42. Love You For Lifetimes

On this episode hosts Alexis and Sangodare challenge the idea of separation across time, using Jewelle Gomez’s Black lesbian feminist vampire novel The Gilda Stories as a sacred text about kinship and multi-lifetime impact. They share three of their own practices for “living beyond one lifetime.” They offer three “North Stars” and announce registration for the September Chrysalis Experience cohort and retreat.

• Shared Ancestral Practice and Altars
• Black LGBTQ Movement Legacy: Mobile Homecoming
• Understanding Life Purpose Beyond our Lifetimes

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For more on our coaching and community building offerings, Click Here
https://www.mobilehomecoming.org/loveship

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 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_02 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_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_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. Hello, divine Shango Dare, who I truly believe existed at the dawn of the universe as some version of the love that I am experiencing right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Hello, my sweet Alexis, who I search for and find or create lifetime after lifetime. And to keep it in balance, I'm also the one whose attention span sometimes leads me to move from a tender moment to a task at a rate that is, simply put, rude.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

Well, you know. And I'm the one who might expect you to automatically calibrate and optimize who you have been in every lifetime to create my ideal version of you in each moment.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

I wish for that too. So, once again, we are two eternal beings experiencing a neurodivergent time warp together, and we are exactly as lovable as you. Today, we dedicate this episode to our beloved Sydney and Alice. Actually, continuing for two episodes in a row, our celebration of the subversive sirens synchronized swimming team for body positivity, queer liberation, and black freedom.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Yes! I had the honor of officiating Sydney and Alice's wedding a little over a year ago, after five years of friendship and over a year of intentional loveship, intention setting and planning.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

I will never forget that beautiful day in the orchard at Root Springs.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

The retreat center that they created and steward together with Erin and Zoe, the love ship that we dedicated to in last week's podcast.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Yes. And that day, with the grandchildren circling you two and the community bursting with joy, divine love.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Yeah. And all the dancing. Yeah. You are both so creative. Alice is a phenomenal designer, art director, visual artist, and creating worlds and transformation in ways that quite frankly, we ain't ready yet, but we better get ready. Get ready. And Signey is an actor and director, and the new president of Pillsbury House, which is an amazing community accountable theater, educational center, health center. It's many things to many people in Minneapolis.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

We love the sweetness between you two, the intentional way you communicate with each other when you agree and when you don't. And we love how your creativity amplifies between the two of you and radiates to everyone around you.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

You collaborate on home in the city and in the field, from the county, literally, all over the country and between two states while creating homefulness for so many in performance and in practice.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

I also have to say, riding to the airport with y'all and navigating the airport itself on the way to London was probably the most peaceful airport experience of my life. I won't take that personally.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

And I have to say, sorry for taking y'all's family heirlooms on a mini-month journey with me after deinstalling and disassembling your wedding altar. But also after your ancestors were with me and us for such a long time, we all really, really, really go together now.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Ancestrally. We go together. We've been on a journey. We can't wait until the next time we get to sing and play and dream with you both.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Sydney and Alice, we love you. All right, listeners. This is your chance to make a dedication to somebody or some people that bring sweetness and creativity into your life.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Alright. Okay. Dedication launched. Ready to get into the heart of it?

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Let's grow. And guess what? It is still September.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

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 Stevie Wonder Dance, a relationship, a spiritual practice. And on today, we just dropped by to remind you we'll be loving you always.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Mmm, you better sing. Okay, listeners. By now you know that on this podcast, we are all about connection. We challenge individualism, we challenge binaries, we disrupt all forms of separation.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

And this week we are challenging separation not only across space or ideas of the self, but also across time. What if we are not separate across time? And actually, it is a fairly recent Western concept to even think of ourselves that way. Separated.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

Mm-hmm. That's right. Our sacred text for today is The Guild of Stories by the great black and indigenous lesbian feminist author and beloved mobile homecoming elder Jewel Gomez. Jewel Gomez was a cherished mentee of Audrey Lorde, who was in fact the one to tell her that the Guild of Stories series of stories was actually an intertwined novel.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

A black, lesbian feminist vampire novel. Ciao, it's delicious. And didn't you write and didn't you write the preface, Alexis, for the anniversary edition?

