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September: A Podcast For Loveships
September is a weekly podcast for Loveships. It explores the tools and technologies that build and sustain life-changing love relationships. Hosted by writer and facilitator Alexis Pauline Gumbs and artist and entrepreneur Sangodare Wallace, this intimate show draws on their 17-year partnership built on the premise of Loveship as a spiritual practice and Loveship as a resource in community.
From conflict and contrast, responsibility and repair, to emotional intimacy and navigating the ever-changing seasons of life, Alexis and Sangodare share insights that nurture not only couples but also families, friends, and communities.
Tune in each week for heartfelt conversations that honor relationships as sacred ground—an offering to ourselves, our people, our ancestors, and spirit.
September: A Podcast For Loveships
29. Love the Place You Live: A Live Durham Episode
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In this live recorded episode, hosts Alexis and Sangodare welcome the audience into their playful, tangent-filled “living room”. This episode’s theme is loving the place you live: sharing why Durham supports their purpose, community circles, creativity, and wholeness despite concerns about change and cost. They offer three “North Stars” and answer a listener's question about staying present in overwhelming group spaces.
- Loving the Place You Live
- How Durham Found Us
- Community Circles and Purpose
- Listener Q and A
If you want to support this podcast and have access to monthly live sessions with us and other goodies, join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/did-i-mention-we-159287534
For more on our coaching and community building offerings, Click Here
https://www.mobilehomecoming.org/loveship
And because love is living with purpose, join us for our first Chrysalis Cohort! More info here: https://luma.com/chrysaliscohort1
Let us know what you think through the social channels below, and please leave a review so that like-minded people can find us.
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Produced by Wowow Podcasts
Hi, I'm Alexis Pauline Gums. And I'm Shango Dari Wallace. And this is September, a podcast for love ships.
SPEAKER_01We're two lovebirds who decided to intentionally create a love ship and share the insights we gather with the world.
SPEAKER_03For the past 17 years, we've been relating to our love ship as a sacred space for spiritual practice.
SPEAKER_01This podcast is our space to reflect on the insights we've found and been given with you.
SPEAKER_03Whether romantic, platonic, or somewhere in between, okay, situationships, every bond has the potential to become an offering to a higher vibration for the world. One choice, one act of care, one repair at a time.
SPEAKER_01So, if you're ready to think expansively about love, community, and spirit, you're in the right place. So glad you're here. Hello, Shango Dare. You North Carolina grown wonder kid who grew from Charlotte Hornet's Purple and Turquoise to Durham Alexandrite Prismatic Brilliance. That's right.
SPEAKER_03Hello, Alexis, you almost 22-year strong Durham resident and Durham evangelist to all parts of the world, far and wide.
SPEAKER_01It's the center of the universe. And to keep it in balance, I'm also the one who is sometimes scared about some of the ways that Durham has changed over these past 20 years and how expensive it is to live here right now.
SPEAKER_03Yep. And I'm the one who really tried to become a permanent Atlanta resident, actually. But the city spat me out, and love lifted me up north to Durham.
SPEAKER_01Hallelujah. So once again, we are two North Carolinians who love barbecue, but don't eat pork, but love the folk, and we are exactly as lovable as you.
SPEAKER_03Yes, and we are excited to be recording this live episode with all of you at Observable Universe in our beloved Durham, North Carolina. Yes. We're live and excited to just invite you into our living room. So exactly how we do it at home is how we're gonna do it here. We mess up, we get silly, we laugh a lot, we take tangents, we forgot to do something and we gotta stop. We go do it. Yeah, and so we welcome all of your sounds. That's part of the beauty of being able to do it live, is to be able to hear y'all's sounds, your mm-hmms, your laughs, your sneezes, your babies, all of it, entertaining themselves. Uh so we're grateful that you are here.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and today we're dedicating the episode to a Durham Power couple whose action and legacy has helped shape the culture of the Bull City, Phil and Nina Freelon. Founders of North Star Church of the Arts, where we hope to see all of you who are gathered here on Sunday. And they are practitioners of love as a work of art and now also as an ancestral practice.
SPEAKER_03Phil Freelon is the great architect who quite literally designed iconic buildings in Durham. The Transportation Station, the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, the Durham County Human Services Building, many buildings at North Carolina Central. Also the Sonia Haynes Stone Center at UNC.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_03Any Eagles here? Anyone here? NCCU? Okay. Also, educational facilities and cultural institutions all over the country, including it's not even supposed to be close to the microphone. Okay. All over the country, including the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. AKA Black Stone. That's right. And never ever prisons, never ever any prisons.
