International Black Summit Interview Podcast: Alexis Pauline Gumbs

November 6, 2022
Black Summit Interviews
Season 1, Episode #8 - Alexis Pauline Gumbs


In this podcast episode, Glenn Greenidge and Grace Lawrence interview ALEXIS PAULINE GUMBS about how she effectively uses the Summit Tools and Distinctions in her career, in her life, and in the Summit. 

Alexis Pauline Gumbs is cherished by a wide range of communities as an oracle and a vessel of love. Drawing over 25 years of experience as a writer and facilitator, her inclusive practice finds us and brings us into the ceremonies we have always needed. Alexis was blessed to learn the loving practice of facilitation as part of the facilitation team of the International Black Youth Summit from 1998-2004, and in many other settings.

Alexis's critically acclaimed books include: Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals (AK Press 2020), Dub: Finding Ceremony (Duke Press, 2020), M Archive: After the End of the World (Duke Press 2018), Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity (Duke Press, 2016) and Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines (PM Press, 2016). 

Alexis was honored with a Whiting Award in non-fiction in 2022 and lauded for creating "modern fables that offer new methods of feeling." Alexis is also a 2022 National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing Fellow.  In 2020-2021 Alexis was awarded a National Humanities Center Fellowship to work on her forthcoming biography The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde. 

Alexis has taught in many settings including as Winton Chair of the Humanities at University of Minnesota, Evans Chair at Evergreen State University, and Distinguished Visiting Professor in Africana Studies at Barnard College.

Alexis and her partner Sangodare have received many honors, including Advocate 40 under 40 features for the decade of work to create an intergenerational living library of Black LGBTQ brilliance called the Mobile Homecoming project.  Alexis lives in Durham, North Carolina where she nurtures and is nurtured by a visionary creative community while scheming towards her dream of being your favorite cousin. 

For more information about the International Black Summit, please go to:

    Website – blacksummit.org
    Twitter – @blacksummit
    Facebook – facebook.com/blacksummit/
    IBS News Sign-Up – bit.ly/IBS-signup
    IBS Annual Summit Event Registration – blacksummit.org/ase

The views and opinions expressed by the person interviewed are their own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the International Black Summit.

Transcript

[This transcript has not been edited nor proofread.]


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Hi! Everyone welcome to the International Black Summit Interview Series. podcast

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This is a podcast that was created to give us an opportunity to interview current and past participants and facilitators of the International Black Summit.

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And for those of you who don't know about the international black Summit.

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We're an organization that was created in 1,991, and our purpose is to provide an opportunity for participants to bring into being their vision for the black community. and the world.

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So. my name is Grace Lawrence, and my co-host tonight, Lynn Greenwich

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So Glenn and I will be will be interviewing Alexis Gums this evening.

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So. Alexis is a currented past participant and facilitator of the international black youth summit.

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And so we'll get into that a little bit in a moment.

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But first we just would like to ground ourselves in the declaration of the International Black Summit, so to find out more about us. You can go to our website at Black Summit Dot Org.

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That's black summit, not 4 rg and for those of you who are watching on Youtube.

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As opposed to listening to us on a podcast platform You'll be able to see on Youtube the declaration of the International Black Summit come up as one of the pages in our website.

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So, Glenn, do you want to go ahead and ground us in the declaration? Absolutely.

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Thank you, Jackie Grace. Thank you. The declaration of the International Black Summit.

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We declare ourselves, our community, and all communities, whole and complete.

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There is nothing to do except B. We assert that we are responsible for generating community as possibility and distinction.

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We listen for, and Grant being to the possibility and creation of unpredictable results.

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Our conversation of about and for those of African descent is one of power, self-generation, abundance, responsibility, unity, and integrity. With the possibility of being.

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We stand for the expression of our spirituality, ending the murders of our men, women and children, building economies, responsible for funding our community, maintaining wellness of being in our bodies, providing human services, establishing

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nurturing relationships altering the conversation of who we are.

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In the media empowering our youth, we declare that our community manifest itself in the world as a contribution in the transformation of the universe.

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Atlanta, Georgia, October seventh, 1991

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Thank you, Glenn. Thank you. Thank you. So before we have Alexis join us in our virtual studio here.

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I just want to read a little bit about Alexis.

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And I think that this is going to be an interview.

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I know that we have been very much looking forward to having Alexis with us this evening, and I think that everybody who's listening, or who's watching, or will really enjoy our conversation tonight.

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So Alexis Pauline Gums is it charged, is cherished by a wide range of communities as an oracle and a vessel of love, drawing over 25 years of experience as a writer and facilitator her

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inclusive practice finds us and brings us into the ceremonies we have always needed.

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Alexis was blessed to learn the loving practice of facilitation as part of the facilitation team of the International Blacks Youth summit from 1998 to 2,000, and 4 and in many other Settings Alexis

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is critically acclaimed. Books include drowned black feminist lessons from marine mammals.

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Doug finding ceremony, M. Archive after the end of the world, spill scenes of black feminist fugitivity, fugitivity, and re revolutionary mothering love on the front lines each of those books published from 2,000

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and 16 to 2,020. Alexis was honored with a whiting award in non-fiction.

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In 2,022, and lauded for creating modern fables that offer new methods of feeling.

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Alexis is also a 2022 national industry, endowment of the arts, Creative Writing fellow in 2020 to 2021.

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Alexis was awarded a National Humanity Center fellowship to work on her forthcoming biography. The eternal life of Audrey.

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Lord Alexis has taught me many settings, including as Winton, chair of the Humanities at the University of Minnesota.

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Evans chair at Evergreen State University, and distinguished Visiting Professor in Offer Kana Studies at Barnard College.

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Alexis and her partner Sangodari, have received many honors, including Advocate, 40 under 40 features.

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For the decade of work to create an intergenerational living library of Black Lgbtq brilliance called the Mobile Homecoming Project.

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Alexis lives in German North Carolina, where she nurtures and is nurtured by a visionary creative community.

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While scheming towards her dream of being your favorite cousin.

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So so welcome, Alexis. Welcome, welcome! Join us! join us. so, Glenn, if you could give for the capacity to unmute herself as well that would be great.

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Thank you. thank you I'm so happy to be here welcome welcome it's so great to see you it's so great to see you and be with you tonight.

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So if we could set this up our we set up with the 3 of us spotlighted.

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Let me see yeah. So if the 3 of us could be spotlighted, that would be great.

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Perfect, Thank you, it. is we're good thank you, we're good now.

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Thank you, thank you. So Alexis. Hi hi hi so good to see you so good to see you.

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It's been too long it's been too long very long time.

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Yes, it's so great to have you here with us and one of the things that we mentioned to you one of the reasons that we created the podcast.

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Was just to have an opportunity to hear from participants facilitators.

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People who have engaged with the International Black Summit what the International Black Summit has been for them, just starting initially with how you first learned about the sum of what your first exposure was, or your first event was and then going into a little

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bit about your experiences with us. the distinctions that you use in your life all of that kind of stuff.

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So? Yeah. So let's start with your first like How did you first find out about it.

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What was your first event? What was your first exposure?

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All of that. Yeah. Well, so I am a third generation. International Black Summit.

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Hi Tant, because my grandmother, Lydia Gums, was involved in the summit.

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My parents and my aunts and uncles have mostly attended the summit at least once, and I and my my generation I mean.

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We. We also go up. You know our parents is a landmark Forum, my siblings, my cousins, and I.

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We did the form for young people. And so when the summit came to to Atlanta, and I think this was in 98

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That was my first time actually getting to attend international black Youth Summit.

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Now I have been hearing about I, because my parents have been in New Orleans at the summit, and they had talked about.

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You know how Malika was it stand for there to be a youth summit.

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And so by the time the summit came, to atlanta I was like I'm ready I i'm ready to to participate, and that was my first, experience and it was such a powerful I mean there's really an

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embodied memory of being in that room with Malika and Falami, and Mike and Willa and

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So many. I mean one buoy, so many phenomenal young people who were young, but older than me, but still young, and I just.

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I just felt absolutely invigorated by their power, their ability to hold space for us in conversation.

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The realness and honesty and vulnerability that they showed even in their leadership.

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And I I think that that's what had me commit to continuing to participate in the summit, and you know eventually to join the facilitation team.

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And did you say how old you were that first event? Do you recall?

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Well, if it was 98 I would have been 16 years old.

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Okay. And about how old were they, the older youth that you were looking up to?

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They were probably like 18 to 21. I think I think that they were

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Some of them were in college. Maybe some of them have just finished college.

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Yeah. So I I saw them as almost like like older siblings, you know, like we were part of the same generation.

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But I I really continue to look up to all of them.

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But I remember at that time really looking up to each of them.

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So much so at that time. you know, coming in 16.

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You know that whole sweet 16 beginning to beginning to explore, shifting from being a child into being a young adult sort of in that growth phase

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And coming into that first summit. It sounds like it sounds like you were ready to continue right away like it wasn't like you had to be, you know, taken kicking and screaming No, not at all like I I was passionately wanted

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to be wanted to continue to be at these events. And I think it is actually what you say about that time of really moving into responsibility for what my experience would be in the world, seeing seeing the facilitators of the international black youth

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summit as exemplars in that you know like if if I and at the stage of my life, where I can't say that my entire existence has been constituted by my parents and my guardians, or my teachers, or other authority figures

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in my life. What do I want that story to be? How do I want to relate powerfully to my own?

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Existence, and I felt that they used some it was really exciting supportive place around that.

