Episode 43: Your Cat Isn’t Ignoring You, She’s Negotiating Terms - With Abhigna Vaidya (Transcript Available)

What if your companion didn’t just arrive by chance, but by choice? We sit down with Abhigna Vaidya - a business analyst whose lifelong curiosity about astronomy, birding, and kriya yoga opened into animal communication - to explore a world where animals, plants, and even places speak with purpose. Abhigna shares the important night a Himalayan mountain dog appeared on a dark trail and led him home, and how that wonder grew into a practice grounded in attention, humility, and surprising validation. We dive into soul contracts - the unseen agreements through which animals offer care, receive healing, or even carry our burdens. Abhigna explains why some animals go “lost” versus “missing,” how cats often wait for calmer energy before returning, and why a dog might choose a new home if his or her needs aren’t being met. The stories are specific and human: open a balcony door at 2 a.m., adjust a sleeping spot, resolve household tension, and watch how the relationship shifts. He explains how intuitive communication can be a mindful way of noticing, asking, and acting. We also explore the science of plant communication and forest intelligence - plants signalling wasps for defence, mother trees feeding and instructing saplings through mycorrhizal networks. -NOTE: Avantika's PhD research is funded by the European Union (ERC Consolidator, ANICOM, 101124189). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.ANICOM - Animal Communicators: Intuitive interspecies communication as a key to dialogic multispecies methodshttps://anicom.uliege.be/