lineage, his mother’s deep communion with plants and animals, and his decades of land based ministry at Eloheh Farm. Together they explore why many today stand on the "inside and outside edges" of the Christian story, the collapse of institutional religion, and how Creator often works through seasons of chaos. Woodley describes this era as a time of composting, where old systems break down so more relational and grounded ways of being can emerge. He invites listeners to let go of rigid categories and doctrines and return to what he calls our original human vocation: co-sustaining the community of creation through simple acts of love, reciprocity, and right relationship, where meals become communion, tending becomes prayer, and all beings are kin. Rev. Dr. Randy Woodley, Ph.D., is a farmer, activist scholar, speaker, teacher, and Indigenous wisdom keeper whose work spans spirituality, justice, culture, racial diversity, regenerative farming, and our relationship with the Earth. Connect with Randy: Book: Becoming Rooted: One Hundred Days of Reconnecting with Sacred Earth Book: How Western Christian Got It Wrong (Out now!) Substack: @rwoodley7 Personal Website: randywoodley.com Eloheh Website: eloheh.org Mentioned in the episode: Documentary: The Year The Earth Changed Connect with the Center: Website: wildspirituality.earth Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com Email: hello@wildspirituality.earth Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality Timestamps: 00:35 – Introduction 07:10 – Interview Starts 08:49 – The Land Who Raised Randy 10:43 – Academy Experience 12:18 – Eloheh 13:25 – Bridging Across the Edges 15:44 – Widespread Abandonment of Institutionalized Western Religion 19:40 – Replacing the Programs with Relationship 24:31 – Co-Sustainers 27:41 – Finding New Language 31:50 – Becoming Rooted 36:08 – Repairing the Separations 38:32 – Seeds Are Our Treasure 40:04 – The War on Indigenous Lands 42:33 – Create Human Rights for the Earth 44:15 – Sacred Clowns 46:49 – Sacred Invitation

In this conversation, Victoria Loorz speaks with beloved author, priest, and theologian Barbara Brown Taylor about her forthcoming book, Coming Down to Earth , and the shift that happens when religious people stop looking "up and away" for the sacred and begin paying attention to the living world right beneath our feet. During the solitude of the pandemic, Barbara found herself listening more deeply to the 175 acres of land where she lives in rural Georgia, eventually realizing that rather than simply caring for the land, the land had been caring for her all along. They move through the wholeness that includes the harshness of the living world, from a brown thrasher taken by a hawk to Darwin's parasitic wasp, resisting a sentimental spirituality in favor of one "saved by the whole-truthness" of what is. Falling in love with a place, Barbara reflects, means entering its suffering as well as its beauty, learning from decomposition and nurse logs and irrepressible new growth what seminary never taught: how to release a rescuing, storybook God and be initiated, instead, more deeply into reality itself. Connect with Barbara: Website: barbarabrowntaylor.com Upcoming book: Coming Down to Earth: On Being Embraced by the Soul of a Place Book: Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others Mentioned in the episode: Book: Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Wall Kimmerer Book: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer Book: When God Was A Bird: Christianity, Animism, and the Re-Enchantment of the World by Mark I Wallace Podcast: Liturgies, Myth, and the Age of the Wolf with Martin Shaw - The Holy Wild with Victoria Loorz Connect with the Center: Website: wildspirituality.earth Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com Email: hello@wildspirituality.earth Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 04:24 Interview Begins 05:35 Coming Down To Earth 08:33 The Wild Loving Back 10:47 Saved by the Wholeness of the World 13:09 Learning What We Couldn't In Church 18:54 Reading as We Write 21:09 What Is Emerging For The Christ Tradition? 24:45 Theology Worries 28:53 Interreligious Dialogue 29:57 How The Wild Ones Experience The Holy 34:12 That Which Connects 36:46 What Do These Words Even Mean? 41:41 Darshan 43:06 Barbara's Next Invitation 45:16 Wild Invitation 46:20 Credits

