I love the scenes in British dramas where a kid is learning to recite all the Kings & Queens of England.
The kid usually turns it into a little song to help remember which Henry or Elizabeth. It’s cute.
Royals aside, I’ve learned that lineage can mean a lot.
Lineage can be a point of pride.
But it can also be painful, especially for people who aren’t able to trace their lineage or are ashamed of the behavior of past ancestors.
Because of this, one of my favorite ways to consider lineage is based upon skillset.
For example, when I attended massage therapy school in 1997, my teachers would name their teachers, instilling within us a sense that we were part of something greater.
We weren’t just doing any massage & bodywork, these techniques and perspectives were unique to a lineage.
You might have a version of this with a writing skillset, photography, design, cooking, gardening, or I dunno, heart surgery.
Someone taught you how to do your thing, even if just by example.
And someone taught them, and someone taught them.
So, that’s lineage too; ancestry.
At The Darkwood School, we have a tradition of “Walking With” an archetype for a year to tone and tend that archetype’s wisdom within ourselves.
This year I’m “Walking With” The Wisdom Keeper archetype, and lineage is her jam.
Because we find The Wisdom Keeper at Samhain, she’s fluent in ancestry, reaching through the veils for advice and support as easily as sending a text.
The Wisdom Keeper also thinks about legacy, the future version of lineage.
So, during Queen season when we can see with a bird’s eye view, my Wisdom Keeper mind is looking back at lineage and forward at legacy.
It might seem obvious that I’m Walking With The Wisdom Keeper this year because I turned 50.
But it’s actually because of lineage.
I have been gearing up to offer The Darkwood Archetype Practitioner Training for almost three years.
To finally do it I needed The Wisdom Keeper to instill me with confidence; drape the mantle of responsibility around my shoulders to share what I know.
I believe in this work.
And I think the world needs it.
Lineage is like an oak casting acorns to help a future forest. I wanna be in a whole grove of oaks — shoulder to shoulder with other women offering scent divinations, anointing people and encouraging them to keep going, keep growing, changing the world.
If you want a structure to wrap your magic around, a trellis to support your growth, consider the lineage of the Darkwood Archetypes and their divinations and rituals.
Read more about the practitioner training HERE.
Either way, ’tis the season to take a bird’s eye view, learn to rattle off your own line of Queens, and feel yourself right in the middle of them; a long thread of majesty stretching forward and backward in time.
Long live your wonderful heart, your contributions, and your benevolent leadership.
Long may your name be sung for the ways you loved and helped.
Long may your reign over the verdant, growing realm of your life.
Dear Queen, sovereign majesty, royal highness, keep going.
love and lineage,
xo
kv
