Sacred Conversations

Welcoming New Horizons, as We Near a Moment of Birth

In this episode, we conclude season 1 and share that we’ll be taking a break from Sacred Conversations, as we open into some other directions calling to us. For Nicole, this includes The Purple Couch, an upcoming podcast she’s creating for therapists and, in her own words, “anyone on their journey doing the deeper work.” She’ll also remain engaged with her book, The Art of Chaos, as it moves closer to publication. For Robin, this includes her writing, and a growing desire to help build more loving, nourishing local community. As we talk about these next horizons, we also touch on more of what has been meeting us in this moment—our sense of something having been completed, as something too still waits to be born.  Through the last year, we’ve loved sharing these conversations with you, and in this pause, we’d also love to keep in touch. If you’d like to reach out, you can send us a message on Instagram, email Robin at robin.bethel.lovesong@gmail.com [robin.bethel.lovesong@gmail.com], or email Nicole through her website at https://drnicoledolan.com [https://drnicoledolan.com]. You can also continue to find Robin on her podcasts Voice Note Me and Imagine + Flow, and on Substack at https://substack.com/@robinbethel [https://substack.com/@robinbethel]. Thank you for joining us! We hope you follow the podcast, and if you'd like to connect further, you can: Follow Sacred Conversations on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/sacred.conversations.podcast/] Subscribe to Sacred Conversations on Youtube [https://www.youtube.com/@sacred.conversations.podcast]  Connect with Nicole on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/drnicoledolan/]  Connect with Robin on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/robin.bethel.lovesong/] ✨✨

The Beautiful Wilds of Being Seen

In this episode, we reflect on this notion, and reality, of being seen, in a variety of ways.  It’s been about one year since we recorded our first episode of Sacred Conversations, which is one new way we are experiencing being seen. And so this seemed like a well-timed moment for reflection.  In our conversation, we focus on this podcast, though we also hold a larger context in our minds and hearts (and some of those notes are mentioned in the episode's introduction). Robin also talks of something that isn’t directly connected to this podcast journey or even necessarily being seen in a more public-facing way, but simply touches into being seen at its most basic level: appearance, and her shifting relationship to her own.  If you would like to join the conversation and share your own journey in any of these areas, please get in touch! You can send us a message on Instagram—our accounts are listed below—or if you prefer, feel free to send an email to robin.bethel.lovesong@gmail.com [robin.bethel.lovesong@gmail.com].  And if you'd like to listen to the guided meditative imagining that Robin mentions in this episode, on seeing yourself truly and letting yourself be seen, you can find it on Spotify here [https://open.spotify.com/episode/7zUvAKIrC4lY88cGQDebPt?si=a34ee4a1ac104854] or on Apple Podcasts here [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/imagine-flow-guided-meditative-imaginings/id1857114710?i=1000738864014]. (You can also search for Imagine + Flow wherever you listen to your podcasts, then play "Vignette of Seeing.")  Thank you for joining us! We hope you follow the podcast, and if you'd like to connect further, you can: Follow Sacred Conversations on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/sacred.conversations.podcast/] Subscribe to Sacred Conversations on Youtube [https://www.youtube.com/@sacred.conversations.podcast]  Connect with Nicole on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/drnicoledolan/]  Connect with Robin on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/robin.bethel.lovesong/] ✨✨