SPEAKER_01And I kind of appreciate that.
SPEAKER_03I very much appreciate that.
SPEAKER_01And even though Phil Freelan is an ancestor now, the love between Phil and Nina Freelon is still a cultural force. And the way that Nina Freelon lives inside that love and invites us into it is really inspiring to us.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's the love behind her most recent Grammy nominated album, Time Traveler, her beautiful book, which I just finished reading, Beneath the Skin of Sorrow, Improvisations on Loss, and her own podcast. Great Grief, which I highly recommend. I love that podcast. And this coming season is about sistering and honoring her sister, who actually passed away six months after Phil passed away.
SPEAKER_03And of course, that love lives through North Star, the legacy project that they created together. And we are honored to have recently joined the North Star Board of Directors. Yay! And of course, the guiding light of freedom and the North Star resonates with us, which is why every week we give you three North Stars on this podcast.
SPEAKER_01And last but not all least, Phil and Nina Freeland are also the parents of two of our favorite collaborators, dear friends, artist and healer Maya Freelon, musician and community builder Pierce Freelon. An entrepreneur. An entrepreneur. Come on with the vegan ice cream. It was also Pierce's suggestion on our Instagram that helped us decide to focus this episode on our love for Durant. Phil and Nina Freelan, we are so grateful for you. We love you. Yes. And now, live studio audience, you too can make a dedication. So if you will turn to a neighbor. Perfect number of you. Exactly. Perfect number. And let them know who you're dedicating your time to. Yes. Go for it. Okay, please say thank you to your neighbor. Thank you, neighbor. Yay. Okay. Dedication launched. Yes. And listeners at home, don't forget to make your dedication too. Okay. Dedication.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Dedication launched.
SPEAKER_01Ready to get into the heart of it? Let's grow. And guess what? It's still September. Live in the Bull City.
SPEAKER_03Every week we have a technology for you from our journey and our teachers with North Stars that can guide you as you navigate your own Bull City bounce of relationship and spiritual practice. And on today, we just dropped by to remind you to love the place you live.
SPEAKER_01Love the place you live. Love the place you live. It's so important where we root our love ships. The community where we lay our foundation has a lot to do with the support we have as individuals and as love ships. Sorry, that's my drinks. That's all I'm saying. Sorry. We have six drinks up here. I'm not true.
SPEAKER_03Even the neighborhood can make a difference. I think of some of our loved ones that live where they live because of their job, which sometimes means the overall city or metro area, isn't their top choice. And so they become super, super specific for the sake of their social life, their children's school, a church community, et cetera, about the neighborhood that they choose.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and whereas you are from North Carolina, but didn't grow up with a relationship to Durham specifically, I grew up coming to Nerd Camp in Durham and taking these immersive Black history classes where I got to learn about Black Wall Street and Heytai's solidarity with Haiti and the ancestors at Stagville. And then I moved here for graduate school and fell all the way in love with the creative, transformative, revolutionary community here, also known as you all in this room right now. Yes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I was in love with Atlanta. You hear me? In love. I went to college in Asheville and it was our big city, our big city to get away to because the drive was relatively short. And I thought, you know, once I decided I was going to move to Atlanta, I thought I would never leave, never leave Atlanta. But just before the Hollywoodification of Atlanta. Okay, cool. Which I'll say was led by one of my film school mentors via that film and media tax credit. Anyway, before that, Atlanta was spitting me out. It was spitting me out around the same time that I was visiting Durham to see Alexis, like on a very regular basis. So thankfully. Much of what I loved about Atlanta when I first moved there, the creativity, the music and arts, uh of the people there, the accessibility to get a project off the ground and be supported to do so, so many colleges and universities, all these educational opportunities and cultural and arts events, the blackness and queerness, of course, actually, first and foremost, those became the things that I loved about Durham. But also the farmers, also the powerful, powerful grassroots organizing, also the way people would keep asking you about that project you said you was gonna do, and then consistently show up to support it. The closeness to my family of origin, also the Pauly Murray Center. So while I was in that stage of being spit out of Atlanta, I also got a grant from a Durham organization. Warrior Healers Organizing Trust. And so I was like, okay, well, I'm just gonna move on up to Durham.
