Everyone wants to belong…to something, to someone. We go through life either trying to make connections, or trying to break the connections that bind us together. The journey to identity and self-awareness is different for each of us, and we don’t all find what we set out to seek. I wanted to know my ancestry, my heritage, my blood lines, and so, when I received a DNA testing kit for Christmas last year, I thought I was ready. What I discovered in the process is that spitting into a test tube and receiving a pie chart, superimposed over a map, is only going to tell a fragment of my story, and the true results I was looking for would not come via email, but in a very different kind of message…
You have probably seen the TV ads for the DNA testing, like the one in which a woman reveals that she had no idea she had Native American heritage, but her test surprises her with that information, and suddenly she’s an artist surrounded by Indian baskets, anxious to discover more of her Indian heritage. Or maybe you’ve read an article about white supremacists discovering they had black ancestry, and suddenly they become open-minded and racially tolerant. Most people have a pretty good idea of their origins, for at least a few generations back, because that information is usually passed down, through family history, surnames that hint at a place on a map, or someone in their family has done the research, or belongs to an organization like the Mayflower Society or Daughters of the American Revolution.
When I was young, my parents informed me that I had English, Irish, Scottish and French ancestry. A “Heinz 57” blend, I was told. There was not enough detail provided to instill any sense of pride of identity, and the “Heinz 57” label sounded vaguely derogatory. My maternal grandmother had always said that she had some Indian blood, which would mean that I did, too. She was fascinated with all things Indian, and she passed her love of those cultures on to me. So when my DNA test came back, with roots going back to England, Ireland, Scotland, and Western Europe, I was not surprised. I was mildly surprised with the Eastern Norway finding. What I was completely disappointed about was the total absence of any Native American blood. Not one drop. How to explain, then, my fixation with all things Indian? I was so disheartened, I didn’t look at the information again for months.
I have always been fascinated by the study of people and place. As a child, I spent hours reading every National Geographic issue, cover to cover, and I still subscribe. My favorite subject in school was Social Studies, and I majored in Geography in college…the study of maps, the study of people, the study of how people fit on the maps. I have always been envious of ethnic groups that could trace their lineage, and whose customs, dress, food, and stories were clearly identifiable to their heritage. Sadly, the history of most of those groups include episodes of forced displacement, and atrocities committed in the name of religion and the practice of Colonialism and Manifest Destiny. I have deep empathy for those groups, and carry a healthy dose of white guilt, especially since it was probably my ancestors that carried out the pillaging and displacement. In my heart, I connect more with those groups than I do with my actual blood lines. I have always felt a spiritual connection with people who lived off the land, who worshipped the natural world, and who passed down stories and lessons about their ancestors, nature, and animals. People who felt so connected to nature, that they considered animals their ancestors.
Recently, I have been pummeled by experiences that are reminders that I have never really felt like I fit in, that I don’t have a “tribe”. Small things, events that I am told by others should not be taken personally, that I read too much into things, that I am too sensitive. But the fact is, I have always felt that way. Not smarter or less smart, not better or worse, but different. Deeper, maybe. Always watching, always searching, always feeling like I was on the periphery, looking in. I often found myself bored in school, feeling like the classes I was required to take were not teaching me what I really needed or wanted to know. Even though I had some very close friends in school, and I considered them my tribe, the truth is, we were all in the game alone, and life is not a group sport. Most people that I talk to feel the same way, that they have struggled to find their place in the world.
People are often categorized as “left brain” or “right brain”, or as a “numbers person” or a “word person”. As a word person, I avoided math like the plague, and most of it never made sense to me. The only math that ever clicked for me was set theory and union sets. Not the XYZ part, but the illustrations, the circles and unions and intersections. The idea of shapes, intersecting and connecting, making subsets and groups, seemed poetic and fluid and beautiful. “The mathematics of the properties, measurement, and relationships of points, lines, angles, surfaces, and solids.” My journey through life, and my intersections with the people I have known, feels like it could be illustrated with a complex diagram of circles and subsets. If every set is the union of its subsets, then I am the culmination of each and every intersection and relationship, no matter how brief, no matter how fluid. In all of those intersections, I have been the only common element. So, where is my tribe? This question has been nagging at me for a long time.
Atypical for Seattle at this time of year, the weather has been clear and warm, and I have been enjoying the long daylight hours of June. During most of the year, I would not be described as a morning person, but the early dawn, calm water, and mild temperatures have been luring me out early for morning kayak excursions, and this morning, before work, I set out again. I headed in the general direction of an eagle nest, where a few days ago, I had filmed two eagles standing on a massive fallen Douglas Fir that stretches over the water, squabbling and scrapping over a fish. While my arms were in auto-paddle mode, my mind was wandering. I was pondering the question of my “Heinz 57” heritage, and the disappointment that my hope for some validated connection with any Native American tribe, no matter what tribe, and no matter how small a connection, had been dashed.