Creativity, Connection, and the Sacred in Stark Silhouette, with Josh Booton

In this episode, we’re joined by Josh Booton, an award-winning poet, singer/songwriter with the band Mercy Giant, and speech language pathologist. In a rich, ranging conversation, we open into Josh’s process creating poetry and making music, his drive to empathetically connect, and how he finds moments of transcendence lit largest through contrast. This takes us, too, into a wider discussion of making art, feeling the sacred, and tapping into the unseen world. Threaded through it all: a sense of holding together all the things. And also, the gift of Josh’s poetry, subtle, lush, glorious. We hope this episode is a balm of soft creative flame and joy in these dark weeks.  To connect with Josh further, you can find him on Instagram here [https://www.instagram.com/jbooton/] and find Mercy Giant here [https://www.instagram.com/mercygiant/].  Look for Josh's books at your favorite indie and used books stores, or at Barnes & Noble [https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/miraculous-courageous-josh-booton/1127998572] or Amazon [https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Josh-Booton/dp/0985058447].  Discover Mercy Giant's music on Apple Music [https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=apple+music+mercy+giant&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8], Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/artist/2WcdcYMautuvDMJz0fhVDI], and other streaming services.  (Also, if you haven't yet collided with Jeff Buckley, and after this episode you want to, here's [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8AWFf7EAc4] a start, with "Hallelujah." To read "blessing the boats" by Lucille Clifton {please do}, visit here [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58816/blessing-the-boats]. And to explore Larry Levis, you can find a selection of his poems here [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/larry-levis].) Thank you for joining us! We hope you follow the podcast, and if you'd like to connect further, you can: Follow Sacred Conversations on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/sacred.conversations.podcast/] Subscribe to Sacred Conversations on Youtube [https://www.youtube.com/@sacred.conversations.podcast]  Connect with Nicole on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/drnicoledolan/]  Connect with Robin on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/robin.bethel.lovesong/] ✨✨

Crescendos and Whispers, of Ending and Beginning

In this episode, we return to our energetic sense of being at a precipice, still moving, intricately, in the dark; yet now in the loudest and quietest notes of completion, and beginning. We talk of trust, and the knowing and unknowing moving us. We talk of the intensity of change we feel around the corner, and one destined threshold this long journey is taking so many of us across, preparing us to give our deepest gifts.  We also talk of upcoming new projects we’re each excited about—for Robin, creating more Imagine + Flow guided meditative imaginings and bringing them to YouTube, and for Nicole, launching a new solo podcast where she’ll be teaching depth psychology and more in a singularly beautiful way. We’ll share more about these as they find their form. :) In this beautiful solstice month, where so much hangs silent and radiant in the air, we wish you well in your own precipice-ing, and celebrating. If you’d like to share any of how this moment in time is meeting you, we’d love to hear from you.  Thank you for joining us! We hope you follow the podcast, and if you'd like to connect further, you can: Follow Sacred Conversations on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/sacred.conversations.podcast/] Subscribe to Sacred Conversations on Youtube [https://www.youtube.com/@sacred.conversations.podcast]  Connect with Nicole on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/drnicoledolan/]  Connect with Robin on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/robin.bethel.lovesong/] ✨✨

At the Precipice, in a Luminous Dark

In this episode, we begin in lightness then move to intensity: talking of how in this moment of time, we’ve come to stand at a precipice, with gathering crescendo, in what feels like last (and beginning) notes of wild and deep stories.  Nicole shares pieces of where this multi-year period has ultimately led her, into a new embodied nervous-system-level okayness, that grounds her in herself even through chaos. And also, into a knowing that she’s meant to help others build an inner architecture that lets them do the same.  For Robin, this period has brought with it two deep mystical stories defined by trust and devotion, which have each led her to step so deeply into her intuitive power it feels like a living in magic. In this episode, she opens into one of these, a story around money, and listening, and moving with the invisible world as much as what is seen. (She shares more about this, with deeper nuance, in an episode of her other podcast, Voice Note Me, which is linked below.) We know we’re not the only ones living through these initiations, in this moment, that build upon all the rest we’ve experienced to carry us forward into a new way of being humans on this earth together.  It’s a powerful piece of time. And we really enjoyed this conversation that touched into the current energies as we feel them. We hope it meets you well.  {If you feel drawn to hear more about this story Robin shares, you can find the Voice Note Me episode—Marrow and Pixie Dust: A Love Letter in Vignette, from Robin—on Apple Podcasts here [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/voice-note-me/id1792757932?i=1000734418143] or on Spotify here [https://open.spotify.com/episode/73dPYmuQzCX2bXFEVJbe0h?si=QsIKHyWtQO6Pm6OGi4h3lw]. You can also find the Voice Note Me podcast on YouTube and the other usual platforms.} Thank you for joining us! We hope you follow the podcast, and if you'd like to connect further, you can: Follow Sacred Conversations on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/sacred.conversations.podcast/] Subscribe to Sacred Conversations on Youtube [https://www.youtube.com/@sacred.conversations.podcast]  Connect with Nicole on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/drnicoledolan/]  Connect with Robin on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/robin.bethel.lovesong/] ✨✨