39. Love To Offer Our Lives

On this episode hosts Sangodare and Alexis introduce love as a collective superpower, arguing that love’s fullest power is not individual or confined to isolated couples or the nuclear family but lives on the scale of community and collective freedom. Drawing from Angela Davis’s autobiography, they highlight how her story centers collective support and love as forces that propelled her political commitment. They share 3 “North Stars” and call for social relations where all are loved and no one is sacrificed.

• Love Is Collective
• Love Beyond Individualism
• Tapping Into Presence

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

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

SPEAKER_01 0:11

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

SPEAKER_00 0:18

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

SPEAKER_01 0:25

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

SPEAKER_00 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_01 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. Oh, hello, Shango Dare, you handsome community-minded network building grand visionary.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Oh, hi, Lexi. You multi-lifetime oracle who cannot be contained by linear time or even dwelling in just one dimension. Because so many lifetimes are being lived through you at once.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

And to keep it in balance, I'm also the one who sometimes overthinks the moment by trying to see it from the perspectives of multiple generations at one time.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

And I'm the one who can sometimes map my idea of someone else's purpose, awesome purpose, into a grand vision that they might not actually know about.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

So once again, we are two community-minded collective beings who also sometimes get scattered, and we are exactly as lovable as you. Today's episode is dedicated to sweethearts, Zhua Lu, and Courtney. We love y'all so much, and it was a great honor to be part of your wedding celebration. Happy ninth love anniversary this month, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

It's been so sweet to see how your love immediately poured into our community and continues to do so more powerfully every year.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

We love watching you gather community, create institutions and initiatives, grow food, celebrate family, and exemplify the life-giving reality of love.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Yes. And creativity, the creative spirit, love made manifest. Thank you, June Jordan. We are so proud to know you and have been able to watch you grow, Zwaalu, from your student days at UNC. And Courtney from your actual childhood growing up here in Durham. And you've become exemplars to us. We are inspired by the intentionality, the care, and the generosity you embody, you model.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

We get so much joy out of watching you celebrate your love for each other and for everyone you love and for the world we must create together. Your love and your lives and your commitment gives us more faith in our community, in our collective future, and the expansive magic that putting love first in our lives can offer.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

We can't wait till the next time we get to play together, take a walk, share a meal, dance together. Thank you for including us in the magical things that you do.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Valu and Courtney, we love you. And now, listeners, this is your opportunity to dedicate your listening to this podcast to someone who inspires you. Maybe it's someone who you've seen grow who has also helped grow you into a better version of yourself.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Okay. Dedication launched.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Ready to get into the heart of it?

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Let's grow.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

And guess what?

SPEAKER_00 3:54

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 power to the people. Dance, a relationship as spiritual practice. And on today, we just dropped by to remind you love lives on the scale of the collective.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

The technology that we're working with is love as a collective superpower. Listeners.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

We created this podcast because we want to live in a world where love is the main thing. Love is the primary practice, rubric, motivation. Love is what connects us. Love is what we think about first.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Love is the deciding factor. And love is therefore what we produce more of as a collective. We deeply believe that this is our purpose, not just with this podcast, but on this planet, as this planet.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

When I think of my deepest desire and wish for what my life will contribute to, I think about this whole planet vibrating on the frequency of love. I want to be part of that reality.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

And I'm here to be a sweet space for transformation and what makes a space safe enough and sweet enough to inspire us to grow and transform. You guessed it, dear listener. Love.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Our sacred text today is from the autobiography of the revolutionary philosopher Angela Davis, which I've been rereading and deeply enjoying.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

And on the dedication page, Angela Davis says, For my family, my strength, for my comrades, my light, for the sisters and brothers whose fighting spirit was my liberator, for those whose humanity is too rare to be destroyed by walls, bars, and death houses. And especially for those who are going to struggle until racism and class injustice are forever banished from our history. Ah, she.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Ah, it gives me goosebumps. For anyone who hasn't read Angela Davis's autobiography or who hasn't read it in a while, go back to it. It's a beautiful account of how community literally freed Angela Davis. And at the core of it is the collective love that can free all of us.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Yeah. In the preface, Angela Davis goes on to talk about the fact that she was reluctant to write an autobiography, especially as a young woman, even though at a young age, her life story as a political prisoner and a symbol of freedom around the world was very much worth writing about. But what got her to be able to write her autobiography was the understanding that her life story was in fact a collective story, and it had a role to play in our collective freedom.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

It's a beautiful narrative where you really hardly go a paragraph without hearing Angela Davis talking about someone who she loves, who she admires, who she got to collaborate with, from her family members to her fellow prisoners to fellow activists, and the life force that we see in the story of her life is collective at every moment. This is how she describes it in the preface. When I decided to write the book after all, it was because I had come to envision it as a political autobiography that emphasized the people, the events, and the forces in my life that propelled me to my present commitment. There was the possibility that having read it, more people would understand why so many of us have no alternative but to offer our lives, our bodies, our knowledge to the cause of our oppressed people.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Yes. And on this podcast, we think about Love Shift, this paradigm that love is a spiritual practice as a collective reality. Otherwise, we wouldn't even need to have a podcast. We could just practice this and talk about it amongst ourselves and just be love, love, love, love, love, love, love. Smooch, smooch, smooch, smooch.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Turn off the record. And that's fun too. But the reality is that love does not exist on the scale of an individual disconnected life. And it also does not exist in its most powerful form through isolated couples or the idea of the nuclear family. This is something that is so true in our lives. The love ships that we dedicate this podcast to all pour into community. And the individuals that we dedicate the podcast to are all examples of life on a collective scale. And our relationship for sure is constantly poured into by community.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Yeah. Love doesn't exist on the scale of the individual. And yet, there is a balance, a peace, a presence, a knowing that sources the love and relationship, the relating, that we're talking about. And how does one, as an individuated duality, as a beingness, how does one get present to that? What do we have to cultivate to remove any blocks to the love that is always present? If I'm not there yet, if something's in the way, blocking it, how do I tap in?

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Yeah. And it's something I'm so excited to talk about as we announced in our next iteration of this, where we're talking to love ships and couples about these examples of how do we tap back into that collective reality of love. And our relationships and the collective aren't this binary back and forth separate form. We are actually all in a relationship with collectivity. And we're practicing it on every scale in the interpersonal relationships of our lives.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Yeah. And practicing that vibration through songs and remixes.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Yes. Yeah. We're so excited to play with y'all. Let this podcast episode be a reminder that we are always part of a collectivity of love, which is what Angela Davis was talking about. Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

It's a whole planetary thing. Yeah. Our first North Star is Love is Collective. Love is collective.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Our second North Star is love flows in both directions. From us as individuals into the community and to the community back because it's all one thing.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Our third North Star is love is the reality of the universe beyond individualism.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Yes. Which is what Angela Davis was talking about. And our collective imperative to create a social relation where all are loved and no one is sacrificed.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

All right. Well, y'all know what to do. Check out the show notes. You can contribute on Patreon. You can learn more about what we're doing at mobilehomecoming.org slash loveships. And send us some questions. Yes. Okay. Until next time, farewell.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

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.