In this conversation, Victoria Loorz speaks with Dr. Thomas Arentzen, a Norwegian author and docent in Church History at Lund University, whose work uncovers a forgotten Christian tradition where trees, birds, and the more-than-human world were understood not as the backdrop to human salvation, but as active participants in the sacred life of creation. Thomas specializes in ecological perspectives in (and on) the Christian world, and is the author of the newly released The Gospel of Trees . Together, they explore the mysterious dendrites, early Christian monks who lived in trees, along with saints praying alongside cypresses, birds singing hymns to God, and ancient visions of all creation joined in a cosmic liturgy. Recovering our kinship with the living world, Thomas shares, is not something new but a return to Christianity's own roots. Faith becomes not something practiced apart from creation, but a way of belonging within a community of life where all beings share in the praise of God. Connect with Thomas: Website: sanktignatios.org/dr-thomas-arentzen Book: The Gospel of Trees by Thomas Arentzen Book: Byzantine Tree Life: Christianity and the Arboreal Imagination by Thomas Arentzen, Virginia Burrus & Glenn Peers Mentioned in the episode: Film: Silent Friend Book: The Overstory by Richard Powers Film: Disclosure Day Individual: Margaret Wheatley Organization: Mystical Theology Network Organization: Dumbarton Oaks Garden Book: Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard Book: The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben Wiki: Saint Christina the Astonishing Book: Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods by Julia "Butterfly" Hill Mark 8:22-25 Jesus Heals a Blind Man at Bethsaida Connect with the Center: Website: wildspirituality.earth Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com Email: hello@wildspirituality.earth Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction 05:28 - Interview Begins 08:05 - The Pull To Place 10:27 - Christianity's Relationship with Trees 15:05 - Synchronicity of Emerging Fields 17:16 - The Dendrites 23:26 - Is Religion Only A Human Enterprise? 27:27 - The Worldview of Kin and Neighbor 36:47 - Countering Many Fundamentalisms 39:20 - Shifting Attention 44:08 - Drawn Next to the Birds 46:15 - Wild Invitation 49:23 - Credits

In this conversation, Victoria Loorz speaks with the Dr. Lisa Dahill, Director of the Center for Transformative Spirituality at Hartford International University . Lisa is a eco-theologian and internationally recognized Bonhoeffer scholar, whose work explores what becomes possible when the walls between God and world begin to dissolve. After years teaching worship and liturgy within seminary walls, an encounter with fresh bear tracks in the snow transformed not only Lisa's relationship with the living world, but her understanding of Christianity itself. Together, they explore Bonhoeffer's provocative claim that God and world are not two realities but one. Lisa, author of the forthcoming Jesus in the Earth: Rewilding Christian Spirituality , offers a radical vision of faith, not as escape from the world, but as a way of inhabiting reality more fully. Connect with Lisa: Email: ldahill@hartfordinternational.edu Website: Hartford International University for Religion & Peace - Faculty: Lisa Dahill Website: HIU Ecological Programs and Initiatives Yale Article (pdf): Rewilding Christian Spirituality: Outdoor Sacraments and the Life of the World Article: An Emerging Eco-Christology Article: On Predation, Eucharist, and the Resurrection Book: Reading From The Underside of Selfhood: Bonhoeffer and Spiritual Formation Book: Eco-Reformation: Grace and Hope for a Planet in Peril Website: Lisa's Academia Page Mentioned in the episode: Holy Wild Episode: Awakening a Forest Sense: Grief, Mystery, and the Reformation of Faith with Michael Ellick Connect with the Center: Website: wildspirituality.earth Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com Email: hello@wildspirituality.earth Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality Timestamps: 00:00 – Introduction 04:10 – Interview Begins 06:21 – The Land Who Raised Lisa 08:23 – The Bear 09:23 – "Suddenly I Am the Bear" 11:27 – Jesus Dissolving 13:47 – Horizontal Transcendence 16:57 – Bonhoeffer 18:13 – There's Only One Reality 23:42 – It's Time for Christianity to Evolve 29:06 – Creating Wild Sanctuary 32:38 – Courage to Be Honest 35:36 – A Change in Leadership 37:51 – Predation 41:24 – Resurrection 47:07 – Programs at HIU 49:36 – Wild Invitation 51:36 – Credits

