41. So Special, So Special, So Special

On this episode hosts Alexis and Sangodare focus on reclaiming the term “special” in a sincere way. They argue systems like capitalism and empire discourage recognizing inherent dignity and discuss why this self recognition is not vanity but deeply spiritual work. They close by announcing registration for the September Chrysalis Experience retreat via mobilehomecoming.org.

• Reclaiming Special
• Why Special Feels Risky
• Revolutionary Responsibility and Relationship as Witness

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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, who says breakfast, like it has a U in it, and loves to build Lego spreadsheets and build community.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Hello, compassionate, empathetic Lexi, who holds anxiety in your body. Actually, I'm gonna say right between your neck and your clavicle, like right there.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

And to keep it in balance, I'm also the one who wakes up in the middle of the night thinking about how I forgot to text someone back and it's now too late to text them, which is maybe not balanced. It's kind of the same thing you just said.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

And I'm the one who may never return to some of those spreadsheets like they were their own ceremony in and of themselves.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Oh, yes. So again, we are two particular and contradictory people, and we are exactly as lovable as you. Today, we dedicate this episode to our dear Minnesota fam, Erin and Zoe.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Also known as WNBA Superfans, justice superheroes themselves, sustainability sources for farmers and the sweetest, cutest couple.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

What I love about you, Erin and Zoe, is that because of the decades of your relationship and your shared commitment to the work you do, you really see each other. I love seeing your grace, curiosity, and compassion for each other reflected in each other's eyes. So dreamy. Literally anything, anything. From a play to a festival to a TV show to being manager for that same subversive siren synchronized swimming team.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

How you took care of us when we left the planet, I mean, left Durham, to do a long-term residency in the Twin Cities has transformed our relationship to the planet. The planet, y'all. And to even adornment, because did you know, listeners, did you know that clothing can be technology, like graded for particular levels of cold and wet or dampness? You do if you live in Minnesota. And y'all, the way Aaron and Zoe feel about the Minnesota Lynx is how we feel about the subversive sirens.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

And that's saying a lot. Aaron and Zoe, we love the way you show up for each other. You honor each other's passions and community commitments, and you know how to add just what's needed to bolster each other when you reach your limits. And it is so clear that loving each other is an organic, sustainably farmed aspect of loving yourselves.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

You model how everything is possible. Everything is possible if you stay and keep showing up. Reappreciate the million ways you've shown up for us and made Minnesota feel like another home, even though it also feels like a frozen impossibility much of the year.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

We cannot wait for the next time we get to play with you and cheer you on, maybe at the whole retreat center that you co-steward up in the north.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

The north.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Erin and Zoe, we love you. Okay, listeners. This is your opportunity to dedicate your listening. Maybe to someone who keeps showing up for you. Maybe to someone who can produce anything. Maybe to some sweeties who look in their eyes in a special, special way. Yeah. Okay. Dedication launched. Ready to get into the heart of it? Let's grow. And guess what?

SPEAKER_01 5:30

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 red light, green light dance of relationship as spiritual practice. And on today, we just dropped by to remind you that you're very special.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Yeah. Hello, dear listeners. You are so special to us. Sincerely. Not in the condescending, no, isn't that special? Slightly shady acknowledgement of our weirdness.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

But also not in the arrogant, I think a little differently.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Separation kinda special either. Both of which I'm now realizing have been parodied by repeating Saturday Night Live characters. Would be nice to have some black women on that show again, by the way. But anyway, anyway, we are special. Yes, we happen to be exactly as special as you. There's been a derogatory declaiming of the word special, but we claim all of it. Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Special as in queer.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Check. Special as in neurodivergent. Check. Special as in a neurodivergent special interest. Check plus black feminism is my special interest and my spiritual practice. And spiritual practice and entrepreneurship are my special interests. And special as in born for such a time as this. As this. And uniquely equipped, even by some of our traumas, to allow necessary miracles to come through us for the benefit of the whole community. The whole planet. A cosmic speciality.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Yeah. You hear that, listeners? Family members? We are not more special than you. And yet, we can still listen for, name, and celebrate our specialness, whether or not you do it for yourself or you affirm it in us. Even that recognition practice doesn't make us more special.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Yeah, actually, no one is more special. Because as our sacred text, which today is unfortunately an unattributed memory, because I cannot remember this sister's name. It's frustrating me because attribution is also one of my things. But our sacred text comes from a South Asian sister we met 15 years ago at the Allied Media Conference. AMC. Girl, if you are listening to this, please get back in touch with us.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

AMC Forever.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

She told us this story about how her grandfather says an artist is not a special different type of person. Every person is a special different type of artist.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Every person, every person is a different special or special, different kind of artist. That means you, listener, and that also means the people in your life who will never listen to this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Them too. And here's the thing: it is no coincidence that it feels weird to most of us to think of ourselves as special. Cursiless participants, I know you hear me. Because we live in a society that knows that if each of us shared and recognized and related to each other through the absolutely not interchangeable miracle. Amen. That is the inherent irreplaceable dignity of each person, there is no way we would buy into an idea that says that we or anyone is expendable nor interchangeable in the name of capitalism or empire. That's right. It would make no sense. Because it makes no sense. But in systems like that, sometimes we think our best bet is to blend in. Because many of us have survived histories where people who stand out have been targeted because of the very threat of that truth.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

