My lineage

At this elder-ing time of my life I feel called to tenderly prepare well for my own death and to work with others to do the same. To teach and learn as I go.  I identify as a Crone, an archetypal figure of the wise old woman. In the third stage of my life as an earthly woman.

I live as a settler, an uninvited guest, on the unceded territories of the Lekwungen-speaking peoples, known as the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations, on the southern tip of what is now called Vancouver Island. I came here as an adult, with my young family, attracted by the natural beauty, the sea, and the strong energy of this part of mother earth. I am blessed to live here with my husband Steve and our three-legged cat called Angel, and to have my mother and all three grown sons, their partners, three young grandsons, and two grand-dogs living nearby.

Both my genetic and energetic/spiritual lineages - on both sides - lie in the UK. In northern England, Scotland and Ireland. My ancestral knowledge includes Pagan, Celtic, Witchy, and Gaelic ways. I have not been taught these ways of knowing growing up in this life - they have not travelled in a direct or straight line to me.  Rather I have had glimmerings of them all my life and then discovered them for myself through books, networks, training, and other people who share my connection and interest. There is a large and rich modern resurgence of this nature-based spiritual knowledge that I am continually learning about and from. Important teachers for me in these ways include Sarah Kerr, Starhawk, Shauna Janz, and Felicity Warner.

I am aware that these ancient ways were brutalized, driven underground, and nearly destroyed by the same forces that have done the same to Indigenous peoples here and around the world. Essentially my ancestral people were colonized and subsumed into what became the dominant Western culture and world view, and then came and did the same to the traditional peoples of North America and elsewhere. My work as a Crone, an awakened spirit, manifesting as a death doula, is to honour and repair some small bits of that in concert with others.

My lineage demands that I be a loving provocateur. Bold. Not hide my light. Curious about the mysteries. Remembering and re-learning ancient female traditions and ways of knowing. Renewing and integrating them with modern knowledge. Connecting with my ancestral wisdom field and leaning into a bridging role. Helping heal some of the cultural wounds with alternatives to the way the dominant culture does death and dying, and other important life transitions.