Audio Podcast: Cycles Returning in New Forms

Intro: Welcome to Ripples of Radical Generosity. In this space, we trace the human stories inside systemic change, conversations about belonging, leadership, and the evolving systems that shape our shared future. Here, we follow the ripples and the people creating them.

Danielle: Welcome back to Ripples of Radical Generosity. This is Danielle Cadhit, and this is our first podcast of 2026, hot on the heels of a new year in the Lunar New Year, and what many call the year of the fire horse. And this year is associated with ignition, momentum, and bold beginnings.

It feels fitting because we’re stepping into a moment in history that carries a kind of charge. In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. I was not yet born, and some of you listening may not have been either. And yet that moment shaped the world we inherited.

When the Berlin Wall fell, it wasn’t just a political event, it was the collapse of a structure that seemed immovable. An ideological boundary dissolved, a system that organized global power cracked open. And for those of you that may follow astrology and look to the stars for signs that same year, Saturn and Neptune were aligned in the sky – a planetary conjunction that happens roughly every 36 years.

Saturn associated with institutions and structure, Neptune with shared belief and collective myth. And when they meet, history often enters a period where systems and stories unravel together.

For the first time since 1989, that exact signature is returning in 2026. Saturn and Neptune are once again converging this time in Aries associated with initiation and beginnings.

We’re not here to treat that as prediction, but we’re here to notice a pattern. Today, we’re gonna explore how this planetary signature feels different and yet strangely familiar. And today, I’m joined by two members of our community who were in the energy of 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell. And today we have founder of Coralus, Vicki Saunders and Laurie Spangler, both of whose work has long lived at the intersection of capital and community over the last few decades.

Can you both introduce yourselves and briefly paint a picture of who and where you were before 1989. We’ll start with you, Vicki. 

Vicki: Hi, everybody. I’m so excited by this topic, and Laurie and I didn’t actually know each other then even though we’re in the same place and there weren’t a lot of foreigners at the time, so I’m so excited.

We haven’t really explored this conversation before. So just a little bit of context that got me to Prague is I had done my Master’s in Soviet Foreign Policy and I’ve always been like noticing kind of futures that are coming before they came. And I did my thesis on this guy named Jerry Huff, who was a prophet Duke at the time, who had, written this book, which was people were like, what? What is he talking about? It was so controversial and he had basically compared a little area outside of Moscow with an East Coast town in the US and said they were basically the same thing. It was pluralistic and bureaucratically competitive. And it was very similar.

And people were like, what? No, Russia’s the enemy. And so there was a whole know your enemy for all of the worldview that we had at the time. And he’s like, actually, they’re very, very similar and how they’re organized. And so I wrote my thesis on this. Surprise, surprise. Finding like the iconoclastic like opposite land point of view.

And then the wall fell. People were like, what? And so there was this like people not seeing a future that all of the signs were there for before it happened. And so I was already in the stew of this. And so when that happened, I’m like, I’m on a plane and got over there and was so excited. And it really shifted things for me.

And I’ll talk a little bit about what it shifted at that point, but that was kind of how I found myself there. How about you, Laurie? 

Laurie: Wow. I also share, I’m enthusiastic for the conversation. You’re right, Vicki. This is kind of uncharted territory for us to share with each other, which will be great. So my arrival was slightly different in the sense that I was following events because I had studied political science and economics as an undergrad, but I had just completed my graduate studies in law and in between my undergrad and grad, I went to Taiwan and China and I actually spoke a bit of Chinese at that point quite capably.

And I joined an international firm that I thought was going to send me to China, and they called me in in December of 1989 and said, we’re sending you to Czechoslovakia. And I said, huh. I mean, being a student of political science and economics, I was fascinated.

I was following it, but I thought professionally at that point, given my skills, they would be set in, especially linguistic skills. I did not speak Czeck, I had no familial connection to that part of the world. But what they said was, we want five people to go out to what was Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, and work with the local governments on their privatization projects, which we’ll get into a little bit more.

And we want five people who are young and adaptable, and who are curious about the world. And it’s not that you’re the best advisor, lawyer, transact, or finance here. That’s commoditized. We need people who have the interest, the energy, the adaptability, the resilience to go to markets that we have no idea what’s going to really happen here.

And that’s how I arrived there. And I moved there in January of 1990. 

Danielle: So fascinating. And so how was the energy of the time that you were in exactly moving into where you were in Europe and how are people feeling? 

Vicki: So I was absolutely intoxicated by the experience personally.

