Mary Jean "MJ" Puckett

Mary Jean "MJ" Puckett

Rites of Passage: Stories of Service — Mary Jean "MJ" Puckett Mil-Tree Series In this episode of Rites of Passage: Stories of Service, Dawn Davis speaks with Mary Jean "MJ" Puckett, a nurse, military spouse, and mother of a Marine whose life has been shaped by decades of service to others. MJ reflects on her career in emergency medicine, public health, and child protective services, sharing stories that reveal both the challenges and rewards of caring for people during their most vulnerable moments. She also speaks about life as part of a military family, the emotional realities of deployment, and how participating in Mil-Tree's Rites of Passage program helped her explore memory, caregiving, and personal storytelling.   Through humor, compassion, and honesty, MJ offers a powerful reminder that service takes many forms and that storytelling can help us better understand ourselves and one another.

Rohini Walker

Writer, regenerative mentor, and Luna Arcana co-founder Rohini Walker joins Hilary Sloane for a thoughtful conversation about identity, creativity, healing, and the Mojave Desert. Born in India and raised in England, Rohini shares how immigration, cultural displacement, and inherited trauma shaped her journey toward the work she does today. Together, Hilary and Rohini explore somatic awareness, decolonial perspectives, creativity as a healing practice, and the ways the desert landscape mirrors our own inner transformations.  The conversation touches on stewardship, belonging, ecology, embodiment, and what it means to live in relationship with both the land and ourselves. It is an exploration of how personal healing and collective healing may be more connected than we realize.

Anja Broenink

Fashion designer and artist Anja Broenink joins Hilary Sloane for an intimate conversation about creativity, reinvention, illness, aging, and the courage to keep evolving. Born and raised in the Netherlands, Anja began her career as a nurse, studied fashion design, and eventually built her clothing line, Anja SF, in San Francisco during the dot-com boom. Today she lives in Joshua Tree, where she balances painting, design, and a quieter, more intentional life. Together, they discuss fashion in the 1980s, Japanese design influences, cancer recovery, spirituality, creativity after COVID, and the emotional inspiration behind Anja’s colorful “Sadie” paintings. A thoughtful conversation about resilience, artistry, and learning to make each day meaningful.

Catherine Auman

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.

Sandra Mendelson

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