The Holy Wild with Victoria Loorz

Leah Rampy, an author and spiritual formation leader focused on ecological belonging, shares her transformative journey from corporate life to eco-spirituality. She emphasizes the kinship we share with trees, breaking down the armor we build for survival. The duo discusses how storytelling conveys deep spiritual truths, how to practice reciprocity with nature, and the grieving process for our environmental losses. Leah also introduces her Wild Church, fostering community and communion through silence and shared gifts, inviting listeners to embrace our interdependence with the Earth.

In this conversation, Certified Soul Level Animal Communicators and grief-intuitive coaches from The Animal Communication Collective (ACC)—Julie Hirt, Karen Dendy Smith, and Meredith Tollison—offer a vivid picture of animal communication as a soul-to-soul exchange that restores trust, deepens wholeness, and opens doorways to healing and transformation. They demystify why losing an animal often breaks us open more than losing a human, explore how animals help surface grief we have long buried, and share stories from clients who continue receiving guidance through images, humor, sensations, and inner knowing even after their animals have crossed the veil. The trio also reflect on how each of them slowly found their way back to the sacred after religious trauma, supported by magnolia trees, ocean wind, and the quiet companionship of the animals who stayed close to them. You can hear more from Julie, Karen, and Meredith on their own podcast, The Animal Communication podcast. Connect with The Animal Communicators:Website: animalcommunicationcollective.comPodcast: theanimalcommunicationpodcast.comJulie: juliehirt-intuitive.comKaren: karendendysmith.comMeredith: meredithtollison.comMentioned in the episode:Book: All Creatures Great and Small by James HerriotBook: Opal- The Journal of an Understanding Heart by Opal WhiteleyFigure: Anna Breytenbach @ animalspirit.orgConnect with the Center:Website: wildspirituality.earthVictoria's Website: victorialoorz.comEmail: hello@wildspirituality.earthLinktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspiritualityInstagram: @center_for_wild_spiritualityTimestamps:00:00 — Introduction05:32 — Interview begins06:23 — Introducing Julie06:51 — Introducing Karen07:45 — Introducing Meredith08:28 — Unconditional love & authenticity13:33 — Julie’s grief origins16:02 — Karen’s grief origins17:41 — Meredith’s grief origins19:21 — Grief unlocked by companion animals22:34 — The felt sense of animals in spirit26:27 — The claires / intuitive senses30:48 — Accessing the sacred31:38 — Julie’s spiritual upbringing34:29 — Karen’s spiritual upbringing36:13 — Meredith’s spiritual upbringing38:21 — Reconnecting words41:34 — Why grief feels different with animals43:37 — Loss rituals44:44 — The “placeness” of animals54:38 — The animal communication collective56:43 — Wild invitation58:09 — Credits

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 EarthBook: How Western Christian Got It Wrong (Forthcoming)Substack: @rwoodley7Personal Website: randywoodley.comEloheh Website: eloheh.orgMentioned in the episode:Documentary: The Year The Earth ChangedConnect with the Center:Website: wildspirituality.earthVictoria's Website: victorialoorz.comEmail: hello@wildspirituality.earthLinktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspiritualityInstagram: @center_for_wild_spiritualityTimestamps:00:00 – Introduction06:35 – Interview Starts08:14 – The Land Who Raised Randy10:08 – Academy Experience11:53 – Eloheh12:50 – Bridging Across the Edges15:09 – Widespread Abandonment of Institutionalized Western Religion19:05 – Replacing the Programs with Relationship23:56 – Co-Sustainers27:06 – Finding New Language31:15 – Becoming Rooted35:33 – Repairing the Separations37:57 – Seeds Are Our Treasure39:29 – The War on Indigenous Lands41:58 – Create Human Rights for the Earth43:40 – Sacred Clowns46:14 – Sacred Invitation