The streets were full of people who were out and chanting about freedom and so excited about what was possible. That was at the time where they were calling Václav Havel to come to government. Everyone was so excited about him and I still remember being in the square and he was standing up on one of the balconies and everyone was like, “Havel na hrad, havel na hrad”, which was like “Havel to the Castle,” which was the seat to be the president. It was exciting.

And so the other part that every single conversation that I was part of had a sentence that sort of started with “Now that I’m free…” And so everybody was dreaming about what they were gonna do now that they were free, and I remember I’ve told this story many times, but I feel like I just had a full DNA flush.

Like everything that had me think that there were limits to anything in my life in possibility were washed away being surrounded in an environment of people who were dreaming in a new world, dreaming in a new experience for themselves. So that was the feeling I had and the energy, the chaos of it, and since sort of learned that the environment you’re in very much dictates your

capacity to create change, to create futures, your belief in your agency. And so that was a very exciting time. And like, there was a lot of chaos, obviously, but it was… what do we wanna do now? Anything’s possible, stuff is falling down. We can do anything. And that’s very much like a vibe that I picked up when I was there.

How about you, Laurie? 

Laurie: Fully, fully agree. I love your use of the word intoxication. I felt that way with a permanent smile on my face. The energy was just extraordinary. So absolutely, everything that Vicki just said, and I was reflecting a little bit. For me, the rupture, and it was a real rupture.

It was a social, economic, political rupture, but it had been fermenting for decades. Right? It’s simmering, it wasn’t just an overnight since sensation or transformation. And you felt that, I mean, there was this celebratory, intoxicating atmosphere, but it was born out of a combination I felt of sustained effort and extraordinary optimism and hope.

But people fought for their hope. They fought with their hope and for their hope, and that rupture to me, it came from people, it came from average citizens and it was there, it was definitely multi-generational. The students were the first to go to the street, but they were accompanied by their parents, by their aunties, by their uncles, by their grandparents. But they led in many ways.

On the streets, you saw the intergenerational dynamic in play and you really felt when you saw that over the multiple generations, it was the older people who had been sustaining the resistance and contributing and trying to chip away over decades.

And it was the young people who pushed for now is the time, but they were united in this view that this is about an optimistic future. And it’s interesting. Vicki used the word too. It was uncertain. It’s not like they had a blueprint. They had no idea that was highly uncertain, but that was not deterring. It wasn’t a dilutive factor.

So, oftentimes we think about the uncertainty of today, and it seems bounded by fear. That uncertainty was encouraged by optimism and hope, and it felt so completely different. I mean, I really wish we could bottle the energy that we are both describing from that time, and especially because it was ubiquitous.

You felt it was the majority of people. It was everywhere and I loved the layering of the generations. That really stuck with me, that it wasn’t just one segment of the society that was out there on the streets. It really was everyone. 

Danielle: So before we get into that rupture and that seemingly instant moment, I wanna get back to where were the signs that the cracks were already falling and a physical wall fell. But I feel like there were narratives that were emerging and beliefs that were in the air. And how are people responding or not to those things?

Laurie: There were obviously global forces at work for 50 years, let’s be honest. I mean, there were lots of different… there was geopolitical transition, there was economic transition, there was technology transition, there was natural resource. I mean, lots of things factored in at a macro level.

I lived for 15 years in this country after the changes, so I was there for quite some time. And I think the experience we also have to acknowledge Vicki, that the experience in Czechoslovakia is very different on a personal level from Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, they all had very distinct, both narratives to your question, but also ways of expressing that narrative.

And that was driven a lot by how the communist regime manifested in each of those countries. So that’s kind of more at a market comparison level, but I think is your question really about Czechoslovakia specifically and what the signs were earlier on?

Danielle: Yeah. I think I’d love to get into like what you were noticing based on how you experienced, especially like coming newly into this country, and seeing how people were feeling about the chaos that was erupting at the time. Not knowing a wall might fall in an instant, what were the signs that there was something coming? 

Vicki: Well, I think, like one of the things that I saw and learned, ’cause at the time I was dating a Czeck, and his family had run the dissident newspaper that was called Lidové noviny. It was a very exciting time to be hearing from people that had been dissidents for years and years and years, and had been pushing against this. And he would say, you know, there was a bench outside his apartment most of his life, and there’s a statsy officer sitting there watching them because they were like such prominent dissidents.

And he would get a note, like when he came home from school saying, we went to this funeral, may or may not be home, six months of food in the freezer, right? Like, this is how he grew up. But with the courage of like, we’re doing this anyway, that’s what we’re doing. And then the other sort of part that was really interesting to all of this is, and I didn’t know this at the time, but the Czech Republic is extremely entrepreneurial. Very, very entrepreneurial.

