Driftwood Conversations

In this episode of Driftwood Conversations, I speak with therapist, writer, and longtime spiritual explorer Catherine Auman about relationships, emotional growth, friendship, awakening, and the long arc of becoming ourselves. Catherine shares stories from her life, including her early feminist performance work in Los Angeles, her years of therapeutic practice, and the deeper understanding she gained through both struggle and love. What stayed with me most was her honesty about how growth continues throughout life and her belief that friendship, respect, and presence are at the center of meaningful connection. You can learn more about Catherine and her work at CatherineAuman.com, and her books are available through Amazon.

 
In this episode of Driftwood Conversations, I sit down with Sandra Mendelson—animal communicator, channel, and, as it turns out, my second cousin. Though we grew up aware of each other, life took us in different directions, and it wasn’t until recently that we reconnected and discovered a shared sensitivity to the unseen.
Sandra came into her abilities later in life, learning to trust the messages she receives from animals and the energetic field around them. What unfolds in this conversation is not just a discussion about animal communication, but a deeper exploration of intuition, healing, and the ways we begin to listen differently—both to the world around us and to ourselves.
We talk about awakening, about doubt and trust, and about the quiet intelligence animals may hold as mirrors for human experience. This is not a linear conversation. It moves in moments, in recognition, in openings that invite reflection rather than conclusions.
It is also, for me, a meaningful reunion, one that reminds me how connection can reappear in unexpected ways, carrying something both familiar and entirely new.
To learn more about Sandra, go to: SandraMendelson.com

n this episode of Driftwood Conversations, I speak with Olga Naiman, an interior designer, author, and teacher whose work moves far beyond aesthetics into what she calls spatial alchemy. Rather than focusing on decoration, Olga explores the emotional and psychological imprints we carry into our homes. She asks questions about safety, identity, memory, and what we are ready to release. As a refugee from the former Soviet Union, her relationship to home has been shaped by instability, loss, and the ongoing search for grounding. That lived experience informs a practice centered on creating spaces that support healing and transformation. This conversation moves through trauma, the body, color, and the quiet ways we begin to reshape our inner and outer worlds. At its core is a deeper inquiry: what does it mean to live in a space that truly reflects who we are becoming?

In this episode of Driftwood Conversations, I sit down with Wayne Kastning, an artist, designer, and teacher whose life journey spans from a remote farm in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas to the creative worlds of New York and Los Angeles. Raised without electricity or running water until his teenage years, Wayne grew up surrounded by storytelling, craftsmanship, and a deep connection to making things by hand.
Our conversation explores what it means to leave home, to trust your instincts, and to keep saying yes to the life that calls you forward. Wayne speaks candidly about identity, curiosity, and the courage it takes to become yourself. This is a story about transformation, resilience, and the quiet determination to follow a creative path, even when it feels uncertain.

In this episode of Driftwood Conversations, I speak with Dr. Joan Hangarter, known to many as Joan of Angels. Joan has spent more than four decades working with people at moments of change in their lives. She began her career as a chiropractor and eventually expanded her work to guide intuitive and visionary women navigating crossroads in their personal and professional lives.
In this conversation, Joan shares the story of her own path: growing up on Long Island, moving west after her father's death, and becoming part of a spiritual community in Los Angeles. Over the years, she built and rebuilt her life several times, each moment requiring her to listen more closely to what she calls inner guidance.
Our discussion moves beyond titles and methods and into the deeper question of how people learn to trust themselves when life asks them to take a new direction. Joan speaks about discernment, the courage to say yes to what we hear inside, and the ongoing process of becoming who we are meant to be.
It is a thoughtful conversation about listening, change, and the willingness to keep growing through every stage of life.
To contact Joan of Angels, go to joan@joanofangels.com
To hear the podcast, listen now on Driftwood Conversations.

Rachel Reid Wilkie is a shamanic practitioner and tarot reader based in the Joshua Tree area. Born in Cambridgeshire, England, she has lived and traveled widely, with time in Europe, New York, and Los Angeles before the desert became her home. Her work weaves shamanic ceremonial healing and journeying with tarot and Hermetic studies, shaped by trainings in the Andes and the Amazon and years of mentorship. Rachel offers one-on-one sessions that may include energetic clearing, ancestral work, and tarot as a tool for insight and alignment. You can find her on Instagram under her name, and at rachelreidwilkie.com.

In this episode of Driftwood Conversations, Hilary Sloane sits down with fellow Z107.7 reporter Gabriel Hart — novelist, musician, and founder of the print-only literary magazine Beyond the Last Estate. Hart’s punk-noir novel On High at Red Tide challenges conventional crime fiction, resisting easy moral packaging in favor of psychological depth and institutional critique. Together they explore what punk and noir literature share at their core: a distrust of the center, a focus on outsiders, and a refusal to sentimentalize broken systems. The conversation moves through discipline, desert solitude, independent publishing, and the creative courage required to build work outside mainstream channels.
Gabriel's book is "On High at Red Tide," Pig Roast Publishing. The magazine is Beyond the Last Estate — beyondthelastestate.com. And his site is gabrielhart.net.
 

In this episode of Driftwood Conversations, Hilary Sloane sits down with longtime Joshua Tree resident Buck Buckley for a wide-ranging conversation that begins with his move to the desert during the 2007 construction collapse and unfolds into something much larger. Buck is a big thinker, someone who connects history, language, culture, energy, health, and community into one continuous thread. What starts as a personal story becomes a meditation on how societies grow, fracture, and reinvent themselves. Whether you find yourself agreeing with every point or simply listening with curiosity, this conversation invites you to step back, question assumptions, and consider how we each participate in shaping the future of the places we call home.

In this episode of Driftwood Conversations, I sit down with Julie Daniels for a conversation that unfolds slowly and with intention. Julie is a writer, thinker, and guide whose work explores attention, presence, and what it means to live in a deeper relationship with time, language, and self. Rather than rushing toward conclusions, our conversation lingers in uncertainty, curiosity, and the spaces between words. This is not a transactional exchange, but a shared moment of listening and reflection—an invitation to step out of the metronome of daily life and enter something more spacious, human, and quietly alive.
You can reach Julie Daniels at SERVICE: 818-623-8960 or her EMAIL: VOICEGAL@AOL.COM
 

Heather Clisby is a reporter, traveler, and keen observer of the human condition, and in this episode of Driftwood Conversations, we talk about what it means to stay curious in a changing world. Heather and I both work at Z107.7, a family-owned local radio station, and our conversation moves through journalism, comedy, travel, intimacy, and the shifting ground beneath it all. We reflect on why local journalism still matters, not as performance but as witnessing, and how staying informed does not have to mean living inside a constant scroll. Heather brings humor, honesty, and a wide lens to the conversation, reminding us that paying attention, choosing depth, and staying human are radical acts in their own right.