For The Wild - RACHEL CARGLE on a Renaissance of Our Own ⧸332

00:00:00.000 To listen to the extended version of this episode, support us on patreon.com slash for the wild.

00:00:08.100 Hello and welcome to for the wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young. Today we are speaking with Rachel

00:00:15.800 Cargill. That we aren't just this unfixable thing. We are a soil that can be replanted and nourished

00:00:24.200 and the more we put our energy and effort and show up in community to do that for others who

00:00:31.300 we see it in, I think we can really take the earth as a muse. Rachel Elizabeth Cargill is an

00:00:37.800 activist, entrepreneur, and philanthropic innovator. She is the founder of the Loveland Group, 0.96

00:00:44.640 a family of companies including Elizabeth's Bookshop and Writing Center, a literary space

00:00:50.420 that celebrates marginalized voices and The Great Unlearn, an adult learning platform that centers

00:00:57.200 the teaching of BIPOC thinkers. In 2018, she founded the Loveland Foundation, offering free

00:01:04.580 access to mental health care for Black women and girls. Cargill is a regular contributor to

00:01:10.780 cultured magazine Atmos and The Cut, and her work has been featured in The Washington Post,

00:01:16.920 the New York Times, and The New Yorker. Her new book, A Renaissance of Our Own,

00:01:22.360 a memoir and manifesto on reimagining, comes out in the U.S. May 16, 2023.

00:01:33.580 Oh, Rachel, this is just such a good day because I get to talk to you. I woke up with a huge smile

00:01:42.040 on my face and just really appreciate your work and am inspired and feel really grateful and

00:01:54.460 blessed to have some one-on-one time with you. So thanks for joining us and sharing with all of

00:02:03.640 those out there listening and tuning in. Thank you so much for having me. I too woke up with

00:02:10.640 a smile thinking about the chance to be in conversation with you and also just to be

00:02:16.980 part of this incredible project so thank you thank you yay oh gosh this is something I

00:02:25.040 absolutely love about the podcast is being able to speak to people that move me and

00:02:33.500 yeah, I feel very lucky for my job right now. There's so many places I could begin. So it's

00:02:40.560 really hard to even pick a place on the map of Rachel of where to dive in. But there was this

00:02:48.360 really beautiful article that you wrote that struck me so much. And it just feels like such

00:02:57.420 a important guide for life on earth. And it's an article you wrote for Atmos called Rooted in

00:03:04.620 Blackness. And you write, quote, do you see the texture of the blackness is rich and thick and

00:03:12.860 elaborate. It is a tapestry woven with ancestral knowledge and generational wisdom. This too is

00:03:20.520 where the power of rudeness comes in. Now more than ever is a time to tap into the guidance of

00:03:26.740 the most tangible form of our roots, our ancestors. Those who lived on this earth in the years,

00:03:33.500 centuries, and generations before we arrived. They tended to the earth so that we could reap

00:03:39.000 their knowledge, harvest their dreams for us. Connecting with their wisdom leads us to a truth

00:03:45.480 we can be grounded in. Truths that affirm things like our inclinations, our robust community,

00:03:52.860 our prides, and even our sorrows, end quote.

00:03:59.540 Yeah. So I just would love to hear you reflect more on this sense of rootedness and the very

00:04:09.620 physical aspect of finding and maintaining connection and truth.

00:04:15.320 i really enjoyed writing that piece um i was writing it around black history month i believe

00:04:24.580 and it was a piece that really invited me to consider the truth of black history of my own

00:04:35.560 blackness and how that relates to how i exist in the world today and oftentimes as i'm trying to

00:04:44.360 you know, figure out my way forward, I have found that I get the best insight, calibration

00:04:52.960 from what I like to call this like ancestral intellect or this ancestral knowledge that

00:04:59.800 offers clues. As I said in the piece that, you know, it's some, it's the seeds that they have

00:05:07.540 planted in their work and in their joy and in their intention that we too have to do the work

00:05:13.240 of cultivating it, of seeing what was planted and going out to tend to the land ourselves as well.

