What happens when spiritual wisdom, poetic insight, and systems thinking walk into a podcast studio?
This first negotiation episode features a rich, unscripted conversation me, Eric Hekler, and my long-time mentor and friend Dr. Donna Spruijt-Metz—a retired USC Professor/Psychologist, accomplished poet, behavioral scientist, rabbinical school dropout, and fellow traveler through the breakdowns and breakthroughs of our time.
Together, we wrestle with the big stuff:
– Is our spiritual, civic, and natural infrastructure collapsing—or just in need of a long-overdue software update?
– Why is the scorched-earth path so seductive… and what might we do instead?
– Can we listen to history’s rhythms and make room for voices left out of the canon?
– How do we honor wisdom without appropriating it?
– What does it mean to take responsibility for the communities we actually belong to—even when they frustrate us?
This episode blends philosophy with practicality, urgency with reverence, and storytelling with action. It’s a conversation about pluralism without platitudes, and commitment without collapse.
Spoiler: it includes a Rilke quote, a Jewish take on time, a milky-glass temple in Amsterdam, and a reminder that sometimes staying in the fight means staying put—and putting your back into it with your community.
Welcome to the negotiation table.
Suggested resources from Donna Spruijt-Metz
Imagination and Creative Thinking by Amy Kind
The Concealment of Endless Light, poems by Yehoshua November
You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World by Ada Limón
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