SPEAKER_01With Elix. With a league. That's how Ron said. With a league. Elix. And I'm so glad you did. So, Avatar of Paul Murray, we have a sacred text this time that comes from Polly Murray, a chosen black transestor from Durham. And the mantra we chant for Black Feminist Breathing in honor of Polly Murray is free to be holy. Every breath of prayer. Y'all want to say it with us? Free to be holy. Every breath of prayer. Mm-hmm. Exactly. And for us, Durham is a place where we get to be our whole selves. The first thing I loved about Durham, and maybe this is because I come from a small island lineage, is that, like you just said, people will expect you to make a contribution to making the community what it is.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. We get to be constantly curious about our purpose as a practice, as a practice of prayer, actually, and live into our purpose also as an act of prayer.
SPEAKER_01And our community supports us in that. They hold us accountable to it. And also, even though it's not perfect, people here are intentional about repair, about showing up for one another and all the processes that make a community happen, make life happen.
SPEAKER_03My favorite part is our folk do that even when it's hard.
SPEAKER_01So when I think of Durham, I always think of the form of a circle. We're kind of in a circle right now. And I've had the opportunity to sit in circle with people in this community, whether we're deciding how to create a women of color survivor-led coalition to end gendered violence and flood our community with love, or playing intergenerational games inspired by my research in Black Feminist Archives, or singing together at Queer Black Sunday School choir practice led by Sean Godare. It's or even those circles where we're trying to work through conflict. And we sit in that circle and we're within each other's heart radii. And one of my favorite memories is our collective commitment ceremony where we made a big circle wearing white. You were there. And the kids were all in the middle. And yeah, it was it was interesting because it was interesting working with the hotel. They were like, What do you mean, a circle? We were like, a circle, one circle. Uh, but we finally got there. And we'll say more about probably what we mean by collective commitment ceremony and that as a technology itself in a future episode.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I think my favorite sort of indicator of how Durham is my living version of heaven, is how when I moved here, after completing my film school coursework, but refusing to subject myself to the sweet support but clear limits of my film department. They were not ready. I was able to recruit my whole community to make my first film. We used a local retreat center at almost no cost. Uh Grammy Award-winning recording artist and one of the greatest actors of our time contributed in key roles. Shout out to Daddy. Well, free. I mean, for food. For food, but yeah, that's basically for free. Um, my farmer drummer friends. Uh they were in the film. They played a role in an African water baptism scene. Uh local allergen-friendly chef, who also happens to be a rabbi now. Shout out, Noah. Cooked for us along with a number of our elders. Uh, director at a big university locally provided access to equipment. I mean, the generosity, the serendipity, the blessings just go on and on and on. I mean, our beloved Miss Vivette, fire keeper in the Okinichee band of the Saponi Nation, showed up on set, moved by the spirit to show up to bless us, and even my parents, who also played key roles in the film. It is just unspeakable, the blessings. And so it really builds that faith, that trust, the belief in me that when you find the right place for you, it feels like the right place for your soul's purpose. And I don't know why people would make any other choice than to live in a place with at least that potential, that potential for deep, deep, deep resonance.
SPEAKER_01And we're not trying to recruit everyone listening to this podcast to live in Durham necessarily. But we are saying that the feeling of being in love with a place is similar to the feeling of being in love with the person. So you get to ask yourself, is this place bringing out my best self? Is this place helping me feel powerful and seen? Come in, come in. Is this place supporting me to grow? Is it offering me care in ways that I do and don't know how to ask for? And Durham does do all of that for me. Just like you also do all of that for me.
SPEAKER_03Aww. So here are our three North Stars for place-based love. Even for those of you listening to this later who don't, unfortunately, live in Durham.
SPEAKER_01Our first North Star is ask yourself what it takes for a place to be safe enough for you to be your full divine self. What does it take? For me, it has to do with multiple ages of people in the same space. For you, it might be something else.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Our second North Star is where you live should also feel like relationship as spiritual practice. If that resonance is only a whisper or a trickle where you live now, find the pockets where you feel that feeling, even a little bit, and lean in. Connect with the folks and the resources there and let it grow.
SPEAKER_01And our third North Star is act on your love for the place you live. Action. What do you want to offer to your community in small or large ways that expresses your love and allows more love to reach back to you? Yep. Now here comes a very fun part.
SPEAKER_03The funnest part.
SPEAKER_01The listener questions.
SPEAKER_03We don't have to look.
unknownIt's a podcast.
SPEAKER_01Right, no, we can see you. It's a podcast.
SPEAKER_02Well, look away.
SPEAKER_00Do you have any practices for staying present or becoming present when going into a group space feels overwhelming? Sometimes the intention to connect gets short-circuited by the impulse to protect myself with distance.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's such a good question. Thank you. Thank you. Relatable, right? Yes.
unknownThank you.