00:05:22.960 And I found it to be a major part of my well-being to feel rooted, to feel grounded in a number of

00:05:32.320 things, whether it is in my culture, in my understanding of this country, in my understanding

00:05:38.600 of my womanhood that this intention of understanding what grant what ground i am coming from

00:05:48.760 means something it's not just an interest in what has happened before it's not just a curiosity

00:05:55.000 about what existed it's gathering information that lets me know who i am and where i'm going

00:06:02.840 and particularly as a writer and looking at all of my intellectual ancestors who have put down

00:06:10.680 information on the page. It's such a gift. It's such a gift to be able to go back and look through

00:06:16.920 their words and their thoughts. And I think in that piece and in my work, I want to encourage

00:06:23.400 everyone to remember that we have information and sometimes even answers that were offered to us in

00:06:31.320 previous generations and it's worth the time to walk that landscape of our ancestry of history

00:06:40.360 of past generations both those that aren't here any longer and those who are still here people

00:06:45.640 we can be in conversation with about what they experienced what they know what they can guide

00:06:51.560 us through it's been a definite cornerstone of my own living and my work thanks for starting us off

00:06:59.880 like that. And this work feels so important, this rootedness work, because I feel in this time

00:07:09.820 particularly, there's so many reasons why so many of us feel unrooted. And I think the consequences

00:07:18.100 of that is really dangerous for us. It manifests in so many ways that threaten

00:07:26.040 And our survival, our way of life, our knowingness, our joy, our ability to sift through the grief.

00:07:36.500 You know, I think back to a time when us humans, you know, or many of us humans felt a sense of belonging and what type of secure attachment that must have given us and how that guided our truths.

00:07:54.640 even what truth meant to us but I feel like in this post-modern dominant culture we even question

00:08:02.440 what truth is because of a lack of rootedness and belonging and so it's really hard to make

00:08:07.560 good decisions it's really hard to take care of ourselves and each other when we don't have

00:08:13.660 something connecting us back down to the core of our our ancestry our belonging to this planet

00:08:26.100 so yeah I just really appreciate your your work on this and and very lovingly and gracefully

00:08:38.040 in your writing, bringing us back into that remembrance. And, you know, I guess too,

00:08:46.520 I want to go back to that article because you write, quote, I never knew how much my ongoing

00:08:52.600 relationship with earth, soil, and things that grow would intersect with and influence my work

00:08:58.880 in adulthood. As a Black woman who often writes and teaches on the topic of Blackness,

00:09:04.200 the earth has been both a classroom and a muse, end quote. I love the word muse, by the way. I

00:09:12.620 love that whole, the world of musing. And yeah, I guess I'm thinking about rudeness as an

00:09:19.420 inter-ecological and generational connection. And I'm wondering how this framework

00:09:25.980 recognizes our dependence on one another and on the more than human world, both of this worth

00:09:36.600 and spiritually beyond it. Yeah. Yeah. I agree to, I agree with that desire to be curious about

00:09:47.320 those connections. I think that is part of my writing and my work as well. I think that

00:09:57.320 there's so many ways that we're distracted these days, whether it's distracted with the obvious

00:10:04.360 things like social media or even the less obvious things like the way we are pushed towards an

00:10:10.420 individualism that insists that we turn away from perhaps our shared lived experiences and

00:10:21.420 be more focused on just our personal lived experiences. And I grapple with that so much

00:10:29.300 because one, I am deeply believe that being our best selves is our highest service and that there

00:10:39.340 is a necessity for us to be reflective personally internally and thoughtful and coming to some

00:10:47.900 conclusions about what we know to be true for ourselves and at the same time there's no way

00:10:55.260 that we can have an understanding of ourselves without the act and the experience of being in

00:11:03.100 community not only with those who we might um but also those who we disagree with those who

00:11:12.780 we don't know or don't understand this uh this idea that someone of an opposing viewpoint or

00:11:22.380 experiencing something we don't want to deal with can't be true it can't be true at the same time

00:11:29.820 us dealing with and understanding ourselves and so that line that you read about the earth being

00:11:38.860 a muse it truly is looking at the ecology of the earth what works uh where you know where

00:11:47.580 there are conflicts in what or who can be well at any point in time the change of the seasons

00:11:54.700 the way that it's not always good and there has to be a place for rest or even destruction thinking

00:12:01.020 about how fires are necessary to pour into the health of agriculture so i am very inspired by

00:12:12.220 and particularly tuned in to the way that earth offers us many examples of what

00:12:20.620 showing up with ourselves and with each other could and perhaps must look like

00:12:27.500 oh yeah

00:12:31.580 i i want to stay on this topic of rooting a bit more and

00:12:40.440 yeah i guess what i'm wanting to explore with you is what it means to root into our choices

00:12:50.420 and find clarity and confidence both within ourselves and through affirming communities.

00:12:57.700 And this idea or concept of choice has come up for me a lot in myself and in those around

00:13:06.540 me.

