Sacred Conversations: Ancestry, Spirit, and Purpose with Simone Arthur

‍Erik  00:02

We want to welcome all of our listeners to another episode of MRP, Minority Report podcast with Eric and Kerel. Each episode, we talk with real operators and leaders in media, tech and business, and today, joining us is Simone Arthur, who's a spiritual advisor, intuitive reader medium, and also founder of sacred conversations and readings by Simone. Simone, welcome. How are you? 

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Simone Arthur  00:30

I am well, thank you for having me. This is great.

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Erik  00:34

Yeah, we're excited. You're here so many questions and curiosities, and can't wait to sort of maybe unpack those with you and spend a little bit of time getting to know you and and learning a little bit more about what you're up to. So for our listeners and viewers, Simone, tell us a little bit about you. Tell us about where you were born and raised and where you grew up? Well,

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Simone Arthur  01:02

I was born in Barbados, and I migrated to New York when I was 18 years old. So if you do the math, that would have been 1993 so you'll know how old I am now, I attended the City University of New York, and I graduated with a degree in television and radio production, I spend a lot of time not pursuing that career because it never opened up for me. So I was teaching here and there, and then finally, I ended up working for Barbados, tourism marketing, Inc, and that is where I spent, I think about eight or nine years, promoting Barbados as the ideal warm weather destination. My focus there, and because I was from Barbados, it was so easy to do so yeah, but

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Erik  01:52

ambassador, yes,

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Kerel  01:56

yes, yes. I just want to know, have you gotten used to the cold weather yet? Or does that never said, okay, all right, oh yeah, oh yeah.

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Simone Arthur  02:02

And, funny enough, I find in recent years, it has not been that cold compared to, you know, in early to late 90s, and we had all these ice storms and everything. But yeah, winter and I, we're buddies now, very rough. It was purpose, you know, I had the opportunity to go back to Barbados, but I didn't want to. I love New York, and I love the energy of the place and how it accepted me, you know, as a black woman, and that's a bit of a struggle, you know, growing up in the Caribbean, and especially when you're a six one, and you know the size that I am, that is a bit of a challenge for some. So what America has done for me, especially being around black Americans, is to upset who I am as a black woman, and I attended Medgar Evers college, and I was surrounded by a lot of movers and shakers there, and women who were trailblazers. You know, it was in the company of Dr Betty Shabazz and IANA van Zank and and so you have these examples of prominent black women who were showing you what to do and what not to do. You know, so being an immigrant and having that experience really molded the person that

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03:30

I am today.

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Erik  03:31

That's fascinating. That's great. I want to ask you a little bit more about that shortly, but I think also it'd be great for you to take us through the work that you're doing every day and tell us a little bit about how you started on your journey to where you are today and what you're doing with people today.

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Simone Arthur  03:54

Yeah, well, in my late 20s, you know, I was moving through life, trying to figure out my career and where my life was going, and it was going nowhere. And I was teaching at a institution who took care of at risk youth. Was teaching them vocational skills, and a young lady came in to the classroom and she had her head tied up, and I was like, Well, you know, where do you go to church? What do you do? Because where I come from, in the Caribbean, most likely, when a woman has her head tied a certain way, she belongs to some spiritual organization, or temple or church. So she told me about her spiritual mother, doctor, Archbishop, Dr Vonnie, John, and I went to go and see her for reading, spiritual reading. And she said to me, she said, you know, Simone, you're just like me. I said, Well, what do you mean? She says, Well, you can read. You can spiritually read people. I said, No, I can't. She says, yes, you can. I said, No, I can't do what you're doing. And at the time, I couldn't. So. She invited me to her church, which is in East New York, Brooklyn, and I went. And I enjoyed it, you know, I used to go every Sunday. This is a very vibrant church, you know, they have the African drums, the ringing of the bells, the burning of the incense. And I said to her, You know what? I want to get baptized in your church. And she said, okay, and before you go to baptism, well, I thought, you know, we just go to the water, go to the beach, and she'll date me three times, and that'll be the end of it. But you have to go through this process of where, you know, you spend some time seated at the altar, you know, contemplating your life and this new change you're going to make and that Sunday, my first Sunday, standing at the altar. It was a summer day, and it was very, very hot, and it was very miserable, and I started complaining my head, like, What the hell am I doing here? Like, this is nonsense, and it's very hard to describe, but this feeling came over me, and I could feel my body start to tense, and immediately, and my eyes were closed, and I saw, and it could be described as a vision or a dream, my maternal grandmother and she had passed many years before, and she said to me, it's about time. And I started to freak out, because I realized that I can see spiritually and hear her, and she was having a conversation me, with me, and I could respond.

