The Guides

A beautiful team of relationship experts have come together to create the Sacred Ground Weekend to help couples flourish. You will be paired with one of these guides for your weekend. They will assist you, answer questions, and help you sink into your experience. Find out more about them below!
(use arrows below -on each side of bios- to scroll through our guides information)
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SHANNISSY CATRON
Shannissy Catron is a doula and multi-disciplinary practitioner rooted in the synergy of intuitive massage for a decade. She specializes in working with people who are survivors of sexual trauma and substance recovery, while her integrative touch practice focuses on personal and partnered intimacy.
Shannissy is the director of healing arts at Pollinate Ritual. curating the healing practitioners available through our weekends and creating new healing modalities at pollinate that bridge ritual and standard therapuetic modalities.
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KATHRYN DICKEL
Kathryn is fascinated with creation, transition and growth. She believes it is within these cycles that our greatest opportunity to find meaning exists. We silo much of our lives into work, family, recreation etc. Kathryn helps people to integrate these silos into one connected and meaningful life.
In her practice with couples, Kathryn helps them find what they are centered on and build a mutual practice that continually nurtures this center. She believes relationship are living entities that grow and change, and that this change can be experienced with expansiveness, compassion and positive outcomes.
Kathryn is the founder of Pollinate Ritual and Hive House. She has facilitated retreats for six years and is currently pursuing her certification in spiritual direction with the esteemed Haden Institute.
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SARAH HAGER
Sarah's degree and formal training are in Education and Social Sciences. Her Health and Wellness Coaching certification was earned from Mayo Clinic and she is a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach. She is a Certified Professional Recovery Coach and an American Association of Sex Addiction Therapy (AASAT) Recovery Coach in order to support partners of sex addicts and intimacy anorexics.
She strives for living with intention and grace including learning about and designing a lifestyle that promotes well-being of mind, body, and spirit while helping others do the same through coaching and shared experiences.
The fundamental driver of her coaching practice is her desire to serve others – to partner with you as you envision, define and create your future. To support you being your own hero.
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JULIE MERTZ
Julie has over a decade of practice as a licensed therapist working with individuals, teens, couples and families.
Julie brings a commitment to deeply knowing the couples she works with so she can bring out the unique strengths of that couple and their partnership. Julie believes in real-world solutions for couples that they can use in their everyday lives.Julie is also certified in Ketamine-assisted therapy, trauma informed yoga and reiki adjacent to her traditional therapy offering.
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SUZANNE PARKS PULCHER
With 18 years of nursing experience in Hospice, Neurology and ICU, Suzanne has expanded her wisdom to focus on life transits encompassing loss, as such she is a certified end-of-life doula.
Suzanne has also helped many clients find peace through ambiguous losses such as divorce, job loss and family passings.
Suzanne facilitates the Charlotte’s Door End of Life support group at the Pollinate Hive House and sees clients in end of life transition for one on one support.
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CHRIS PETERSON
In my young adulthood I lived a life of crime and violence on the streets of Nashville. I overdosed and had a near death experience that was a catalyst for change and exploration. After that experience, I had one question, “what was that?” This question began a journey of study, contemplation and service. The mission: to understand the spiritual world and how it weaves into our physical universe.
That journey led me into places that I never would have expected. It took me to war with the Marines, school to study philosophy, religion and theology, becoming an artist specializing in the tattoo medium and studying the shadow archetypes expressed in though human sexuality and the occult. It would seem at first glance that these things do not have much to do with each other, but eventually all the paths merged into Jungian-based psychology and shamanic practice.
My spiritual direction practice, called ElderWilde, is based in Nashville, TN and offers one on one, couple and small group formats.–online and in person. As a trained Spiritual Director I offer archetypal mapping of an individual’s journey, and psycho-shamanic restorative practices rooted in empirical research and science, but open to the vast mysteries of the soul and the cosmos.
ElderWilde offers mentorship and specializes in judgement-free direction through journeys typically defined as outside the mainstream, including sexual and relational polarity (KINK friendly), religious trauma recovery and reconstruction, addiction recovery, veteran re-integration, and death preparation. In other words, I guide people through the power of their shadow side when it is their calling to explore it.
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MARCUS WALSH
My work focuses on building awareness and regulation of the self through body-oriented, compassion-focused therapy. Interpersonal Neurobiology and attachment styles work to develop a big picture of how we become who we are today. This information is invaluable as we engage with others in our lives and may deepen awareness when engaging in intimacy and vulnerability in relationships. Awareness, attention, and intention are at the heart of the mindfulness work. These support our access to self awareness, intimacy and connection.
My specialization is Trauma: medical, war, developmental and other forms of shock trauma. I use Somatic and Body-Oriented Therapy to heal and integrate features of trauma which have been resistant to other forms of therapy.
I am trained in bodywork, yoga, and psychotherapy. My psychotherapy training is in Somatic Experiencing (SE), Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), Mindful Awareness in Body-Oriented Therapy (MABT), Sensorimotor Art Therapy, and Deep Brain Reorienting Level 1. I use my bodywork licensure to facilitate MABT sessions.