THE TALL GRASS IS THE SEA; THE SEA IS THE TETHER
ESSAY FOR AIRMID'S JOURNAL, ISSUE 5 THE SUMMER SOLSTICE ISSUE, june 2022
Though it’s almost noon, the sun’s warm rays cast long morning shadows while dew catches rainbows on the grass, thwarting my sense of time. Nearby, there's a fuss—Steller’s jays, cobalt blue birds with black crested hoods and mischievous eyes, are after their beloved sunflower seeds beneath the feeders. One of them stops to look directly at me and whistles a soft seagull sound as I walk by, and I compliment them on their marvelous skill. Sitting up proudly, this jaunty trickster breaks into a loud raucous laugh and resumes carousing with the songbirds.
I approach a solitary cluster of dark grass growing on the western edge of the land where I live; a bundle of tall, rough reeds. Nothing else like it grows anywhere nearby except for the hillside where I’m headed. I gently grasp the stalks, leaving a few, and cut them off at the base with a knife I’ve used to make food and medicines every day for decades. I bring the hollow rushes to my face and inhale their fresh, vibrant green scent and realize they smell faintly not of fields, but of the sea. Suddenly, it hits me why this grass, from this place, for this purpose. Holding the bundle of reeds, I begin my journey to the field where I’ll leave them at the top of the hill with a certain beaked hazelnut tree to pay the midsummer solstice rents to Manannán mac Lír.
I’m a white Irish- and Scottish-American (among many other things) of settler descent [1] living on the lands of the Tribes and Nations of Coast Salish peoples, who have lived on this land since time immemorial. My home is a few miles away from the Salish Sea in wetlands situated between a deep glacially carved lake and a river. I grew up in this place knowing I’m diasporic, descended from several lineages, often very different from each other. Learning who I could claim, who might claim me back, and how to honor the visible traditions and cultures my ancestors passed down, has been a lifelong journey. To make sense of these varied ancestral threads, while contending with my contemporary presence on stolen lands, is the challenge and the work.
None of us can go back to some mythical past. Our stories, languages, cultures, and traditions may have been syncretized or hidden away, and/or shifted dramatically over time because of colonization—even for those of us identified as white, because assimilation into systems of whiteness towards the benefits of white identity came at the forfeit of ethnicity. [2] But diasporas from all over the world are reconnecting to important pieces of ancestral wisdom that are useful, to honor past and present peoples of those living cultures, to avoid the pitfalls of erasure, tokenization, and exotification. As neither peoples of our homelands, nor peoples of these lands, the lessons we’re given from land-based traditions and priorities of relationship and reciprocity can be woven into our lives every day, without stepping wrongfully into misappropriation. It’s possible to acknowledge our changed world while respectfully revitalizing and reclaiming ancestral traditions, through contemporary lenses, in community, to build a better future. But what does that look like? Protocols that are appropriate to the lands of my ancestors are often prohibitions, here. With this in mind, I look to the common ground.
I came to realize all the people I descend from are salmon and hazelnut people; eagle, lake, and river people; mountain, sea, and pines people; people of the rain and mist. I also came to understand correlations in the differences—Steller’s jay versus magpie; coyote versus fox; black walnut versus oak. The similarity of these relationships are described in stories across continents, becoming the very point of connectivity in bridging my ancestral folklore and protocols in syncretism with the contemporary circumstances, politics, and position in which I now live. So it was through these overlaps, and this place, that my introduction to Manannán came to be. The sea is the bridge of connectivity—the sea touches all lands and all things. This message is how I began to get to know Manannán. And in learning to pay the rents to Manannán mac Lír, the directive I was given was to also pay the rents to the Duwamish Tribe.
Indigenous peoples throughout the world endure the repeated denial of their sovereignty and self-determination by colonizing governments. On Turtle Island, treaties have not been honored. [3] To this day, in spite of multiple attempts, the US does not federally recognize the Duwamish Tribe. In 2017, the Duwamish Solidarity Group organized Real Rent Duwamish [4] as a way for settlers to engage in a financial form of reparations and reciprocity with the Duwamish. While it is not federal recognition, nor is it the rematriation [5] of land, it is a small step in supporting acknowledgement of land and history [6] that white-identified people can engage and learn from. And every midsummer, in addition to rents I pay throughout the year, I pay an additional fee as part of my tethered spiritual and political praxis.
Manannán mac Lír’s missive for me was to simultaneously engage multiple deeply interwoven histories in order to live in the present, fully. These tall, rough grasses represent both the lands of my ancestors and the lands where I now live. The scent of the reeds reminds me that the lands and the seas are two sides of the same thing, a mirrored world: an saol seo, agus an saol eile. [7] These are fields and waves over which Aonbharr and Sguaba Tuinne [8] race effortlessly. These are lands to whom I have concrete impact and responsibility. These are the lands of the Coast Salish peoples [9] . In delivering these sea-scented rushes to that beaked hazelnut tree at the top of the hill, and paying all my rents, I tether my past and present to honor and build pathways of right relationship and community that are not temporary or superficial, but long-lasting, and meaningful.
