Since Time Immemorial is a recurring series featuring community members whose families have been here since time immemorial. The ancestral knowledge carried by Lhaq’temish, Nooksack, and other Coast Salish peoples is knowledge about how to live in our shared home in a good, life-sustaining way. We live in a time when we need to restore our relationship with Mother Earth and with one another. We are grateful for these stories, told in the words of each featured individual.
Photograph by Julie Trimingham
Tsx’vilum Free Borsey is a visual artist, a writer, a board member at the Bellingham-based cultural accelerator Paper Whale, and the Environmental Stewardship Specialist at Setting Sun Institute / Children of the Setting Sun Productions. He and his twin brother Raven were recently awarded the prestigious Bullitt Prize, administered by Washington Conservation Action. The brothers plan to use funds from the prize to revive the Lummi Youth Canoe Family as an institution that “centers Tribal tradition, supports youth at risk, and serves as a year-round conservation non-profit.” He is a member of Lummi Nation and also has First Nation descendancy.
You’re a young man, already doing a lot. How did you begin?
I grew up in the foster care system. It came with a lot of trials and tribulations, and I think that’s what made me who I am today. Fortunately, I was adopted by my uncle and aunt, so I was raised on the Lummi reservation and had access to my cultural identity. So I never had an issue with, like, who I am, but it was definitely not the easiest being surrounded by a lot of hurt. Indigenous youth all over can relate to the struggles that you’re faced with on a reservation. You see a lot of substance abuse, a lot of violence, a lot of pain. I’m just now learning to acknowledge all of that, you know, and embrace it as part of who I am.
I know some of your art work through Paper Whale—you were one of the artists involved with creating the Indigiversal collective mural down at the waterfront. And just now, before we started the official interview, I learned that you also write poetry?
Yeah, I’ve always been fascinated with the power of words. Eminem is a big inspiration to me. Tupac, his rap and his poetry. And Rumi.
What do you write about?
I have one poem that talks about the sun setting and the light through the blinds being cut in ribbons. One is actually about writing poetry, or really the pencil—I call it the graphite dancer. I have another poem about death. I’ve lost a lot of family and friends over the last few years to violence, drug overdoses, suicide. I just really struggle with the idea of death and life and what it all means.
Poetry’s great for dealing with the big stuff.
Yeah, and philosophy. I love some epicurean philosophy here and there, I love stoic philosophy. Like Marcus Aurelius—a lot of what he’s saying is still very relevant today. He says, Don’t spend too much time at the circus. Our circus is social media and all the distractions.
It seems like that philosophical bent carries over into your work at Children of the Setting Sun?
Yeah, our motto is bridging science and spirit. And really, for me, that means amplifying Indigenous voices and stories, and, at the same time, advancing Indigenous knowledge systems, Native science.
What do you mean by Native science?
One thing I was taught is that humans are the little brother to all the plants and animals. Humans have been here the least amount of time, and we have a lot to learn. Native environmental science is the environmental science that has existed here since time immemorial, since our people started learning to live on the land and be of the land. It’s what has allowed us to live here sustainably and ethically for thousands of years. Native science always includes the spirit. I feel like the reason we have the problems we have in the world today is that people don’t think about the spirit of the water or the land when they’re harvesting resources for human benefit. Also, Native science embraces chaos as a natural phenomenon or occurrence. I love that, because bad things happen and you can’t always fix it. Embracing Native science helps us accept the natural things in our lives that seem chaotic.
Is there a teaching or a saying or a story that you hold close?
Well, there’s one that has helped me understand the chaos in my own life. The story is Sky Woman Falling. She has two kids. One of them is, like, perfect and creates all these beautiful flat plains and landscapes and beautiful flat oceans. Then the twin comes in and, like, stomps around and creates the mountains and the Great Lakes and the waves. She chucks rocks to create the islands. So you have a beautiful image of what life should be, and then you have chaos that comes in and naturally disrupts things. But some good can come from the chaos.
Hy’shqe, Free.
Note: Free learned the story of Sky Woman Falling from Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Julie Trimingham is a mother, writer, and non-tribal member of the Sacred Lands Conservancy (SacredSea.org), a Lhaq’temish-led non-profit dedicated to protecting Native sovereignty, treaty rights, sacred sites, and the life and waters of Xw’ullemy (the Salish Sea bioregion). Her heart is filled by the work to protect and promote ancestral place-based knowledge so that we can all learn to live here, with one another, and with Mother Earth, in a good way.
