How might we hon­or and fol­low the authen­tic call of our pur­pose? This week, guest Rachel Car­gle shares in a rich and enthralling con­ver­sa­tion with Ayana that calls forth themes of root­ed­ness, truth, and renais­sance. Rachel hon­ors a root­ed­ness that comes from deep con­nec­tion to ances­try, to Black­ness, and to the earth, and she rec­og­nizes the way the earth and its cycles offer us exam­ples of what pres­ence and reci­procity look like.

As Rachel points out in her forth­com­ing book A Renais­sance of Our Own, we are in need of a renais­sance. Attuned to years of intense work around race and racial con­scious­ness with­in the Unit­ed States, Rachel uses the dreams and desires from this time as the raw mate­ri­als for rev­o­lu­tion, Rachel envi­sions a col­lec­tive renais­sance that cen­ters on inter­gen­er­a­tional con­ver­sa­tion. Root­ed in trust, how might we reimag­ine this world together?

Rachel Eliz­a­beth Car­gle is an activist, entre­pre­neur, and phil­an­thropic inno­va­tor. She is the founder of The Love­land Group; a fam­i­ly of com­pa­nies includ­ing Eliz­a­beths Book­shop & Writ­ing Cen­tre, a lit­er­ary space that cel­e­brates mar­gin­al­ized voic­es and The Great Unlearn, an adult learn­ing plat­form that cen­ters the teach­ing of BIPOC thinkers. In 2018, she found­ed The Love­land Foun­da­tion, offer­ing free access to men­tal health care for Black women and girls. Car­gle is a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor to Cul­tured Mag­a­zine, Atmos, and The Cut, and her work has been fea­tured in The Wash­ing­ton Post, The New York Times, and The New York­er. Her new book, A Renais­sance of Our Own: A Mem­oir and Man­i­festo on Reimag­in­ing, comes out in the U.S. May 16^th, 2023.