Explore Spirituality

Explore Spirituality is an interview program hosted by Rabbi Rami, formerly presented as the Spirituality and Health podcast and now in its tenth year. The format rarely varies, and that consistency is the point. A guest arrives with a new book. Rabbi Rami has read it. What follows is an unhurried conversation that treats the book as a starting point rather than a promotional obligation. Kabir Helminski describes his first Sufi teacher and the unsentimental love he encountered in that circle, calling it spiritual gold after years of silver and brass. Joan Tollifson talks about still meditating while no longer meditating to get anywhere, because there is nowhere to go. Rebecca Martinez, founder and executive director of Alma Institute, discusses ethics and harm reduction for psychedelic facilitators and traces her own path out of a fundamentalist Pentecostal upbringing, including what it meant to recognize her queerness rather than repress it. Dr. David Rosmarin, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and founder of Center for Anxiety, makes the case that anxiety itself is not a problem. Judith Polich, an environmentalist and wetlands advocate, argues humans need a new story about their place in life and thinks one is beginning to surface. Light Watkins recounts discarding everything that would not fit in a carry-on, then ditching the carry-on. The through-line across all of it is a host who asks real questions and does not pretend to have arrived. He confesses that he tried the tidying method and found nothing in his home sparked joy. He warns a guest, teasingly, that listeners without enough anxiety may develop some. That mix of levity and genuine attention keeps heavy material breathable. There is no house doctrine here and no altar call. Traditions get discussed as living resources rather than settled answers, which makes the show hospitable to people who read widely and belong nowhere in particular. Episodes are part of the MindBodySpirit.fm network and carry advertising. Recent changes include the new name and a listener question feature routed through the network app. With 278 episodes on the shelf, the back catalogue works well as a browsing library — pick the guest whose subject you are already circling, and the conversation tends to reward the time.