00:13:07.540 I have a dear, wonderful friend visiting right now, Nuskamata, who I've had on the podcast

00:13:15.560 a few times, an incredible New Hulk indigenous leader from so-called British Columbia. And

00:13:22.260 we were feasting last night on seafood and the fat of the land. And she had said something like,

00:13:29.600 I made good choices to be here. And we kind of started talking about what it means to follow

00:13:37.260 not just intuition but the call of our purpose and and that's a choice and I know that's also

00:13:46.320 a challenging choice for a lot of us is how we can trust ourselves to follow that deepest calling

00:13:54.880 and where that then leads us to more choices and how it opens up the world and our communities and

00:14:02.240 how we walk through this world. And so, yeah, I would just love to hear more of your thoughts on

00:14:09.940 rooting in our choice to find our clarity and confidence.

00:14:15.900 Yeah, I am so jealous I wasn't at that table to have this conversation because it's a thing that

00:14:22.240 I too think of often, you know, as a Black girl from the Midwest who grew up with a disabled

00:14:29.680 mother. We were fairly poor. I didn't really have exposure to what was the world and what was

00:14:37.840 possible in the world. And so something that is very central to, as we all continue to heal and

00:14:47.500 discover what it was in our childhood that has made us the way that we are, that has pushed us

00:14:54.260 towards particular choices, the option to have choices, the space to consider my preferences

00:15:02.260 or my desires, the opportunity to say, this is true for me. And with this truth, I will do good.

00:15:11.680 That wasn't always an option for me. It's not always an option for many people who are simply

00:15:16.480 trying to survive under various oppressions like the patriarch as a deep deep both luxury and

00:15:25.520 privilege one to have choice but even more so to move confidently with have really taken up this

00:15:33.020 mantle of reminding people that there is possibility in this lifetime for them that

00:15:40.800 they have the chance to sit there and ask, what else is possible? What else am I capable of? How

00:15:47.780 else can I show up for myself and for the community? And referring back to that quote I mentioned

00:15:53.600 earlier of our best selves being our highest service, often we're constantly trying to

00:16:02.140 fix ourselves uh to you know be more of something and oftentimes what we in the western world

00:16:11.060 understand as quote-unquote more or better is really um an approximation to whiteness it is

00:16:17.520 you know if my hair was straighter if my house was bigger if I had more power if um you know I

00:16:24.900 fit more squarely into this understanding of what is right or what is well. And in my own life,

00:16:34.000 I really had to take a moment and say, wait, is this intention, is this desire something that is

00:16:43.420 rooted in a truth that I understand about myself and those that I see as family, those that I see

00:16:49.680 comrades, those that I see as people who inspire me, or is this something that was insisted

00:16:58.100 by a society that actually doesn't align with my values at all? And so this work towards

00:17:06.000 self-understanding and knowing ourselves is not just a personal, you know, in our heads type of

00:17:15.220 moment, but it also is one of the best things we can do in community, for our community,

00:17:22.960 towards our collective liberation. Tony K. Bambara wrote the way that revolution has to start with

00:17:31.320 self. And so this work that we put into coming to terms with our truth, and I say coming to terms,

00:17:40.540 which sometimes has a negative connotation, but it really is hard sometimes to say, wow,

00:17:46.360 my truth is this. This is what feels best for me. And how can I work with this to serve my

00:17:51.700 community? This idea of being reflective, of combing out what our values are and living in

00:18:00.900 those is where we find so much power, so much motivation, so much fervor for how we can show up.

00:18:07.600 And so I am a huge advocate of the work that one must do to find their highest values, because I think that is what puts the tools in our tool belt to really show up.

00:18:21.480 I just wanted to tie that into choices because with our, you know, making these informed choices based on our values, based to be confident, like you said, to calibrate towards our confidence and how we can show up.

00:18:43.680 One way that this shows up, this has showed up for me a lot over time.

00:18:48.600 And what I talk about often is my decision not to have children.

00:18:52.740 And my decision to be child free is rooted in a lot of self-reflection and me

00:18:58.900 saying, you know, am I feeling pressure to birth a child because I, uh, really

00:19:05.800 want to, like, I'm going to really be able to serve this human and it will

00:19:09.980 be a contribution from me that feels aligned.

00:19:13.680 Or am I doing it because I was told that since I was born in this body, it is the highest way to

00:19:19.840 show up. And when I really thought about one, the fact that I had a choice and two, what that choice

00:19:27.340 really meant, it allowed me to say, you know what, the more I'm able to not have to deal with the

00:19:36.300 conflict of whether I want to be a parent or not, knowing that it's not really something that's

00:19:41.160 coming to me um with much joy or ease the the thought of being a parent instead you know what

00:19:50.460 would it mean for me to put that energy and effort into doing what aligns with me like you know

00:19:56.040 supporting parents in the way that I can doing the work that I do to get the income to do things like

00:20:04.280 help support with summer camps or have some free time in my world to support with child care

00:20:10.780 it's really special when you can be thoughtful make a choice then move confidently with that

00:20:17.260 it really is I find one of the best ways to serve community absolutely and I'm happy we're

00:20:26.000 still teasing out this topic because I mean I know I need to hear it and I'm sure a lot of us

00:20:34.940 listening are in the complexity and the muddiness of how we come to these choices with confidence

00:20:43.860 and a deep sense of knowing. And I also want to hear your thoughts on how do we recognize

00:20:51.420 the difference between real life altering and affirming choices versus the so-called choice

00:20:58.740 that is marketed to us under capitalism?

