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The Holy Wild with Victoria Loorz: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Victoria Loorz
Join author and founder of the Center for Wild Spirituality, Victoria Loorz, as she explores the possibilities of restoring beloved community and sacred conversation with All That Is: human and more-than-human.
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- Yesterday54 min
REBROADCAST: Refugia Faith, Creating Sanctuary & Finding Home with Debra Rienstra
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.comBook: Refugia Faith: Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the EarthNewsletter: refugianewsletter.substack.comUpcoming 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 MooreOrganization: blackchurchfoodsecurity.netBook: Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization by Bill McKibbenEncyclical Letter Laudato Si' of the Holy Father Francis on Care For Our Common HomeEncyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti of the Holy Father Francis on Fraternity and Social FriendshipConnect with the Center:Website: wildspirituality.earthVictoria's Website: victorialoorz.comEmail: hello@wildspirituality.earthLinktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspiritualityInstagram: @center_for_wild_spiritualityTimestamps:00:30 — Introduction04:18 — Refugia09:28 — Finding My Small Work12:14 — Deciding the Work Based on Context15:03 — Examples of Human Refugia20:51 — From Passivity to Citizenship24:51 — Loving Places That Are Only Yours for a Time30:06 — Choosing to Belong32:29 — Grieving Reality Together34:48 — Mitigation and Adaptation40:32 — A Kalo Farmer in Relationship With the Land43:34 — The Book of Nature & Pantheism Paranoia47:00 — The Wild Edge50:33 — Wild Invitation53:54 — Credits
- 2 weeks ago49 min
REBROADCAST: Indigenous Wisdom For the Edges of Western Spirituality with Randy Woodley
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 EarthBook: How Western Christian Got It Wrong (Out now!)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:00:35 – Introduction07:10 – Interview Starts08:49 – The Land Who Raised Randy10:43 – Academy Experience12:18 – Eloheh13:25 – Bridging Across the Edges15:44 – Widespread Abandonment of Institutionalized Western Religion19:40 – Replacing the Programs with Relationship24:31 – Co-Sustainers27:41 – Finding New Language31:50 – Becoming Rooted36:08 – Repairing the Separations38:32 – Seeds Are Our Treasure40:04 – The War on Indigenous Lands42:33 – Create Human Rights for the Earth44:15 – Sacred Clowns46:49 – Sacred Invitation
- 4 weeks ago47 min
Coming Down to Earth with Barbara Brown Taylor
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.comUpcoming book: Coming Down to Earth: On Being Embraced by the Soul of a PlaceMentioned in the episode:Connect with the Center:Website: wildspirituality.earthVictoria's Website: victorialoorz.comEmail: hello@wildspirituality.earthLinktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspiritualityInstagram: @center_for_wild_spirituality
- Aug 8, 202650 min
The Gospel of Trees with Dr. Thomas Arentzen
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-arentzenBook: The Gospel of Trees by Thomas ArentzenBook: Byzantine Tree Life: Christianity and the Arboreal Imagination by Thomas Arentzen, Virginia Burrus & Glenn Peers Mentioned in the episode:Film: Silent FriendBook: The Overstory by Richard PowersFilm: Disclosure DayIndividual: Margaret WheatleyOrganization: Mystical Theology NetworkOrganization: Dumbarton Oaks GardenBook: Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne SimardBook: The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter WohllebenWiki: Saint Christina the AstonishingBook: Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods by Julia "Butterfly" HillMark 8:22-25 Jesus Heals a Blind Man at BethsaidaConnect with the Center:Website: wildspirituality.earthVictoria's Website: victorialoorz.comEmail: hello@wildspirituality.earthLinktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspiritualityInstagram: @center_for_wild_spiritualityTimestamps:00:00 - Introduction05:28 - Interview Begins08:05 - The Pull To Place10:27 - Christianity's Relationship with Trees15:05 - Synchronicity of Emerging Fields17:16 - The Dendrites23:26 - Is Religion Only A Human Enterprise?27:27 - The Worldview of Kin and Neighbor36:47 - Countering Many Fundamentalisms39:20 - Shifting Attention44:08 - Drawn Next to the Birds46:15 - Wild Invitation49:23 - Credits
- Jul 25, 202652 min
Jesus Dissolving into the Earth: Rewilding Christianity with Rev. Dr. Lisa Dahill
