32. Love Through The Dark

In this episode hosts Alexis and Sangodare explore the idea of the “dark night of the soul,” through poetry and a very literal dark-night story of their own. They offer three “North Stars” to help listeners return to love even through the darkness, and answer a listener question about a time they each had to “compost” habits and beliefs that did not serve their highest purpose.

• Navigating spiritual Darkness with grace
• Elks and Motel Madness
• Composting Limiting Beliefs and Behaviour

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

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

SPEAKER_00 0:11

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

SPEAKER_01 0:18

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

SPEAKER_00 0:25

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

SPEAKER_01 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_00 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, Shango Dare, suave champion of the chariot who does a solid 90% of our driving.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Hello, Alexis, my navigation fairy who keeps me aware of which way to go, or even where we're going all together.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

And to keep it in balance, I'm also the one who cannot sit in the car for even one minute without one of my many, many playlists. And so sometimes I start the music before I enter the directions.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

And I'm the one who prefers to take the route my soul is calling for, and therefore may veer off the guided path that the maps is telling me at any time.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Yeah, like our previous podcast episode said. So once again, we are two people on a journey with intersecting skills and tendencies, and we are exactly as lovable as you. Today we dedicate this podcast episode to our dear friend Anjali, who actually plays a key magnetic role in the story we are going to share in a moment.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Anjali, you have made us cooler people. Introducing us to new music in your DJ magic, for example.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

And letting me dance and do yoga on your Adobe Roof in Albuquerque.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Anjali is one of those beloveds that, like, when I think of Anjali, I'm like, why don't we live next door to Anjali or at least down the block? So nice. We wish we got to see you more often, but from afar, we are so grateful for your commitment to your and our communities.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Yeah, your work as a doctor for the people is unstoppable. And your diligence for access from creating one of the first progressive health websites to the integrative Casa de Salud in New Mexico to working in solidarity with indigenous communities as part of Indian Health Service, even running for office. All right.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Anjali, because you just exist and I get to be in relationship with you, I knew it was possible for us to have a queer and affirming and resonant medical doctor in our community that is also a healer, a healer even beyond the medical complex. Like you. Yeah. Look, you you can't even fathom what you have given us, so many of us, from your mere existence. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

We miss you. Anjali, we love you. Okay, listeners. You too can dedicate this podcast episode to someone important to you. Maybe someone who you wish you got to hang out with more often. That's right. Okay. Dedication launched. Ready to get into the heart of it? Let's grow. And guess what? It's still September.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

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 desert praise dance of relationship and spiritual practice. Come on, most. And on today, we just drop by to remind you, sometimes it's darkness, everybody. Darkness. Darkness, everybody.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Many of us have heard the poetic and sometimes problematic use of that phrase, Dark Night of the Soul. Often when people use that phrase, it's a shorthand to describe a period of time that's particularly challenging emotionally, spiritually.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Yeah. It's like the chaos and confusion that come up when a core belief or identity or core relationship is called into question. It's destabilized or it ends. From what I know, it comes from a Christian mysticism tradition and is about spiritual union with the divine, God, the infinite, you know.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Yeah, it's a it's a part of the journey. Right. So our sacred text for today comes from Audrey Lloyd, you're so shocked. You're so shocked. This time her essay, Poetry is not a luxury, where she says, those places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden. They have survived and grown strong through darkness. Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Yeah, I feel like those challenging times really do, yeah, surprise you. You're like, what's that over there in that corner? I didn't know that was hiding back in here.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Yeah. Our teacher, Zelda Lockhart, talks about it as like the dusty attic of our consciousness.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

So there are times when the dark night of the soul is a metaphor in my life or in our relationship. And there are times when it feels or is more literal. Quite literal. Very dark night, yes. Yeah. So picture it. Albuquerque, New Mexico, circa 2011, I think.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Maybe. Yeah, we were on our mobile homecoming journey, and Anjali was hosting us in New Mexico, which was awesome. And we basically never wanted to leave. It was so fun hanging out with Anjali. That's where we first learned about James Blake and his somehow old gospel young white boy voice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

It's like, how this European boy making this black gospel soul music.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Trust DJ Anjali to put us on. That's right. And then we had all these amazing loved ones who, because of the the insight retreat or something, were serendipitously. Yeah, we're in town. So we went to the thrift store. We was meeting the midwives. We just did not want to leave. Eating good desert food.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Is Albuquerque a desert food?