00:21:02.680 You know, one really easy way to do that,

00:21:05.300 I learned from a friend of mine,

00:21:07.300 her name is Dana Sukau,

00:21:08.520 and a while back she used to do a lot of work

00:21:11.480 around body empowerment.

00:21:14.460 And I really did learn so much from her.

00:21:17.100 And one question she invited us to ask

00:21:21.060 every time we're coming up on a decision

00:21:23.360 that gives us pause, just doesn't feel good,

00:21:26.560 or shows up with some of that residue of is this a societal expectation or something that I actually

00:21:33.060 want to do is to ask the question of who benefits from me making this choice? Who is either making

00:21:42.120 money from this choice of mine? Who, you know, wins with the self-doubt that I'll have because

00:21:50.680 of this choice it makes me think in particular it makes me think of you know let's talk about

00:21:56.600 something as uh you know casual as shaving our legs and the feeling that we have around whether

00:22:05.800 it's uh i don't feel like it or why do i have to do this or why am i rushing and getting all upset

00:22:13.800 about getting this thing done and saying is this something that i want to do and who's winning is it

00:22:19.480 it the producers of these products that are insisting that this has to happen as often as

00:22:25.860 possible in order for them to keep making revenue? Or is it something that feels good to me? And what

00:22:32.660 that does, it puts us in a position that reminds us that nothing is inherently bad, but everything

00:22:40.200 can be manipulated. And oftentimes capitalism's biggest role is manipulating the mundane in order

00:22:48.520 to make us feel pressure in one way or another to continue to feed into the mill of capitalism.

00:22:57.900 And it also can be a question asked in bigger ways, maybe even in something like the decision

00:23:05.440 to have a child. Who benefits from me having this child? Is it me and the joy I'll find in

00:23:11.240 parenthood? Or is it the pressures my parents have had about having grandchildren or the pressures

00:23:17.500 of uh you know maybe a friend group that insisted it and while we can be considerate of the people

00:23:24.280 in our world I think that as I said when we make decisions that are best for us we can show up in

00:23:29.660 the world with a calmness a groundedness a presence that isn't clouded by a ton of decisions that

00:23:36.380 never even really aligned with us

00:23:38.400 Look at this thing closely

00:23:52.880 Now see it out of frame 1.00

00:23:55.520 Let it burn inside you, baby

00:23:59.300 Don't give it a name

00:24:01.480 The name is a thousand ways

00:24:06.020 to erase that which you gaze upon so lovingly

00:24:14.420 let it be more like a dream

00:24:23.260 that's like the sand you grip so hard

00:24:26.320 I'm thinking about when

00:24:31.360 well let's just say that we

00:24:33.920 as a case study um if maybe we weren't in our confidence or in our truth and we make a decision

00:24:44.100 that doesn't serve the earth and ourselves or our community and maybe we become hurt or

00:24:55.400 even anxious over this choice I know I've been there many times before where I can

00:25:03.180 ruminate and fixate on quote bad choices I've made and the consequences that come with that

00:25:09.760 and a lot of some or you know sometimes the internal consequences can be even more severe

00:25:17.340 than the external consequences. And so I'm wondering, how do we move beyond regret?

00:25:25.440 How do we move beyond that fixational, anxious feeling, or of course, the consequences that do

00:25:35.860 happen externally? I think there's so much in this that is necessary for our healing because

00:25:43.360 ultimately we are imperfect. And I'm imagining even as good as we get at following that inner

00:25:49.320 compass and listening to the earth and to our community that affirms us, there will be times

00:25:56.700 that we slip. And I want for all of us to be able to move through and not feel so stuck and stagnant

00:26:07.920 in that regret of a choice that may not really serve us and the ones we love

00:26:14.220 wow what a big consideration it's a hundred percent something I struggle with as well

00:26:25.780 this idea of regret or feeling like we can't recover and you and I before we started recording

00:26:36.920 we were talking about the seasons and it's spring right now. And I mentioned how in awe I am that

00:26:44.920 the earth comes back alive every time, every year. It doesn't fail. It's loyal. It comes up. It

00:26:51.420 reminds us that there is always opportunity for rebirth. And this is making me think of the ways

00:27:01.660 that we often feel inadequate even sometimes when we feel like we made the best decision for

00:27:11.440 ourselves but especially those times where we recognize that we might not have made the right

00:27:16.840 choice and I've been contemplating a lot with myself about what healing is you know it's kind

00:27:27.720 of a buzzword in the wellness industry, in the industrial complex of wellness, I should say.