And so, like before the second World War, apparently Germans like lined up at the border to trade with Czech goods, you know, so it was in their DNA, this very entrepreneurial culture. So the moment sort of, you know, the tanks went away and everybody flipped a switch in their mind to, “I’m free.” The rethinking of what was possible flowed very quickly because they had such an entrepreneurial culture, which is kind of interesting. So, I think there were some of those things that, fed it. 

Laurie: I would say in addition, and you see this in what they produced over centuries, a deep love and respect for the arts – musical arts, fine arts, written art. It’s no accident that they chose Havel to be their first president and really had to coax him. I mean, really, he was a reluctant president of that country. He did not want to step into that position, but recognized it was a moment in time. It took quite some time to get him to shift there. But, you know, in talking to my Czech colleagues – the love of jazz, American Jazz, unbelievably knowledge depth.

I mean, they all had, you know, their own copies of not just the standards jazz, but really interesting artistic depth of understanding of the evolution of jazz. So music, because of course we think of classical music, but jazz they said, and the reason they like preferred jazz to blues, for example, was the individual expression, the unpredictability, the innovation, the creativity.

You see that in lots of the great literature that comes outta there. And also, I would say, Vicki, I saw very early on the celebration of dissident art. So I’m very fortunate, one of my colleagues was a real art fan. And so the art from the 1960s, from the 70s that was of course hidden. The person I rented a house from was Jasan Zoubek, and his father Olbram Zoubek was the artist who did the funeral mask of Jan Palach, the student who set himself on fire in 1968. And people would talk about that. I think maybe the way I would express, there were very visible moments of expression of resistance during the decades of communist rule.

Like in 1968, there were real moments. There were other kind of expressions of it. And then the narrative in society is, people talk about it behind closed doors in their country houses, away from listening ears and eyes. And that was the real also discovery for me, the example you gave Vicki,  I was stunned at how many people admitted subsequently to reporting on their neighbors.

And I mean, the illustration laws came out so you couldn’t really hide it if you did, but there was a real, that was very painful, but also in a way, very cathartic that people recognized, realized, talked about it, and then went on living next to people. My neighbor had reported on the Zoubejks, and I got to know her and I think she reported on me while I lived there because old habits die hard.

There’s now this foreign woman here, I’ve got a report on her. But yeah, so there were some very painful discoveries, I would say. But for me, the arts and culture celebration, music, writing was a consistent theme and thread of how the Czecks expressed what they wanted to have happened in their country.

Danielle: I wanted to comment a little bit on how there seems to be different modalities of dissidents that you’re both talking about, and in the activism work that I’ve seen in my lifetime, I’ve been feeling a lot of this like oppositional energy in what we’re doing and how might we balance it with some different energy, and how can we create conditions for thriving and bottle up some of that courage that you two had both spoken about. So what does that look like for you? 

Vicki: For me, the piece that feels relevant, and I feel like I became a student of this and had this experience for the work that we’re doing at Coralus for sure. It’s just such a thread that pulls through. But it all happened in small groups. It didn’t happen with elites. It was small groups getting together, and the proximity also really helped with the courage and all kind of evolutionary things in this case they called it the Velvet Revolution.

And because there wasn’t a lot of bloodshed, it was just, you know, it was a smoother sort of ride as it were, despite like all of the work that happened over years. But that was, as Laurie said, the students were really leading, but there was the intergenerational small group organizing and posturing and positioning.

And, you know, Havel talks about this sign in the window where people sort of put up a sign saying ‘in support of the regime,’ so to speak, but it’s really just a performance so that they look like they’re on the same page and they’re left alone and they’re safer.

But that performance is not necessarily what’s going on behind the scenes, and I’m quite fascinated by the moment we’re in right now around this too. Like we are losing so much of our trust in institutions, we are questioning the story that we’re living in. All of these things are happening and it may seem like things are very solid and you have no power.

And you know, these things are much more solid than they appear. And I think that’s part of the thing that, you know, when the wall fell down there, all these people were doing their work of organizing and connecting together, and then in an instant, you know, it felt like things just sort of shifted and collapsed.

So for me, it’s the small group, the creating coherence and courage that starts to create cracks in the surface.   

Laurie: I totally agree with the small groups. To me, again, as we described with both of our kind of first impressions, it was extraordinary just how many individuals… These were not celebrated, recognized leaders. These are people just going about their lives, but absolutely gathering together, usually around a jazz album, usually, you know, around a great meal. So fully agree with that, but to me it’s the sustained effort. It’s sustained. It’s a slow burn. And I think sometimes in activism, all of us, I’m guilty of it myself, where we think it’s a moment that will shift, and there are moments and you want to go for those moments. Absolutely. And really think what are the lever moments? For sure. 