Biologist, biosemiotician, philosopher, and author of Matter and Desire: An Erotic Ecology, Andreas Weber, PhD, joins Victoria Loorz for a heartfelt conversation about reality as a sacred, living process of relationship - the continual desire to give life and what the heart knows as love. Together they explore how trauma causes us to forget our wholeness and how true healing is an act of remembering. Drawing on Sufi mysticism and the writings of Erich Fromm, Weber describes love as “the interest in the aliveness of the other” and names this time of global unraveling as a painful yet essential gift calling us to live in truth. Through stories of rivers, trees, & animals, he reveals how the more-than-human world restores trust, belonging, and courage. Blending science, mysticism, and deep ecology, you're invited you to sit with the living world, listen with an open heart, and remember that you are love, embodied and alive.Dr Andreas Weber is a biologist, philosopher, and poet and teaches ecophilosophy and ecological aesthetics at the Berlin University of the Arts. He holds degrees in marine biology and cultural studies, earned his PhD in philosophy in with a dissertation titled in English “Nature as Meaning: An Attempt at a Semiotic Theory of the Living” .Connect with Andreas: Book: Matter and Desire: An Erotic Ecology by Andreas WeberConnect with the Center:Website: wildspirituality.earthVictoria's Website: victorialoorz.comEmail: hello@wildspirituality.earthLinktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspiritualityInstagram: @center_for_wild_spiritualityTimestamps:0:00 — Introduction5:54 — Interview7:03 — Living Through Trauma and Pain10:38 — We Exist Only as Love13:32 — Dissolving at the Shore18:20 — Meeting Victoria’s More-Than-Human Neighbors19:58 — Defining the Sacred22:39 — Love Is the Interest in the Aliveness of the Other24:10 — Two Sides of Gifts27:37 — Our Era of Dying May Be a Gift31:37 — Religios Is Remembering It Has Always Been One35:43 — Resistance as Simply Truth39:27 — Truths About You and Your Heart47:56 — Wandering Invitation

In this episode of The Holy Wild, Scottish author and activist Alastair McIntosh explores the spiritual, historical, and ecological roots of our collective crisis of belonging. Grounded in the history of the Highland Clearances, he offers this chapter of Scotland’s past as a lens for understanding global patterns of displacement, from the enslavement of African peoples to the colonization of Indigenous lands and the refugees of our own time. He reveals how being unsettled from land fractures psyche and soul. Mcintosh invites a path toward compassion through the Scottish wisdom of Caledonian antisyzygy, the capacity to hold opposites. He weaves insights on complicity in capitalism, the moral paradoxes of renewable energy and wild land, and the call to reconcile inner and outer divisions. McIntosh calls for a re-membering of what has been dismembered- to rekindle community, restore reverence for the Earth, and awaken the soul of belonging in our time.Alastair McIntosh is a Scottish writer, academic, and activist raised on the Isle of Lewis whose work spans spirituality, community, land reform, and ecology. An honorary professor at the University of Glasgow and currently serving as director of the GalGael Trust, he has been instrumental in Scottish campaigns such as the Isle of Eigg community buy-out and the defense of the Isle of Harris against a proposed mega-quarry. His most recognized book, Soil and Soul: People versus Corporate Power, stands alongside his most beautiful work, Poacher’s Pilgrimage, a twelve-day walk through the wilds and villages of his home islands of Lewis and Harris.Connect with Alastair: Website: alastairmcintosh.comBook: Soil and SoulBook: Riders On The StormBook: Poacher's PilgrimageBook: Rekindling CommunityMentioned in the episode:Book: The Unsettling of America by Wendell BerryScripture: Numbers 21:4-9Academic Journal: Theology In ScotlandConnect with the Center:Website: wildspirituality.earthVictoria's Website: victorialoorz.comEmail: hello@wildspirituality.earthLinktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspiritualityInstagram: @center_for_wild_spiritualityTimestamps:00:00 Introduction07:59 Interview09:47 The Spirituality of Place10:26 The Land Who Raised Alastair12:59 Community Sense for Sharing14:31 Communitarian Identity17:38 The Unsettling22:27 Mary Anne MacLeod24:44 Antisyzygy29:15 Dissecting the Scottish Wind Farm Conversation33:52 Returning to Local Thinking35:20 The Promise of Being Placed37:47 Connection with Soul39:04 Practical Expression42:58 The Darkest Times Is When the Human Spirit Comes Alive44:59 A Privilege to Live in Difficult Times45:52 The Rubric of Regeneration47:25 Alastair’s Current Work50:35 The Bronze Snake53:02 Palestine and Scotland58:31 Wild Invitation60:42 Credits