00:27:34.560 And it alludes to a fixing of things as if something was broken. And it pushes me to

00:27:46.320 reconsider what I understand as the makeup of ourselves, not as being this like porcelain that

00:27:53.380 breaks but us being like the earth that can be replanted that can be tended to that can come

00:27:59.560 alive again um in conditions that are nurturing and sometimes even not we see we see how things

00:28:08.800 can grow even in the most unlikely spaces and when we recognize a space of regret

00:28:18.660 I'm thinking of a few regrets that I have now and it's the visual that I'm having is the difference

00:28:27.480 between showing up with a wounds that are with a scar that is healed over and say this did happen

00:28:36.180 it's true it's forever part of me but here's how I will move forward as opposed to feeling like we

00:28:42.620 have to walk around the world as like a bleeding wound that can no longer be cared for and I think

00:28:51.480 letting go of this idea of I must be fixed this must be right in order to be worthy of

00:29:00.900 moving forward of feeling whole of rerouting and finding ourselves again finding our grounding

00:29:07.560 that we aren't just this unfixable thing we are a soil that can be replanted and nourished and

00:29:15.540 the more we put our energy and effort and show up in community to do that for others who we see it

00:29:23.380 in I think we can really take the earth as a muse like we were talking about before to remind

00:29:28.400 ourselves that this can be healed over and it can grow again but that takes work it's not going to

00:29:35.160 just happen. And yeah, I'm really grateful for you offering that contemplation of regret because

00:29:44.980 we get into the good sides of choices, what we can do, what we will do. But sometimes we don't

00:29:51.160 do those things. And I hope we all give ourselves the grace to tend to and offer some nourishment

00:29:57.440 so that we can, um, show up, bloom again. Yeah. I think it's nice to,

00:30:06.740 I don't know if normalize is the right word, but kind of take some of the weight off making bad

00:30:14.660 choices too, and releasing some of that judgment. Or I know for me, the feeling that a bad choice

00:30:23.100 can get so heavy that I sometimes I can feel the what's the word I'm looking for like I can't quite

00:30:34.840 get out of the regret feeling that um that stuckness uh so yeah I feel good about being

00:30:46.320 able to talk through that with you and allow some of that to move through with more lightness and

00:30:52.600 not feel so weighed down by it and when you the last thing you said about blooming what it reminded

00:31:00.860 me of was your new book a renaissance of our own and the word bloom and renaissance feel like they

00:31:09.760 have a relationship together in some way uh this budding energy almost it feels like spring like

00:31:18.820 we were talking earlier when it's um you you can feel something coming and i just want to

00:31:27.620 yeah i guess i just want to explore why we need a renaissance right now and what has led us here

00:31:35.940 and how did you dream of a renaissance and what does that look like to you

00:31:42.020 i think collectively i'll start with the collective and perhaps move into my more

00:31:51.020 personal story but i think collectively we are at the point of renaissance not because we want to

00:31:58.820 but because it's absolutely necessary what is happening is not sustainable literally uh for

00:32:06.880 the earth, for our bodies, for our communities. And technology has offered us a tool amongst all

00:32:17.380 the tools we've had over all of time to reimagine and reinvent ourselves as hopefully a better

00:32:28.440 collective, a better people, a more nurturing and nourishing. And this renaissance that is

00:32:36.540 necessary is coming from, you know, as I mentioned earlier, the way that we

00:32:44.700 bring fire to the fields in order to clean them in preparation for the next season. It kind of

00:32:54.320 feels like that to me right now. And so, you know, in writing this book, I wrote it over the course

00:33:05.080 of four years. And in those four years were some of the heaviest, most intense work done around

00:33:15.520 race. There was the murder of George Floyd. There was the uprisings in 2020. There was

00:33:23.980 the murder of Jalen Walker here in my hometown of Akron, Ohio. You know, this

00:33:30.480 deep craving for something, anything that's different and new from this feels very present

00:33:42.800 in me. And I think that the reason why I would even write to it or even hope for it is because

00:33:52.060 I experienced a bit of it personally in my own life, in all the ways that I have looked at what

00:33:59.040 was there and said, what could be different. And in my book, I speak about it from a place of

00:34:07.620 All of my personal renaissance over time, I talk about the ways that I was invited to reimagine, reimagine feminism, reimagine education, reimagine relationships and rest.