SPEAKER_03Do you want to go first? Or yeah, you can go first. Um, I feel like you might have better answers than I have for this one, but I'll I'll say um I definitely feel that that way sometimes. I feel like I have this that spectrum of walk in a room and I own it and oh, you know, I'm powerful, I'm beautiful, everybody wants to be my friend. And I don't think I can actually walk in the door. Maybe if I stay in my car a little while, I'll get the energy. Matter of fact, I had some work I needed to do. I'll just so that's a really, really big range. Um, what comes to my mind first is sometimes when I'm able to be in a space, which is often, I usually can get in the room. I'll say that. Um, I can usually find somebody that looks nice or friendly, or at least friendly enough that they'll humor me if I approach them or stand near them. Um, and that helps a lot because sometimes finding that one person can um can anchor me. And sometimes I just have to decide, okay, I'm gonna be present and enjoy being here, and I'm not gonna talk to anybody, and I'm gonna let the blessings come to me, you know, even if that blessing is just an observational blessing. And I think sometimes even that can be enough.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I have a similar range for sure. You know, sometimes it just depends on the space, and it also depends on just what you know, what am I feeling or what am I, I might already just be feeling super tender on a particular day, you know. But one of my practices is my like adornment force field. And I'm always wearing jewelry from people who love me and who I feel safe with and who I have loved and ancestors of mine always to me right now, right now. I have on a ring from Shango Dari, which I always have on. But this uh this other ring is for my grandmother that she gave to my mom, like when I was born, you know. But sometimes it's just like a sweater, or you know, like it's it's all all of these things, and I intentionally activate those things. Like, okay, I may be in this space that made to me not feel like it's embracing me or it's able to really fully embrace me however I'm feeling today. But I'm here and I have the force field provided by the love that I'm literally carrying with me. And sometimes I just remind myself of that, and I'm like, okay, I'm drawing on that energy from those folks who I feel profoundly at home with, and I've decided that it can be portable because I have little talismans, you know, that connect me to them with me. So nobody has to know, you know. Like I don't walk in the room and be like, excuse me, as a person who is adorned in the jewelry of my ancestors and loved ones, you know, like they don't know, like they don't necessarily know what where did I get this, or you know, who gave me this sweater or what. But I know it, you know. So I don't remember exactly when I made that up, but um it is kind of this practice of like seeing, like I realized it really did make a difference for me, you know, so I just kept doing it. And so I think it can be experimental. It might not be for you like it's gonna be your adornment practice. Is is that, but I do think that we have ways of bringing like the dedication that we did earlier. There's infinite versions of that. And it is this reality that we don't walk into any space alone. And we are able to draw on all the love that we've ever felt in any moment. And I find myself doing that a lot.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I think even the breath work, like taking a deep breath, or you know, some of those breathing practices that we learn about the box breathing, you know, you breathe in for, you hold it for, you exhale for, you know, these kind of things. Um Yeah, we have strategies.
SPEAKER_01That's really real. I just um, you know, all these machines on you. I I put all these alarms in in Shango Dari's watch and phone to remind her to drink water, but now that then they like come on while we're trying to record the podcast. Anyway, or in a meeting, or at a movie, or anywhere. There's one every hour between like 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Or TSA. Or TSA. Maybe it could be your force field, your reminder. Somebody loves you, wants you to be hydrated. Um somebody Oh, but that breathing, that breathing piece I think is is really, and I just I just gave a talk. Um every time I speak publicly, I'm usually like, let us breathe together. We didn't do it today, but only let us breathe together. And yesterday, you know, it was a room full of, I mean, I think I knew no, I didn't even, the one person that I knew wasn't even there yet when I when I started talking, I think. And I just admitted it. I was like, you know, usually I do this, and people are like, that was so nice of you to have us breathe, and now we get to feel grounded, and that's such a wise thing that you do. And I and I was like, yeah, I I did it for me. I did it to support my anxiety, my neurodivergence, my need to be grounded in this space. And and but when we do that for ourselves, we actually are providing something for everyone, you know. So thank you so much for that question. What a generative question. Yes, thank you, thank you. Is there another? Does somebody else have a question?
SPEAKER_03Well, until next time. Farewell.
SPEAKER_01Thank you all so much. What a sweet studio audience. Thank you so much for listening to the September podcast. If this conversation spoke to you, we'd love for you to share it with someone who might need it. And don't forget to leave us a question to cover on an episode and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps more people find the show. Until next week, stay in the ship as an offering for yourself, your community, and our collective spirit.