Maiccu Kostiainen is a Finnish animal communicator who also gives lectures and courses about intuitive inter-species communication. Her biggest passion is to bring the messages from the other species for people and to give a voice to those who don’t speak the language of humans. The Power of Silent Wisdom workshop is on Friday 23.9. in Gallery Lapinlahti workshop room at 14 - 18. 

You have been doing interspecies communication for many years. Could you tell how did you end up doing that, why and how it became important in your life?

I have always loved animals and after my first dog passed away I found Animal Communication. I had so many questions and thoughts about what really happened and where did he go. Because of lots of research and trying to find answers, I found out that there are people that can communicate with different species. I wanted to know more and learned everything possible about the subject. It was a long process. I talk about the whole process in my classes and lectures. This became very clear for me that there is a lot of need in this world for interspecies communication. Now I know how very important this is to me and then I knew this is would be my passion. Through this I have understood that this is the way I can help people, their animals and open up dialogs between interspecies all over the world.

Can you describe the process how you connect with another animal? For instance, how do you know it is the other animal communicating with you and not you reflecting your own thoughts?

The process in itself is simple, but very hard to describe with a few words. This is part of what we go through in the workshop. It requires a lot of practice and learning to silence the mind. What happens in communication is exactly that, you learn how to separate your own inner noise and thoughts from the actual animal message.

You have said that you're mainly helping the humans with their problems. The other animal in the family is just suffering the human conflicts. Could you give a case example on how you work?

There are hundreds of examples, but one prime example is about a cat that starts peeing around the house and have not done that before in his lifetime. The communication reveals that there is a new boyfriend/girlfriend in the life of the owner that does not like the cat. Cat is always put in a different room, but gets out to just pee on the clothing of this person whom he does not like. Cat’s own person finds this out through the communication and if he/she wants to make the change, they just have to figure out how. A validation came later from cat owner, when they wrote to me that the relationship ended and so did the cats peeing. So this shows how much animals are trying to communicate to us through different ways.

Are you working with the so called production animals (eg. cows, pigs)? What do you think of other animals being raised for food or/and the many other ways of serving humans?

I am working with all kinds of animals, also factory farm animals. I have personally stopped eating meat due to the reason how animals are being treated and killed for food, when we actually don’t need to eat animals to be healthy. This is a very delicate subject in the world right now, but we have to understand that today’s way of producing meat it getting out of hand. Most of the water recourses in the world are drying out etc. because the animals need so much water. If we want to save the globe and the animals, we need to look into this subject as well. This is just one thing about my view of animals that are scarified for human needs. There is also variety of different service animals as well that are helping humankind. What we need to see and feel; is our actions as humankind causing suffering to the other species? Asking this simple question, we already get closer to the world of empathy and love for all species.

Your interspecies communication courses are very popular and also the workshop in Interfaces for Empathy festival is fully booked with tens of people in the queue. What kind of people usually take part in your course, what are they looking for?

All different kind of people join the workshops, the one common thing they share is that they want to make the world a better place for their animals and animals around them. In our workshops we have had pet owners, hunters, vets, farmers, doctors and people from all walks of life.

Do you see the interest for interspecies communication some way as a vaster phenomenon in the Western society when you think of eg. popularity of mindfulness practices etc.? What are your thoughts on that?

Interspecies communication is an old knowledge. All the indigenes people for example American Indians, Aborigines, Incas etc. all talk to animals and nature. I think we are just waking up for something so much deeper that is already there, we just need to open up to all of the possibilities that surround us. We have to acknowledge that mindfulness and other so called spiritual practices are not just fashion trades, but more of the whole humankind waking up as one. By this I mean that it feels like the humankind is waking up from a dream and tapping into something that has been there all this time. What animals have shown and thought me is that they are always in the now, in the flow or like us humans like to call it; yoga, meditation, mindfulness etc. We are going back to the nature and following our hearts more and more today, so that we can find ourselves and start eliminating stress in our busy lives.