00:34:27.320 you know I the arc of my life has been studded by all of these moments of me taking like a

00:34:37.220 literal pause and saying wait is this actually what I want and if it's not what must I do who

00:34:46.200 must I be what community must I build in order for it to be much more aligned to what I know to

00:34:53.200 be true around my values, my intentions, my lineage, what service I can do to my ancestors,

00:35:00.980 to those I am on the earth with now, and to those who will be here in the future.

00:35:06.600 And I hope that through my book, it invites everyone to be curious and critical about how

00:35:15.120 we're showing up and what role we might play in our collective renaissance, but also the

00:35:22.040 renaissance that we will have inside of us as individuals it feels time right i'm just like

00:35:31.100 it's time i i think so many of us are craving that there's been such oh gosh there's just been

00:35:42.520 so much and we're bombarded every day with more and more to process and grieve and be perplexed by

00:35:54.480 and I really feel like so much of that doesn't allow us to blossom into these beautiful creatures

00:36:06.120 that we are and dream into the solutions. I don't really love the word solution, but dream into

00:36:13.060 another way of relating and living. And so when I hear the word Renaissance, it feels like

00:36:20.140 a breath of fresh air. It feels like the wind that clears out that stagnancy. And

00:36:29.080 yeah, I really want that for us because I, you know, when I, and I think about humanity in general

00:36:39.180 and the earth and what would it take for us to embody a renaissance? And I guess, yeah,

00:36:47.700 I wonder about that. I like hearing about it on a personal level. And of course, like what you

00:36:53.940 had just mentioned we need to start there you know we can't really control much outside of us

00:37:00.120 and even that is questionable at times um so how do you see maybe a more collective renaissance

00:37:07.720 it's hard for me to ask about a global renaissance because that just feels so

00:37:12.660 huge and maybe even unsurmountable but yeah i just want to maybe expand the vision a bit and

00:37:19.040 hear your thoughts on that. Yeah. Well, one thing that's been so on my mind is the necessity for

00:37:28.180 more intergenerational conversations. I think that that key component to our Renaissance. And

00:37:35.740 And I say that because there's so much exchange of not only information, but tools and understanding

00:37:49.760 between generations, not just the wisdom that the older generation can offer us, but also

00:37:56.800 tools and information and insight that younger generations will be able to offer people who

00:38:03.440 are much older.

00:38:04.280 and I think that that intention could really be powerful. I recently was at my bookstore and I got

00:38:15.260 to sit in on the poetry group there and we were studying a poem about protest particularly as it

00:38:24.400 applied to a protest that was happening there in the in the city that weekend and a really special

00:38:33.760 moment was when we were reading the poem and in the poem it mentioned the uh common chant no justice

00:38:44.000 no peace and while we were discussing the poem there was an older black woman there who kind of

00:38:52.960 was like oh i i've never heard that chant that wasn't a chant that we would say while we were

00:38:58.400 out marching and i said oh that's so interesting tell me about some of the chants that you remember

00:39:03.360 and that felt powerful to you and so we took some time to listen to a few people from a few

00:39:10.080 different generations kind of share the language that we use to express our pain and our expectations

00:39:17.760 and it was really powerful to have that linguistic exchange but also to see kind of the way the older

00:39:28.400 woman felt incredibly inspired by that concept of no justice, no peace, and how all of us who were

00:39:35.100 much younger than her felt like we had all of this new material to take to the streets with us when

00:39:40.360 it was our turn again to go ahead and call out these chants of expectation and justice. And it

00:39:47.340 really reaffirms my idea that this renaissance is intergenerational. This isn't something that's

00:39:55.140 the new kids is not something that will only benefit those who will come later uh it's ours

00:40:01.140 it's all of ours and it's now um and i think that i have so much excitement and so much expectation

00:40:11.380 for what some intentional intergenerational conversation could offer us as we all you know

00:40:20.900 hopefully we'll be able to sit back and watch things bloom and say wow we all did our work

00:40:27.700 we learned we came together we came with intention and we're ready to keep doing that

00:40:32.620 for as long as we all can I feel so grateful for the people who I have in my community who

00:40:41.300 are much younger even children who say things notice things that we don't always in our

00:40:48.540 adulthood who dream of things and imagine things that we don't always have the quote-unquote time

00:40:54.720 to do as adults and even kind of older people who are over it and who kind of don't have a filter

00:41:02.180 anymore because they've just seen so much and they're giving a different perspective and I'm

