A Travel Essay from the Inner Journey

One of the first signs that your Radiance is breaking through is that you naturally begin to slow down inside yourself and in your daily life.
Richard Rudd, The Sage’s Golden Path Retreat

That makes me so very happy to read those words from Richard Rudd! It’s been the most glorious byproduct of this work. I have slowed down. I savour moments. I languish in pauses.

It took me a long time. It probably wasn’t until Devoted that I truly started to harvest the pauses that life gifted me, and I started to carve out time in my days to slow down and simply be.

Instead of the incessant rush to the next thing, instead of the compulsive behaviour that pushed me on until I “found the answer”, I slowed. I slowed everything down. The pace I do my inner work at. The amount I put out on social media. I slowed the pace of my whole life down.

Everything. Slowed. Down.

And now I’m slowing down even more.

Now, with the Sage’s journey, I’m slowing down and taking these contemplations a line, or a word, at a time.

I’m slowing everything down. I am acknowledging that I am tired and I need to rest.

I am allowing myself to slow down.

I am allowing myself to take everything at a slower pace.

Becoming a More Contemplative Individual

Radiance breaking through ... You become a more contemplative individual. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you think more about things – rather it involves you becoming much more settled inside your skin.
Richard Rudd, The Sage’s Golden Path Retreat

This is happening to me. I like that way of putting it … you become more settled inside your skin. Radiance is a homecoming. When I come home to myself, when I sigh and fall into my own open heart, then I can be my natural self, not scrabbling after answers or information, but rather stopping the external seeking, and allowing myself to sink back into my natural contemplative mind.

As I become more settled in my own skin, so I become more at ease with what is happening in the world. It is just as my Guide, Hayley Curtis, said in her answer to a question I asked her about my existential dread about the state of the world at the moment (and there is so much fucking dread!!) … I simply cannot figure it out with my mind … I have to open my heart and hold compassion for the victims of the wars and injustice. My contemplations are not going to fix the war, but at least I am creating a field of love. My mind is only going to get sucked into confusion and anxiety if I try to understand it intellectually.

I must allow my mind to be like water … let it all seep into me, settle, flow. Let my heart lead the way with love and compassion.

My Gift of Authority

Authority is the strength to take full responsibility for one's life, and the impact of one’s choices on the whole.
Richard Rudd, The Sage’s Golden Path Retreat

This is something I know to be true. I have faced many challenges in my life, but it has been my own strength, my own authority, that has brought me through. It took a long time and a lot of work to come to a place where I can stand in my own authority. I know that I have these Gifts inside me now. I know now that I always had them. I think a big part of taking responsibility for one’s life is about recognising and owning one’s own power and authority.

I no longer see myself as a victim, to either life’s circumstances or to other people. I no longer see myself as weak. This is a huge step towards taking full responsibility for my life. Another part is releasing blame. Blame serves only to keep you bound to the circumstance or person who is oppressing you.

This is not to gaslight yourself in the way the bullies and abusers gaslight you into believing that the abuse they visit upon you is somehow your fault … you “asked for it” by either being “too something” or “not enough of something else”!!

This is not to excuse those bullies and abusers either.

Taking Responsibility for My Part is Important

For me, recognising and taking responsibility for the part I played dissolves a huge barrier to break through. I took responsibility for where I had been playing the victim. I took responsibility for where I had given away my power. I took responsibility for my own life.

That is when I began to walk this path of Authority. I didn’t call it that at first. I didn’t call it Authority until I started to work with the Gene Keys. But I can see how all those years of inner work through journaling that preceded the Gene Keys, was paving the way for me to step into my Authority.

When I was in that weak, victim mentality, that is the energy I gave out, and it was, therefore, the energy that I attracted into my life. If I think of myself as one piece of a great energetic web of interconnectedness, then I can see how my part of the web used to be dark and jagged. I was not radiating light on the people around me. I was radiating my own suffering.