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And there Wasn't though you know I was involved in other use empowerment work, and though I was involved in a a the team newspapers in Atlanta by teenagers and 4 teenagers opportunity to to see other

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young people, you know, who who had incredible ideas and were inspiring there wasn't a space that was visionary space of black use that I had experienced up to that point, and and I just I was like I belong so that was

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the that was the piece, the Visionary part of the work that you hadn't been present to or available in other places that you heard here in the International Black Youth Summit.

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Very good, Okay, cause cause of course, you know you.

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You know very well that that vision is one of our foundational conversations in terms of entering the conversation, and of course, building on it and using the tools and skills.

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What? What else? What else do you hear? let me ask you before you go into that question?

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1998 was alexis's first event first international black youth Summit.

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Do you know how long the youth summit had been around at that point?

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I mean we recently, Alexis, if you don't know we did recently interview Malika. and so we talked a little bit about the whole forming and her idea.

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And you know people coming together to create the use summit.

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Do you recall what that first

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Idea got a announce to the adults basically that they were going to have a use summit.

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And so we use that next year to really solidify what? what, what is the training going to be, and and how will we qualify?

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Facilitators use facilitators to be facilitating at the front of the room.

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And so we had some rerequisites and some training they had to do along with the senior facilitators.

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So at that point time it's about the you said 98, or 99, you said 99.

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So it was 3, 4 years in, I think. it was 98. but it could it could have been 99 99 was in Jamaica.

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Oh, no. Okay, So then it was. it was 98, because yeah, 99 was my first summit.

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So you had this. So you had this idea.

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You. You heard something around vision, and you wanted to pursue it.

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Wha! What else were you? What were you drawing?

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What? What else drew you to the international black summit?

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You know. Obviously your parents your grandparents because if your grandfather did do the summer, too, didn't he?

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No, he didn't He didn't do this okay he he just he just hung out with us when we went to Anguilla.

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Not not the same person to sit inside a room at that stage of his life.

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He had decided to not do that anymore. But yeah, I think the this visionary, and even, you know, hearing the declaration I I read, I read the decoration along with you, Glenn, because you know this: is my training.

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Is that we all say it So I I was also saying it along with you on mute, and it's it's just still such a powerfully moving document to me, I mean, when when I hear these phrases and you can hear

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like, if listen to my own bio and listening to the declaration.

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I was like, Oh, okay, like literally nurturing relationships is in my way.

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I introduce myself to the world. and this idea of our community as a contribution to the transformation of the universe that is core to me.

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And I think that that really is what called me and you know when we make the distinction of it being a visionary space that is very different from you know, being a young person who's involved in things that are around.

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Well, if black youth they're underprivileged or we're under resource, or we're disenfranchised, or you know all of this language that that speaks to lack and and reproduces that

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lack in in certain ways. This I have always known that our community is a contribution to the transformation of the universe.

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No so like when I was a little kid I was writing praise poems about my grandfather, and my grandmother and my parents and my uncles and aunts, because I was just like, oh, you know like there's

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just something about people, and in my experience in my poor communities, about us as black people.

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That is kind of cosmic, transformative to me in indescribable.

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But the exciting thing, and continues to be the exciting thing for me as a writer is to still try to describe it.

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And so it really did feel like coming home to be inside this conversation, where that is a shared understanding, you know, like, Yes, we get caught up in our conversations.

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Yes, we are an upset sometimes, about the things that are happening on the news, or what's showing up in our families, or what what's showing up in community.

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But we understand that the black community is a contribution to the transformation of the universe, and that's it's so it's something that's so enlivening and I believe that as a starting point it just it really

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makes everything possible. And so it it was really affirming to hear that to say that to be in a room full of people all saying that when that's something that I I feel like that's the spark of being that I was set

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into this life with, you know, really to celebrate this cosmic blackness, this transformational miracle that is our people.

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And I feel it feels and felt at the time really good not to feel in the minority in that belief.

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You know, you know you talk about that connection between the declaration that Glenn presence for us, and then also your biography, and you actually noticing in that moment the connection between the 2 that you saw for yourself so

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for me i'm just kind of curious we typically ask this question later.

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But i'm curious Now, cause we say that the purpose of the International Black Summit is to provide an opportunity for participants to bring into being their vision for the black community and the world.

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And so many of us state what our vision is and so can you state what your vision is.

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Oh, that's so wonderful. Yeah, I haven't had the opportunity to do that in the in this way for a while.

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Hmm: Yeah, my vision is for us all of us to be.

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Love to be connecting points of love from all directions, to have access to the love from all those living, all those who have ever lived, all those who will ever lived, and all life, even beyond our species.

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And I know that my purpose is to be love and my vision. that is, that's it, that we are here being loved.

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Yeah, Thank you for sharing that. So so given given all that when you left that first of what?

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What did you leave with what what you know? You came in?

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And there was this excitement in this enthusiasm, and like-minded people.

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So what what did you leave with what What what did you have at the end of the this first event that you attended?

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Oh, that's so interesting! I mean I think there were many insights!

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And you know, interesting as someone who's writing a biography of someone right now, and like reading her teenage journals, I'm like, Wow!

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You know this, some certain things that are like so important and life or death when you're 16.

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But what what is that to do with anything so i'm sure there were many things that were on that scale.

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It was like, Oh, I don't have to have this particular story about my homework or my crush, that I had. but I don't actually remember that in detail in this moment, though if I do have the journals that I could

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go back to or maybe my biographer will look at one day, if i'm too mortified to ever look at them.

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But I know that what I came away with was this huge sense of possibility and and a real desire for being with, you know, like being with that other young people who were part of the youth summit.

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I think that I just wanna acknowledge how important it is to have. Are people right?

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I mean that's, of course, the idea of why these stomach shares happen.

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Why the sharing of the Interview series is happening and being able to have community cause.

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Sometimes you think you know I I might have thought that I was a little, and it was.

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It would be predictable that I would think that I was alone, because I was often the only, or one of very few black students in predominantly white educational institutions.

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My entire education right? So I had this conversation about like nobody gets me i'm alone here, you know.

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That conversation was very present for me at that time, and profound experience of feeling that I wasn't alone, and that there was there weren't an abundance of people who not only were also black young people, but who also are operating from

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this perspective of vision, and who felt empowered to create spaces for other young black people because they did it.

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That really allowed me a place to let go of that conversation of like I'm alone actually in the universe.

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And nobody's gonna get me and you know that that was huge for me to say. actually, i'm part of a huge network of people, and understanding that whoever was in that room was just like the tip of the iceberg because

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we claim everybody like we, and this is what the summit that we claim.

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The whole black community, like everyone on the planet, we say this: this vision moves through all of us.

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You know whether you're specifically in this at this gathering in person or not, and so that this expansiveness of reflection, affirmation was huge, and it was a it was a new story for me.

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and I wanna also acknowledge that it's it is really real.

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You know the ways that i'm thinking about like what it has met what it meant to be able to travel.

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You know, with you, Glenn, with Bill, who was on the call.

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With Jackie Grace, like you really being someone who's like. Yes, you can stay.

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You can stay in my in my home. while you're you know a brook like this is I feel like there's understanding that our vision is reflected.

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But then there's the actual community that supports us in taking the steps to achieve our vision. and the black summit has been that community.

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Very specifically you all have been that for me and i'm just so grateful, you know, that that's so wonderful in because what i'm present to because you come from a a loving supportive visionary family and

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and but yet there was something else available in coming into this to see other young people engage in the same kind of things that you were.

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The the expansiveness, the vision, the passion, the the expertise, and and the support of each other.

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And so there was such sort of some here, and that there was clearly a place that was offered to you, or or kinda yeah embraced you.

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And and what did that mean to you at 16 years old, to have that kind of experience with the travel and the the the extended community that you now have access to it?

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I mean it. It really affirms the reality that everything is possible.

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You know I I I think about when we went to Brazil, and I remember, you know, because here I am I'm visionary.

00:25:57.000 --> 00:26:05.000
Now I understand that we're speaking our declaration and our intentions, and we're enrolling in the universe, and into it.

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:11.000
Once. I remember I had made a list of things that I wanted to do while I was still a teenager, Right?

00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:19.000
So I, before I turn 20. These are things that I are my list that I want to have happened, and I wanted to go to Brazil.

00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:25.000
That was on my list, and I tried all these I tried to do a Brazil study abroad.

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:37.000
Didn't work out I tried the I tried all these different things, and I was like, well, you know, here it is may I turn 20 next month, and I have no ticket to Brazil.

00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:52.000
So this is one of the things on, the list and then, I remember getting the call like, So we need somebody from the International Black, you summit to come to Brazil because we because we're you know, doing a planning trip and and to meet

00:26:52.000 --> 00:27:06.000
with the youth organizations and to look at the venues, and I was like, What's it really felt like nonlinear way of the universe responding, I set the intention, and I took action towards the intention, and none of

00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:16.000
those actions resulted, how I thought they would! And yet and still, before I was 20 years old, indeed, I was there in Brazil.

00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:22.000
Meeting all these other young people and the folks, you know, from Steve Eco.

00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:29.000
Organization, and seeing all these murals, and really the opportunity to in in Brazil, also in Ghana.

00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:45.000
Also, you know, in the Caribbean, to meet other black young people who who were living out their visions right and coming together in powerful ways and thinking about blackness in their context, in ways that were relevant to them and that were different from

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:52.000
my context growing up has been so important. it's been so important, for I feel like I already had a cosmicinkling.

00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:58.000
You know about what blackness is, but the expansiveness to see, to see it playing out.

00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:04.000
And of course, you know, wherever we went. Of course there were people from all over the world who came to the summit from beyond.