The threat of the dignity they inspire in other people just by being themselves. Hello, Mamiya Abu Jamaal, Angela Davis, George Jackson, Marsha P. Johnson, Claudia Jones, Ida B. Wells, Paulie Murray. I could do this all day.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Yeah. And many of the people who we think of as revolutionaries because they took actions that seemed risky, impossible, maybe unthinkable in the terms of the systems they challenged and upended, actually may have just been taking responsibility for their own special gifts, their own still small voice, urging them, encouraging them, fueling them to move on, move forward, and take action.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Imagine if Harriet Tubment was like, well, yes. I did learn from my dad how to map the worlds through deep relationship with trees. And I did learn from my mother how to read the stars and heal with plant medicine. And I do have narcoleptic visions where God is actually showing me how to free my people by guiding them north. But you know what? I'm just gonna stay here and hope nobody notices I'm different. I'm nothing special. It's absurd.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

It's absurd. But that type of a lack of willingness to take responsibility for what our communities, circumstances, experiences, tendencies, and even disabilities in terms of Harriet Tubman's frontal lobe epilepsy have offered us, offered us in particular. Doing that is sometimes what keeps us from playing our roles in movement, in creative or spiritual community, even in family.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

And I was doing something equally absurd when I kept listening to my mentor, Alexis DeVot, author of the very first biography of Audrey Lorde, complain that no one had written another biography of Audrey Lorde. Almost 20 years had gone by, and there was no biography of Audrey Lorde by someone of my generation. And I was sitting there like my own parody of Tubman. Like, well, I was the first person to research in Audrey Lorde's papers, and I have been studying her poetry nonstop since I was 14, and I have had the opportunity to be mentored by several of her students and collaborators my entire life. And I did create a community school in her honor in my living room and go live in her office in St. Croix and help her partner Gloria Joseph write and edit a collective bioanthology about her, but it's kind of presumptuous, right, to say, like, I have the capacity to tell the life story of someone so important. I mean, lots of people love Audrey Lorde. I was afraid to take responsibility for my unique experience and tendencies. I was afraid to acknowledge that I was actually the one to do this particular part of the work.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

But you know who wasn't confused about it all the time? Me. Myself personally. I wasn't the only one. And your divine fairy emeritus, beloved Courtney Reed Eaton, and Brittany Cooper, and all the black feminists that a black feminist literary agent called to see who they thought could write the biography. There was a consensus. We all saw it, even while you were resisting being called the premier Audrey Lord Scholar of your generation.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

I'm out here like, guys, stop trying to gas me up. But the reality is that one of the reasons that relationships are divine, that for us, relationships are spiritual practice, is because in relationship, we can witness, honor, and amplify and help each other see what is special about each one of us. That's right. Special in this revolutionary sense.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Special isn't isolation or never being understood. Special is the magic of being deep in relationship with our purpose and the thing we are bringing to community. And taking responsibility for what Audrey Lord calls what? The creative power of difference. That's right. The creative power of difference. Yes, brave listeners, we have a challenge for you if you choose to accept it. I love a challenge. The challenge is ask someone who loves you, maybe a romantic partner, a dear friend, a given or chosen family member, a mentor, teacher. Ask them this question. What do you think is really special about me? Ask them. Trust them. What do you think is really special about me?

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Oh, listeners, I can hear some of you cringe through the wireless system and also backwards through time. I know. It might feel weird to even think about doing this, but lean into it. Try it on. And just ask someone. If it helps, make it reciprocal. Tell them something you find special about them. You can even tell them first. Do it.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Anyway, and tell us how it goes. Tell us how it goes. We really want to know. Our first North Star is you are special. Get over it.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Our second North Star is being special doesn't isolate you from everyone else. It's actually what we all have in common.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Our third North Star is find concrete ways to take responsibility for the particular placement, gifts, resources that you have access to. We are your community and we need you as you. That's right. We have a special announcement. We are opening up registration of our September cohort of the Chrysalis Experience. Yes. We have taken several circles through this process of deepening our relationship to purpose. If you're in transition or if you're in curiosity, this process gives each participant more access to purpose by facilitating deeper clarity of purpose, removing the blocks and limits on your purpose, clearer access to articulating your purpose, and the resources in your community to connect to and through purpose. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

We have 16 spots, at least right now we do, for the in-person retreat, which includes two days of very spacious circles and one black feminist church service we call revival. And you can find out more information at mobilehomecoming.org. That's right. And there are links in the show notes. We would love to see you there. All right. And until next time, farewell.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

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.