In this conversation, Victoria Loorz and pastor-activist Michael Ellick explore the lifelong dance between wilderness, spirit, and faith. Michael shares stories of his mystical childhood in the forests of Washington—his first teacher in wonder and interconnection—and how that early “forest sense” eventually brought him through disillusionment with the church into a deeper, embodied Christianity. Together they reflect on grief, reciprocity, and the call to live as part of creation rather than separate from it. From the undulating forest floor to Holy Saturday’s sacred grief, from ancient language to feminine images of the divine, this dialogue traces a hopeful reformation of faith rooted in relationship, wildness, and love.Michael Ellick is the Lead Minister at University Congregational United Church of Christ in Seattle. A former community organizer and early leader in the Occupy movement, he works to help faith communities confront racism, colonialism, and disconnection from the natural world. Trained in comparative religion, philosophy, and depth psychology, he integrates insights from Christian, Buddhist, and Indigenous traditions in his ministry and teaching.Connect with Michael: Website: universityucc.orgPodcast: Gospel of Direct ExperienceMentioned in the episode:Gary Snyder essay on reinhabitationRomans 8Gospel of ThomasConnect with the Center:Website: wildspirituality.earthVictoria's Website: victorialoorz.comEmail: hello@wildspirituality.earthLinktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspiritualityInstagram: @center_for_wild_spiritualityTimestamps:0:00 Introduction7:28 The Land Who Raised Michael9:20 Big Rock10:56 Forest Sense14:25 Coming Out Into the Wild15:50 Language to Speak Of18:24 What It Means to Be of a Place20:25 Swapping Image for the Real Thing22:56 Trained in Reciprocity26:10 There Is an If in Romans 830:50 Separation Is Part of It34:17 Open to Grief40:19 Trickster Coyote44:45 Shifts from the Inside Edges50:08 The New Story55:53 Wild Invitation59:34 Credits

In this conversation, Victoria Loorz and Dr. Forrest Inslee explore how Christian faith is expanding beyond human-centered concerns into a vision of beloved community that embraces all of creation. Drawing from his work with Circlewood and the Earthkeepers podcast, Forrest shares stories of churches learning to “listen to the land,” embrace ecological discipleship, and practice what he calls co-powerment—partnership rooted in humility and reciprocity. Together, they reflect on how theology, community development, and lived experience can guide us toward a new story: one where spirituality is woven through relationship with soil, water, creatures, and the wider web of life.Dr. Forrest Inslee is a teacher, ethnographer, and spiritual guide whose work bridges culture, ecology, and faith. He is Associate Director of Circlewood, where he helps cultivate communities of ecological consciousness, and also serves as a Guide with Seminary of the Wild Earth. Forrest hosts the Earthkeepers podcast, drawing on decades of experience as a professor, social entrepreneur, and cross-cultural practitioner. His life and work reflect a deep commitment to reimagining Christian faith as a practice of belonging within the whole community of creation.Connect with Forrest:Circlewood Website: circlewood.onlineEarth Keepers Podcast: earthkeepers.onlineEcological Disciple Program: ecodisciple.comMentioned in the episode:A Rocha USA Website: arocha.usBook: Plundered: The Tangled Roots of Racial and Environmental Injustice by David W SwansonBook: Engaging the Powers by Walter WinkBook: The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why by Phyllis TickleBook: Belonging Without Othering: How We Save Ourselves and the World by John A PowellConnect with the Center:Website: wildspirituality.earthVictoria's Website: victorialoorz.comEmail: hello@wildspirituality.earthLinktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspiritualityInstagram: @center_for_wild_spiritualityTimestamps:00:00 – Introduction06:06 – Community Development Beyond Human-only Needs12:35 – Stories From The Inside Edges17:24 – Creation Care Is Part of Our Heritage19:28 – Redefining Cosmos22:48 – Listening To A Triangle of Land30:03 – Co-Powerment32:12 – The Transition is Holy and Messy36:26 – The Circlewood Vision42:04 – Collaborating Without Othering43:46 – Broadening The Vision45:10 – Integrating Vocation47:56 – Forrest’s “Landscaping” Experience51:43 – Coyote59:44 – Sacred Invitation61:34 – Harold and Honeybees64:29 – Credits