00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:20.000
Even the host, the host countries that we were in so yeah it's it's I would I do not think that the way, you know I, as a as a scholar, as an educator and as a writer I am

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:33.000
theorizing blackness all of the time and the way that i'm able to theorize blackness is expansive, inclusive, and dynamic in a way that is very much shaped by my experience of being able to

00:28:33.000 --> 00:28:47.000
witness that you know, and like hear people talk about who they were and what they their lives were, and what their situations were in a way that allowed me to understand that there's a connection there. But it's it's not walled.

00:28:47.000 --> 00:29:01.000
in by any one national experience of blackness. any any any one generation, either, you know, cause this is always operating on an intergenerational scale, and I think that there's I mean who knows?

00:29:01.000 --> 00:29:03.000
You know it can be a chicken or an egg thing.

00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:10.000
It could, that I just so resonated with this process in the summit, because I desired that expansive experience.

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:24.000
Or it can be that because I have that experience with the summit that's That's why that expansiveness has been able to bloom inside me either way you know that this is I believe this is what what is

00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:39.000
meant, and I I know for a fact, and even though you know Thank goodness to my parents, to my grandparents. Everybody who invested in my education because I have had huge educational privilege.

00:29:39.000 --> 00:29:52.000
That I know I wouldn't have at the age that I was I wouldn't have been in all these different places the summit, and I wouldn't have been there in a way that allowed me to really encounter other black people

00:29:52.000 --> 00:30:00.000
other young black people, especially in the way that I did it just it wouldn't have happened at that that time.

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:10.000
Otherwise, and or maybe the more expensive way to say it is that it did happen at that time, because of the subject right, and and that's

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:17.000
That's a big deal it's a it's a very big deal

00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:30.000
I think that there is a formative impact that the summit has had on my life that i'm off. i'm often so grateful for it, and I often wish I could replicate it you know for other people and be

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:39.000
like, if you could check. Just go back in time and experience this and you wouldn't be looking at me like Why do you think possible?

00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:47.000
Like. Why do you believe so much in black people even though this business and i'm like as I know you know it's like I've I've felt it i've seen it myself.

00:30:47.000 --> 00:30:56.000
I have embodied and psychic memory that I can draw on in in any moment.

00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:09.000
And because the summit is a conversation because no because time and space are not limiting us. It really is possible for anyone to achieve in a particular moment.

00:31:09.000 --> 00:31:15.000
But that's you know part of the part of my mission for favorite cousinship, you know.

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.000
I'm just like if y'all just believe me about how much love there is you.

00:31:19.000 --> 00:31:25.000
We can do this you know it's interesting because for those for those who are listening.

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:32.000
So we have. We may have people who are completely unfamiliar with the international Black Summit listening, and

00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:36.000
So for those who are listening. before the pandemic.

00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:44.000
The last couple of years our annual event has been virtual, so we did move to completely virtual for the past couple of years.

00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:52.000
But before that our annual event was always somewhere in the world, and and it was all over the world, you know. So,

00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:58.000
The annual event has been held all over the united States it's been held in multiple places in Canada.

00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:09.000
It's being held in London, England, Jamaica Andquila, Brazil, South Africa, Ghana. Ken.

00:32:09.000 --> 00:32:18.000
Yeah, believe I mean the list goes on I you know It's it's an exhaustive list.

00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:34.000
Next year we're slated to have one of the locations be in Antigua So So yeah. So to be a young person to be a 1617, 18 year old, you know, 21 year old, whatever being

00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:38.000
like, Okay, Yeah, this year I'm in jamaica next year I'm in Brazil.

00:32:38.000 --> 00:32:53.000
Then I'm going to Ghana you know and I'm, then actually engaging with Brazilian young people when i'm there, young black people in Brazil and in Ghana, young black Benaans and in

00:32:53.000 --> 00:33:06.000
wherever it might have been Jamaica, young black Jamaicans, and in Detroit, young African Americans, and in Canada, where I am young African Canadians.

00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:15.000
So. I can see how that would have informed your life.

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:21.000
And so I wonder You know some of the young people were there every year just because they wanted to travel.

00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:36.000
No conversation, no conversation. If I tag along with my parents I get to go to this interesting place, i'm curious how much that was true for you, and when and and why did you choose to be a facilitator?

00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:41.000
And not just a participant cause. You could have come every year, and just being a participant.

00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:46.000
But you chose to actually step up and be a facilitator, you know.

00:33:46.000 --> 00:34:16.000
Why, yeah, I mean So the conversation Yeah. the conversation was really the most important thing for for me, and to this day I think that the rigor of presence like what it takes to stay present in a conversation a transformative conversation about blackness with

00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:21.000
a group of people who are 8 years old to like 25 years old.

00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:28.000
However. old the age, the eighth ranges are of the youth Summit.

00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:34.000
I don't know if anyone who has not experienced the international black youth summit itself.

00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:38.000
Understands how rigorous it is to stay in a conversation.

00:34:38.000 --> 00:34:42.000
People are 8 years old they got a pee people are going through puberty.

00:34:42.000 --> 00:34:49.000
We're hormonal people are you know just wildly self-conscious.

00:34:49.000 --> 00:34:57.000
I'll speak for myself very self-conscious and all of this is going on, and the task is like this huge group.

00:34:57.000 --> 00:35:18.000
Meditation like Stay Stay tapped into this energy and it's it's miraculous, and it's something that no one can ever take away from me.

00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:22.000
You know, and it's something that i've heard reflected back to me often like, How are you so grounded?

00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:26.000
You know, like, how are you able to stay present in this situation?

00:35:26.000 --> 00:35:36.000
In this situation you know working as A duller being people while they're giving birth, you know, all all different all different situations that I've been in, and I'm.

00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:44.000
Like. Oh, this is easy. You not like 20 children running around, you know, like this is easy.

00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:52.000
Because my training has been. You stay present, and you notice, and if you are like, why do I keep wanting to go to the bathroom?

00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:59.000
What am I trying to avoid with within myself, like if you keep asking yourself these questions?

00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:05.000
What is it if i'm stopped from being present what is it like What really is it about how how am I triggered?

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:17.000
What's it? The root of it is that is an incredible spiritual discipline now and at this stage in my life i'm like Oh, I get it!

00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:24.000
I get it, and sometimes, being in the conversation is just me alone in this room, you know, meditating.

00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:30.000
But it's the same question what is it that's that i'm trying to turn away from myself in this moment.

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.000
What am I pretending not to know, you know, like What could I possibly tell the truth about?

00:36:34.000 --> 00:36:42.000
That would be transformative and empowering in this moment I said, and look in the mirror and ask myself you know those questions.

00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:58.000
And so That's that's something that I needed you know that astrologers have told me I have like one Earth side.

00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:06.000
I'm like very much in the air this water? There and it's like, How do you stay grounded

00:37:06.000 --> 00:37:20.000
And it's through practice, and so the the practice of actually being in that conversation, and being able to be present with that conversation and the tune to the energy, and where it would go that's something that was so exciting to me and

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:39.000
I wouldn't have been able to necessarily articulate it at the time. But what I know is that there is a part of my spirit, maybe like my higher self, that knew If you can do this, you will have something that will serve you for your

00:37:39.000 --> 00:37:58.000
whole life, you know, like you will have something that you can use in situations where grief is coming up in situations where people are blatantly attacking you for your beliefs, and situations that are not a beautiful space where you're surrounded by other

00:37:58.000 --> 00:38:15.000
visionary black young people, but just spaces where you just need to be present situations where you're standing witnessing police disrespecting young people like you're gonna need this in in these situations.

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:24.000
That are where it requires rigor to be President.

00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:37.000
And so I think that that's that was really the magnet for me. and if you're a facilitator, that means that you're not in that conversation once a year it means you're in that conversation actually like all

00:38:37.000 --> 00:38:44.000
year, because that's how the facilitation works and of course you have the different meetings leading up to the summit.

00:38:44.000 --> 00:39:03.000
And I think what I knew is that as much as I can be in that practice I need to be in that practice, and once I realize, and I think I probably realized this where we maybe in Memphis I think we were in Memphis and the the

00:39:03.000 --> 00:39:06.000
youth summit theme was around love like defining love.

00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:13.000
Our definition of love as young people of African descent, and I think that was.

00:39:13.000 --> 00:39:19.000
That was when I stepped up as a facilitator and the passion exercise.

00:39:19.000 --> 00:39:31.000
Yeah, it was. It felt like a calling, you know. I was like Oh, I felt my responsibility in that moment to hold that space into.

00:39:31.000 --> 00:39:40.000
You know, stand there with a marker until, like we had a collective definition of love that we all felt well as love.

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:49.000
And After that I was like this is this is this is part of my responsibility.

00:39:49.000 --> 00:40:09.000
This is part of my role it's it's my training, and it's my gratitude at the same time, you know, because and by that point also was really important that the conversation of the summit had been important important for me that

00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:18.000
summer I had been able to actually speak to and confront somebody who had perpetrated sexual violence against me.

00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:23.000
At the summit called that person. I I had the story.

00:40:23.000 --> 00:40:30.000
I would never be able to speak to that person. I would never be able to even speak about that harm.

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:45.000
But that conversation and the supportive space of the youth summit brought me into my voice in that particular way, and i'm a strong believer that anything anything that can save my life can be shared.

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:52.000
There's a form in which it's shareable and I have a responsibility to find that form and be part of that sharing.

00:40:52.000 --> 00:40:55.000
And so I think that that's another reason I was really activated.