In this conversation, Victoria Loorz speaks with Daniel K. Epstein, photographer, author, and founder of Portraits in Faith , a twenty-six-year project of environmental portraiture and spiritual interviews spanning 500 people across 30 countries. Portraits in Faith is a traveling exhibit, a process of conversation-ing with people very different than you, and a nonprofit committed to sacred listening which leads to a conscious understanding that there is no "other." Daniel has devoted his life to asking people how they encounter mystery, meaning, doubt, love, and the sacred. His work demonstrates how sacred listening itself can become a practice of healing in a polarized world. Daniel reflects on growing up Jewish in the American South, the personal crisis that cracked open his understanding of faith, and the questions that have guided hundreds of conversations across cultures and traditions. Victoria and Daniel sit with the tension between the particular and the universal, what the wild teaches us about trust and belonging, and why learning to truly see one another may be one of the most vital spiritual practices of our time. Connect with Daniel: Website: portraitsinfaith.org Youtube: @portraitsinfaith Exhibit Info: portraitsinfaith.org/exhibit Mentioned in the episode: Portraits In Faith Interview with James Finley: God Is All and All Is Love Retreat Center: Ghost Ranch Book: The Coming of the Cosmic Christ by Matthew Fox Book: The Universal Christ by Richard Rohr Organization: The Center for Action and Contemplation Musical Artist: Netanel Goldberg (Spotify) Book: The Death of the Mythic God by Jim Marion Connect with the Center: Website: wildspirituality.earth Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com Email: hello@wildspirituality.earth Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality Timestamps: 00:00 – Introduction 04:07 – Interview Begins 07:12 – The Calling Behind Portraits in Faith 11:34 – The Portraits in Faith Format 16:19 – Going Beyond "The Other" 17:53 – Warmth and Competence 19:15 – The Particular and the Universal 23:57 – Portraits in Faith 29:05 – Sacred Listening 34:12 – Dialogue Across Exclusive Truth Claims 40:16 – Beholding the Other with Wisdom 45:09 – What Gives You Hope? 48:13 – Wild Invitation 49:50 – Credits

In this conversation, Victoria Loorz speaks with Jean Golicz, Ed.D., retreat leader, writer, wild swimmer, and Seminary of the Wild Earth graduate whose doctoral research explores how place shapes our relationship with the holy. Raised in a Celtic family of fishermen and swimmers along the waters of Connecticut, Jean spent a lifetime near water—yet it wasn't until her year in the Seminary of the Wild Earth cohort invited her into relationship with a particular beloved that water became not simply a place to swim, but a teacher, guide, and spiritual practice. Together, they trace Jean's path from competitive swimmer to cold-water pilgrim, from bridge builder to portal, and from going with the flow to becoming it. Cold water, she discovered, made her porous—permeable to the living world in ways she hadn't expected, and to the costs of transformation: the relationships that can't survive the person you're becoming, and the grace of learning, after a lifetime of rescuing, to simply witness and hold. At its heart, this episode explores what becomes possible when we stop standing beside the flow of life and allow ourselves to become part of it. Listen to the full conversation for a special discount code for the upcoming September Seminary of the Wild Earth journey . Curious to learn more? Join Victoria for one of the final discernment calls on Wednesday, June 24 at 12pm PT and experience the pulse of the cohort for yourself, or book a 1:1 conversation with a guide here. Mentioned in the episode: Book: On the Mystery Discerning Divinity in Process by Catherine Keller Paper: Solastalgia: the distress caused by environmental change by Glenn Albrecht Connect with the Center: Website: wildspirituality.earth Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com Email: hello@wildspirituality.earth Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 05:21 Interview Begins 07:30 The Theological Calling 09:47 Ingesting Nature As Transformative Theology 12:34 Cold Water Swimming 15:53 A Way Other Than Competition 17:24 Interpersonal Challenge to Worldview Shift 19:15 Sacred Yes and Sacred No 20:06 Seminary Experience 24:49 Seminary Language 27:25 Bridges and Portals 31:48 Flow and Feminine 34:06 A Space Free of Judgment 37:26 A Space Full of Safety 39:15 Inherent Discomfort 41:12 Routine, Ritual, and Rhythm 43:49 All Ages 47:15 Solastalgia 49:33 The Loss Is Part of The Beauty 52:16 Informed Invitation to Intervention 56:04 Awakening Is Happening 57:57 Wild Invitation 59:20 Credits

