Heather Hall-Dudney Stone grew up watching her mother, Grandmother Flordemayo, a Curandera Espiritu and founding member of the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, pour her life into gathering people together in the name of healing.

Now Heather does it too.

In her upcoming gathering, “The Guardians of the Sacred”, she brings elders, grandmothers, wisdom keepers, and allies from traditions all over the world together each November outside Santa Fe, New Mexico.

This conversation is about why that matters. Why gathering is not optional. Why the elders in your life - famous or not, Indigenous or not - are living libraries you are running out of time to visit. And why, as Heather’s mother says, we’re each holding a piece of the puzzle.

This is a rare chance to hear intimate accounts of being with, learning from and steeping in the medicine of our ancestors' wisdom.

3 Things You’ll Take Away:

1. Elders are living libraries. Go get the wisdom while you can. Your grandmother. Your aunt. The local senior center, church or volunteer opportunity. The wisdom is there. Are you humble enough to go get it?
2. Gathering is not a luxury. It’s medicine. It’s steeping in wisdom and ceremony with people who understand the greater unfolding of life’s mystery. This episode makes the case for why showing up in person for the things that matter is worth every inconvenience.
3. First them, then us. When you’re in the presence of an elder, they eat first, sit first, and are given the best. It’s a practice of reverence and Robyn shares a story of learning it the hard way.

✨ Want to attend Guardians of the Sacred?

November 13-15, 2026. Buffalo Thunder, Santa Fe, NM. In person and livestream.

Tickets and info: guardiansofthesacred.earth

Email: connect@guardiansofthesacred.org

Elder Fund donations: givebutter.com/EldersFund

About Heather Hall-Dudney Stone

Heather Hall-Dudney Stone is the Executive Lead and Event Director of Guardians of the Sacred, an annual multi-day gathering that brings together Indigenous elders, grandmothers, wisdom keepers, and seed stewards from around the world. She is the daughter of Grandmother Flordemayo — a Curandera Espiritu, founding member of the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, and founder of The Path, an organization dedicated to the conservation of heirloom and heritage seeds. Heather has spent her life in service to her mother’s living legacy and the wisdom traditions she carries.

🔗 Connect with Heather and Guardians of the Sacred

🌿 Website: guardiansofthesacred.earth

💌 Email: connect@guardiansofthesacred.org

🌿 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/guardiansofthesacred

📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61579864503995

About Robyn Ivy

Robyn Ivy sees people for a living. A trusted mentor, intuitive, and fierce advocate for a creative life, she spent over 20 years as a commercial photographer — honing her powerful skills as a witness.

She guides clients 1:1 through transitions, deep growth, and meaningful change. Her workshops, groups, and programs give you the insights and practices to live more confidently, creatively, and from your truest wisdom.

You'll often find her traveling in a camper van, sitting with the trees, or capturing the beauty of nature. Raising her now-grown sons Rook and Cole has been the greatest joy of her life.

🔗 Connect with Robyn Ivy

🌿 Instagram – @robynivy

🧠 Website – www.robynivy.com

🎧 The Robyn Ivy Podcast – Listen on Apple | Spotify

💌 Email – robyn@robynivy.com

My friend Julia got married a few weeks ago in British Columbia.

She and Richard dated 40 years ago. Went their separate ways. Found each other again. And standing there in front of a lake with mountains behind them, saying yes to each other — I've never seen anything quite like it.

Watching them, I kept thinking about love. Not the Hallmark version. The real one. What it takes to open yourself to it. What it costs when you don't. And what it looks like when someone is so fully in it that everybody around them gets a little elevated just being in the room.

This episode is about that. What love actually is, what it asks of you, and where you might have more room for it than you think.

3 Things You’ll Take Away:

1. Love is something you open to. It doesn't require a perfect mood or a high-vibe day. It can look like stillness. Presence. Paying attention. This episode helps you see where you're already doing it — and where you've quietly closed.
2. Love has more forms than we give it credit for. A hard conversation. A boundary. Showing up for someone. A month away because your heart told you to. Once you see them all, you start noticing love everywhere.
3. There are so many places to send your love. To the people in front of you. To the ones who've passed. To the earth itself. This episode leaves you with real, practical ways to give and receive more of it.

⏰ Timestamps

(00:00) Why we haven't talked about love much here — and why now

(03:00) Getting close to episode 200 — what's coming next

(05:00) Where the podcast is headed: artists, theologians, wisdom keepers

(06:00) Julia and Richard: a love story 40 years in the making

(11:00) Standing at that lake watching his joy

(13:00) What love did to everyone at that wedding

(16:00) Love as presence, stillness, and vessel — not just a feeling

(17:00) The Occupy Mind movement — and why we need to come back to the heart

(21:00) What crosses all traditions: contemplation, humility, love, the great mystery

(24:00) Trusting love through heartbreak, rebuilding, and the both-and

(27:00) The 90-year-old who just finished the Appalachian Trail — love as courageous action

(29:00) Mehdi in Greece — love guiding you toward what your body needs

(30:00) The tsunami of love — what Mimi Samus taught me

(33:00) Sending love through the roots of trees — the science behind it

(35:00) Worthy questions: who needs your love today? Where are you running low?