00:40:55.000 --> 00:41:14.000
I saw what it made possible in my life, in a very deep and if I know that that's possible, and there's the way that I can be part of other young black people experiencing that possibility experiencing their power experiencing themselves is more

00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:32.000
powerful than they knew they could be in their own lives how can it not, you know, like That's that's that's the deepest level of invitation, you know, and and I think faith in what that conversation could make possible so I

00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:47.000
think that's what really activated me. to one to participate, you know, to continue to be in okay cause not to say it was never hard to be in the conversation, and sometimes it was hard to be in the conversation of each summit in

00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:54.000
relationship to the adult summit, and everything, money and resources. And what about?

00:41:54.000 --> 00:41:59.000
Why are we in a hotel? You know all all the things?

00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:05.000
And so it it it's not to say that it was just so easy and wonderful that I was like, Yeah, this is great.

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:23.000
It's like candy Everyone have one No, but I understood that the rigor I was experiencing there, and who I was called to be by consistently showing up in that space, was who I wanted to be by consistently showing up to

00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:34.000
my life and showing up for my community and that's a deep s you know, like that, I think that that's the originating yes, that I live inside of.

00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:42.000
And so so, even though, as a use summit, we actually never chose where the summit was.

00:42:42.000 --> 00:42:59.000
I wanted to be there wherever it was and to me. if the even though i'm really grateful for for the transnational experience of blackness, that is part of my experience and also reflects my heritage my transnational

00:42:59.000 --> 00:43:05.000
heritage. If it had been in Atlanta.

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:10.000
In that same room every single year I would have been in that room you know like that?

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:23.000
That's Yeah, that is what it it meant. Let me ask you this: alexis .

00:43:23.000 --> 00:43:26.000
Grace. Before before you go, let me just give some contextes.

00:43:26.000 --> 00:43:36.000
So a facilitator at the International Black Summit is not somebody who has a manual who looks through has notes.

00:43:36.000 --> 00:43:40.000
The the Internet black summit facilitator is listening.

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:58.000
The space. So so I wanna want you to to really get that that's what Alex Lexus is pointing to you is is is standing there, being present, to what's occurring in the space, and responding to that including all

00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:06.000
of the conversations, the personal conversations that may be going on in your head, that you may be confronted with.

00:44:06.000 --> 00:44:11.000
Maybe this is something that you've dealt with or dealt with in a particular way, and having an opinion of it.

00:44:11.000 --> 00:44:18.000
But you're listening to what is being presented in the room in such a way that you can move the room forward.

00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:30.000
So that's the kind of rigor that we're talking about the training, and that's available in the use summit in the young adult space and and the adult space so that's part of the training and the

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:43.000
rigor grace back to you well i'll I'll say one thing about what you just said, and then shift the The depth of the conversation that you just pointed to Glenn and that and that you talked about

00:44:43.000 --> 00:45:03.000
alexis for me can't be overstated like the the conversation goes deep, and it's something that has had me be be wanting to come back to this conversation because i'll go to other spaces and i'll and

00:45:03.000 --> 00:45:09.000
i'll like Okay, now, let's go deep you know okay, So so we're we're we're doing the surface.

00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:14.000
Now let's let's take a slightly. different Okay, we got we got to level one underneath the service.

00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:20.000
Okay, I want to go to level 500 underneath the surface like, let's go to Okay.

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:26.000
You want to go to level 200? Okay, I wanna go to level 500

00:45:26.000 --> 00:45:37.000
And how excuse me in my experience, how few spaces there are that actually are willing to go that deep

00:45:37.000 --> 00:45:49.000
So I just. I just wanted to re reiterate that there, that there is a depth to the conversation that I personally have is found elsewhere, or in many other spaces.

00:45:49.000 --> 00:46:04.000
But the question that I was going to ask is, as you talked about the exercise around love and coming up, the youth coming up with a definition of love that that was true for the whole youth space that year.

00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:09.000
What do you recall about that definition? Do you recall anything about what?

00:46:09.000 --> 00:46:16.000
What was what the definition was that was developed. Oh, yeah, I mean, so love is.

00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:26.000
And we had all these words. It was like, love is connection, passion like it was all of these words:

00:46:26.000 --> 00:46:31.000
Culture creates our expressions of love, but love is not limited by culture.

00:46:31.000 --> 00:46:41.000
Love is an unconditional unconditionals in there. I think a lot of the first words in there. of course I could.

00:46:41.000 --> 00:46:47.000
I could pull it up, but it it definitely stays in me, and I remember I remember this.

00:46:47.000 --> 00:46:49.000
The one of the most memorable moments in the conversation.

00:46:49.000 --> 00:47:00.000
For me was we were kind of at this point where it's like are we writing about what love is or what love should be?

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:16.000
And a lot was coming up for all of us around, like people who say they love us, but had harm does, and how love has shown up in cycles in our families, and a ways that have been that could have been toxic or you know

00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:24.000
all all of these different things. and I remember when we got to the point cause that's like how do you make a definition of something, If you're like.

00:47:24.000 --> 00:47:38.000
Well, there's ideal and there's the you know we're we're not We we're like the lasters right, and then you'd submit like is this plato's ideal you know and we got

00:47:38.000 --> 00:48:05.000
to this point I remember saying what if love is what it should be and that for me to even say that was like, Oh, you know, like it's it's It invited me to release all of my judgments of loved ones all of

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:21.000
my all of the ways that I couldn't even receive the love that was there, because i'm in the analyzing is what this should be should be should be. This should be that you know all the shoulds and in that moment it was

00:48:21.000 --> 00:48:37.000
like. Oh, we're creating a definition of love that is visionary, and we are declaring that love is what it should be.

00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:43.000
And so we have words like, you know, love is this this, this, this, this, this, this cumulatively right?

00:48:43.000 --> 00:48:49.000
And so our definition of love we were like this. This stands so.

00:48:49.000 --> 00:48:58.000
If there is connection, but there's not respect that's not our definition of love that's just connection without respect.

00:48:58.000 --> 00:49:09.000
What that is great. we're saying that we can believe in love in a way that actually pushed against some of the ways that I know.

00:49:09.000 --> 00:49:29.000
Speaking for myself, I had protected myself from believing in love because of my disappointment of what my experiences have been past in all sorts of interpersonal relationships, familiar or whatever and that was, it was a really powerful moment to say like we

00:49:29.000 --> 00:49:45.000
can actually hold this possibility of love. We could be rigorous in our definition of what love is and receive that expect that, and trust ourselves to do that, like to actually love like that.

00:49:45.000 --> 00:50:04.000
And yeah, it was. It was a really, really big deal to live inside of a definition of love created by young black people in in this conversation, and I feel like I still do live in that definition of love, even though I can't necessarily recite it.

00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:22.000
in this moment. it's like it's in here and you know, I think it speaks to what you were saying, Jackie Grace, which is that I think that something that was so liberating for me about being part of the international black

00:50:22.000 --> 00:50:34.000
youth summit was that people did go deep. you know and some of the things that the facilitators in that first you'd submit that I was at shared.

00:50:34.000 --> 00:50:43.000
I was like y'all are saying this you know you're saying this out loud, and that's because was in a conversation a very common conversation.

00:50:43.000 --> 00:50:49.000
That's like that. I think also has shifted generationally, I hope.

00:50:49.000 --> 00:50:55.000
But I I was not in a growing up with a on a apologetic blackness type of conversation.

00:50:55.000 --> 00:51:11.000
It was like you can't I can't share anything that's gonna like make black people look bad or that that I think is gonna feed into people's negative stereotypes and violent actions towards black young

00:51:11.000 --> 00:51:17.000
people right? so like I have to pretend to be perfect because anything I do that's not perfect.

00:51:17.000 --> 00:51:38.000
It's gonna feed into the negative conversation about who we are right, And the youth summit was the first place where I heard or understood that actually our power, our transformation, our liberation depended on going that deep.

00:51:38.000 --> 00:51:47.000
You know going that deep, and that being like well Why, is it really hard for me to listen to this one person in the conversation that's speaking.

00:51:47.000 --> 00:51:53.000
Maybe I just don't like? the sound of their voice? Maybe I just don't like to look at their face, and then like, Okay, but deeper, what is it?

00:51:53.000 --> 00:51:58.000
And what does this remind me of? and there are even memories that I don't want to think about?

00:51:58.000 --> 00:52:17.000
That are could be possibly there, or when it whatever it is it really challenges us to go there and not make excuses for ourselves, you know, and not stop with like an easy explanation or a surface justification of what's going

00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:25.000
on we can go. So more powerful a transformation is possible in that moment.

00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:37.000
And you know, as Glenn was saying, as a facilitator, you nothing can block that energy right.

00:52:37.000 --> 00:52:46.000
That's the imperative like not excuses my hang up my conversation about people of a certain gender.

00:52:46.000 --> 00:52:56.000
My conversation about people of a certain age, like nothing can be allowed to block my presence to the energy of this conversation.

00:52:56.000 --> 00:53:01.000
Because That's that's my commitment and that means that I can't.

00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:14.000
I just can't sit here and lie to myself because every one of those lies as a block, so that energy flowing through, and I think that I understand.

00:53:14.000 --> 00:53:28.000
You know that in so many spaces I Don't know if this is what you're talking about, Jackie Grace, but I know I've experienced in many spaces. and I can relate to because I I remember that

00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:40.000
there's this feeling like if I don't hold on to these particular stories, these particular coping mechanisms, these particular like shut offs.

00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:55.000
You know that that I turn on whenever we get too close to this topic, or whenever we get too close to whatever if I don't hold onto those things, I will die like I think that there's this belief, that like I will not exist that moment you know

00:53:55.000 --> 00:54:04.000
like I will really really die. and something that's so powerful about the conversation of the summit in my in my experience the conversation of the youth summit.

00:54:04.000 --> 00:54:13.000
Is it's like you go there over and over again. and you didn't die that's what you learned like.

