No Irish, no Blacks, no dogs
Shortlisted in Briarpatch's Writing in the Margins Contest
A creative non-fiction story about the healing across time, through the depths of the ocean. A piece about a woman accepting and embracing her place as a weaver, bringing stories from the past into life so that they may be healed now and in the future. “No Irish, no Blacks, no dogs” was shortlisted in 2023 Briarpatch’s Writing in the Margins Contest. See more here.
No Irish, no Blacks, no dogs
The movement and colours of the Atlantic Ocean had a rhythm to it.
The rhythm recognized and felt deeply within my Orcadian ancestors’ bones.
The marrow receiving nourishment, you see, to relate the grief from centuries as one of the children, I see.
The lush green meadows, accompanied by crimpy sheep and bumble bees wearing orange vests in the Shetland Islands.
A journey of excavation to witness, acknowledge, honour, and celebrate the grit and resourcefulness of women and their nurturing ways, just like Mother Earth does.
“I can breathe!” the matrilineal lineage whispers.
The tobacco grown on Turtle Island offered to the North Atlantic Ocean loved on by Grandmother Moon.
The giant rosehips — the size of your big toe — shining in the wind weaved with salt.
This is deep nourishment, my girl, and so are you, you see.
The guillemots dive below the water, quick as a bow and arrow, to swallow mackerel to soothe their hungry bellies.
This is deep nourishment, my girl.
Do you see who you’re becoming?
You’re a weaver.
A weaver of generational joy, love, and grief to co-exist simultaneously. To co-exist within the gray spaces within the mind, spirit, heart, and body.
You are deeply nourishing, my girl.
From forced relocations, day school, Belfast asylums, fear and separation implemented by settler colonialism. You are a weaver, to dissipate grief into the earth by composting the memories into matter.
From the North Atlantic Ocean to Hudson Bay, gratitude to the tree kin that offered the mobility and safety to provide opportunities to live, even though you arrived starving to live — the hunger to eat and the hunger to survive.
Do you see you are a weaver?
To weave wool into yarn is to scrape deer hide into smoked hide, to create warmth and sustainability of kinship to the four-legged beings.
The smell of salt from the ocean water as it wisps by with a sharp pull, you feel alive, reminded of your own humanity.
Reminded of the humbling experience of being one human yet many all at once.
A teaching of humility through low back pain doesn’t make sense in a western psychological perspective. It’s deeply spiritual.
But you see, don't you.
This is deeply nourishing, my girl.
As a weaver, you transmit intergenerational longing to be seen.
“My children died because they got sick.” To be acknowledged.
“I tried my best even though we were resourceful people.” To be celebrated.
“We made it, we can rest now that we’ve been seen and recognized that we tried.” To be honoured.
The cobblestone, step by step, I feel death.
I feel a woman hanged for being a “witch.”
I feel a man stoned to death for simply trying to provide for his family.
I feel a child due to starvation, a forced relocation as the British wanted the family’s croft to divide and conquer.
You are a weaver, you see.
The tobacco sprinkled slowly passes and transcends through time, to arrive gently on the water, just as a gannet’s feather.
The serpent of the water carries prayers to the raven, jet black like the depths of the ocean.
This is deeply nourishing, my girl.
As I wake at 2:00am, I witness Grandmother Moon in her fullness in the sky.
She’s looking out across the land, and I see glimmers of her reflection on the ocean and upon the windows of the stone houses.
No light pollution in sight as I gobble Orcadian bannock.
The plastic wrapper wakes my beloved. “What time is it?”
“It’s 2:00 am and I’m starved. Look at the full moon!” As the ancestors ate.
Across the way, I see Hoy Island from the mainland. I see its cave-like shadow beyond its pure darkness.
Listening to the wind whistle a fiddle tune as Grandmother Moon reminds us of our fullest expression without fear of being seen.
Fear not, for you are your ancestors' wildest dreams, my girl.
Your matrilineal ancestors couldn’t be seen, as it resulted in violence, rape, homelessness, and isolation.
When you shine, thousands of your grandmothers witness your fierce yet gentle presence.
This is deeply nourishing, my girl.
You are a weaver as Grandmother spider is.
Wahkohtowin — the deeply interconnected nature of relationships, communities, and natural systems - kinship.
You are deeply nourishing medicine, my girl.
A joining of two perspectives, weaved together strand by strand to reconnect reclamation, profound healing, and celebration through embodied side to side sways. A braid like your grandmother’s hair — the colour of ground Nabob coffee.
The deep suffocation around the airway felt like smoke created by splashes of water poured on the fire — an ashy, suffocating cough ensues.
My girl, cough out that deeply felt grief to connect to those emotions of love and endearment.
Cough, cough, cough.
Spit, spit, spit.
Out goes the violence towards women and femmes.
Out goes the bodily restraint and disconnection to the rhythms of Grandmother Moon.
Out goes the shame for being a sexual and spiritual sacred life giver.
Out goes the embarrassment of Eurocentric beauty and body standards created by the patriarchy.
And so out it goes, sprinkled with tobacco as an offering into the North Atlantic Ocean to be cleansed and evaporated into matter within the water systems.
And so it is.