In this conversation, Victoria Loorz speaks with Alexandra "ahlay" Blakely , singer-songwriter, communal grief tender, and community organizer, and the creator of WAILS: Songs for Grief , an album recorded with 200 voices entirely dedicated to grief, inspired by whales and Francis Weller's five gates of grief. Drawing from the lineages of movement song, Dagara grief ritual, and a lifelong relationship with whales, Alexandra has spent years developing her practice at the intersection of collective mourning, ancestral remembrance, and the emerging movement for the rights of nature. Together, they explore what it means to grieve what we love as an act of reverence — and what it takes to carry that grief without being destroyed by it. Alexandra reflects on the land and water that raised her, the dreams that called her home after eleven years in Mexico, and a vision of multi-species liberation rooted in the belief that humans belong to this earth — and have a role within it urgently worth reclaiming. Audio note: Alexandra's world was very alive during this recording. You will hear sounds of planes, cars, and dogs. Content Warning: Discussion of suicidal ideation starting at 28:01 to 28:29. Please listen with kind care for yourself. Connect with Alexandra: Website: healingattheroots.com Album: WAILS: Songs for Grief Featured Song: All The Places Featured Song: Sacred Wild One Mentioned in the episode: Movie: Free Willy Movie: Whale Rider Colleague: Linda Thai Colleague: Laurence Cole Wiki: the Dagaaba people Colleague: Joanna Macy Book: Is A River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane Colleague: César Rodríguez-Garavito Colleague: Lyla June TedX Talk: 3000-year-old solutions to modern problems - Lyla June Book: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer Colleague: Francis Weller Book: The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller Poem: Sweet Darkness by David Whyte Connect with the Center: Website: wildspirituality.earth Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com Email: hello@wildspirituality.earth Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality Timestamps: 0:00 – Introduction 3:44 – Interview Begins 8:08 – Love For Whales 10:55 – Grief Medicine 11:54 – Alexandra's Movements Music 13:35 – Song: All The Places 18:30 – Ancestral Memory 19:54 – An Ecosystem of Action 24:01 – Multi-Species Liberation 30:41 – Song: Sacred Wild One 33:53 – We Grieve What We Love 43:05 – Alexandra's Wild Edge 45:31 – Wild Invitation 49:44 – Credits

In this conversation, Victoria Loorz speaks with Jon Young, award-winning wildlife tracker, storyteller, mentor, and author of influential books including What the Robin Knows . Since 1979, Jon has researched a single theme: why do some social groupings of people consistently facilitate deep nature connection, while others do not? Drawing from Indigenous wisdom traditions, mentoring lineages, and his own lifelong relationship with the living world, Jon has spent decades exploring how humans cultivate deep connection with nature, self, and community. Together, they explore the lost art of mentoring and the ancient discipline of bird language as a doorway back to the connected mind. Jon reflects on the grandmothers and elders who shaped him, his decades of work with Indigenous communities including the Naro people of the Kalahari, and a vision from his annual self-reflection practice — one that carries an urgent message from future generations about what this moment is asking of us. Connect with Jon: Website: jonyoung.org Book: What The Robin Knows Mentioned in the episode: Book: Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv Book: The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller Book: Guiding Lights by Eric Liu Connect with the Center: Website: wildspirituality.earth Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com Email: hello@wildspirituality.earth Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality Timestamps: 00:00 — Introduction 03:59 — Interview Begins 05:07 — The Land Who Raised Jon 08:08 — An Enclaved Family 12:06 — Grandmotherly “Tricks” 14:10 — 10 Year Old Jon Meets Tom Brown 18:46 — The Naro People 22:34 — The Lifetime of Mentoring 26:37 — The 5 Needs For Mentorship 28:04 — The 10 Stones of Connection 36:24 — Needed Reflection 37:56 — Deep Bird Language 45:58 — Restoring Our Connective Capacity 49:05 — The Message from Future Generations 53:41 — Wandering Invitation 55:49 — Credits

In this conversation, Victoria Loorz speaks with Dr. Martin Shaw, mythologist, storyteller, wilderness rites-of-passage guide, and author of seventeen books, including his latest New York Times bestseller, Liturgies of the Wild: Myths That Make Us . Dr. Shaw is the director of the Westcountry School of Myth and founder of the Oral Tradition and Mythic Life courses at Stanford University. Together, they explore the tension between wildness and discipline, myth and religion, exile and return. The conversation wanders through Dartmoor folklore, Orthodox liturgy, the role of beauty and ritual in a disenchanted age, and the deep hunger many people feel for forms of spirituality rooted in mystery, embodiment, and the living world. Martin reflects candidly on what has quietly shifted in him since reconnecting with the Christian story the spiritual consequences of disconnection from land, and a story that didn’t make the final cut of his book — one that illuminates the challenge of this moment: how to ride the " age of the wolf" with courage and faith. Connect with Martin: Website: drmartinshaw.com Website: schoolofmythopoetics.com Book: Liturgies of the Wild: Myths That Make Us Book: Scatterlings Mentioned in the episode: Book: The Great Emergence by Phyllis Tickle Video: Ivan and the Grey Wolf Connect with the Center: Website: wildspirituality.earth Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com Email: hello@wildspirituality.earth Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality Timestamps: 00:00 — Introduction 06:03 — Interview Begins 10:56 — Re-exploring The Old Stories 13:47 — Living Fidelity of Place 18:24 — Discipline of the Wild 20:42 — What’s Our Current Story? 24:41 — The Age of the Wolf 28:31 — The Religious Has a Place 31:22 — Eastern Orthodox Expressions 34:06 — How Jesus Changes Love 39:05 — Martin’s Wild Threshold 42:03 — Wild Invitation 43:36 — Credits

