30. Purpose as the Root of Love

Hosts Sangodare and Alexis explore the idea of a “loveship” ad a relationship as spiritual practice. They urge listeners to treat purpose as the seed and root of love, contrasting “happily ever after” with “purposefully ever after,” and grounding the discussion in Audrey Lorde’s mantra, “I am who I am doing what I came to do.” They argue that purpose is an ongoing relationship with one’s aliveness that strengthens partner choice, collaboration, and boundaries across romantic and non-romantic connections. They close the episode with a listener Q&A.

• Purpose as the root of Relationship 
• Audre Lorde’s Purpose Mantra
• How Purpose Readies Partnership
• Finding Resonance in Love
• Practices to Notice the Miracle

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Hi, I'm Alexis Pauline Gums. And I'm Shango Dare Wallace. And this is September, a podcast for love ships.

SPEAKER_03 0:11

We're two lovebirds who decided to intentionally create a love ship and share the insights we gather with the world.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

For the past 17 years, we've been relating to our love ship as a sacred space for spiritual practice.

SPEAKER_03 0:25

This podcast is our space to reflect on the insights we've found and been given with you.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Whether 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_03 0:47

So, if you're ready to think expansively about love, community, and spirit, you're in the right place. So glad you're here. Hello, multi-talented Shango Dare, who can literally teach yourself to do anything in one afternoon. Why, hello, super focused Alexis, who can write monumental works in 15 minutes a day, like a vitamin. And to keep it in balance, I'm also the one who depends deeply on routine and mostly really wants to do the things I'm already good at. Exclusively. Every day.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

Every day. And I sometimes use an afternoon to teach myself to do something that should really be someone else's job in the first place. I was gonna say.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

So once again, we are two generative, generous, and loving individuals that get blocked and overwhelmed sometimes. And we are exactly as lovable as you. And you and you and you. Today we dedicate this episode to Danielle and Antonia.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Danielle and Antonia, we love witnessing the ways you live in your purpose and build community. And community we get to be a part of.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

And have been. Antonia, I was just talking to one of the Spellman alums you mentored years ago as a founding member of Africadi, the first queer-affirming organization on Spellman's campus, which honors Audrey Lorde's favorite trickster goddess.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

And we have both appreciated getting to work with you on the 25th anniversary celebration of the first ever Black Queer Studies conference around the corner at UNC. And we love your beautiful mind. And by the way, I'm still excited to read your latest article.

SPEAKER_03 2:34

And Danielle, the way you remember the dismembered connection between environment and community is a healing force in the world.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

It is a delight co-creating the Ecotones performance universe with you and Toshi and the other brilliant Danielle.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

It really seems like there is nothing you don't do. Law, environmental policy, art, community organizing. And did I hear that you also have a background in tap dancing? I sure do.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

We are honored and blessed to be in community with two people who support each other to live their purposes and always support us to live our purpose too. Danielle and Antonia, we love you. And remember, listeners, you can dedicate your listening to this podcast to someone who inspires you, maybe someone who supports you in your purpose. Okay. Dedication launched. Ready to get into the heart of it?

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Let's grow.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

And guess what?

SPEAKER_02 3:33

It's still September. Every 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 watch me work dance of relationship as spiritual practice. And on today, we just dropped by to remind you to consider purpose as the seed and the root of relationship.

SPEAKER_03 4:00

And the ongoing fruit. And the leaves.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

Yep. All of it.

SPEAKER_03 4:04

And the branches.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

Alexis, what do you think? Does love mean happily ever after or purposefully ever after?

SPEAKER_03 4:14

Well, you know, happily ever after is a fairy tale fantasy. Fairy tale fantasy. But purpose is what gives us access to enduring joy. Right? Right.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

Which is actually a key distinction of what we mean by love shit. The difference between relationship as an escapist fantasy talk about it. And love as a practice.

SPEAKER_03 4:41

Well said. And so our sacred text today is from Audrey Lorde. I am who I am, doing what I came to do, from her essay Eye to Eye, which we've drawn on probably three, four times in this podcast. It's my five, six, seven, eight favorite essay by Audrey Lorde. And it's also our Black Feminist Breathing Mantra for Audrey Lorde. Say it with me. I am who I am doing what I came to do. So, Shango Dare, what does finding your purpose have to do with relationships? Do they exist on the same timeline? Should one come before the other?