I approach a solitary cluster of dark grass growing on the western edge of the land where I live; a bundle of tall, rough reeds. Nothing else like it grows anywhere nearby except for the hillside where I’m headed. I gently grasp the stalks, leaving a few, and cut them off at the base with a knife I’ve used to make food and medicines every day for decades. I bring the hollow rushes to my face and inhale their fresh, vibrant green scent and realize they smell faintly not of fields, but of the sea. Suddenly, it hits me why this grass, from this place, for this purpose. Holding the bundle of reeds, I begin my journey to the field where I’ll leave them at the top of the hill with a certain beaked hazelnut tree to pay the midsummer solstice rents to Manannán mac Lír.
I’m a white Irish- and Scottish-American (among many other things) of settler descent [1] living on the lands of the Tribes and Nations of Coast Salish peoples, who have lived on this land since time immemorial. My home is a few miles away from the Salish Sea in wetlands situated between a deep glacially carved lake and a river. I grew up in this place knowing I’m diasporic, descended from several lineages, often very different from each other. Learning who I could claim, who might claim me back, and how to honor the visible traditions and cultures my ancestors passed down, has been a lifelong journey. To make sense of these varied ancestral threads, while contending with my contemporary presence on stolen lands, is the challenge and the work.
None of us can go back to some mythical past. Our stories, languages, cultures, and traditions may have been syncretized or hidden away, and/or shifted dramatically over time because of colonization—even for those of us identified as white, because assimilation into systems of whiteness towards the benefits of white identity came at the forfeit of ethnicity. [2] But diasporas from all over the world are reconnecting to important pieces of ancestral wisdom that are useful, to honor past and present peoples of those living cultures, to avoid the pitfalls of erasure, tokenization, and exotification. As neither peoples of our homelands, nor peoples of these lands, the lessons we’re given from land-based traditions and priorities of relationship and reciprocity can be woven into our lives every day, without stepping wrongfully into misappropriation. It’s possible to acknowledge our changed world while respectfully revitalizing and reclaiming ancestral traditions, through contemporary lenses, in community, to build a better future. But what does that look like? Protocols that are appropriate to the lands of my ancestors are often prohibitions, here. With this in mind, I look to the common ground.
I came to realize all the people I descend from are salmon and hazelnut people; eagle, lake, and river people; mountain, sea, and pines people; people of the rain and mist. I also came to understand correlations in the differences—Steller’s jay versus magpie; coyote versus fox; black walnut versus oak. The similarity of these relationships are described in stories across continents, becoming the very point of connectivity in bridging my ancestral folklore and protocols in syncretism with the contemporary circumstances, politics, and position in which I now live. So it was through these overlaps, and this place, that my introduction to Manannán came to be. The sea is the bridge of connectivity—the sea touches all lands and all things. This message is how I began to get to know Manannán. And in learning to pay the rents to Manannán mac Lír, the directive I was given was to also pay the rents to the Duwamish Tribe.
Indigenous peoples throughout the world endure the repeated denial of their sovereignty and self-determination by colonizing governments. On Turtle Island, treaties have not been honored. [3] To this day, in spite of multiple attempts, the US does not federally recognize the Duwamish Tribe. In 2017, the Duwamish Solidarity Group organized Real Rent Duwamish [4] as a way for settlers to engage in a financial form of reparations and reciprocity with the Duwamish. While it is not federal recognition, nor is it the rematriation [5] of land, it is a small step in supporting acknowledgement of land and history [6] that white-identified people can engage and learn from. And every midsummer, in addition to rents I pay throughout the year, I pay an additional fee as part of my tethered spiritual and political praxis.
Manannán mac Lír’s missive for me was to simultaneously engage multiple deeply interwoven histories in order to live in the present, fully. These tall, rough grasses represent both the lands of my ancestors and the lands where I now live. The scent of the reeds reminds me that the lands and the seas are two sides of the same thing, a mirrored world: an saol seo, agus an saol eile. [7] These are fields and waves over which Aonbharr and Sguaba Tuinne [8] race effortlessly. These are lands to whom I have concrete impact and responsibility. These are the lands of the Coast Salish peoples [9] . In delivering these sea-scented rushes to that beaked hazelnut tree at the top of the hill, and paying all my rents, I tether my past and present to honor and build pathways of right relationship and community that are not temporary or superficial, but long-lasting, and meaningful.
[1] To state that I am a white Irish- and Scottish-American (among many other things) of settler descent is important, because to be Irish- and Scottish-American doesn’t necessarily equate to being white; though settler does imply this; and it’s important to not code European as white. Europe has always been multi-racial and multi-ethnic. My interest in my varied cultural ancestries is not about blood and soil or DNA—DNA is neither culture nor ethnicity—but rather about unsettling settler colonialism (a term I learned from Indigenous scholars’ extensive works on unsettling), to locate myself within culture and across time, in relationship to my ancestors of both homelands and these lands, and a tangible connection to community both then, and now.
