Dr. Nicole Rawls
Organizational Doula · Cultural Strategist · StoryWeaver
Dr. Nicole Rawls
My name is Dr. Nicole Rawls and I am a storyteller who comes from a line of storytellers who weave and tell stories in many different ways. As an anthropologist, astrologer and artist, I draw on ethnography, structural analysis, astrology, and creative practices to examine and explore a central question that sits at the heart of my work:
What does it mean to be human outside the colonial project?
I help individuals and organizations navigate the life-death cycle of societal and organizational transitions. In that process, I help people center their humanity through the body and use that embodied knowledge lens to imagine and build more humane structures and systems within the institutions they inhabit.
My individual work focuses on helping people learn how to Become Human again by learning how to work with their own discernment as a way to trust oneself, through my astrological and ritual construction offering, alongside teachings housed in my Embodied Futures Lab
My work with organizations helps them Navigate Change through a human-centered lens. As an Organizational Death Doula, Cultural Strategist, and StoryWeaver my work spans across organizational and political strategy, leadership advising, ethnographic research, facilitation, cultural assessment, and storytelling. My approach is grounded in over 20 years of experience working across institutions, within communities, and through creative spaces.
At the heart of my practice is Embodied Strategic Dreaming™, a praxis-based methodology I developed to help people turn towards and learn how to work with their first technology - the body - as a way of navigating change. It is a way to work with change instead of relying upon prescribed steps that are resistant to it.
I am the founder of the Embodied Futures Lab and I am also currently completing my first book, Reclaiming My Wild: Parables of a Journey to Self.
Explore my work
Work with me
Enter the Embodied Futures Lab
Want to learn how you can work with me? Book a consultation call!
Upcoming Events
ONLINE Astrology Pop-Up
Saturday October 24th
11am-3pm CST
20 minutes - $55
Join me ONLINE for my astrology pop-up. This is a great way to do a quick check-in with the cosmos and get a taste of how I work with astrology.
Spots are limited!
Afternoon Kiki w/ Niki: Queer Dating & Lessons Learned
Sunday October 25th
5:30pm
Nobody’s Darling - Chicago
Let's have a Sunday afternoon kiki about Queer sex, dating, relationships, and what folks have learned in an intimate setting. Venus goes retrograde October 3rd for about 6 weeks - it’s a good time to review those Queer dating stories! What better way than with other Queer folks in a Queer bar on a Sunday afternoon. Join Dr. Nicole Rawls, aka Nikki, for an afternoon kiki of storytelling, spirits, and music as a way to work with this Venus retrograde energy (so it doesn't work us). Come with a story, and the lessons you learned from it, to share and leave with a curated group playlist and new connections as we alchemize those stories through songs and facilitated conversation.
Ticket price includes 20% off drinks during the event. Doors open at 5pm - Kiki starts at 5:30pm
Music provided by F.O.R.E.S.T.
Limited to 20 people for an intimate salon setting.
OCTOBER CALENDAR OF EVENTS
It is time to tell new stories so we can create the futures we say we want. So it is a time of the storytellers and story weavers to tell and weave new stories for our humanity.
To tell new stories we need to embody our humanity and believe the reality we are in so we can dream and create the societies that can actually hold and support life.
How do we learn to embody the knowledge we have learned?
What does it mean to strategically dream as a way to world-build the societies we say we want to live in?
Can we allow ourselves to play in the dreamscape(s) and bring those dreams into reality?
If we are our ancestors’ wildest dreams, how do we dream WITH them as a liberatory practice?
These are some of the questions I explore in my Patreon, the online arm of my Embodied Futures Lab, as a way to create a space for people to imagine our world differently and then dare to bring those imaginations into reality.
Subscribe to learn more and have access to exclusive content! Come and dream with me!!
Yappin w/ the Stars - The Podcast
(LATEST EPISODE)
Astro Forecastt for October 4th-11th:
Venus retrogrades & New Moon in Libra -
Let Your Desires Lead
Grab your whiskey, grab your weed, grab whatever you need and lets get into the forecast this week.
October 4th-11th: Venus retrogrades & New Moon in Libra: Let Your Desires Lead Venus is in charge right now as her retrograde cycle begins before the new moon in her air sign of Libra. What do you desire when it comes to justice, exchange, and power? How do those desires show up in your relationships? Can you face them and have them help lead you into actions that honor your heart? I say this because as Venus makes her sway back into her home sign of Libra over the course of this month she is in a square to Mars in Leo. Your inner child wants, NEEDS, to come out and play as they know shit ain’t right so what you goin to do about it? The fixed signs of Scoprio, Leo and Aquarius are activated and part of this new moon story as new beginnings require experimentation to see what will and will not work. Collectives are having real conversations about current power structures and those who are brave are having to tell their stories to shake up society. It’s a new beginning of redefining what justice is and what it will take to enact it long term. There is no one right answer, so structures of society are needing to be reimagined in radically different ways - a wilding of what we even understand systems to be. Lilith in Capricorn in a square to Neptune retrograde in Aries is awakening folks to this reality as current power structures try to feed us the same old stories. The Cornell University rape case is just the beginning - what happens when we believe that the justice system upholds the state and not the people? That is where new beginnings lie and Aries as the opposite sign of Libra is reminding us that we are the ones who have the responsibility to create it. So what is it that we truly desire?
This is the weekly forecast for October 4th-11th: Venus retrogrades and the new moon in Libra: Let Your Desires Lead
Welcome back to Yappin' with the Stars, the show where I talk about what it means, and takes, for us to become human once again in a world that is tryin to convince us all this is it.
And it is not.
So, lets talk with the cosmos and see what else is possible.
I'm your host and guide, Nicole Rawls — a storyteller who comes from a line of storytellers who weave and tell stories in many different ways, and as an anthropologist, astrologer and artist I work with astrology and ethnography to explore the stories of what it means for us to be human. Cause right now the present is up for grabs, so who is leading the stories that will bring us into our futures?
Every Sunday, we check into the chaos we call society and ask:
What's the cosmos showing us this week?
Where are we being called to move, create, burn, build, OR reflect on.
Join the Patreon for full access to this episode and more!
Book A Consultation!
For new beginnings to emerge, space must be made. Which means endings have to be honored. My work helps individuals and organizations move through this death process as a way to create new life.
I am an Organizational Death Doula, Cultural Strategist, Anthropologist, and Storyweaver. My work is for leaders, visionaries, artists, and/or organizations who understand that the present is up for grabs, and you/they want to be the ones leading the stories which will lay the foundations for the systems and structures that create our futures.
Using my praxis-based methodology “Embodied Strategic Dreaming” - which integrates structural analysis, embodied intelligence, and cultural context - I help you see the crossroads you are at as an opportunity to write your own story and enact it.
If you are ready and have a budget for 1-on-1 strategic work, book a consultation call and let's begin.
Note: I do not offer a sliding scale or barter for 1-on-1 services at this time.