00:54:13.000 --> 00:54:19.000
Oh, I still exist like the world didn't end and I didn't fall apart, and it wasn't like nobody ever loved me again.

00:54:19.000 --> 00:54:25.000
And you know. The people then threw me out the room, or whatever whatever I was afraid of.

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:36.000
That was my excuse for not going there didn't happen and So then, the next time i'm like, Oh, I can't go there because blah blah blah! it's like that embodied memory is there like what girl did

00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:44.000
you die, though No, that's not real you know like that that's that's a story.

00:54:44.000 --> 00:55:00.000
Yeah. So I I I do appreciate that that rigor and spaces where there's enough of us who know that we can go that deep. And we're gonna be okay that that actually becomes the call of the space And And let

00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:16.000
me add this as well. you were comfortable. You were in a safe place that you could share what you shared, and and that was that was kind of like, you know, like the commercial talks about Vegas what happens in

00:55:16.000 --> 00:55:27.000
Vegas stays in Vegas literally it was really with the body of people that you're able to to go deep Heal yourself.

00:55:27.000 --> 00:55:42.000
Really really allow yourself to be healed in the process of listening or speaking, you know, so wasn't it wasn't just that the person speaking got got the the the new insight or the new possibility.

00:55:42.000 --> 00:55:50.000
But listening. You also got captured by by this new insight in this new conversation.

00:55:50.000 --> 00:56:07.000
Yes. so So we talk a little, bit about being present and we haven't talked about what were you The distinctions were your favorite distinctions that you look use because in the international box summer for those of you who are new to the

00:56:07.000 --> 00:56:22.000
conversation. We use the distinctions, you know. Alexis talked about being present, so we use these distinctions of the summit to to make sure that we stay present in the conversation.

00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:35.000
So give give us a couple a couple of the distinctions. that, or at least your favorite, let's start up with your favorite distinction that that that you enjoyed Well, of course, love, cause we were like we're generating this new

00:56:35.000 --> 00:56:53.000
distinction love that that's gotta be the favorite one, I think the most easy one, though especially when I was in the youth Summit was definitely around Trigger like what is it to be?

00:56:53.000 --> 00:56:57.000
How does Trigger show up, and so bigger is what?

00:56:57.000 --> 00:57:05.000
What are those moments where we react right and we react and it's like it comes out of nowhere.

00:57:05.000 --> 00:57:13.000
It comes like fast like that. and we I would not present it like that we're not pregnant and and therefore we're triggered.

00:57:13.000 --> 00:57:21.000
Okay, that's that's the example and in the youth summit looking at what that looks like, You know.

00:57:21.000 --> 00:57:32.000
It looks like suddenly I'm so tired suddenly I really have to pay, even though, like I literally just did, or I just keep.

00:57:32.000 --> 00:57:34.000
I just need to get up to get more water. I just have to.

00:57:34.000 --> 00:57:46.000
I have to. I have to which are pretty benign ways of a trigger showing up because other way the trigger can show up because you just go off on someone, or you know you do some action that is extreme.

00:57:46.000 --> 00:57:57.000
But understanding that Trigger had that range, you know, like that, I can be triggered and like nobody even knows but me.

00:57:57.000 --> 00:58:07.000
But what I know is i'm not present right and getting the facility to one, because the first thing is like recognizing that I'm triggered right.

00:58:07.000 --> 00:58:11.000
That's huge, even if I have no idea what to do about this trigger.

00:58:11.000 --> 00:58:16.000
And even if I never do, and i'm never ever present again, right which is gonna happen.

00:58:16.000 --> 00:58:30.000
But really realizing it being like Oh, right now it's happening right now right now, i'm triggered, and that opens this doorway to what is that about?

00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:35.000
And what does this remind me of, or what's coming up for me, or what is my unmet need?

00:58:35.000 --> 00:58:44.000
That is, you know here. it opens the pathway for that journey.

00:58:44.000 --> 00:58:59.000
But it just I mean, it continues to make such a huge difference in my life to be like, Oh, I get that i'm triggered right now. and even if all I could say is i'm actually gonna not continue having this

00:58:59.000 --> 00:59:06.000
conversation, because I realize i'm triggered i'm gonna have to go take a moment and maybe do some of my practices and come back into into what I need to do.

00:59:06.000 --> 00:59:11.000
You know, in in our range of of settings that is huge.

00:59:11.000 --> 00:59:27.000
And I realize now i'll hear living in in the world that 90% of people I often often often triggered and have no idea that that's what's happening right because they don't have a distinction But that's even a thing like

00:59:27.000 --> 00:59:34.000
there's just like i'm experiencing my life and I full of rage, and i'm doing a whole bunch of stuff, and it sabotages myself, and others and I don't know why and I can't control

00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:39.000
it and you know like that's that's how they would describe their experience.

00:59:39.000 --> 00:59:45.000
Yeah, and it's it's deep because like why would Trigger be, you know.

00:59:45.000 --> 00:59:54.000
But that is I would say that's been the most useful distinction for me to carry through, because of course, I'm.

00:59:54.000 --> 01:00:00.000
Still in this lifelong meditation of like back to presence right?

01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:07.000
What does it take to come back to presence? And then conversation itself?

01:00:07.000 --> 01:00:17.000
Is a distinction, right and and understanding that you know as you said, It's the there's this possibility of transformation.

01:00:17.000 --> 01:00:26.000
Yes, in in finding your voice and expressing something an insight that you've had, and sharing it.

01:00:26.000 --> 01:00:39.000
But especially in listening, you know, and listening. you know like to be a listening for is it's so huge it's so huge, And to to get to live my life.

01:00:39.000 --> 01:00:50.000
Really listening and understanding that this conversation. This transformational conversation it's not only present when some people are like we are gathering, and we're in a transformational conversation.

01:00:50.000 --> 01:01:03.000
It's present you know it's present like i'm just sitting on the the train that takes you around the airport. You know like It's it's President it's possible and i'm listening i'm always listening for

01:01:03.000 --> 01:01:11.000
it. And so that means that that distinction of how powerful listening can be means that I'm.

01:01:11.000 --> 01:01:25.000
Constantly in the practice of opening portals to receive the love that the universe is giving me in the form of who ever and in the form of actually whatever you know.

01:01:25.000 --> 01:01:33.000
Yeah. understanding that I can be in that conversation at at any time.

01:01:33.000 --> 01:01:49.000
And that conversation and listening distinctions that are, more than just the act of like hearing what someone's saying or talking with another person, or even sitting in a circle and talking, you know, and listening with a whole group of people, the conversation is something

01:01:49.000 --> 01:02:03.000
that seeds all with that can tap into that at any moment, and there's a level of trust there's a level of trust that's available for you to participate as a facilitator and get yourself trained so what I

01:02:03.000 --> 01:02:19.000
heard is this all of this training has now prepared you to be out in the world, and to allow the world to contribute to you, and maybe ways that that you didn't have the capacity because I really hear that you've increased

01:02:19.000 --> 01:02:32.000
your capacity to listen and to speak. But but but but listening is one of those capacities that you've enlarged, and so that you can not be out in the world.

01:02:32.000 --> 01:02:47.000
Listen. Be present to what's being said or or or and and hear it fully, so that you can be around your wits about what's going on. yeah and there's love there, and it and It's so expensive I mean

01:02:47.000 --> 01:02:51.000
like, you know, my most recent book on drowned black feminist lessons from marine mammals.

01:02:51.000 --> 01:03:03.000
It's like the listening that I am for marie mammals is is definitely different than how most people understand what listening is.

01:03:03.000 --> 01:03:08.000
You know people are like. Wait, listen to the word like you know don't speak the same language as Marie.

01:03:08.000 --> 01:03:14.000
But but absolutely i'm learning from them right and I can I can listen for that.

01:03:14.000 --> 01:03:32.000
I can listen for, like what the constellations are offering there's a depth to what listening is that absolutely I think for me started with the practice of listening in the conversation of the international black youth summit in the form of

01:03:32.000 --> 01:03:45.000
sitting in that circle that has expanded such that I know that this conversation, the transformation of the universe, is what's at stake.

01:03:45.000 --> 01:03:56.000
I I literally practice it's the universe and the universe itself is black.

01:03:56.000 --> 01:04:05.000
This is This is what I know. So yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

01:04:05.000 --> 01:04:09.000
Being in that training of being a facilitator in the international black youth.

01:04:09.000 --> 01:04:19.000
Summit has expanded my listening and I think it's just gonna keep expanding.

01:04:19.000 --> 01:04:35.000
It's so interesting for me to listen. to you in this moment. And both of you actually because I have never been involved in the International Youth Summit international black Youth Summit Glenn is an adult facilitator of the international

01:04:35.000 --> 01:04:40.000
back Youth Summit, you being a past facilitator of the International black Youth summit.

01:04:40.000 --> 01:04:46.000
I've never been involved with it and it's so interesting for me to hear you talk about the selection.

01:04:46.000 --> 01:05:00.000
The selection of distinctions, you know you mentioned love and the conversation and trigger, and listening and how these, how these distinctions, how you use them, how they're present for you in your life today But what I

01:05:00.000 --> 01:05:10.000
hear is is and what I experience in you is just an embodiment.

01:05:10.000 --> 01:05:15.000
So of the foundational distinctions of the summit, and just a being.

01:05:15.000 --> 01:05:27.000
This, the summit conversation having engaged in the conversation from such a young age, I was 31 at my first Internet, 30 or 31 something like that.

01:05:27.000 --> 01:05:36.000
And my first summit and and so, and I came in, and a lot of the adults summit was older.