In this conversation, Victoria Loorz speaks with the Rev. 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.eduWebsite: Hartford International University for Religion & PeaceYale Article (pdf): Rewilding Christian Spirituality: Outdoor Sacraments and the Life of the WorldBook: Reading From The Underside of Selfhood: Bonhoeffer and Spiritual FormationBook: Eco-Reformation: Grace and Hope for a Planet in PerilBook: Truly Present: Practicing Prayer in the LiturgyWebsite: Google Scholar CollectionMentioned in the episode:Holy Wild Episode: Awakening a Forest Sense: Grief, Mystery, and the Reformation of Faith with Michael EllickConnect with the Center:Website: wildspirituality.earthVictoria's Website: victorialoorz.comEmail: hello@wildspirituality.earthLinktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspiritualityInstagram: @center_for_wild_spiritualityTimestamps:00:00 – Introduction04:10 – 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
- Jul 11, 202650 min
Sacred Listening and the Art of Seeing the Other with Daniel Epstein
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.orgYoutube: @portraitsinfaithExhibit Info: portraitsinfaith.org/exhibitMentioned in the episode:Portraits In Faith Interview with James Finley: God Is All and All Is LoveRetreat Center: Ghost RanchBook: The Coming of the Cosmic Christ by Matthew FoxBook: The Universal Christ by Richard RohrOrganization: The Center for Action and ContemplationMusical Artist: Netanel Goldberg (Spotify)Book: The Death of the Mythic God by Jim MarionConnect with the Center:Website: wildspirituality.earthVictoria's Website: victorialoorz.comEmail: hello@wildspirituality.earthLinktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspiritualityInstagram: @center_for_wild_spiritualityTimestamps:00:00 – Introduction04:07 – Interview Begins 07:12 – The Calling Behind Portraits in Faith11:34 – 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 Faith29:05 – 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
- Jun 20, 20261h 0m
Wild Water, Holy Porosity, and Becoming the Flow with Dr. Jean Golicz
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 KellerPaper: Solastalgia: the distress caused by environmental change by Glenn AlbrechtConnect with the Center:Website: wildspirituality.earthVictoria's Website: victorialoorz.comEmail: hello@wildspirituality.earthLinktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspiritualityInstagram: @center_for_wild_spiritualityTimestamps:00:00 Introduction05:21 Interview Begins07:30 The Theological Calling09:47 Ingesting Nature As Transformative Theology12:34 Cold Water Swimming15:53 A Way Other Than Competition17:24 Interpersonal Challenge to Worldview Shift19:15 Sacred Yes and Sacred No20:06 Seminary Experience24:49 Seminary Language27:25 Bridges and Portals31:48 Flow and Feminine34:06 A Space Free of Judgment37:26 A Space Full of Safety39:15 Inherent Discomfort41:12 Routine, Ritual, and Rhythm43:49 All Ages47:15 Solastalgia49:33 The Loss Is Part of The Beauty52:16 Informed Invitation to Intervention56:04 Awakening Is Happening57:57 Wild Invitation59:20 Credits
- Jun 6, 202650 min
Grief, Song, and Multi-Species liberation with Alexandra "ahlay" Blakely
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.comAlbum: WAILS: Songs for GriefFeatured Song: All The PlacesFeatured Song: Sacred Wild OneMentioned in the episode:Movie: Free WillyMovie: Whale RiderColleague: Linda ThaiColleague: Laurence ColeWiki: the Dagaaba peopleColleague: Joanna MacyBook: Is A River Alive? by Robert MacfarlaneColleague: César Rodríguez-GaravitoColleague: Lyla JuneTedX Talk: 3000-year-old solutions to modern problems - Lyla JuneBook: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall KimmererColleague: Francis WellerBook: The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis WellerPoem: Sweet Darkness by David WhyteConnect with the Center:Website: wildspirituality.earthVictoria's Website: victorialoorz.comEmail: hello@wildspirituality.earthLinktree: linktr.ee/ctrforwildspiritualityInstagram: @center_for_wild_spiritualityTimestamps: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 Places18:30 – Ancestral Memory 19:54 – An Ecosystem of Action 24:01 – Multi-Species Liberation 30:41 – Song: Sacred Wild One33:53 – We Grieve What We Love 43:05 – Alexandra's Wild Edge 45:31 – Wild Invitation 49:44 – Credits
About The Holy Wild with Victoria Loorz
Join author and founder of the Center for Wild Spirituality, Victoria Loorz, as she explores the possibilities of restoring beloved community and sacred conversation with All That Is: human and more-than-human.
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