But the tactical art of resistance is sustained daily interactions and the other secret sauce of the Czecks, their humor. And you find that in Havel’s writing, humor. And sometimes it’s dark humor, sometimes it’s really dark, sometimes it’s joyful humor. But humor, I also learned from my being there, that is a superpower. And it doesn’t mean you’re taking your eye off the ball because again, that point about sustenance. 

Danielle: And how do you sense that that chaos and feeling of the time is replicated in today, in this conjunction of Neptune and Saturn in 2026?

Laurie: It’s hard. I mean, I just came back from the US and I’m an American. I live most of the time outside the US these past several decades, and I know this is a global conversation. It’s not singularly about the US. But I’ve been asking myself where are some of those signs. And I do think what’s happened in Minneapolis over these past several weeks, to me, is a real sign that there is that feeling of overwhelm is beginning to find expression in small groups, in community groups, in people just organically and chaotically sometimes, and unfortunately with some horrific results and the risks that people are taking.

And immediately after one of the protests, I just dialed in one night to an ACLU training of Know Your Rights. Millions, millions of people dialed in. So this organic, open source and multiple pathways, multiple touch points, you have to have a lot of them for people to feel like there’s access and we have some movement, some energy, some dynamism, something shifting.

But I do feel in recent weeks, I’m beginning to see something that I hadn’t seen certainly in quite some time, and again, with a positivity, these are strangers who might be shoulder to shoulder in a situation, and there’s a grace and a friendliness and a support and a collegiality that I also felt in Prague, that shoulder to shoulder in the square.

I mean, your cheek to gel next to people you don’t know, you know, smashed up against people and this, ooh, bumping into people. There was, you know, just a lovely interpersonal grace, and I’m starting to see that in pockets of people coming together in the US. I mean, there are lots of things that are very, very different, I’m gonna be honest from what I see. But to your question of what can we pull on, that’s something, and I’m beginning to see that.

Vicki: I love that. I think one of the things, you know, it seems as though if you sort of go back in history as we go from era to era, we’re constantly making choices between hierarchy and relationships. Like, there’s always this thing going on and we happen to be living in a narrative moment where literally everybody, you know, everybody knows this question. How’s it gonna scale? Like this crazy question like, it seems nobody can actually take a move unless they see that whatever they’re gonna do is gonna replace what we’re in, you know? And it’s just not how change happens. It happens in these small groups and you can’t even like imagine that all of a sudden overnight, all these small groups connect in a network and boom, we have a majority and stuff starts to shift, right? So I think we have a story upon us, which, I mean, maybe it was the same back then, but it feels even bigger ’cause it’s global, right?

It wasn’t just one country. It’s like everywhere we are, we think we are fed sort of this, you have no power. You individuals can’t make a difference. And you know, there’s like a joy piece in this too, right? As you said, like the gathering is happening with music definitely in pubs.

Like I said intoxication and I mean like, that was probably part of it too. I was in like a lot of pubs with people where it was like the classic meeting place, right? For people to gather around this stuff. So, I feel like we’re very trained in an understanding of hierarchy and that things have to be absolutely enormous to create change.

And we’ve kind of forgotten a lot of the lessons in history that it does happen in small groups, interconnected across a network. 

Laurie: And just the power of networks. Look at what we have now. Remember. So you weren’t born then. We also didn’t have WhatsApp.

We didn’t have signal, we didn’t have internet connections. We used radio, Radio free Europe. Right? BBC. These were the modalities of getting messages across and then meeting together in your homes, in the pub, what have you. Word of mouth. Think about it now. We have an extraordinary advantage because it’s not a substitute for the interpersonal. I’m a big believer in the in-person and interpersonal, the relational building, I’m a complete believer in that. But we can augment that by connecting our nodes and our pods, right? In ways that were unimaginable back in 1989 and that should be an advantage. We should be leaning into that.

It’s and not or, we need both of those, but we have additional tools to have the multiplier effect of network connection that really can harness the power of networks, which are certainly, it’s a similar building block from then and now. I think that’s similar, but we can augment it and accelerate it in ways that they couldn’t.

Danielle: Yeah, that definitely adds a layer of complexity, this technology, the rise of artificial intelligence and how that plays into how we’re dealing with it in these times. And you talked a lot about art and the rise of the artisan might be coming back. People wanting to be analog and in person. And how does that feed into how we were coping with these times.

We actually hosted a gathering last night at Coralus House in Vicky’s home, and we asked people to listen to a podcast that actually speaks about the biophysical limits of our earth. And so you raised a question earlier, how is this gonna scale? We keep hearing this narrative in business, and I’m hearing both of you continuing to speak about small groups, and so just wanting to touch a little bit about that on these times.