01:05:36.000 --> 01:05:56.000
And then you had the young people who were 25 and younger, who I actually wanted to go join because But but the difference of actually engaging in this kind of conversation with at that level of depth from that age, and how it just seems

01:05:56.000 --> 01:05:59.000
to have become a part of who you be in the world.

01:05:59.000 --> 01:06:10.000
How you be in life would be in life for me it's just very inspiring, and

01:06:10.000 --> 01:06:27.000
And I I I feel like we're at a moment in the history of humanity, where and where the opportunity for who who we be in this world.

01:06:27.000 --> 01:06:42.000
I you know like that we're just at a particular time a particular time and and so the extent that you are bringing that kind of listening to marine mammals.

01:06:42.000 --> 01:06:46.000
And I told you know, for those who are not familiar with the international blacksmith.

01:06:46.000 --> 01:06:51.000
That was not an you know, glenn and I are are like, sure Okay, like why?

01:06:51.000 --> 01:06:57.000
Why wouldn't we be able to mammals like that in terms of how we engage with the term listening.

01:06:57.000 --> 01:07:05.000
We use these standard words, but we do not mean the typical meaning that that might be met so.

01:07:05.000 --> 01:07:11.000
But that kind of listening, bringing that kind of listening to all aspects of life right now.

01:07:11.000 --> 01:07:20.000
Make so much available for what we can create, and how we can give back to life.

01:07:20.000 --> 01:07:41.000
And and shift from the old paradigms that are no longer working into into new paradigms that are are regenerative, and give life and our life giving for us, and for all others other forms of

01:07:41.000 --> 01:07:51.000
life. So i'm just excited by what you said and by what's available in having the conversation made available to people.

01:07:51.000 --> 01:08:02.000
Let me add, let me add this, that that the the work that we do here at the International Black Summit has us be self-reflective.

01:08:02.000 --> 01:08:12.000
So we. So we use these distinctions to really allow ourselves to to kind of wonder.

01:08:12.000 --> 01:08:32.000
Kind of explore kind of do like a what if and kind of expand that what we think that we know and begin to discover what we don't know, and and with others participating in this conversation, you get insights to different access

01:08:32.000 --> 01:08:38.000
points to the same conversation that you might not have thought of you or you or oh, wow!

01:08:38.000 --> 01:08:44.000
That's kind of interesting what you just said Alexis I hadn't thought about that, or or why don't Jackie Grace?

01:08:44.000 --> 01:09:01.000
Why you You said that. Hmm, hmm! And And so that is is that kind of rigor that Alexis was speaking to earlier, like staying in that conversation, Spain keeping yourself grounded, keeping yourself present.

01:09:01.000 --> 01:09:14.000
So you can hear all of what's available to here Yes, yes, so we we don't you know.

01:09:14.000 --> 01:09:18.000
We've been talking for a while and before we let you go We still have some time to go.

01:09:18.000 --> 01:09:22.000
We're not we're not about to end the conversation quite yet.

01:09:22.000 --> 01:09:28.000
But I do want to make sure that we cover a couple of things before we do end the conversation.

01:09:28.000 --> 01:09:37.000
And so one of the things first, I want to acknowledge that that rain in our virtual studio.

01:09:37.000 --> 01:09:47.000
Audience: has put a question for you that that perhaps we can.

01:09:47.000 --> 01:09:52.000
Perhaps we will get to if we don't we will we'll cover it in the after in the after conversation.

01:09:52.000 --> 01:10:01.000
So for those of you who are live with us, and for those of you who are listening, we do have a live audience, as we record in your welcome to join.

01:10:01.000 --> 01:10:06.000
As we record these podcast interviews, and after the podcast ends we we have a Q and a session.

01:10:06.000 --> 01:10:14.000
So for those who attend lives so but one of the things that I wanted to get to is just like what you're doing in your life.

01:10:14.000 --> 01:10:25.000
Now, now that we're now that we're really clear that the summit is, you know all that, and has been all that in your life.

01:10:25.000 --> 01:10:41.000
Yeah, but But now that you've really gone and shared with us really, really in great depth, the contribution that the summit has been, and how you, how you use it in your regular life and everyday life and in your work, so

01:10:41.000 --> 01:10:50.000
I wanna kind of move to talking a little bit about your work, and you shared with us that you that you spoke at the Lincoln Center recently.

01:10:50.000 --> 01:10:58.000
Yes, cause we had. we had we were looking to schedule you and you're like Oh, I can't do that right.

01:10:58.000 --> 01:11:09.000
I'm just gonna be speaking at the lincoln center, that's all. all of my like date conflicts were like, Oh, these are all miracles alright.

01:11:09.000 --> 01:11:18.000
Oh, yeah. So if you could tell us a little bit about that, and also like, share a little bit about like in terms of the people listening.

01:11:18.000 --> 01:11:22.000
If they were to pick one of your books, which which book should they reverse?

01:11:22.000 --> 01:11:33.000
You know like like that? Yeah, what should you read first so i'm a writer, and and i'm I continue to be.

01:11:33.000 --> 01:11:41.000
If this facilitator and I and here to be love, right?

01:11:41.000 --> 01:11:50.000
So. So everything that I do, including including all the writing I do, is all a ceremony to bring love through.

01:11:50.000 --> 01:11:57.000
Really to connect love to love is is the whole point for me.

01:11:57.000 --> 01:12:08.000
Even my writing I see as a as an ongoing ceremony, and as an ongoing listening, and the books themselves are, or artifacts of the ceremony that I've experienced that then become their own

01:12:08.000 --> 01:12:14.000
portable ceremonies that other people can experience because because it's in the phone more of have a book.

01:12:14.000 --> 01:12:25.000
And it's hard to say I think that well i'll say I trust my work so wherever you start.

01:12:25.000 --> 01:12:32.000
I you know. I think you'll be okay? but but why not start with the real recent book?

01:12:32.000 --> 01:12:38.000
I mean so it's the undrawned black feminist lessons of marine mammals.

01:12:38.000 --> 01:12:43.000
I think it could be cool, just because, you know, in the summit we have this.

01:12:43.000 --> 01:12:46.000
We have this thing about unpredictable results right?

01:12:46.000 --> 01:12:58.000
And for me everything i've written is like hub there's some something something that is queer and transformative and unpredictable about it in there somewhere.

01:12:58.000 --> 01:13:14.000
But well, black feminist lessons from marine mammals, you know, like the the fact that I, not a marine biologist or not not even a scuba diver, you know, like that I would write a book that is

01:13:14.000 --> 01:13:17.000
called Black Feminist. Can you give us one of the left?

01:13:17.000 --> 01:13:24.000
Oh, yeah, give us a sample of one of the lessons totally totally.

01:13:24.000 --> 01:13:32.000
Hmm! Oh, maybe one that talks about grandma.

01:13:32.000 --> 01:13:45.000
That would be Yeah, i'll find one hmm here.

01:13:45.000 --> 01:13:53.000
It is Okay, Okay, So and so. it's got it's broken down into 19 lessons there's a train.

01:13:53.000 --> 01:14:05.000
It's broken down into 19 lessons I love that the train came right now, cause this is like about the freedom train.

01:14:05.000 --> 01:14:11.000
So

01:14:11.000 --> 01:14:19.000
So this there's 19 lessons this one there's multiple vignettes within each lesson.

01:14:19.000 --> 01:14:25.000
But this one is in within. Remember what number is this lesson?

01:14:25.000 --> 01:14:35.000
Remember is number 3. So chapter 3 is: Remember, this is on page 39.

01:14:35.000 --> 01:14:52.000
If somebody wants to look at it i'm just gonna read it's like a page and a half Sometimes you'll see an ocean dolphin in the river one day standing on a dock in the kombakhi

01:14:52.000 --> 01:14:59.000
river, looking for Harriet Submin on the 140 ninth anniversary of her successful uprising.

01:14:59.000 --> 01:15:05.000
My partner, Shango Dari, and I saw 3 Atlantic bottle nose.

01:15:05.000 --> 01:15:10.000
Dolphins message received. A year later we returned as 20.

01:15:10.000 --> 01:15:17.000
One black feminists to honor the 100 and fiftieth anniversary of the Kombahi River raid together at Mobile.

01:15:17.000 --> 01:15:21.000
Homecoming projects come by. He pilgrimage decades earlier.

01:15:21.000 --> 01:15:27.000
My grandmother Lydia gums that a message from some Atlantic bottle knows dolphins, too.

01:15:27.000 --> 01:15:35.000
They inspired her design of the ingredient, revolutionary flag and seal and insignia.

01:15:35.000 --> 01:15:38.000
3 bottle nose dolphins swimming in a circle.

01:15:38.000 --> 01:15:41.000
She colored the Dolphins orange to represent endurance.

01:15:41.000 --> 01:15:48.000
The circle represented continuity, and though the revolution was short-lived, our listening continued.

01:15:48.000 --> 01:15:53.000
My sister has this symbol tattooed on her back.

01:15:53.000 --> 01:15:59.000
It lives on as the major logo and symbol of inquiry to this day and that day at the Kombahi River.

01:15:59.000 --> 01:16:04.000
I was wearing my grandmother's turquoise necklace.

01:16:04.000 --> 01:16:14.000
The sun was setting, and the dolphins did indeed look orange as they swam in a circle under the Harriet Tubman Bridge, and went back out to Sea Bottle Nose.

01:16:14.000 --> 01:16:24.000
Message speaking across revolution. I wonder what it means for an ocean dolphin to swim up a river.

01:16:24.000 --> 01:16:30.000
The bottle knows has a range across the whole planet, the whole open ocean.

01:16:30.000 --> 01:16:35.000
And yet sometimes they will choose the boundaries and specificity of a river.