00:41:08.780 I'm very moved by and excited by what intergenerational conversations look like and

00:41:16.100 mean for our collective revolution and renaissance as long as your heart is broken

00:41:33.220 I'm going to crack mine too

00:41:37.980 As long as the door is open

00:41:44.220 We might as well have a few

00:41:49.280 I'm back in love like a steam train

00:42:03.880 Hot and dangerous to eat

00:42:09.660 Sure enough you ain't the one to blame

00:42:14.340 Baby you just shake something loose in me

00:42:18.920 absolutely

00:42:27.800 gosh I feel like I need many more hours with you because there's so much to explore together

00:42:39.000 but I would be remiss if we didn't get to talk a bit about recognizing capacity of our dreams

00:42:47.840 and learning to trust them as guides for the future.

00:42:53.280 And I just really appreciate how much this conversation is about trust

00:42:58.840 because that word feels big and complex,

00:43:05.860 but also I feel like we can get to a place of more simplicity with it potentially,

00:43:12.420 or maybe not.

00:43:13.780 But yeah, you wrote an article for Atmos called Dreaming Awake and in it you write, quote, a critical conversation about dreaming has woven its way into popular culture. Yet this concept and practice is not new.

00:43:29.740 We are witnessing the uncovering of a sacred tool that has been employed generation after generation for existence beyond. Beyond oppressions, beyond scarcity, beyond enslavement, beyond desertion, beyond inaccessibility, beyond an inability to claim ourselves.

00:43:50.660 end quote goodness yeah so I kind of have a two-part question thought process for you

00:44:01.580 one I'm wondering how do we learn to trust dreams as guides bringing them into the folds

00:44:09.340 of our lives rather than just casting them out as pure fantasy and then a second part is what if

00:44:16.160 this current moment is not suggesting a nightmare, but rather is the beginning of a dream and one

00:44:24.880 that moves outside of extraction and exploitation. I like this question. I think, you know, my

00:44:36.200 relationship to dreaming goes back to childhood. And I think it might for all of us, whether we

00:44:42.480 think about our dreams and i'm talking about the actual dreams like when you're asleep and then

00:44:47.840 you wake up and remember what was going on in your mind as well as the daydreams that come to us

00:44:53.860 while we kind of dissociate and start to consider what else start to consider what could be and

00:45:04.940 And as I began to talk more about my dreams, I got more and more feedback from people saying

00:45:14.000 that they hadn't really taken the time to either be in relationship with their dreams and their

00:45:19.800 dream world, that they didn't allow themselves to dream either because it was something that

00:45:24.600 they got in trouble for when they were a child, for daydreaming too much or for having silly ideas.

00:45:29.900 and it feels like something childish that couldn't really be meaningful to us as adults

00:45:36.040 and then also in the world now it feels so on fire the thought of dreaming of kind of getting

00:45:48.740 away from what's here and going into this space of imagination and possibility feels

00:45:54.820 feels non-accessible. And so I've been putting a lot of intention and effort and energy into

00:46:05.860 this conversation of dreaming, because again, considering place and space in our dreams is

00:46:13.900 one of the few places that we have so much agency. And it gives us so much information about

00:46:23.920 ourselves and when we have more information about ourselves we can move with more strategy and

00:46:31.660 intention and yeah sometimes it does feel like a nightmare many things feel like nightmares and

00:46:42.460 I find such beauty in the way that dreaming is free dreaming is immediately accessible

00:46:51.860 um you know it's some we don't have to go anywhere for it we don't have to do anything to get to it

00:46:57.660 it's this stepping out of what we know to be real and tangible and true right here and right now

00:47:05.160 and allowing our minds to kind of melt and expand and shape shift and bring us new ideas bring us

00:47:13.220 things that feel very impossible but we think about for a moment which might lead us to

00:47:18.660 constructing something that is similar to that, but that can exist on this earth.

00:47:24.600 And I'm often heartbroken at the idea that we have that our dreams are these silly things

00:47:32.700 because they really are powerful. They really are powerful. And again, with the option of

00:47:40.900 intergenerational conversations to ask someone, what is something you've dreamt of that came

00:47:48.320 true or that you made manifest or what is something you're dreaming of now these are really

00:47:53.980 great conversation starters for our collective work towards liberation because what if our dreams

00:48:00.720 were the uh the raw material we use to start considering what a renaissance or a reimagining

00:48:07.240 might look like what if we didn't say okay how can we make capitalism look better but instead

00:48:13.700 what else is possible besides this capitalistic space that confines us and kills us in so many

00:48:20.500 ways um i hope i hope people will continue to move toward what has as i said in the article