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Well, the more access we have to connecting to our purpose, expressing it, practicing it, and making it a gift that we can share with the world, the more ready we are for any form of partnership or collaboration, I believe. And it could be that we at where we at on that journey. But I think how grounded we are somewhere in that process has something to do with our ability to be intentional pickers of partners and engage practitioners of relationship as spiritual practice.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

That makes a lot of sense. Especially because finding purpose isn't something that you do once in life and it's done. You found it. Purpose itself is a long-term relationship. Or maybe purpose is a way of thinking about our relationships to ourselves, our own aliveness intentionally. For me, it's an ongoing question with an evolving answer. What am I here for? When do I feel most alive? So then it makes sense that the spiritual work, that existential curiosity, would be aligned with an approach to relationships in general as a spiritual practice.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:35

For me, it's also the most consistent answer to the question of purpose. I am here to be love, to be transformed by love. And when I'm wondering whether a particular action is in alignment with that purpose, that's the key question. Does this practice support love coming through?

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:57

And every day we remind each other of our purpose, your purpose to be love, my purpose to be a sweet space for transformation. So we actually get to relate to each other through that purpose, which is another reason I think it's important to really be engaged in our own purpose as we seek or practice partnership. It gives the people in our lives the opportunity to relate to us as our purpose. There's a depth there.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

Yeah, much deeper, much more exciting than relating to us as some particular job or identity or function or type. I actually think it short circuits the tendency to relate to people as a distraction or to be a distraction in the way that other people relate to us. It means we can actually relate to each other through purpose, find out where our purposes align, support each other better. Can you share a story from the time in your life when you were still manifesting me about how your clarity of purpose helped you find me?

SPEAKER_02 7:59

Yeah, well, you were out in the world, the cosmos, amplifying black feminist survival with eternal summer of the black feminist mind, gathering people in your living room to share survival tools. I was working to make black feminist media and technology stories for our collective survival. So black feminist survival and sustainability was already a resonance.

SPEAKER_03 8:26

Yeah, it felt pretty obvious that the world we wanted to live in was the same world.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

I feel like with my clarity of purpose, it made it so easy to see where the resonances were from the beginning, the ways that I could easily, day one, pour into you from a place of purpose, and the ways you could, day one, easily pour into me from a place of purpose. Even not knowing exactly what that would be, like in the future, but being in a place to feel, like really feel the resonance, even without knowing all the details.

SPEAKER_03 8:58

Yeah, I feel like on day one or two or three, I was on your film set writing a review or something. And that was an outgrowth of the fact that the way you look at everything is through the lens of your purpose, which makes sense for all kinds of collaborations. It makes sense for discernment of boundaries and possibilities with people who are already in our lives and our family's origin, our friend groups. Like I want to nurture those relationships with mentors, friends, neighbors who, when I'm around them, this purpose of being love, being transformed by love, bringing ancestral love into practice for our collective growth feels so present and possible, like the obvious thing to do, which is very much how I feel around you. Oh. All day. All day. But what is the nuance for finding a romantic partnership or relating to your existing romantic partnership through purpose?

SPEAKER_02 10:00

I think it happens when that resonance extends to being tuned in, tapped in, and turned on in all your chakras. So each and every one in each and every way. And that's not a, you know, you being all things to your partner, but it's like that the activation is throughout that energetic field, including physical and sexual intimacy in the vibing that's happening between you and your beloved, which is what I felt and feel with you. But for our general collaboration and the many forms of partnerships, it doesn't have to be all the chakras or all the forms of intimacy. All the time.

unknown 10:44

Right.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

We can get into the practice of finding resonance and collaborating on purpose with all kinds of people, even if it's not every chakra that we're vibing on. We want to practice into that ability. And the thing that we're trying to practice out of is that story where you feel the purpose resonates in some area, but you place a block or limit if the romantic attraction isn't there. You know, it's like you place a limit on investing in that person and their purpose and having that person or purpose invest in you. There's this unsustainable cultural story that we we have, we're letting go of, but we have right now, I think, that we can only totally and fully commit to another person materially and otherwise if it's a romantic relationship.

SPEAKER_03 11:32

That's so true. I I think that in our society, there can be this idea that purpose is just work or it's just individual. And it doesn't have to do with relationships. And so they can be, you know, as a recovering workaholic, kind of pitted against each other. Like there's when I'm working on my purpose, and then there's when I'm being in relationship.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:00

There's me working on my purpose, and then there's me just hanging out with people or something, you know? And in reality, I mean, I feel this especially for me. If my purpose is to be love and to be transformed by love, that's relevant to every area of my life. And so it's relevant to my closest familial relationships, romantic partnerships and friendships. It's not something that can be just um managed through work relationships and strategic partnerships and meetings, you know? Right. So I think that there's this expansiveness that you, you know, when you talk about the soil and the seed and the root and the leaves and the, you know, when you talk about it's really like a a forest ecology of purposefulness.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 12:55