01:16:35.000 --> 01:16:54.000
Brackish water, narrow shores. Why, the message for me today is about specificity, about choosing a lane with all my infinite potential about how my world traveling grandmother made a commitment to a small island about

01:16:54.000 --> 01:17:14.000
how strong we grow sometimes swimming upstream, and what the world can learn from the visibility of our message in a context that is specific enough to ring clear and to trust that all water touches all water, and for all of you ocean

01:17:14.000 --> 01:17:20.000
dolphins, wondering What am I doing in this river full of mud?

01:17:20.000 --> 01:17:24.000
Remember why Harriet Tummy went south she didn't have to.

01:17:24.000 --> 01:17:30.000
She was skilled, untraceable. she could have been individually free, unencumbered.

01:17:30.000 --> 01:17:40.000
But if she wanted to tell an everlasting truth about freedom that would ring across the planet a message for the ages.

01:17:40.000 --> 01:17:48.000
She had to live free in unfree space. It was the only way to put us all with her.

01:17:48.000 --> 01:17:53.000
Thank you. loves for the bravery of your freedom.

01:17:53.000 --> 01:17:56.000
Spaces of clear limitation and spaces of money. reality.

01:17:56.000 --> 01:18:11.000
Thank you for your decisions to do, not what you could do, but what you must thank you for teaching. the difference between privilege and courage, escape and transcendence, reaction and revolution.

01:18:11.000 --> 01:18:21.000
Your endurance inscribes and eternal alternative carried by bottles and bottle noses, Blood and breath.

01:18:21.000 --> 01:18:33.000
Message Honored message received. Oh, my goodness, do that thing!

01:18:33.000 --> 01:18:39.000
Wow! So So So what are you looking to create next?

01:18:39.000 --> 01:18:41.000
You know What W. where, Where do you go from from here?

01:18:41.000 --> 01:18:50.000
I mean you you've had a you've you know the Yes, we want to talk about the liquid center, and beyond.

01:18:50.000 --> 01:18:56.000
So what are your plans? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, Lincoln Center was amazing.

01:18:56.000 --> 01:19:03.000
I I sent pictures to a una because I mean I was really. I really was reading something I wrote.

01:19:03.000 --> 01:19:08.000
But the pictures it looks like i'm like singing you know and my aunt is a great opera singer.

01:19:08.000 --> 01:19:16.000
Retired offer singer So I have the opportunity to speak at Lincoln Center as part of

01:19:16.000 --> 01:19:27.000
This beautiful songs for the living, and it was created by Toshi Reagan, who is a phenomenal being.

01:19:27.000 --> 01:19:31.000
Toshi Reagan is, if folks know Dr.

01:19:31.000 --> 01:19:46.000
Bernice Johnson Reagan, who created sweet honey in the rock and who was one of the freedom singers and who is a member of snick and very important civil rights activist toshi, is her daughter and toshi is a

01:19:46.000 --> 01:19:54.000
force in and up herself. and is yeah, 1520 years older than than me.

01:19:54.000 --> 01:20:02.000
So she created something called Songs of the living which came out of this parable of the Sower work that she's doing.

01:20:02.000 --> 01:20:14.000
She created an opera from Octavia. butler's book parable of the Sower and she decided to have this concert at Lincoln Center, where there would be some of the songs.

01:20:14.000 --> 01:20:25.000
But then she would also have different people offer their songs for the living. and so I I read something that I had written about about freedom.

01:20:25.000 --> 01:20:31.000
It wasn't this but clearly there's a theme is something that I'm always thinking about.

01:20:31.000 --> 01:20:50.000
My mind stayed on freedom, as as the freedom singers would say, and it was so beautiful to be a part of that, because not only did to, she invite some of us to offer words, but she invited a whole self-selected

01:20:50.000 --> 01:20:58.000
choir people so there's like people from all over New York City in the weeks leading up to it, had gathered as a choir, and like rehearsed.

01:20:58.000 --> 01:21:04.000
And so it was. It was beautiful. it was like people presented in.

01:21:04.000 --> 01:21:08.000
And this incredible artist. Everybody know all gold, and created this procession.

01:21:08.000 --> 01:21:16.000
And then it was like an ocean of people that yeah, it was.

01:21:16.000 --> 01:21:23.000
It was a really, really beautiful experience, and

01:21:23.000 --> 01:21:36.000
Via. part of it was it recorded that's a good question. I know it was very photographed, so they share the photos, and some people, you know, like I saw some people posted some of their like phone recordings.

01:21:36.000 --> 01:21:40.000
But I do think the whole thing must must be recorded but I don't.

01:21:40.000 --> 01:21:49.000
I don't think it's on the Internet yet so I can check in about whether it is going to be share it on the Internet.

01:21:49.000 --> 01:21:52.000
Yeah, it was. It was beautiful to be able to be a part of that.

01:21:52.000 --> 01:21:59.000
And so yeah, my vision is to keep writing. I I speaking of what it sounds like.

01:21:59.000 --> 01:22:02.000
What if my whole life is a writing retreat you know like what if it's not like?

01:22:02.000 --> 01:22:07.000
Oh, you go away, and you have a writing, a treat like What if my whole life is a writing retreat?

01:22:07.000 --> 01:22:11.000
And you know how writing retreat is where you have abundant space to do your writing.

01:22:11.000 --> 01:22:23.000
Whatever aspect of it it is, whether it's the research or whether it's the actual writing things down down or just meditating on it or thinking about it, or structuring it and then also having the conversations that support you to do

01:22:23.000 --> 01:22:28.000
that writing right? This is one of those conversations. So thank you for being part of my writing.

01:22:28.000 --> 01:22:34.000
And what it means to just embody embody that.

01:22:34.000 --> 01:22:38.000
So Shanga, dye and I in my bio.

01:22:38.000 --> 01:22:52.000
It mentions the mobile homecoming project which is a listening project, and it's a it's an experiential archive, which is really about being together like what's the archival learning that we have from being together it

01:22:52.000 --> 01:23:10.000
centers on black Lgbtq folks and we have a space called soul Sanctuary, which is where we're incubating the idea, and it's it's 11 acres of land it's freedom land it literally there's

01:23:10.000 --> 01:23:14.000
a train track that is the boundary of the land, which is the tractor.

01:23:14.000 --> 01:23:19.000
The folks followed to lean the plantation that's down the other side of the the tracks.

01:23:19.000 --> 01:23:22.000
It's it's really healing to be in relationship with the land itself.

01:23:22.000 --> 01:23:32.000
And then to to gather there in laboratory ways, and also also have our standing back from this library.

01:23:32.000 --> 01:23:40.000
There. So yeah, I think that that this is being a channel and a vessel for love is what i'm is what i'm up to.

01:23:40.000 --> 01:23:46.000
It's what i'm intending and I understand that that can take many different forms.

01:23:46.000 --> 01:23:56.000
Those exciting things happening with, like, you know, National Geographic potentially being like, Where do you want to go?

01:23:56.000 --> 01:24:11.000
To be near Marie mammals, or to talk about these different experiences, or what are ways I get to collaborate with the organization called black and marine science, which is all these people who really are marine sciences who

01:24:11.000 --> 01:24:25.000
decided that this book was going to be the book that they all read and discuss, and I guess it'd be part of something called Whale Week, which is this group of amazing women in Georgia and South Carolina that when the North

01:24:25.000 --> 01:24:36.000
Atlantic right whale, which which is a whale, that in terms of my shinikac ancestry through Grandma Lydia

01:24:36.000 --> 01:24:49.000
The North Atlantic right whale for centuries and and they're very endangered at this time, and they do their mating off the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina, and there's this incredible group of women

01:24:49.000 --> 01:24:54.000
who has this whale week just celebration of that, like they really are, just holding space.

01:24:54.000 --> 01:25:00.000
Speaking of listening, or the fertility of these whales, and for the health of the baby whales.

01:25:00.000 --> 01:25:05.000
And you know all that, and they've invited me to be part of what they do.

01:25:05.000 --> 01:25:13.000
So I think that what I am learning is that if I in my writing practice I'm.

01:25:13.000 --> 01:25:15.000
In the bravest ceremony I can possibly be in.

01:25:15.000 --> 01:25:24.000
It will be the connecting point to all of these miracles that I get to participate in and to support.

01:25:24.000 --> 01:25:30.000
And we're very engaged in the process of what does it mean to create structure for that.

01:25:30.000 --> 01:25:41.000
What does it mean to be in our case? Gathering space, you know, for that that is sustained gathering, so that we can gather out again and again and again over the years.

01:25:41.000 --> 01:25:54.000
What does it mean to practice that with our list and allow it to be visible in a way that yes, people's ideas of what is possible?

01:25:54.000 --> 01:26:08.000
Oh, yes, all I can say is Wow! you know it's it's interesting, because I think I think we are coming here.

01:26:08.000 --> 01:26:11.000
I have I don't know how many questions you have left Glenn.

01:26:11.000 --> 01:26:30.000
I have 2 questions left, I think. go for it I i'm not promising It's only 2 questions. but I think it's only 2 questions or comments, even you know one is just sharing about when you came and

01:26:30.000 --> 01:26:39.000
stayed with me. Yeah, and so I live in Toronto, and you were still quite young at the time you were studying.

01:26:39.000 --> 01:26:47.000
I don't remember what you were studying I don't Remember, if you were in your masters program, or what at the time, might have just started a PHD.

01:26:47.000 --> 01:26:52.000
Program. then. Okay, I went directly from undergrads I didn't do a master's program.

01:26:52.000 --> 01:26:58.000
So okay, got you? Yeah. Oh, I got it. I got it, you know, like that 2 snaps.