Vicki: Well, there’s a bunch of things that kind of come to mind when you ask that, and one of them is that, you know, we talked about before, like kind of living in a story that’s not really true – that verb being sold. And we have an economic model and an economic story, which very conveniently just leaves out anything that doesn’t fit for its model.

So it’s like, oh, the actual cost of doing things we’ll just call that an externality, like the environmental cost to things, right? So we’re, you know, kind of cruising forward with all the AI stuff, saying, well, what about productivity? We could be so much more productive. And you’re like, okay, but like, what is actually the cost of what’s going on. In this podcast that I heard with Craig Tindale and Nate Hagens the other day, he talked about how, when we get to mature AI, which is sometimes coming in the next 18 to 24 months, roughly,

one mature AI data center in Sydney will take 22% of the electricity and 35% of the water. So, you know, if we just keep feeding the machine without even paying attention to the ecological cost, it does feel like AI is pushing us off the cliff, like AI is the end of capitalism as the sort of summary that came out of this podcast, which I very much felt true to me. And then we get to this point where we’re deciding who’s getting these resources – humans or the machine. So it’s accelerating so quickly it’s just impossible to really keep on top of. And, if I kind of go back to the prog example of the uncertainty, the chaos, et cetera, nobody knew what was on the other side really.

It was pushing for like more freedom. And then how do you reorganize around that? How do you create around that? And I think in a lot of the scenarios and the conversations I’m seeing out there, it’s like we’ve lost this belief in our ability to create something different than this that could benefit all.

Laurie: No, I agree. We either are throwing up our hands and saying it’s so beyond us. There’s nothing we can do. We’re just kind of putting our head in the sand and saying, well, I’ll just live a removed life off grid. I did listen to that podcast as well. It was really quite something, quite a thought-provoking podcast. I do think with AI, I mean, I studied under Condoleezza Rice back in the day under arms control and disarment. I heard her speak not so long ago, and I think she’s exactly right. She said, AI is the next arms race.

And you see it geopolitically on critical minerals and you know, we’re seeing it play out. But what’s I think really concerning is that the actors have shifted and it’s no longer sovereign actors that have some kind of collected interest in avoiding, blowing each other up at some high level.

And we did negotiate treaties. We did get around tables. We did talk about the destructive potential of nuclear weapons, and it was a very fraught time. We lived this, you didn’t, and you know, you grew up in an era we had come solved, but it was, they were back in their missile cupboards here, and it wasn’t an immediate threat, but it was for some time. And I think we should bring at a governance level, I do think we have to really lean into and dictate to our leaders what we expect around this AI. And it’s not abdicating control to a few technology companies. That’s not the future any of us want.

Well, a few want it, but the majority of us don’t. And I think we have to really be honest about the challenge of governance of AI. It’s not the use cases of AI. I think that people are spending more time thinking about that productivity gains and not, and job loss. I’m not ignoring them.

But the bigger question here, the bigger issue is at a governance level. And, we have to be able to, as citizens, hold our leaders to account, to grapple with this. And this is where the we versus me is really concerning because we have an increasing balkanized geopolitical environment.

And what is the motivation? What are the incentives to come together in difficult times, in difficult ways and have some kind of accommodation and limitations to how these powerful, powerful tools are going to be harnessed to ensure that we avoid the biggest risk. At the individual level, I’m a big believer in individual resilience and weaves into some of the other points that we’ve made, but I think we can’t ignore the macro level in these conversations. I think we have to also acknowledge what needs to happen and not let go of that. 

Danielle: So 1989 might’ve taught us that systems fall when belief shifts. So from a governance perspective, there’s work to be done in that, but what is a personal practice where we can shift our beliefs in order to overcome whatever it is that is collapsing, whether it be a wall, another narrative, or what it may be.

Vicki: I mean, I live in this every day, right? The mindset shift. The what do you want to be true? You know, part of the thing that we can practice shedding is that this is the only way we can do this, right? That what we’re living in is the only way. This is the only model. There’s nothing else. Like we are so incredibly creative.

There are so many possibilities. I also think we’re living in a time where we were brought up a little bit less so you, Danielle, but certainly Laurie and I were brought up in the there are basically five senses that we trust, right? And if I can’t see it, you can’t prove it and whatever, it doesn’t exist.

And I’m like, have you listened to the telepathy tapes? Right? Can you pay? There’s so many unexplainable things that are going on out there that are coming online as capacities, as humans that we’re starting to really understand. If you just go into the quantum field and imagine that every version of Vicki Saunders is out there, what version do I want to have, be my reality and then vibrate, you know, towards it and connect into that. So yeah, I mean, if you’re still living in 5D land and you’re like, or five senses land, you’re in a different reality than I’m in. I’m seeing like way more possibility in front of us. Then what we were told is true.