🔗 Connect with Robyn Ivy

🌿 Instagram – @robynivy

🧠 Website – www.robynivy.com

🎧 The Robyn Ivy Podcast – Listen on Apple | Spotify

💌 Email – robyn@robynivy.com

✨ Want to open yourself to more of this?

Book an Intuitive Clarity Session: robynivy.com/clarity

Want to connect with a loved one who has passed? Book a Mediumship Session: robynivy.com/clarity

Taking new 3-month and 6-month mentoring clients. Email me at robyn@robynivy.com

Business owners who could use an intuitive edge: same place. robyn@robynivy.com

About Robyn Ivy

Robyn Ivy sees people for a living. A trusted mentor, intuitive, and fierce advocate for a creative life, she spent over 20 years as a commercial photographer — honing her powerful skills as a witness.

She guides clients 1:1 through transitions, deep growth, and meaningful change. Her workshops, groups, and programs give you the insights and practices to live more confidently, creatively, and from your truest wisdom.

You'll often find her traveling in a camper van, sitting with the trees, or capturing the beauty of nature. Raising her now-grown sons Rook and Cole has been the greatest joy of her life.

I took a little sabbatical around here. An unexpected one. A grief sabbatical.

After a trip to North Carolina, we lost our cat Fiona, unexpectedly in the middle of the night to congestive heart failure we didn’t know she had.

A 14 year old ragdoll, who was beyond fluffy, fabulous and looked five years old right up until she didn't. She was beloved by our family. She died two days after the anniversary of my mom's passing. Of the same thing my mom died of. So yep, it’s been a lot.

But this episode isn't really about Fiona, or my mom, or even me. It's about the fact that grief is the elephant in the room for most of us, and we just don't have good ways to move through it together anymore.

We've lost the rituals. We've lost the ceremony. We're expected to, like, just keep going. And most of us do. And most of us are carrying a lot because of it.

Grief is about so much more than death or the loss of a loved one. It's about losing a role, losing your freedom, losing the world you thought your kids were going to grow up in. It's about the friend who moved away, the version of yourself you had to say goodbye to, the hope that quietly went missing somewhere along the way.

I've been in the world of grief my whole life. My dad was a pastor who did funerals. I've walked my parents home. I've sat with people who were passing. I've held the hands of an elder who had lost hope and let him cry. I know this territory.

And I think it's time we talked about it differently.

3 Things You’ll Take Away:

1. Grief has more forms than we name. Loss of a person, yes. But also loss of a role, an identity, a possibility, a version of the world you counted on. If you've been feeling something you can't quite call grief, this episode might give it a name.
2. We're missing our rituals for this. Other cultures and other eras built ceremony around grief. We largely haven't. And that absence is costing us more than we know. This episode is an invitation to change that.
3. Let grief do what it needs to do. It's a rock tumbler. Who you become inside it is someone you'd never want to give back. That doesn't make it less hard. It makes it worth staying for.

⏰ Timestamps

(00:00) The grief sabbatical — why we've been gone

(03:00) Fiona, the ragdoll cat, and what we lost

(08:00) Watching my boys bury her — and what that did to me as a mother

(13:00) Stewardship — a word you're going to hear more of from me

(16:00) The rituals we're missing around grief and death

(19:00) Anderson Cooper's grief podcast and why it took a CNN anchor to open this conversation

(21:00) The many forms grief takes — it's not just about death

(25:00) The mediumship evening — and the elder who had lost hope

(27:00) Sitting with him, holding his hands, letting him cry

🔗 Connect with Robyn Ivy

🌿 Instagram – @robynivy

🧠 Website – www.robynivy.com

🎧 The Robyn Ivy Podcast – Listen on Apple | Spotify

💌 Email – robyn@robynivy.com

✨ Want a fresh set of eyes on your lens?

Book an Intuitive Clarity Session: robynivy.com/clarity

Want to connect with a loved one who has passed? Book a Mediumship Session: robynivy.com/mediumship

Taking new 3-month and 6-month mentoring clients. Email me at robyn@robynivy.com

Business owners who could use an intuitive edge: same place. robyn@robynivy.com

About Robyn Ivy

Robyn Ivy sees people for a living. A trusted mentor, intuitive, and fierce advocate for a creative life, she spent over 20 years as a commercial photographer — honing her powerful skills as a witness.

She guides clients 1:1 through transitions, deep growth, and meaningful change. Her workshops, groups, and programs give you the insights and practices to live more confidently, creatively, and from your truest wisdom.

You'll often find her traveling in a camper van, sitting with the trees, or capturing the beauty of nature. Raising her now-grown sons Rook and Cole has been the greatest joy of her life.