01:26:58.000 --> 01:27:15.000
And just in terms of time I wasn't but yeah I could do that honest Honestly, it didn't surprise me you only I mean we really hadn't had a relationship before that, and you called me up out of the blue and

01:27:15.000 --> 01:27:21.000
I had seen you around. I was like, okay, one of the young people in the summit, and you were like, Yeah, Can I stay at your place?

01:27:21.000 --> 01:27:32.000
I was like I don't know you who are you but but you're part of my family that's right.

01:27:32.000 --> 01:27:41.000
That's right, and I was I was you came and you said, and you handled yourself.

01:27:41.000 --> 01:27:48.000
I was not the most gracious host, and

01:27:48.000 --> 01:27:53.000
And yeah, I was like, Yeah, can you get your way? can you make your way from your from the airport to my place?

01:27:53.000 --> 01:27:59.000
I don't know how I could tell you how to I can tell you how to catch a cab or something.

01:27:59.000 --> 01:28:03.000
My guy was just so at those in that time I was so busy.

01:28:03.000 --> 01:28:11.000
I didn't know how I was going to be able to negotiate supporting you, but you came and you you had you handled your stuff.

01:28:11.000 --> 01:28:21.000
You were like, Oh, i'm going and i'm getting here, and i'm going up to the university and little bit, and you just found your way, and like i'll be back at such a time I was like all right and you

01:28:21.000 --> 01:28:38.000
were so focused and intentional and and powerful like you were young and powerful like just as a space and as an energy, and as a being.

01:28:38.000 --> 01:28:46.000
You just walked with power. I don't think nobody needs to worry about her.

01:28:46.000 --> 01:28:56.000
Nobody needs to worry about her she's got life by the by the handle. and and you're you're living that light beautifully. be beautifully living that life.

01:28:56.000 --> 01:29:01.000
So I just, I just appreciate actually having experience that with you.

01:29:01.000 --> 01:29:15.000
So thank you for calling me up and stand with me Thank you for having me for real I mean there are miracles that I still remember from that time, because I went to the Toronto women's bookstore for the first time in

01:29:15.000 --> 01:29:28.000
fact, I found a book from somebody who a poet leave me Pepsi, and I've seen her who's become a very close friend and dear collaborator. but I never I found her work because I was in that bookstore there was a

01:29:28.000 --> 01:29:32.000
whole conference called diaspora cgemonies I didn't even know what's happening.

01:29:32.000 --> 01:29:41.000
That was happening that same time that I was there and Then I was able to go to it, and I mean there's other mentorships in my life that came from being at that conference.

01:29:41.000 --> 01:29:55.000
It just. it was miraculous and you made it possible by being like I don't know you, and I have I have to work like I don't know you're doing but you can stay here because I wouldn't have been able to afford

01:29:55.000 --> 01:30:01.000
to paid to stay in a hotel and you know just be like I'm gonna be in the library.

01:30:01.000 --> 01:30:05.000
I'm going to research this i'm gonna i'm gonna look at this.

01:30:05.000 --> 01:30:11.000
You really gave access to Toronto in a way that I needed, because what I was studying was Caribbean.

01:30:11.000 --> 01:30:21.000
Women's writing in Diaspora and it was really important for me to be able to see like how that had happened in you in Toronto.

01:30:21.000 --> 01:30:37.000
It has continued to influence my work to this day. So I really really appreciate you being like speaking of unpredictable results, like, you know, just just saying yes, just saying yes, Anyway, I really appreciate that.

01:30:37.000 --> 01:30:48.000
It was beautiful. It was wonderful having you really really want. And my next question, which might be the last question, What for?

01:30:48.000 --> 01:30:53.000
Our 2 or 3 wishes that you have for the world right now.

01:30:53.000 --> 01:31:05.000
Oh, my number one wish it's for everyone to know that they are loved.

01:31:05.000 --> 01:31:25.000
Just know it that's what I want and that's what i'm sure up for I hope that my life can help make that possible at whatever scale it's supposed to make that possible and i'm like i'm good but if

01:31:25.000 --> 01:31:33.000
I get 3, you know like that that's that's one but what an abundance that I could have 3!

01:31:33.000 --> 01:32:01.000
I also wish, and you spoke to this earlier, jackie craze that as a so-called species, and then we're interdependent with all species that hour species could really be in alignment with all life

01:32:01.000 --> 01:32:16.000
Really moving in a life giving way, and my third wish would be hmm

01:32:16.000 --> 01:32:20.000
Hmm.

01:32:20.000 --> 01:32:29.000
Like what is not included in those first 2 issues. I think my third wish would be.

01:32:29.000 --> 01:32:47.000
I guess it going along with the connection to all life and going along with the being loved, that we could all really access love on an intergenerational scale.

01:32:47.000 --> 01:32:56.000
Yes, backwards and forwards. I think that that's maybe even just a specification of that first wish about love.

01:32:56.000 --> 01:33:06.000
But those are my wishes for for the world, and I think that everything, everything else could just flow through that.

01:33:06.000 --> 01:33:28.000
Oh, that's really really beautiful and and very much in alignment with the energies that are leading us to antiquea, where the conversation is very much about block wonderful love and health. And I might add that that this dual

01:33:28.000 --> 01:33:33.000
location. So it's gonna be antiiga and buffalo New York.

01:33:33.000 --> 01:33:40.000
So and virtual and virtual so we we're having 3 offerings available.

01:33:40.000 --> 01:33:49.000
This time simultaneously and and Jackie Grace.

01:33:49.000 --> 01:34:01.000
I might add that the young people that attend all come out with that power that you recognize in the Alexa Lexus is is.

01:34:01.000 --> 01:34:10.000
Alexis is particularly first in the X expression, the outwardly expression.

01:34:10.000 --> 01:34:18.000
But if you look at any of the youth that have come out of the youth summit, all kinds of different expressions of some are in business.

01:34:18.000 --> 01:34:39.000
Some are doing dance doing, you know the contributing positive, and and I say that it part of it had to do with having their own space to really the allow themselves to develop what they wanted to develop not somebody telling them.

01:34:39.000 --> 01:34:49.000
What to develop or what they should be working on. They had an opportunity to invent for themselves possibility of what they saw and what they were interested in.

01:34:49.000 --> 01:34:58.000
And and you know I I you know I i'm really reminded of the the radio broadcast.

01:34:58.000 --> 01:35:04.000
That was another one of yours, I believe. alexa yes,

01:35:04.000 --> 01:35:13.000
The radio broadcast, and and just so many there's so many contributions that that were available.

01:35:13.000 --> 01:35:36.000
In the space, and if you don't have any you have any other questions, Jackie Grace I don't i'm ready to complete thank you for being the demonstration of love i'm so clear and I

01:35:36.000 --> 01:35:55.000
saw that you know bright light in you as as I saw with so many all of the the youth, you know, just so many bright lights coming together, and kind of working it out, and making it happen, and and allowing yourself to have a

01:35:55.000 --> 01:36:13.000
phenomenal life. So thank you for the accepting the invitation to be part of the the youth summit and to and to take it out in the world because here, at the International blacksm we're about taking it out to the world so that

01:36:13.000 --> 01:36:19.000
we can transform the universe, and you know you're you're for me.

01:36:19.000 --> 01:36:26.000
You're clearly one of the demonstrations and one of the soldiers that are making it happen out in the world.

01:36:26.000 --> 01:36:44.000
So just thank you for being who you are. Thank you for being a demonstration, and thank you for the opportunity for me to be in the rooms with you as a young, a young person to to to train me in being an an adult

01:36:44.000 --> 01:36:50.000
youth facilitator. So thank you. Oh, thank you. thank you so much for having this.

01:36:50.000 --> 01:36:57.000
Thank you for having me here, and just thank you for your powerful, the light of your listening.

01:36:57.000 --> 01:37:11.000
You know for me from a young age, it really it means so much to be held in that way to be listened for like listening, for our greatness is huge.

01:37:11.000 --> 01:37:25.000
And then also just the reflection of watching the people who are ahead of you, you know, facing other stages of life, being self-reflective and going deep and being open to unpredictable possibilities, it means

01:37:25.000 --> 01:37:29.000
so much to see that, and not be like well we're making it up ourselves.

01:37:29.000 --> 01:37:37.000
But to understand like No, this is this is something that's possible, and it's possible to go through life this way.

01:37:37.000 --> 01:37:46.000
I really appreciate each of you and all of the folks who have been part of my experience of the International Black Summit through modeling.

01:37:46.000 --> 01:37:52.000
Thank you, and may you be blessed with all your future endeavors!

01:37:52.000 --> 01:37:56.000
Oh, yes, yes, and first to your father in law prayers.

01:37:56.000 --> 01:38:00.000
Thank you, thank you, i'll definitely pass that along.

01:38:00.000 --> 01:38:10.000
Yes, yes, yes. okay. okay. So Thank you. Everyone for being with us this evening.

01:38:10.000 --> 01:38:18.000
We hope that you enjoyed this conversation and interview with Alexis Pauline Gums for more information about the International Black Summit.

01:38:18.000 --> 01:38:27.000
You can find us at our website at dww dot black summit dot org that's www dot black summit dot org.

01:38:27.000 --> 01:38:31.000
There's also a contact page there that you can put your information in.

01:38:31.000 --> 01:38:39.000
Like to hear from us or to join us. We are here once a month doing this, podcast and every other Sunday.

01:38:39.000 --> 01:38:43.000
We are here having a summit, share, conversation, session.

01:38:43.000 --> 01:38:51.000
Some can join us there, too. Thanks, everyone. Good night.