SPEAKER_01 6:30

It was my honor. And I can't even pull out my favorite passage from this book because you really need to read the whole thing. Whole thing. It teaches so much about kinship, exchange, visibility, and invisibility, and what it means to live beyond one lifetime. These stories follow Gilda, named after a mentor vampire, also named Gilda, through centuries of black life, from the time of slavery to the very well-predicted video phone era and the future underground interconnected bunker days, where she's part of a black and indigenous-led ecological movement. Okay, no spoilers. Anyway, what I love about the Gilda stories is that we get to see a multi-lifetime impact from someone who lives so long that she basically has an ancestral view of the present. Yeah, brilliant. Deep.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

And dear listeners, you may not be a vampire that we know of, but you too can live as love beyond one lifetime.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

One way that we honor the reality that love is not limited to one lifetime is through our ancestral practice. As a love ship, we have a shared ancestor altar and we honor and sing to and receive guidance from our ancestors together.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

My ancestors show up in your dreams and visions and even sometimes in your writing.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

And I often feel my ancestors speaking to me directly right out of your mouth. Yeah. I feel it too. Just shimmy it on up.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Yeah. We all have ancestors, even if we don't know their names, and even if we don't know their stories. Even if we have reason to be at best suspicious of and even outraged at some of them. Even just curiosity about those who came before us can expand our perspective. And our experience of each other. Because they all connect us to a time we didn't experience ourselves and extend our connection to this planet and to our own movements, our movements, and to our possibilities. Even just curiosity about those who came before us can expand our perspective. And our experience of each other. Because they all connect us to time we didn't experience ourselves and extend our connection to this planet and to our movements and to possibility.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Which brings us to the second way we intentionally practice living beyond one lifetime: movement legacy. Because the feeling You mean like the line dance, like the electric slide? I mean on the scale of our transformative movements, because the feeling of being just an individual out here reacting to brand new manifestations of oppression and our own complex life experiences is completely different from the feeling of being part of a movement. In our case, a queer black feminist movement that's been channeling love through multiple people over multiple lifetimes and even going back as researchers to love on folks who live before the terms black feminists were even invented. That's right. Existing in the context of so many lifetimes of love makes every part of life feel more abundant, powerful, meaningful, possible.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Talk about survival. Mm-hmm. Which is why we created Mobile Homecoming, our experiential archive project to lovingly connect and steward generations of queer black feminist brilliance, also known as our excuse to unapologetically love and listen to our elders, and to become elders who can carry love and insight forward. And our love ship is a vessel for that connection. Mobile, homecoming, cross-time, cross-space, mobile.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Mm-hmm. We own the move. Which brings us to our third way of intentionally living beyond one lifetime, which is by understanding our life purpose beyond the scale of our living years.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

This is coming up a lot for us right now because we just launched our version of Alexius' dad's life purpose roadmap. Thank you, Daddy Clyde. And it asks everyone involved to think about what we want the legacy of our lives to be, what we want it to be as far into the future as we can imagine.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Which is very far because we are in the lineage of Jewel Gomez.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

And it expands the range of our decision making, but it also reminds us how important the small moments are. This is not just me treating you nicely. So you'll talk to me nice later. Talk to me nice. This is the future of our planet vibrating on the frequency of love. She said vibrate. Okay, our first North Star is remember that you are not alone. Whatever you're going through, ancestors, known or unknown, join you. Love is reaching you across time. Open your heart to it.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

Such a long North Star. Our second North Star is reach for the actual stars, which are loving us across time too. By understanding that in this moment you are part of a love that will outlive you. How does it feel to act accordingly?

SPEAKER_01 12:02

And our third North Star is practice together. In our loveships and all our loving relationships, we can love each other's ancestors. We can support each other's legacy building. We can love each other beyond one lifetime. That's right. So, any announcements?

SPEAKER_02 12:23

Yes. We've opened up registration for our September cohort of the Chrysalis Experience, and we kick it off with a retreat. We've taken several circles through by now. Some of them are listening.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Hey, hi.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

So if you're in transition or you're in deep curiosity, this process gives each participant more access to purpose. It supports us by facilitating deeper clarity of purpose, removing the blocks and limits to your purpose. You know, first you gotta be able to perceive them. So we perceive them, we remove them. And then it also provides clearer access to articulating our purpose and the resources. This is my favorite part, the resources in our communities to connect to and through purpose. Quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick. And we have some spots left for the in-person retreat, which includes two days of very spacious circles. We're not we're not running you ragged in this retreat. Nope, nope. Um, and we also have a wonderful black feminist revival service. So if you want to learn more, you can check out mobilehomecoming.org and you can see those links in the show notes as well. We would love to see you there. That's right. Okay. Until next time. There well.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

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.