In this conversation, Victoria Loorz speaks with Dr. Peter Kalmus, astrophysicist-turned-climate scientist, NASA researcher, author, and activist. Peter's radical integrity has taken him from searching for gravitational waves to growing his own food, refusing to fly for twelve years, and chaining himself to doors in acts of civil disobedience. Together, they explore the layers of grief that come with truly loving a planet in crisis and the spiritual disconnection underlying ecological destruction. What does it mean to love the planet not as a cause but as a being? What might it look like to move from the urgency of fixing into the slower, harder work of reconnection? The conversation also wanders into meditation, ego death, the empathy required to grieve a forest, and the strange fertility of not knowing — inviting us to consider that staying in the unknowing may itself be a spiritual practice. This conversation is for anyone sitting with the unknowing of this moment, and wondering if that might, somehow, be exactly where they need to be. Connect with Peter: Website: peterkalmus.net Book: Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution by Peter Kalmus Substack: Climate Human Mentioned in the episode: Movie: Don't Look Up Connect with the Center: Website: wildspirituality.earth Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com Email: hello@wildspirituality.earth Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality Timestamps: 00:00 — Introduction 05:16 — Interview Begins 09:07 — The Choice To Not Fly 12:50 — Integrity Through Life Experiment 15:54 — Layers of Integrity Under Systems 17:11 — Civil Disobedience 22:33 — Unmoored 23:52 — The Discipline of Meditation 26:09 — Disconnection Belongs In The Cycle 28:12 — The Holy Local Tribe 30:20 — Aging Into Eldership 33:18 — Grounding Practices 39:33 — Loving Kindness For Yourself 42:57 — Trail Encounter with the Universe 45:36 — Encounter with Ego Death 48:51 — Expansive Meditation Encounter 53:08 — Wild Invitation 54:50 — Credits

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: hello@wildspirituality.earth 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: hello@wildspirituality.earth 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: hello@wildspirituality.earth 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 ( P repare, E ngage, P revent, P rotect) 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: hello@wildspirituality.earth 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: hello@wildspirituality.earth 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

In this conversation, Victoria Loorz is joined by Barnaby Steel, artist and co-founder of Marshmallow Laser Feast, an experiential art collective devoted to awakening the senses and expanding perception through multisensory exhibits. Together, they explore how art, science, and imagination engage the illusion of separation, and how even controversial technologies like AI might be held in ways that deepen relationship rather than fragment it. In a time when technology often distracts and numbs, the conversation asks a different question: what if our tools could help us remember how to sense, feel, and belong in relationship? Barnaby reflects on the roots of his creative life, shaped by deep observation, risk, and a willingness to let go. He shares stories about the collaborative experiences created when artists work with advanced technologies to translate scientific insight into lived experiences that extend our senses beyond their usual limits and inviting a felt experience of interconnection with breath, trees, sound, and the human body. Weaving themes of perception, ritual, grief, and awe, the episode considers immersive art as a modern rite of passage, not as an escape from the world, but as a return to it with softened defenses and renewed devotion to relationship. Connect with Barnaby: Website: marshmallowlaserfeast.com Instagram: @marshmallowlaserfeast LinkedIn: @marshmallowlaserfeast Newsletter Signup: mailchi.mp/marshmallowlaserfeast/newsletter-signup Mentioned in the episode: Book: Existence, A Story by David Hinton Video: Richard Feynman's story of "What's the name of a bird?" White Mirror - The Sensory Wellness Agency Website: whitemirror.studio Video: Samuel Barber - Adagio for Strings Connect with the Center: Website: wildspirituality.earth Victoria's Website: victorialoorz.com Email: hello@wildspirituality.earth Linktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspirituality Instagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality Timestamps: 00:00 — Introduction 06:57 — Interview Begins 08:24 — The Land That Raised Barnaby 11:17 — Existence Tissue 15:19 — Marshmallow Laser Feast 23:01 — Physical Reality Is Spiritual Reality 32:51 — How Experience Shifts Us 37:34 — Caring for Self Is Caring for All 41:40 — Virtual Reality & Expanding Empathy 45:56 — Changing Perception 49:26 — Patterns of Consciousness 53:19 — Falling in Love 57:11 — A Wild Invitation 58:58 — Credits