In this episode of The Holy Wild, Victoria Loorz and Dr. Sheri Kling explore how personal trauma, dreamwork, and encounters with the natural world can become gateways into deeper wholeness and divine relationship. Sheri weaves process theology and Jungian psychology into lived stories of synchronicity, butterflies, and sacred encounters that remind us we are co-creators in an unfolding cosmos of meaning. What emerges is an invitation to trust the flow of becoming, where even separation is part of the holy dance that leads us back into connection with Earth, Spirit, and one another.Dr. Sheri D. Kling, Ph.D., serves as the Director of Process & Faith (a multifaith network for relational spirituality under the Center for Process Studies) and is also the interim minister of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Bradenton, Florida. She earned her doctorate in Religion: Process Studies from Claremont School of Theology and brings together theology, depth psychology, mystical wisdom traditions, relational worldviews, and the intersections of spirituality and science to help individuals find meaning, belonging, and transformation. A theologian, teacher, songwriter, and spiritual mentor, Kling is a faculty member at the Haden Institute and Claremont School of Theology (adjunct), and authored A Process Spirituality: Christian and Transreligious Resources for Transformation; she also offers courses, concerts, retreats, and dynamic “Music & Message” presentations.Connect with Sheri:Organization Website: Process and FaithBook: A Process Spirituality: A Christian and Transreligious Resources for TransformationBook: Finding Home: Rural Reflections on the Journey to WholenessProcess Pop-Up Video with Victoria LoorzMentioned in the episode:Wiki: Alfred North WhiteheadBook: Black Beauty by Anna SewellBook: Women Who Run With The Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola EstésBook: Natural Spirituality: A Handbook for Jungian Inner Work in Spiritual Community by Joyce Rockwood HudsonBook: Radical Nature: The Soul of Matter by Christian de QuinceyBook: The Archetypal Process: Self and Divine and Whitehead, Jung, and HillmanDavid GriffinBook: Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl JungBook: Possessing The Secret Of Joy by Alice WalkerConnect with the Center:Website: wildspirituality.earthVictoria's Website: victorialoorz.comEmail: hello@wildspirituality.earthLinktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspiritualityInstagram: @center_for_wild_spiritualityTimestamps:00:00 Introduction07:04 Sheri's Background, Looking For Belonging09:11 A Love Of Horses09:53 Suburban Nature And The Golf Course11:41 The North Georgia Mountains12:55 Finding Comfort In Nature From Trauma13:55 Finding The Divine Feminine14:31 Finding Home15:46 Emerging From Emotional Numbness17:46 Connecting With Jungian Work18:53 Deep Relationship With Place21:27 Introduction To Process Theology28:13 Connecting Inner Wholeness With Universal Wholeness31:44 Whitehead + Jung33:55 Dream Work And Syncronicity42:12 Transformational Practices Of Wholeness47:00 Sin And Separation As Necessary51:49 The Butterfly Pushing Out55:47 Invitation And A Story With A Chimpanzee