So the degree to which that you’ve experienced that, it starts to shift your own personal agency and what you think is possible. And a lot of the work that we do at Coralus is to get people to pay attention to what’s really happening around them and the stories they’re carrying. Is that really true?

What you’re carrying is that story, is that the only way you can do it? Is that what you think your capacity is? What limiting beliefs do you have about yourself? And then to surround yourself with people who have a little bit more openness around that, because it starts to pull you magnetically towards like a bigger version of yourself, a different version of yourself.

We are just magnificent beings. There’s so much we’re capable of, and we’re the ones that are limiting ourselves. And so the world that we have in front of us now is like the collective reality of the nervous system of who’s here. And if we can calm that and tune into what kind of world we want, we can create that.

I mean, I fundamentally believe that. And so this is the moment we’re in. It does seem like there’s a majority of people who believe there is a better way possible. And when we get in sync together and we get into coherence, the world will change, and it is gonna come from the small groups coming together.

And it seems absolutely impossible when you look at the big picture ’cause that’s what we’re being fed. It’s not possible. Someone else is in charge, not you. But when these small groups of coherence really start to connect together, we’re starting to see a shift and I see a shift in my world by being in these small groups and watching what is happening for people.

So that’s kind of how I come at it. How about you, Laurie? 

Laurie: I really agree with that. I think that’s exactly right. It’s seeing and stretching ourselves to see what’s possible, even when it’s fuzzy, unclear. But you have a sense of it, you have a kind of an orientation towards it and having the confidence and the courage, which you do get also by being with others to choose.

My father taught me long ago, I mean, he would even say that waking up every day and you make a choice. Are you gonna be happy today? Are you gonna lead into something? By definition, you have to choose to be optimistic and I saw that every single day. It was a choice he made. It’s how he embraced the world, no matter what, knocked him down during the course of that day, he was like, the son, next day up, here we go. It’s a whiteboard. I can create. Something new, I can create a positive future for myself, for my family, for my community, and I truly believe that.

I also believe with the kind of expanded perspectives that Vicki just articulated. And in that podcast you referenced. The other thing that stuck with me on perspective expanding is also a temporal horizon. The speaker talked about the four clocks at the corporate clock, which is the quarterly clock, the climate clock, the consumption clock, and the war clock.

And there I thought that was just very, in terms of just your first point, Vicki, of how we expand our thinking. I do believe also being cognizant of the temporal variability because it goes to my earlier point about what will sustain us. It doesn’t happen tomorrow, so you also have to be smart to yourself and say, okay, some things I’m going to see change or experience that I should, in the nearer term, others might take longer, and what are the proxy indicators that I’m on track, not on track as I visualize that, but I truly believe it is absolutely a choice. And I do believe in the power of allies. Allyship. I’ve learned it, I’ve enjoyed it with friends like Vicki and colleagues, but who you surround yourself with really matters to give you that additional boost and confidence that we’re gonna get there.

Danielle: Well, I wanted to talk a little bit more about we keep hearing small groups, sustenance. There’s a layer of AI and connectivity that is supposed to keep us highly connected, and yet we’re lonelier than ever. And so there are some people who don’t know how to get into small groups or don’t know how to create those social bonds in this time. What would you say for people who don’t really know where to get started with something so seemingly simple? 

Vicki: I mean, this is a practice and this is actually like a strategy of the current system to keep us isolated and separated and think we have to do everything on our own.

So you have to kind of like understand that isolating yourself. I mean, I kind of think of this as like if you go to a biological metaphor, cancer cells are isolated cells. It’s like a liver cell that’s outside the liver that’s like, oh my God, where am I? I’m not in an environment, and it starts to replicate, right? And so isolation is toxic to systems. Isolation is toxic to the individual. You literally like find something around you, find some folks around you, who do you vibe with, find your people. This is actually a really critical navigational skill these days.

I think just like a massive skill, your ability to find some others. And I mean your body tells you right away, are these your people? Do they make you feel good? If they don’t make you feel good and you don’t feel like you belong, they’re not your people.

Right? But like getting into those groups starts to influence what you think is possible if you’re surrounded by people who don’t believe you have any power that’s really very challenging to kind of shift yourself. But this ability to understand like how to care for one another, how to be cared for, how to receive that care from others is a very important skill set to be nurturing these days.

