The Holy Wild with Victoria Loorz Listening Across Species: What Animals Know with Dr. Vanessa Wijngaarden
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:
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