[2] Who is white is complicated and messy, and subject to change. Many people who are phenotypically pale are mixed-race, and deeply rooted in their ethnic languages, cultures, traditions, and belonging which I would argue disrupts whiteness (but still incurs limited benefits, to some extent). Many people identified and raised as white, may have non-white ancestries whose ethnic belonging they’re unable to claim because it’s no longer present in their families and they have no kinship ties. For many others, it may not be present in their day-to-day lives, but they still carry these stories, if not pieces of their familial culture. This happens to any number of people from multiple ethnic and racial origins but to understand the origins of whiteness as an assimilation and a system, I recommend Nell Irvin Painter’s book, The History of White People as well as How the Irish Became White by Noel Ignatiev.
[3] The Treaty of Point Elliott, via the Duwamish Tribe website
[4] DSG, the organization behind Real Rent Duwamish, is run by Coalition of Anti-Racist Whites in support of the Duwamish Tribe
[5] Rematriation is a term used by many Indigenous peoples in place of its origin, repatriation, to dismantle the patriarchy of the term and indicate matriarchal lineages.
[6] There are a multitude of resources on land and territory acknowledgements, but I find this one via Native LandDigital to be very accessible. Another good one to review, especially in regards to how acknowledgements quickly become problematic, is via the Native Governance Center.
[7] I learned this phrase from Lora O’Brien through various classes at the Irish Pagan School. Loosely translated, it means, “this world, and the Otherworld”.
[8] Aonbharr is Manannán mac Lír’s horse who could travel over both land and sea, also called "Enbarr of the Flowing Mane" and Sguaba Tuinne is his self-navigating boat, also called “Wave-sweeper”.
[9] Since this essay's initial publication in 2022, I've been thinking a lot about the complicated histories of the region where I live and the way all the Indigenous Peoples of these lands have been deeply interconnected since time immemorial. So now, I still pay the rent on the solstice but the rest of the year I set aside 10% of my monthly earnings go to regional Indigenous-led direct action, I and encourage you to seek out similar support through donations to Indigenous organizations, rent, tax, or land trust programs and initiatives in your own areas!
Native Governance Center, Beyond Land Acknowledgment: A Guide
Native Land Digital
Native Land, Territory Acknowledgement Resources
Nii’kinaaganaa Foundation
Partnership with Native Americans
Public Resources for Land Acknowledgement Learning
Real Rent Duwamish
Seattle Urban Native Nonprofits
Sogorea Te’ Land Trust
[2] Who is white is complicated and messy, and subject to change. Many people who are phenotypically pale are mixed-race, and deeply rooted in their ethnic languages, cultures, traditions, and belonging which I would argue disrupts whiteness (but still incurs limited benefits, to some extent). Many people identified and raised as white, may have non-white ancestries whose ethnic belonging they’re unable to claim because it’s no longer present in their families and they have no kinship ties. For many others, it may not be present in their day-to-day lives, but they still carry these stories, if not pieces of their familial culture. This happens to any number of people from multiple ethnic and racial origins but to understand the origins of whiteness as an assimilation and a system, I recommend Nell Irvin Painter’s book, The History of White People as well as How the Irish Became White by Noel Ignatiev.
[3] The Treaty of Point Elliott, via the Duwamish Tribe website
[4] DSG, the organization behind Real Rent Duwamish, is run by Coalition of Anti-Racist Whites in support of the Duwamish Tribe
[5] Rematriation is a term used by many Indigenous peoples in place of its origin, repatriation, to dismantle the patriarchy of the term and indicate matriarchal lineages.
[6] There are a multitude of resources on land and territory acknowledgements, but I find this one via Native LandDigital to be very accessible. Another good one to review, especially in regards to how acknowledgements quickly become problematic, is via the Native Governance Center.
[7] I learned this phrase from Lora O’Brien through various classes at the Irish Pagan School. Loosely translated, it means, “this world, and the Otherworld”.
[8] Aonbharr is Manannán mac Lír’s horse who could travel over both land and sea, also called "Enbarr of the Flowing Mane" and Sguaba Tuinne is his self-navigating boat, also called “Wave-sweeper”.
[9] Since this essay's initial publication in 2022, I've been thinking a lot about the complicated histories of the region where I live and the way all the Indigenous Peoples of these lands have been deeply interconnected since time immemorial. So now, I still pay the rent on the solstice but the rest of the year I set aside 10% of my monthly earnings go to regional Indigenous-led direct action, I and encourage you to seek out similar support through donations to Indigenous organizations, rent, tax, or land trust programs and initiatives in your own areas!
Native Governance Center, Beyond Land Acknowledgment: A Guide
Native Land Digital
Native Land, Territory Acknowledgement Resources
Nii’kinaaganaa Foundation
Partnership with Native Americans
Public Resources for Land Acknowledgement Learning
Real Rent Duwamish
Seattle Urban Native Nonprofits
Sogorea Te’ Land Trust