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Simone Arthur  06:28

So that day, on Sunday in June, my gift manifested where I would had the ability to talk to folks who had passed on what we call our ancestors, and it took a while,

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Simone Arthur  06:47

a few years, for me to really grasp my gift, because also where I come from, folks with the gift that I have are frowned upon. You know, we're called you know people worship devil. You know, people who do evil do bad things, and so I kind of kept my gift to myself, and a few friends knew about it. My mom, she knew a little bit, but she wasn't too keen. She's totally too keen now. And in 2019 my life hit rock bottom. Rock bottom. I was broke. I tried two projects. Didn't work. Everything fell flat, and the only thing I had left to turn to was my spirituality, and from their readings by Simone, was birth. And so now people will reach out to me and book a reading, and we discuss all manner of things, their business, their personal life, their spiritual journey, you know, anything that comes up in the reading. Or if they come to me with something specific, we sit down, I listen to what the spirit world has to say to them. And or if they ask us to show up, to talk to me, to tell them, you know, how they can move forward in their lives, that's

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Erik  08:00

great. I wanted to ask you about sort of ancestors and that for a moment, like, tell us about why it's important to connect with your ancestors and how you honor them. Tell us a little bit about why that's important. You

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Simone Arthur  08:16

know, for us in the diaspora, the African diaspora, on this side, we all know what our ancestors went through coming from Africa, and even if your ancestors didn't come from Africa, and there were native Native Americans, first people, indigenous people here, there was some strife for them as well, some hardship. And it is important that we honor that energy and honor the sacrifices that were made for us to be here and to be able to live the life that we live now. I can't imagine what it was like to be coming over on the Atlantic Ocean in the ship, not knowing where you're going, right and then landing on this side of the Earth, or this side of the world, I should say, and having to figure it out and being abused at that time. So we understand that it is important for us to learn we have this world called Sankofa, where you have to go back and fetch it in order to know how to move forward. So I think there's a lot for this work and connection with the ancestors, a speak to understanding endurance, right, and understanding what it is to stay steady and balanced in where you are and move in that energy. And you know, strive to do your best. We learn that from them with that connection. And so that is one of the main things that I strongly believe is relevant for us to continue. Continue to have that connection with them, and also they're able to come to us and explain to us why certain things are happening in our lives, why things are the way they are, why we feel the way we feel, what that connection means, right? It could even be a health situation where you don't know why you may have certain health issues. Sometimes in a reading that would come up, and it would explain, Well, this ancestor had this so this is why you are having this issue now. And that is very important, even for those who have been adopted, because in some cases, I've had individuals who don't know their birth parents and their history, and we are able to sit and have a discussion and see if that energy shows up with their ancestors to ask certain questions about their lives and why certain things are happening. So in understanding that we get a kind of a better view of how we can move forward

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11:05

with our own lives.

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Kerel  11:08

And Simone for the people that are coming to you, what is their motivation for doing so? Is it what you just said, or are they expecting? I'm just trying to figure out, like, what's the motivation for your customers that come to you for the readings, you

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Simone Arthur  11:24

know, because I'm a medium, you would think that they want this instant connection with their ancestors, but a lot of people just looking for clarity on their lives. Okay, you know that is the main thing, especially individuals that own their own business, I get more calls for people who just want directions on their companies. Wow, okay, yeah, I get more calls about that. And obviously an ancestor can show up in that conversation and answer the questions, right, right, but they merely come asking about abundance, prosperity, their business, money, investments. You know, folks may think majority of the women coming about their intimate relationships. You may get that off and on, here and there, yeah, but these women want to come and understand, okay, this is a business idea that I have. How is this going to work for me? How can I move forward? So a lot of my reoccurring clients are those really focused on money matters. Was

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Kerel  12:31

that a surprise to you when you started doing this? Or did you expect that,

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Simone Arthur  12:36

you know what? Because of the time that I started, it wasn't a surprise. And I started off with readings by Simone in 2019 Okay, which then led into the pandemic. So, you know, at that time, everybody was trying to figure out, what is this side hustle I can start because we don't know where our jobs are taking us. We don't know if we're going back to work. We don't know anything. So a lot of folks, especially black women, were coming to me for advice on this is the business idea that I have. Is this a good idea to start now, and how can I move forward? And sometimes these were ideas they had in their journal for years, and they just decide, You know what, I'm home. I'm not sure of how this is going to pan out. Maybe I need to take that journal out about that business I wanted to always open and read it and see what plans I had. They would book a session with me, and we just go through the entire model that they would have written out.