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Anyway, eating good food in New Mexico. Yeah, it was it was amazing. And actually learning about their um Medicaid-covered doula system, which was one of the first in the nation. Anyway, we were in love with Albuquerque. It's an amazing place.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Yeah, one of the only photos we have of Sojourner, our RV, our revolutionary vehicle, was the one we took when we were there with so many loved ones.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Oh yeah. And there's that picture of Cara Page and I pointing to the mother road.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Yeah. Anyway, so we'd been there a couple days and it was time to go because you know we had a schedule driving across the whole country, but we could not leave.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

And yet we needed to get by the next day to Ms. Vera. All right. Our elder who at that time was living in uh 55 and over RV park out in Arizona.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Yeah. And so we knew we needed to leave, because you know, driving through the desert in the dark is not ideal, but at some point we did leave. And Lord have mercy. GPSY. We found ourselves in a national forest in the dark, end of the night.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Oh my goodness. Nobody's supposed to be in the park after dark. It don't matter if it's a city park or the national park. But it was open.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

But yes, best practice. Don't be in there. Yeah. So we were we were scared and nervous, but you know, making our way through, hoping that we didn't lose signal. Um, and then, you know, trying to decide like, should we stop? Like, we've been driving for a little while. Maybe we could, you know, stop and just be be a little late, maybe get up much earlier than we intended and keep driving. And we came upon we came upon this scary gas station, like get jeez. Yeah, like out of, you know, a serial killer movie or something.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

It really seemed like it was like in true blood or something.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Oh, right. And um, and we decided, yeah, no, no, no, no. We we we can't stop. We gotta keep we gotta keep going. This might not be safe out here.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

But then it wasn't that long after that, we saw, I mean, it really felt like we were in a movie. Yeah. It was getting darker and darker, and then there was this white car stopped on the side of the road, and I was like, oh my gosh, what are these people doing?

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Yeah, what are they doing?

SPEAKER_00 9:38

What's wrong?

SPEAKER_01 9:39

And then we rolled up and saw something in the road. Thank goodness we had slowed down, I think, because of that car.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

This is one of the most horrific things I have ever seen with my own eyes in my entire life.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Yeah. So it turns out that car had hit an elk. And if y'all don't know, elk are huge. They are like the size of an RV. I mean, our RV was small. So imagine like a big sprinter van or something like that. They're huge. And so as we are realizing that this car has hit this elk and the elk is in the road, we look and in our peripheral vision, there's a whole herd of elk standing beside the vehicle, our vehicle, as we were riding by, and it was terrifying.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

They were in complete outrage, grief. Their family member is in the road just because silly humans are in the park after dark, which you never should be.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Yeah. So we we kept driving, still like, oh my gosh, we need to stop, but there's nowhere to stop because we're basically in the woods in a forest, but there's a road.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

And I'm driving, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Yeah, Alexis is driving. I can't even remember why. I don't even know why. I think I couldn't see. Oh. Because it was a little bit of precipitation. Then it started to get foggy. Yep. There was the precipitation and fogginess, and I couldn't see that well. So we're continuing. This story is getting long. Anyway, so we're continuing to drive, and now with terror in my heart, still not able to see. Right. Every bush looks like an elk running because it's like, you know, multiple little bushes, because it's desert, but there's like brush woods and things. Anyway, so as we're moving, the the multiple bushes that we're passing in my peripheral vision keep looking like more and more elk. So I'm like, you know, Alexa, watch, watch, watch out. Is that an elk is that elk over there, baby? But then, you know, we go a little further. I'm like, but baby, is that an elk?