In what seemed, until this morning, to be a totally unrelated event, just two nights ago, I had gone to see a live interview with Shirley MacLaine, who had been a last-minute substitution for another speaker in the “Unique Lives” series at our local opera/ballet venue. I have always been a fan, but it wasn’t until the interview was under way that I was reminded about the depth of her beliefs and involvement with the idea of past lives. Over the years, I have read a great deal about reincarnation, and proof of past lives. One summer, while my not-yet-husband was in another state on an internship, and my closest friends were all planning their weddings, I had much time on my hands, and not much money, so I spent a lot of time in the library, browsing for interesting things to read. I read numerous books that summer on past lives, and on using hypnosis to recall one’s birth experience, and access past-life memories. I was so fascinated by the idea, I found a hypnotist on Capitol Hill who specialized in such things, near the bank where I was working for the summer. I could only afford one session, but the experience was profound, and solidified my belief that reincarnation is not just an abstract theory.
As I kayaked this morning, my body taken up with the rhythm of the paddle and the warmth of the rising sun, my mind left open from the past lives discussion, and my thoughts swirling around about my feelings of loss for a past that was never mine, a realization came to me: The DNA of the body I inhabit in this lifetime may not show any Native American blood, but my soul knows otherwise. The connection my spirit feels to indigenous people is real…I have been a medicine woman, a healer, a teacher, a storyteller, a hunter, a warrior, a scout. As this thought took shape, and my trajectory brought me closer to the eagle nest, the next thought that formed in my mind was “I wish I could find an eagle feather.” And with that, I looked down, and floating beside me, there it was. A sacred feather, from a sacred bird, a message from my spirit ancestors. A powerful sign that I had discovered a truth, my truth.
My husband and I met an artist recently, from the Coast Salish tribe, at a holiday art show at the Daybreak Star Cultural Center in Seattle. I am not sure if he would describe himself first as an artist or as an attorney, but he is both. He had a piece at the show titled “Mountain Spirit”, that I couldn’t afford at the time, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I contacted him a few months later, and bought it. We had an interesting talk at the show, and then again when he delivered the print to my office. He told me that “Indigenous people are people of place. Where others have stories of immigration, we have stories of origin.” I have thought about that statement quite a lot, and I have yearned to be one of the “people of place”. Maybe I am, and maybe I have been a person of many places… Perhaps, if I were to gather up all of my experiences, over all time, I have been a seeker and a traveler, and in other lives, a person with roots firmly planted in a place, with stories of origin of my own.
If I have lived many lives, I have ancestors from all of those lives. In this life, maybe they were seafaring Vikings and land-bridge crossers and farmers.
It is possible that I have been a member of many tribes, of many cultures. It could explain the feelings I get in odd places, where I am sure I have been before, but not in this life, places where I feel like I am home…maybe it’s because it has been true. It is possible that I have been the keeper of fires, the one who invited the travelers in to share a meal, to share stories. Maybe I have been that traveler, who felt at home for a time, exchanged gifts and knowledge, and then continued on my journey. If all of the people I have known are the subsets, and I am the union, and I am the only constant in my travels through time, then maybe I constitute my own tribe, and I gather others around me. We come into this world and each life alone, and we go out the same way. Shirley MacLaine said that “We are the creators of our own existence, and we choose when to come back, and we choose who we come back to.” She believes that the end game is how much you love, how much you learn, and how much you understand from each life. Maybe the lessons we have yet to learn have us choosing new tribes each time, but we carry the experiences along with us, a gathering bag of knowledge and tools.
If I had not dallied in bed for an extra half hour this morning, trying to convince myself that the water conditions were not perfect, so I could sleep a little longer, if I had not spent ten minutes nearly capsizing my kayak in two feet of water, trying to pick up and examine a moon snail that had deserted its shell, if I had not been lost in thought and circumnavigated the flotsam and seaweed patch that I found myself in when I spotted the feather, would I have missed it entirely? I don’t think so. I believe that feather was a message sent to me by the ancestors of all my lives, and that I was meant to receive that message today, while at sea, on a journey to an eagle nest. That I needed the gentle push to keep moving on my journey toward enlightenment, toward acceptance of my place in this life, and as a sign to take comfort in the lessons I have gathered from all of my existences, and continue to carry with me in this one. That I don’t need a label or a group identity to justify my quest for knowledge, or to validate my love for nature, or my spiritual connection to the planet. We are all descendants of someone who lived off the land, somewhere on the map, and those circles are fluid, and beautiful, and they connect us, even if they don’t seem to intersect.
If I have been a traveler and a guest at your fire, maybe shared a meal, exchanged stories and gifts, I thank you. If you have been a guest at mine, I thank you, and I hope your journey circles you back someday. If our paths never cross again, thank you for sharing my circle for a time, however brief it may have been. Either way, I hope you pass on the gifts of stories and knowledge, and that you remember me fondly.
As I made my way home, I watched the swirls left in the water by each dip of the paddle, each circle growing wider before disappearing. I was paddling against the tide, into the wind, but with my face to the sun. I felt lifted and at peace, as I imagined the feather in my wake, the breeze carrying it back with my response to my spirit ancestors:
“Your message has been received.
Thank you for the gift.
Until we meet again,
I am a Tribe of One,
and that is enough.”
Cover photo from AncestryDNA website, https://www.ancestry.com/
Shirley MacLaine, actress, singer, dancer, activist and author
“Unique Lives” Series, presented at McCaw Hall, Seattle, WA June 18, 2018; uniquelives.com
Peter Boome, Coast Salish artist, Upper Skagit Tribe, December 17, 2017, Araquin Designs; www.araquindesigns.com; pete@araquin.com
Daybreak Star Cultural Center, www.unitedindians.org/daybreak-star-center
“Definition of Geometry”, Wikipedia
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