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Kerel  13:38

Do you ever get callbacks like someone who you help get that clarity. Maybe they started their business and gave you a call later and said, Thank you,

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Simone Arthur  13:49

and they keep booking. Well, there you go, repeat customers, right? So it is like, then you go to your accountant, right? You go, you know, you do a check in. So a check in could be once a month, a check in could be every six months, or a check in could be when the business shifts. That's not always when the business is not doing well. The business could be doing well, and there are new contracts coming in negotiations that has to be talked about, right? And they were like, okay, Simone, is this a good idea? Should I move forward here? Should I leave this alone? And so, yeah, that's the majority of the conversations. It's surrounding money. Gotcha. Okay, okay, come and ask me about lotto numbers. Let me. Let me. That annoys me, right? Do not come and ask me about because I don't gamble. I can't get a lot of numbers because I can. One of the things that I'm not allowed to do is to gamble. Right? If I go and pay the lotto tickets or whatever they do, I'm not going to get any money do. So let's don't do that

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Kerel  15:01

All right, any other topics except for gambling,

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Simone Arthur  15:05

oh, that I can't Yeah, into Yeah, certain taboos that I have. Okay? I can't wear other people's clothing, and that's a given, right? I cannot wear black or red, and that was due to me being initiated into African traditional practice. And usually when you're asked not to wear clothes, is usually for protection purposes, right? There's certain foods that I cannot eat, and it's funny, because I used to eat them before, but then once you get initiated, your body reacts to it differently. So that's the spirit world. Only giving you a heads up. Well, listen, this is about to happen, so we cutting it early for you.

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Simone Arthur  15:43

But yeah, I can't live in a basement. Feels

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Simone Arthur  15:47

like if everything is coming down on top. Oh my god, yeah. Some days, you know, I can't work because I'm getting too much energies coming towards me. And so I may cancel some appointments. I may stay home and just relax, watch TV and just calm down. So there's certain things that I can't do because of the gift that I have, and I just, you know, live my life around those things, gotcha,

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Kerel  16:14

gotcha. What

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Simone Arthur  16:15

does a good day look like for you? So I am from Barbados, and I am a rum drinker, so a good day for me is on the beach with a rum cocktail.

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Simone Arthur  16:27

That's not a bad day at all, not a bad day. So I get to the beach for midday, and I leave just after sundown, and I have a chair and an umbrella. I'm a speaker with all whatever music I'm listening to and that is an amazing day for me.

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Erik  16:43

Simone, you mentioned Barbados. You split your time between, you know, New York and Barbados. I saw one of your retreats and gatherings. Tell us a little bit about what that's like. You know, doing that in Barbados. Tell us what that's like and what that's like for the folks that make that journey with