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Is that an elk? And I am trying to drive this RV, and I am just like but baby, right there. Sweetheart, if you say elk one more time.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

So I just had to like practically close my eyes and just have faith as we continued um to move through this dark night of what felt like the forest of my soul.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Oh my goodness, the mist? It's like, who did this set design? So we finally get to this motel. Yeah, we like, thank the Lord. Still in the in the national park, but we're like, okay, we have to just pull over because we cannot.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Yeah, it's not safe. But the but the motel is like not open. So clearly it's a motel. There are rooms and things, but there's not like an office or anything. And you know, I'm concerned, we two then young black queers. Much younger than we are now. Yeah. It, you know, out here in the woods, basically in what state? We still in Mexico?

SPEAKER_00 12:47

New Mexico.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Still in New Mexico?

SPEAKER_00 12:49

I don't know. We were getting towards Arizona, and then this was the time when Arizona had very explicitly made racial profiling legal and said if you even had somebody whose immigration status was questioned in your car, you were it was a fugitive slave act type situation.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Anyway, so for whatever reasons, we were also scared to stop. We was scared to keep going and scared to stop. But we were tired. We were exhausted, we were super stressed out. So we're like, okay, we're gonna stop. And I just wrote a little note and put it in the window, kind of like, we're just here for the night, because it's not safe to drive. And and um we owe you something, we'll pay you in the morning. Like, you know.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Yeah, if there had been a if there was an officer, I wasn't getting out that RV to look.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Anyway, so let's move the story along. So we're in there, we're trying to sleep, and what seems like a madman is coming out from his room, arguing with some woman. They're coming in and out of the car. I'm like, do they have weapons? Are they on drugs? And then ultimately, again, we're just so exhausted. I'm like, whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen. I'm gonna put this steak knife by the bed and go to sleep.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

And as it does, pretty much every day, the sun rose in the morning.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

And there was light. And it was good.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

And it was good. And it was actually beautiful. I mean, the national park from that perspective, it was gorgeous. It's like, oh my gosh, babe. And so we drove our happy behinds over to Arizona and met Miss Vera who laughed in our faces. She said we looked like we were 12. Yeah. Shout out to Miss Vera who came out when she was in her 60s.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

So once again, we can have intense experiences, but we are in the context of impermanence. And so there's a question of how to get through these times where all we see is what we don't want to see. The bush is an elk, the road is an elk, the mist is an elk, the man coming out the motel is an elk. Everything is um confirming our fears. And I think what I learned through that experience that I do think applies to this idea of a dark night of the soul in relationship and in our personal life is that sometimes the best way to get through is to stop where you are.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah. I think stop where you are and acknowledge the resources you have where you are and do the practices that you have where you're at. Because the practices really can see you through. I mean, I think, you know, I was doing breathing exercises. I had to lean into trust, understand that whatever situation came up, you know, we could meet it. And I would say, you know, the biggest gift in that moment, in that journey, was that I was not alone. I had Alexis, dark as it was, I felt like I had my ancestors there too. Um yeah, and pushing through sometimes looks like stop, but like physically stop, like in a conversation, maybe you need to stop because you feel you're getting heated, um uh going somewhere and you feel you know you don't have what you need, you're not resources the way you need. Maybe you're you don't need to go there, you need to pause. You know what I'm saying? But that stopping is a gift. That stopping is creating the opportunity for you to make space for new perspective, the sun is gonna come up, for you to make space to lean into practices instead of leaning into fear. We can find resources in that darkness. And I feel like that a lot of times that's the point of the darkness. Like you found yourself in a dark place because there was something to grow through to get to the other side of.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Yeah, and it it is something that we do in our relationship when we sometimes just need to stop.

unknown 17:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Like we would like to process through, we would like to figure it out, we would like to talk it out, but sometimes we just really need that pause and that reset.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Yeah. Sometimes it's even like a a nap, a meal, some some time with somebody else to give more perspective. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Our first North Star is look for what you actually do want. Hypervigilance can be a trap sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Our second North Star is if you keep moving or just keep living, the sun will come up again and again. And our third North Star is stop when you need to stop. And remember the practices that you can find in stillness. Okay, do we have a listener question?

