Jan Jorgensen: A Poetic Soul Pays Attention

Jacqui Parr Byrne: Hands in Clay, Quiet Mind

In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Jacqui Parr Byrne, an educator, entrepreneur, and mother whose life reflects the ongoing process of becoming. Jacqui shares her journey from a career in banking and marketing to co-founding an educational program for “twice-exceptional students”, or young people who are both highly capable and face challenges such as anxiety, ADHD, dyslexia, or autism. What began as a response to her own children’s struggles in traditional school became a deeply meaningful and lasting vocation. With candor and insight, Jacqui reflects on the realities of raising four children, including triplets, and the kind of endurance and daily grit that motherhood required of her. She speaks about leadership, growth, and learning to navigate complexity with greater awareness and compassion. In a more recent chapter of her life, Jacqui has discovered a passion for ceramics. She describes working with clay as an almost meditative experience, and one that quiets her mind and opens up a new, nonverbal form of creativity and exploration. This is a conversation about embracing change, letting go of self-judgment, and remaining open to new passions and possibilities, no matter where you are in life. Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0

Sara Holtz: How Yale Made Me a Feminist

In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Sara Holtz, who looks back on a life of storytelling: from practicing law and training women leaders, to interviewing successful women on the podcast she hosted for seven years, “Advice to My Younger Me”, about the lessons they wish they had known earlier in life. She also opens up about her experience as a member of the first class of women admitted to Yale College. With brave candor and compassionate perspective, she recounts the sexism she encountered, and how her college years made her into a feminist and a uniquely effective mentor and leader. Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0

Ann Larson: The Sacred Work of Presence

In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Ann Larson, a retired Lutheran pastor whose life has evolved by ministry and a lifelong search for deeper spirituality. Ann speaks of becoming one of the early generations of women ordained in the Lutheran church, and navigating the challenges of a career that did not unfold in the ways she once expected. With striking honesty, she opens up about therapy, and learning to redefine success and failure over time. She also shares moving stories from her years in the ministry, including sitting beside people in their final moments, and witnessing death as both sacred and deeply human. Throughout the conversation, Ann looks back on the role of ritual, music, spirituality, and community in helping us live with greater presence and compassion. Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0

Anna Boorstin: The Many Lives of Love

In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Anna Boorstin, a former film sound editor, writer, and lifelong reader whose reflections on love, grief, and self-acceptance reveal a life deeply examined and fully lived. Anna shares stories about growing up in Southern California during the rise of second-wave feminism, working in the film industry, and raising a family while learning to better understand herself. With humor and candor, she reflects on body image, aging, anxiety, and the complicated expectations placed on women across generations. She also speaks movingly about her late partner, historian John Archibald Getty III, and the profound experience of caring for him through illness. Their relationship transformed her understanding of love, vulnerability, and what it means to truly know another person. Inspired by the sudden loss of her stepfather, Academy-Award nominated filmmaker Alan J. Pakula, Anna eventually turned to writing her novel, No Place Like, as a way to explore grief, imagining parallel universes where the people we lose might still exist somewhere beyond our reach. Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0

Jan Jorgensen: A Poetic Soul Pays Attention

In this episode, host Ruby Tugade speaks with Jan Jorgensen, a poet, minister, spiritual director, and lifelong reader and collector of books. Jan reflects on growing older with curiosity and tenderness, and on learning to hold both beauty and sorrow at once. She speaks about motherhood, poetry, spirituality, and the ways our earliest selves continue to live within us. With warmth, wisdom, and poetic insight, Jan shares what it means to listen deeply, and reflects on love, shame, forgiveness, and the healing that can happen when we bring our wounds into the light. Music: “Love” by Alex-Productions, licensed under CC BY 3.0.