And of course, there are a lot of aspects to our purpose that we evolve into all the time. So for me, this daily question of purpose of what love's asking me to do and be, is teaching me how to be in relationship with you, with my family, with my friends, and with my work.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:14

But what is really beautiful inside this practice of love ship with you is that you meet me there. You support me to live in my purpose, and I get to experience you as your purpose and support you on your continuing journey of what that is too. So I am who I am doing what I came to do, but I also become what I become in the sweet transformative light of you. All same.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

We're acting like drugs or chisels to find the meanness in you as you find the you-ness in me. Mycelium and Reese.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Our first North Star is purpose is another name for your relationship to yourself, your aliveness. So, of course, it's relevant to all of our relationships.

SPEAKER_03 14:03

Our second North Star is that purpose is an ongoing relationship, not something you figure out once and for all, just like our love ships are an ongoing journey of discovery.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Our third North Star is notice where you feel the resonance. Notice the infinite ways you can feel alive and allow that, that aliveness to guide you in your relationships, all of them, not just romantic ones. All right, and we have an audience question for you today from our live podcast recording here in Durham. Check it out.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

I'd love for you to share a story about a moment of awe and magic that you experienced in your love ship with Durham. And if you can identify at least one practice that contributed to that moment happening, that will be monthly to hear.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

I love that question. Remember, I was telling you I love that question. Do you have a thought?

SPEAKER_02 15:09

I do. I'm curious of like what will come if I think longer. But the first thing that came to my mind, um uh we're part of FarmShare at Tierra Negra uh farm, which happens to be just down the street from us. And there was one particular, I think it was like a fall day. Maybe we were at Farm Share and there weren't a lot of people there. Like folks had, you know, gone for the day. And it was just this field of collard greens. And, you know, people had been harvesting, you know, throughout the season. And just on this particular day, there was still an abundance of collard greens. And the sun was shining on them just right, and the wind was catching them and they were blowing. And it's just one of those moments was like, look at the abundance of the earth. Water falls from the sky, food grows out of the ground, the trees provide shelter for us. Abundance. And the people in this community, my loved ones, have the skills for us to have everything we need. And so we can grow that, we can support each other, we can model for other places. Other places have resources and clarities and skills we don't have, we can learn from them. And it's just like the miraculous comes in those simple moments that even when you try to tell somebody, you be like, tap me on the head. And it's like, oh, okay. No, you don't understand. Like I felt the spirit of the infinite. It's like, bless you. But like it's it was like that. It was just so profound, so beautiful. So now every time I go over, then there's collard greens, I'm just with my phone with the camera, just like, oh, wow, like you're so beautiful. And I think that's even what you were talking about. Like, I felt that way about a a woman. This one. And you can I can feel that way about a place. Like, if I wasn't so squeamish about bugs, I would have rolled all around in them collards. Anyway, that's that's one moment.

SPEAKER_03 17:11

I love that. And it does speak to also the the practice piece because I mean, we don't we happen to in this moment be down the street from from that particular farm, but we bought a house down the street from that particular farm, right? And we have intentionally participated in it for over a decade because we and we dedicated episode 27 of the podcast to the founders of that same farm, right? You know, because we we really do feel that it's a miracle to get to be in relationship with the earth in a generative way that I at least I didn't know would be possible. So yeah, I think that I mean, there are other things like, you know, trying to see the sunrise and being committed to taking our shoes off and putting our feet on the earth and um just spending time with elders. You know, you have these moments of awe, um being around the kids in our lives. And when you, when you the way you just said it, it made me realize that those are all practices of reflection. You know, like it's a it's a reflection of the the love, the miraculousness, the open-heartedness, the um, the like who knows what is gonna dazzle me about being aliveness, that we're also mirroring for each other in our relationship, but we're it's like we're also creating a whole mirror dome of that through all the relationships in our lives and the multi-species relationships and the yeah, I'm making this for people listening. People can't see what I'm doing, but it's like a it's a heart opening gesture. Which my divine yoga teacher who has helped me open my heart is sitting right in front of my heart. So yeah, it feels um, it feels like we get to be inside, inside the miracle and note, note it, you know. We could note it more though. Because I feel like many times we've been like, we need to get a journal, because like every day it seems like something happens and we're like, We did get it, we just weren't. And then we bought a beautiful purple journal, and then like we haven't written down all these experiences of awe. But you asking that question is maybe a reminder that we should. Yeah. Yeah. Or we could. We could look at you.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Practices.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

Well, until next time. Farewell.

SPEAKER_03 19:56

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.