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Simone Arthur  17:05

Yes, so in 2021 I went home to see my mom, because I hadn't seen her in a long time because travel restrictions, and when I got there, she had a laundry list of things for me to do. And two weeks turned into, I think this summer is going to be three years or four years, something like that. So while they're, you know, usually around three, four o'clock in the morning, that's when I communicate with my own ancestors. Some people will tell you, that's the witching hour, right? Christians will tell you that's the hour God wants to talk to you because everybody else is asleep and you're not distracted. So my ancestors came to me and said to me, we want you to do a spiritual retreat. I'm like, I do a what I don't know. None of those things. This is no we want you to do a retreat. And they gave me a list of things that has to be included in this retreat. So the retreat is called sacred conversations with our ancestors. It is always held the first weekend in May, and it is hosted at a resort called santosha Barbados, which is on the east coast of the island. Now santosha resort is on a hill and it faces the Atlantic Ocean. It's not on the beach itself. It's across the street from the beach. Why is important that I host the retreat there is because in Barbados, if you sail from the east coast of the island across the Atlantic Ocean, you can sail straight to Africa without touching or see a land mass. So it is like a direct connection, a spiritual connection, to your ancestors who are laying rest at the bottom of the ocean. So that was one of the reasons why they asked me to do the retreat in Barbados, because you have that direct connection. And what we do at the retreat is that we go through workshops and rituals which would help you to connect better with your ancestors. So one of the things is that all the participants, and including me, the facilitator, redressing all white. All white is a neutral color. It's a calm color, and it brings about balance. And once you arrive there, you know we have the arrival on Thursday, we have a table full of of herbs that I pick personally from off the island. And those herbs are there for you to pick, use your intuition and see what comes to you to pick, to prepare your own spiritual bath. In the Caribbean, we call these bath Bush baths. So I teach you how to prepare your own spiritual bath, Bush bath based on the herbs that you pick. Then after that, we have someone else who will anoint you with oil and massage you. And during this time, the spirit is. Talking to us, to speak to you, to tell you some of the things that you need to learn about yourself after that, what we have is smoke plants. We take you in the back of the resort. We have a cold pot with some hot coals, and you put more herbs on there. We put more incense in there. We have you over the pot, and we cleanse you with the smoke. All the wild spirit is still talking through me or the other priests that may be there and giving you messages about yourself, we have a workshop. We also have sunrise yoga. So every morning you get up and you you have a movement with Lana, who's been with me from the beginning. We all meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner is prepared by a chef, Danes Sandler. He's one of the top chefs on the island. And on the Saturday, because we you come in on Thursday, you leave on Monday. So on the Sunday, we take you over to the other side of the island, which is on the west coast, and you can have a beach day, because on the east coast the water is too rough. So we don't allow you to go into that water, because if the water takes you, it may not bring you back, and I can't go and get you. Yeah, it's not safe to swim, so we take you over on the West Coast, so you can have a day with that. And in the evening, as the sun goes down, we do a sunset meditation. On the Sunday, we take some offerings, it could be flowers and fruit and some of the herbs that are left over, and we take it down to the Atlantic Ocean, and we give an offering to our ancestors. There, there. We sit by the shore and we pray. We pray and we ask for protection, we ask for guidance, and we plead for the things that our hearts desire, things that we want to see better in our lives, and for them to assist us with that. So this year may, this will be our fifth retreat, but our fourth year, because that first year I had to do two retreats, that's another story, but this may will be our fifth one, and we're really, really excited about it. We've included a new workshop where we are sitting with Chantal Selman. She's an iridologist, so what she would do with the participants is look into their eyes and see what ails their body and then recommend a change in diet. So we're very excited about this year.

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Erik  22:13

That's exciting. You took us through kind of the events and the workshops and everything that you do take us into Simone for a moment. What does Simone pray for? What does Simone want better in her life? What does Simone sort of want to have happen? Take us through that.

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Simone Arthur  22:32

Simone wants continued peace and to always be balanced. Simone wants to be able, at her leisure, to take as much time as she desires because of the work that I do, and not only communicating with the living, but also communicating with the dead, it

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Simone Arthur  22:57

takes a lot of energy from you, and I've had to learn to set boundaries with both, because you will have all of this energy pulling at you. So any day I'm able to get peace and be still with my own personal thoughts. That is a chef kiss, but also have the ability to sit with my friends and my loved ones and be normal with them, and not want someone asking me, well, what are the ancestors saying about me now? What are they telling you? I don't want to do that.

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23:38

I just want

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Simone Arthur  23:39

peace. So that is something that I strive for more in my life, especially now that I just turned 50 in January, right? I really want to focus on more balance peace and calm in my life. I want to go back to the retreat for a little bit before I forget. So the main retreat is just for women. This year, we've launched an event for men, June, 13 or 14th. We are hosting a men's retreat at Weeksville Heritage Center here in Brooklyn, New York. This is not a time for men to trauma bond. This is a time where we will be discussing and teaching and showing different wellness tools men can incorporate in their lives to help them with their challenges. I am not made that clear. I am not

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Speaker 1  24:36

leading the weekend. Paul Seely,

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Simone Arthur  24:39

who is a Hypnotherapist. Paul was once my personal trainer, way back when, and his focus has been on Well, emotional and physical wellness, which includes deep breathing, hypnotherapy, positive thinking along those lines. Right? So? I felt it was important for me to kind of create a space for this to happen, because in my conversations with women, there's been a lot of I want to choose my words carefully, a lot of challenges with their intimate relationships and disappointment with the men in their lives. Now, I felt that it was not that they're not other retreats out there for men, but there was not one under my spiritual energy, whereas I can create a space, a safe space without judgment, with love and truth for men to come in and sit and feel comfortable. So like I said, I will not be in the sessions with Paul. He would have his sessions with the men for two days, and I just come in at the end to talk about them connecting with their ancestors and creating and identifying their love language with their ancestors. But yeah, that's what's happening in June 2025

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Kerel  26:06

with us. Awesome, awesome Simone. What's something you wish you were better at

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Simone Arthur  26:11

singing? I wanted to always have a voice like Whitney Houston or Aretha Franklin.