Laurie: I would add it for people who wanna get started, start local, in person, and be animated by an issue you care about. So I’ll just tell a quick story. When I lived in Taiwan and China, as I mentioned, between undergrad and grad. I get back to grad school, it seemed, I didn’t connect with any of the people in my grad school. They were just super intense. Harvard Law School, it was not my people. It took me a while to find my people.

So I started volunteering at homeless shelters because I was very upset when I got back to the US seeing people sleeping on the street in Boston. I just didn’t understand what had, like, all of a sudden it was everywhere and I just didn’t understand what was going on. So literally I would work all night in the shelter and then come to class and it was the most grounding experience. I’m so grateful I did it. And I found my people, I found people.

So it was an issue that I was literally curious about and worried about, and I cared about. There was just a deep empathy and worry. And so I wanted to learn, but that pursuit, I knew no one there. I just showed up at the shelter and said, can I volunteer? And I can only do nights because I go to school during the day, and that’s where they needed volunteers anyway. But it opened up a whole world to me.

It’s true. You have to be willing to take that first step. But I would say from the navigational tool point of view, find an issue that animates you. Just engage on that first, because you’re more likely to have something in common with others that you start to talk about because you care about that parti and it can be any issue.

It doesn’t matter what it is because you’ll have that gravitational pull with people where you have a greater values alignment, other types of allyship that can emerge, but it does mean leaving your home and putting yourself in a little bit of an insecure position that first time, I’m confident that it’ll be one and done.

The first time you go, you’re gonna find one buddy, someone you connect with, and that opens up all kinds of doors and possibilities. I have family members I’ve been encouraging in the same way and it’ss amazing what it can, change in your life.

Danielle: As you’re speaking, Laurie, I was just thinking about my neighbors and how when I moved to new neighborhood, I didn’t really know anybody. And I noticed that neighbors who were deeply rooted here because they were probably the first owners of the homes, knew each other, and it was harder for people to get in because there wasn’t already that social fabric.

And so sometimes, it can be as simple as going to your next door neighbor and knowing who they are and saying, introducing yourself. And that’s really a practice of like, do you know your neighbors? And how can we care for one another? Which was really prevalent in COVID to create these pods. And so how can we practice that without having to get to the urgency of an emergency or a wall falling and really practicing into that future before it gets there.

Laurie: And that’s maybe just a point in observation. And that’s where these small pods and then these lever moments can be so extraordinary. And I think that’s what happened in Prague because people didn’t all know each other and we didn’t have all of that connection technology that we were talking about a minute ago.

But then this openness, I mean the coming together at a collective level, that’s the energy that was extraordinary. And we both were fortunate enough to experience it in our lifetimes, and it’s unforgettable. Even talking about it, it just brings me right back to that moment.

But what it did is it combines what we’re talking about here. People knew each other in their small nodes, but they didn’t know the node across the street. They didn’t until they went to the hall, they went to the pub when it was open and clear to do so, or they went to the demonstration. And that’s what’s amazing, that combination of the small and then the collective. 

Vicki: And I think you can’t predict these things. That’s the issue, right? It’s the one step after the next. And I feel like it literally is David White poem, right? What’s the phrase? 

Danielle: Start close in?

Vicki: Start close in. The start close in. I just love that poem so much because it is easier, there’s less risk. You know, you start, but there’s always something magical that happens. Always. Right. You meet that person, you eye somebody and you’re like, ding. And then it opens another door, and then another door starts to happen, and then we’re upon a new future.

And so if you wanna expand where you’re at and get out of that isolation, that one step can really just begin a whole new journey. 

Laurie: I agree. And I think that’s also points out that I think this is implicit in your question, Danielle. You’re right. I think I’m understanding you correctly.

We have to be ready for those moments of change too. So your point about practice and preparedness, that one knock on the door of the neighbor, that one showing up for a volunteer session, that one step is a step of preparation. We all need to be preparing ourselves. We’re contributing to additional moments, but we’re ready then also for a greater slipstream of change as it appears.

I think you’re right to remind all of us, all of the listeners and ourselves even, what are the daily practices that we are following and encouraging others to follow, but really for ourselves, what are the steps we’re taking? I really think that’s right. Preparation. 

Danielle: Oh, thank you both. I wanna end on a dreamy DNA flush, as you were saying, and what is the dreamy DNA flush for the times that we are in that you’re both dreaming into? Who are we becoming as any metaphorical walls may or may not collapse?

Laurie: I’m gonna foreclose where I began. For me, I think about 1989 as a bottom up rupture, it was completely inclusive. It was the majority speaking with joy, with dreams, with vision, and with positivity. The we was bigger than the me. In my country of origin, it is minority that’s speaking very loudly.