SPEAKER_00 18:15

Yes, we do. This is from Yvette, who came to our last live podcast taping. She says, Would you share a story about a time when you composted part of yourself in service of who you were becoming in this love ship? Ooh. That's a good question, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:39

That's a really good question. Do you have something in mind? Umposted.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

I will say I really like that framing, you know, of compost. And I think it goes with this idea of darkness, you know, like what is it that's transforming into mulch, you know, these cycles of life, death, and rebirth that we're actually in multiple times in our lives.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

And since we're talking about compost, I'm still thinking about food. I remember when I met you, Sean Godari, I used to have this guilty pleasure of McDonald's french fries, which I would get commuting when I was teaching in Greensboro. And you got me to stop.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Was like, my, you cannot put that poison in my baby's body. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

And it took a lot of willpower, but I was like, oh, I'm so loved. This is an act of love I can have for myself that you exemplified because your love was standing for that. And I mean, it I think beyond that like particular snack, I think that maybe it was an opportunity to compost this idea that I particularly needed this particular thing in order to get through something like a commute or whatever. And understanding that, okay, well. And it really is a part of me that's composted because now I can't touch that food whatsoever. I think I tried to eat something there some years after that, and it was like my body was immediately like, oh no, girl, we are not going back.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

What about you? Well, you know, I well, you know, I used to speak of sleep heavens, we need to go to sleep right now. I used to stay up late, you know, it's like if I'm working on something, I would keep working on it until I completed it, got to a major stopping point, or I literally could not keep my eyes open.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

Vampire realness.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Yeah. And I composted that because you had a commitment for us to sleep together at the same time. And I basically started to just do that on the other end. So rather than staying up super late, I started getting up super early, um, you know, for the sake of our relationship. And I feel like I was was and am flexible in that way, whereas you just don't have that same flexibility.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

And so I got to sleep at night paper.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Yeah. And so, yeah, I think that's something that um that composted. And but now when you go out of town, I have my one night veg out. Where it's like, oh, everything is possible in this one evening. Yeah. So so those are some examples.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Yeah, I think, you know, there there are many things I think in our ongoing emotional growth, healing our inner children, shifting out of narratives that have have been harmful in the past. Um, so you know, not to trivialize it because th I mean, those are habits you could generalize those as health habits. But I think that I would say that your term of composting is something that's ongoing. And even the dark nights of the soul we have and the hard times that we have really have us look at what what are the stories that I have that are not serving me anymore or that are blocking us from our progress together.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Yeah. I think the uh I think I composted a need to travel with you so much. Like I think I had a story that, you know, you needed a certain amount of support that you would only get if somebody traveled with you and I was the only somebody. What about you? You wanna add anything to the list?

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Yeah, I think I'm composting some internalized ableism that I've had of expecting myself to be able to function in a so-called neurotypical world with my neurodivergent self. I think that these ideas of worthiness or independence or forms of support that I shouldn't need, like in the household, especially, I'm letting go of some of those stories and composting them into more love and self-acceptance.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that question. I think I'm gonna keep thinking about that for days and weeks and months and years.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Yeah, thank you, Yvette. We appreciate you. All right. Well, do we have any announcements? Yeah, we would love you to join us in June when we're launching our Chrysalis life purpose roadmap process. You can find out more about that at the link in the show notes and also on our mobilehomecoming.org page, mobilehomecoming.org slash love shit. Well, until next time, farewell. 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.