The Holy Wild with Victoria Loorz

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