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Kerel  26:18

Those are not those are not bad voices to have.

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Simone Arthur  26:20

They're not Chaka Khan, even those are some powerhouses. I always wanted to sing, always, but I can't, and I have accepted that, but that is something that I've always wanted to do. Gotcha

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Kerel  26:36

what's a a book everyone should read, or a movie. Everyone should watch my

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26:42

go

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Simone Arthur  26:44

to book. And funny enough, I found this book at a yard sale in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and the name of the book is part of my soul went with him. And it's about the life and political activism of Winnie Mandela. Have you read the book?

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Simone Arthur  27:02

I have not Eric. Have you? Yeah, part of my soul went with him. She talks about

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Simone Arthur  27:11

her life and raising her children while Nelson Mandela was in person. But not only that, the political activism she did against apartheid

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27:23

in South Africa. For me,

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Simone Arthur  27:25

I've read the book several times, and I have this soft copy of it, this book, yeah, I have a soft copy of it in Barbados. And for me, it helps to with endurance, how you can really position yourself to move forward with any challenges that you may have. Here's a woman who had to raise her children on her own in South Africa under apartheid and continue the work that he had started while being vilified by even her own. So that is a book for me that I always go back to,

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Kerel  28:09

gotcha, gotcha. I'm gonna definitely take you up on that recommendation. Yes, yeah, yeah, you mentioned music earlier. What's in your music rotation these days,

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Simone Arthur  28:21

Soca. So you know now it's Trinidad Carnival. So now we're at carnival Monday, and obviously Trinidad has brought up the best music, like amazing Soca tunes, and so that is in rotation for me right now. I am also a love of Carnival, and I take part in Crop Over. This our version of Carnival in Barbados, but it speaks more to the end of the sugarcane season. That's why it's called crop over so I also bring out a section with costumes. It's called Pam palam. And with Pam palam, our costumes actually speak to the theme of the band. So the only time you will see my costumes have feathers is if we're talking about birds outside of that, I allow my designer to be very creative with different textures and different types of material to to create this costume, like last year, we honored a woman by the name of Rachel Pringle. She was a freed slave. Her father was a white man, and her mother was a slave. And you know, she went through what she went through, and then this white man brought her freedom. And with that, she opened a bunch of restaurants and bars and brothels on the island. So the theme of the band was folklore, and I felt the need to honor her, so the costume was purple, which speaks to royalty. And some people were saying, Oh, you're elevating her, because, you know, they claim. She was a prostitute as I'm not elevating her, I'm honoring her. You know, she elevated herself by moving from a slave into owning a bunch of businesses and employing other women and helping women raise their own children, right? So we were just honoring her. So, yeah, that's another Soca Music is in my rotation right now. Love

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Kerel  30:21

it. Love it. Give us a question you would want to have us ask our next guest,

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Simone Arthur  30:28

why haven't you started the project? Why haven't you started a project? Okay,

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Kerel  30:34

we're going to ask that's a new question that we've added to our discussion topics. It's going to be our way of connecting one guest to the next one. So I haven't just getting that

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Simone Arthur  30:45

is some kind of book or how to manual, something that opens up. They have it. They need to write. They need to write, and they need to share it. So whoever it is, and I'm getting flush again, whoever it is they need to start this project, and what I'm getting is some kind of book. All

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31:05

right, yeah,

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Erik  31:07

Simone, thank you so much. It's been a lot of fun talking with you and getting to know you. Great you do. And Simone, we'd love for you to be able to connect with some of our listeners and viewers. What are some ways that they can connect with you? Well,

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Simone Arthur  31:23

I have a website, sacred conversations.com, I'm also on Instagram and on Tiktok. Sacred conversations, on the score. I'm under Facebook readings by Simone. But you know, either way, you can find me, drop me a message. I always check my direct messages. If you want to book a reading with me, you can do so via the website, sacred conversations.com this has been really great. Thank you. Great.

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Kerel  31:50

Thank you. Thank you.

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Erik  31:52

Yes. Thank you everybody. And thanks everyone for listening to another episode. You can find many more episodes wherever you find all of your audio and video, just search for the logo and we'll join you for another podcast soon. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.

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