00:48:29.380 been true for so long um that dreams are raw materials for our renaissance our reimagining

00:48:38.020 and our revolution if we think about think about all of the well i should say i think often about

00:48:45.300 uh people who were enslaved in america my ancestors and the types of dreams that were

00:48:51.700 absolutely necessary for them to stay alive there's no way that they would still be living

00:48:57.380 and breathing if they only took their reality as what was true they had to believe that their

00:49:03.540 dreams were possible, or they would be hopeless. And that power to know that for hundreds of years,

00:49:11.420 we were fueled by dreams of what else could be outside of the enslavement that they were

00:49:16.700 experiencing in that moment, that really moves me. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh, now I'm feeling all riled

00:49:26.140 up me too i'm like yes i'm just yeah feeling really energized um and gosh rachel this whole

00:49:37.320 interview has just felt like balm like honey for the heart and also like a rallying cry at the same

00:49:46.080 time and i just appreciate you and the potency but the gentleness that you bring to these

00:49:55.960 really big topics that I just feel like it's so it's so nourishing to talk with you about these

00:50:07.480 things and I was uh gosh yeah I wish we could talk longer but I also as we come to a close

00:50:15.820 I'm just thinking about circling back to the beginning of our conversation and returning to

00:50:23.540 the idea of rootedness and alignment and I just think you express it so well in your book

00:50:28.020 and I want to read another quote in a renaissance of our own you write quote

00:50:33.300 aligning how I moved through the world with these highest values and with knowledge empathy and

00:50:39.760 action completely changed how I showed up in my relationships at work and for myself and made

00:50:46.440 space for me to live based not on expectation routine or the traditional markers of success

00:50:51.880 but on what I value most. Encouraged by this clarity, I experimented with new and inspired

00:50:58.640 ways of existing, working, playing, resting, and loving that it didn't always line up with

00:51:06.900 what was expected of me." So yeah, I just want to end with some thoughts on how do we find our 0.53

00:51:19.720 values and what is the shape and texture and form of alignment yeah in my book i i kind of walk

00:51:30.360 through the kind of like the exercises and the thoughts and the journaling that i took to to

00:51:38.040 find my highest values and um it's funny because so much of the way i got the answer of what my

00:51:47.060 highest values are, are we're being observant of my dreams, being observant of what I was

00:51:53.260 daydreaming about, what I used to daydream about as a child, what feels both impossible and exciting

00:52:01.100 for me in my adulthood. And one of the special things about finding your highest values, and for

00:52:10.300 me uh mine have shown up as ease abundance and opportunity and with those three markers for me

00:52:21.660 uh those three lens that i look through to decide how i move through the world it has um

00:52:28.940 it has invited others to communicate to consider and communicate their values as well inside of

00:52:35.420 my company I ask my team what their values are because it allows me to engage more meaningfully

00:52:42.980 I asked lovers what their values are it allows me to engage more meaningfully and I share mine

00:52:48.360 because it allows me to say hey here is the road I'm on is this something you'd like to join me

00:52:55.420 with and you know if if anything pulls us too far off of the path of our values we know that it that

00:53:02.300 it wouldn't be right for us. And I think it's a, it's a necessary exploration of

00:53:10.820 recognizing those values, considering when they change and shift and being in relationship with

00:53:18.880 them, because there's a beauty in self-knowing that, you know, coaxes us to say, you know,

00:53:28.380 what's possible? What's possible? How can I show up even more authentically? How can I show up with

00:53:33.560 even more fervor and passion for the things and the people that I care about without the

00:53:38.240 questioning of whether it's true? Because when you know what your values are, if the thing aligns

00:53:44.760 with your values, then there's truth to it. And if it doesn't, then it's something you can leave

00:53:49.180 for someone else who might align. And I feel really grateful for that path, that discovering

00:53:57.240 my highest values clears for me um and i'm really excited through my ongoing work but particularly

00:54:04.840 through my book to invite people to find theirs as well well rachel thank you thank you so much for

00:54:15.800 all of what you've shared and yeah i hope to just stay more deeply connected and

00:54:21.880 And yeah, I'm excited for the future of our weavings.

00:54:29.120 Yes. Yes. Thank you so much.

00:54:31.080 This was as special as I thought it would be. Thank you.

00:54:39.760 Thank you for listening to For the Wild podcast.

00:54:42.400 The music you heard today was by Eliza Edens and Mikaela McVeigh.

00:54:46.560 For the Wild is created by Ayanna Young, Erica Ekrem, Francesca Glaspell, and Julia Jackson.

For The Wild - May 03, 2023

RACHEL CARGLE on a Renaissance of Our Own ⧸332

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