A minority that is a voice that is at every quarter of society that is dictating the terms of our social future and our economic future. And I reject that and I do feel, I know I have lots of allies. I’m not alone in in feeling that way and expressing that, but my dream is that we are going to find a path, and I think we may be on it.

I think we may be closer than we think, that we have a bottom up rupture that really does express a new possibility. I think it might get a bit more challenging before it gets better, but I actually think it’s going to be phenomenally stimulating and exciting. And open new pathways for all kinds of creative contribution to the world that we seek. But bottom up rupture.​

Vicki: Yeah. I mean, double click. Yes. I’m excited by the moment we’re in. I’m also, you know, concerned for the chaos that it’s gonna cause and I think some people are experiencing the future, the challenging part of the future ahead of others, right?

This is coming at us very unevenly. Part of the thing for me is to get into these networks to care for one another. As we cross into a threshold to something, which I think is gonna be so much better than what we’re living in. I mean, this is a very painful time in so many ways. We are living in a lie of there’s not enough for everyone.

And yes, there is. It’s just unevenly distributed, and so a new model and a new way of being. This is a state of being kind of issue coming into this place where we understand that we’re all one. That there is enough for everyone and that we can design worlds for everyone to thrive. It really is true. This idea of scarcity is like a made up thing by a market that isn’t even a full picture.

So within the ecological lack of infinite ecology that, you know, we keep pretending that it’s infinite, but like living within those means is the constraint is a beautiful thing for humans. It’s where we get our most creative. So this moment we’re in is get connected. Get into your integrity. Focus on what make brings you joy, care for others around you.

If you have anything in abundance to share, do that. And we’re going to see something really start to shift when we start to share with one another instead of hold on and accumulate. We need to get practiced as circulating resources, all kinds of different resources to those who need them. And then we’ll start to see how life starts to become much more rich.

Danielle: Well, thank you both. I’d love to add onto the dreaming. I was very excited to have this conversation because people in my generation, I tell them, you know, things are about to shift underneath our feet, there might be a new currency emerging, and their response to me is not in our lifetime. But this already happened, and it’s important to go back into history to see where these cycles are returning, maybe with different faces and new futures but that it can actually happen and we have the agency to do something about it and with it and for one another.

And so thank you both for sharing your wisdom of the times and how we might dream into new futures together.

Vicki: Thank you, Danielle. 

Laurie: Thank you, Danielle. Thank you, Vicki.  

Outro: This podcast lives as an exchange, and the conversation expands through you. We offer these conversations as openings, invitations to reimagine self and systems, and we’re curious what they open in you.

History does not repeat, but patterns do. And as Saturn and Neptune converge, again, we’re curious what you’re noticing. Where do you feel a structure loosening? Where do you sense a story unraveling, or a new one beginning.

Send us your reflections, your questions, or the signals you’re seeing at hi@coralus.world, or drop a note through the link in the show notes.​ 

Episode Summary:
Danielle Cadhit is joined by Coralus founder Vicki Saunders and impact investment leader Laurie Spengler to look back at the world-shifting rupture of 1989, and ask what it can teach us about change now. Together, they explore how “systems and stories” can unravel at the same time, why big shifts are often seeded by small groups over decades, and how networks, culture, and everyday practices build the conditions for collective turning points.

In This Conversation:
– What it felt like to live inside a bottom-up rupture
– How “systems and stories” can unravel together
– The role of small groups in large-scale change
– Why uncertainty felt hopeful in 1989 and fearful now
– Networks then vs. networks now
– AI as a governance challenge, not just a productivity tool
– Personal practice in times of systemic shift
– How to find your people when isolation feels pervasive
– Preparing for change before the “wall” falls

Guests:
Vicki Saunders
Laurie Spengler

Historical & Cultural References:
The Berlin Wall (1989) – The symbolic collapse of a Cold War boundary that reshaped global political and economic structures.
Václav Havel – Playwright, dissident, and later President of Czechoslovakia during the Velvet Revolution.
Lidové noviny – A historic Czech newspaper revived as a dissident publication during the late communist period.
Olbram Zoubek – Czech sculptor known for creating the funeral mask of Jan Palach.
Jan Palach – Czech student whose 1969 self-immolation became a powerful symbol of resistance following the Prague Spring.

Additional Resources Mentioned:
Wide Boundary Discussion on AI (Craig Tindale)
A systems-level exploration of AI beyond productivity — examining material limits, energy constraints, and structural impacts.
Material Scarcity – Why the West Can’t Defend Itself (Craig Tindale)
A discussion on how resource constraints and supply chains are reshaping geopolitical power and technological development.

A Closing Reflection:
Where do you feel a structure loosening?
Where do you sense a shared story unraveling, or a new one beginning?

Send your reflections here.