In this episode of The Holy Wild, Victoria Loorz speaks with Dr. Craig Chalquist as they explore how to live through collapse with open hearts, grounding in love and relationship with Earth. They speak of healing false separations between spirit and matter, human and nature, psyche and place, and how imagination, story, and synchronicity can guide us into deeper belonging. Craig shares how dreams, fiction, and encounters with the more-than-human world invite us into sacred conversation rather than despair. Together they remind us that even in times of unraveling, new stories are already emerging and calling us to co-create them.Craig Chalquist, Ph.D., Ph.D. is program director of Consciousness, Psychology, and Transformation at National University and a former associate provost and several other administrative and leadership roles. His background includes public presentations, group counseling, depth psychology, mythology, ecopsychology, terrapsychology, and philosophy and wisdom studies. He presents, publishes, and teaches at the intersection of psyche, story, nature, reenchantment, and imagination. He has published more than twenty books, including the hopeful Lamplighter Trilogy. His motto is: “Converse with everything!”Connect with Craig:Website: Chalquist.comBooks: The Lamplighter TrilogySoulmapperHeartlanderLamplighterBook: Storied LivesMentioned in the episode:Article: Tolkien on the Secondary WorldVideo: Jungian Synchronicity: Meaningful Patterns In LifeRomans 8Albert Camus Quote: “It happens that the stage sets collapse. Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or the factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm – this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the “why” arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement.” Book: The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert CamusCraig's Mentors:Joanna Macy: joannamacy.netLionel Corbett: psycheandthesacred.orgJames Stark: regenerativedesign.org/instructors/james-starkBook: The Fourth Turning Is Here by Neil HoweBook: Sapiens by Yuval Noah HarariBook: Belonging Without Othering by John A PowellFilm: The Wild RobotFilm: FlowFilm: The Truman ShowArticle: Val Plumwood Prey to a CrocodileBook: The Cloud of Unknowing by AnonymousNadia Bolz Weber nadiabolzweber.comConnect with the Center:Website: wildspirituality.earthVictoria's Website: victorialoorz.comEmail: hello@wildspirituality.earthLinktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspiritualityInstagram: @center_for_wild_spiritualityTimestamps:00:31 Intro05:31 Doing Spiritual Work In This Time09:07 Fiction's Place In The Wisdom Path12:11 A Sign Of Real Interconnection From A Teardrop Shaped Leaf14:50 Healing The False Separations18:10 Stage Settings Collapse20:53 The Place Of Resistance23:37 The Cycle Of The Human Story27:13 Relationshiping Is Aliveness29:37 Mythic Hero vs Savior31:18 The Storied Life Needs Hope34:56 New Stories Can't Be Stopped36:56 The Wild Balance Of Nature Goes Beyond Good And Evil43:02 Sacrifice Runs Deep45:10 Drawn Toward Reality Laboratories49:15 The Search For Certainty51:59 Religion As Reconnection Is Necessary

In memory of Joanna Macy, we offer this recording from a Seminary of the Wild gathering where she spoke with radiant clarity about living through collapse with courage and love. She outlines four ancient ways of seeing the world—battlefield, trap, lover, and self—and invites us into the radical intimacy of belonging to a living Earth as lover and self. With humor and grace, she tells a story from Cosmicomics by Italian author Italo Calvino, in which the universe begins not with a bang, but with a generous offer to make pasta.Discover Joanna's work at:joannamacy.netWork That Reconnects Network: workthatreconnects.orgCosmicomics by Italo Calvino Considering and discerning a call to be part of this new movement of ecospiritual direction? Apply today for the next cohort of the Seminary of the Wild Earth. The application deadline is August 15, 2025.Connect with the Center:Website: wildspirituality.earthVictoria's Website: victorialoorz.comEmail: hello@wildspirituality.earthLinktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspiritualityInstagram: @center_for_wild_spiritualityTimestamps:00:00 Introduction04:53 Joanna Macy begins—gratitude, interdependence, and uncertainty11:31 Choosing how to rebuild: worldview as a tool12:42 World as battlefield16:38 World as trap20:33 World as lover and world as self—belonging to a living world24:17 The Cosmicomics story: love, pasta, and the birth of the universe31:30 Transition from lover to self—nonduality and the ecological self33:00 Thich Nhat Hanh on evolutionary belonging35:00 Letting the Earth act through us—John Seed’s rainforest story38:30 Question session on deepening into intimacy45:41 Weekly wandering invitation: “What can I do for you?”47:38 Closing invitation and credits