Flip that to a woman who is standing confidently in her Authority, who takes responsibility for her life and her choices, and the energy I give out is very, very different. The energy is brighter, lighter. When I am standing in my Authority it’s not about exerting power over people, or bending people to my will; it’s about holding my own power like a torch to light my way. It’s about loving myself unconditionally. It’s about being wholly and completely me.

I Am the Author of My Own Life

Oh! This is one of my favourite parts of my whole Gene Keys chart … Richard Rudd says that having the Gift of Authority means that I AM THE AUTHOR OF MY OWN LIFE!

The freedom in that sentence. The power and energy. It is like having all my glorious Gifts wrapped around me in a cloak of intricate patterns, where each pattern is the legend of a Shadow transmuted, or the story of a Gift revealed, or the myth and prophecy of a Siddhi to be reached for.

I am the author of my own life. I write my own story, word by word, line by line. I unravel a tale of great adventure. I weave a love story into every nook and cranny of my life.

I fill my life, my mind, my mouth, with the words that tell the epic saga of a wild girl who travelled far, and who overcame many obstacles on the journey home. The wild girl became a woman, a mother, a crone, but she is still the wild girl in her heart. She is the fairy child, with the imagination to create whole worlds within her. She is infinite and holds the whole universe in her heart.

That is the story I write every day, as I dive and delve into my interiority.

My Story is a River Flowing Through Life

My story is a river flowing through life, teeming with wonder, crystal clear over the shallows, dark and fathomless in the deeper reaches. In turn it is all calm, still pools, and then wild white-water rapids. It is a mountain stream and it is tumbling waterfalls. It is the wide estuary that meets the sea.

I am the author of my own life, so I get to choose what the story will be every single day. I get to choose which part of the river I will swim in. I even get to choose to sit quietly on the bank and just savour the flow.

I am the author of my own life … so why would I NOT write an epic tale of adventure, of love, of overcoming the obstacles and challenges? I choose to write a sweeping saga where I am my own hero! I choose to be the valiant knight in the tale of good triumphing over evil. I choose to be that wild child, climbing trees, and breathing clean fresh air.

I choose the freedom to choose!

I choose to write a story where I do good in the world, where I am compassionate and kind, benevolent and loving.

I choose me!

I choose to be my own hero!

The Liberation of Unravelling the Knots

It was one of the most liberating moments of my life when I heard those words for the first time … you are the author of your own life. We can write the story we want to live. We live in a world where social media, TV, movies, and great deluges of information on the internet pours into our eyes and our ears daily, telling us who we should be, what we should wear, how we should look, think, behave, live. Those are all other people’s narratives. Those are all other people’s stories, those are all rich people and corporations pouring poison into us, telling us what we need, when really, it’s all about what they need us to do so we can make them richer.

I choose my own rich life.

I choose my path.

My riches are love, laughter, friendship, connection. My riches are language and stories. My riches are books that I made with my own hands. My riches are in the sun and the blue sky, the trees and the flowers, in rivers and in the sea. My riches are right here inside me.

I am the author of my own life, and I am writing a life that I love. I am writing a story I am proud of. I am writing a tale of liberation and freedom.

Every day that I sit at my journal, I am writing a love story to life, of life. I am unravelling the tangled knots of stories that aren’t mine, that have somehow caught me in their web. I am untangling from those stories that belong to other people, the ones that say I’m weak, I’m nothing, I’m selfish, I’m wrong.

I’m Writing the True Story of My Life Now

I know that the story I am writing is true. I own this story. I am the main character. And of course I have flaws, and of course I have taken wrong paths, but don’t all heroes?! Aren’t all heroes tested?

I am the author of my own life and that is the sweetest taste, because that is the taste of freedom. I don’t need anyone else to tell me who to be or how to behave. I don’t need anyone else’s permission to be me, to live the life I want to live. I don’t need anyone else’s words in my mouth, or ideas in my head.

I am as free as a bird.

I get to fly where I want to fly.

When I am writing my stories, I place no restrictions upon myself except truth. I must always tell myself the truth. I must always take responsibility for my thoughts and deeds. That doesn’t scare me.

Every true hero has a true heart. They do not fight for personal gain; they fight for what is right.

That’s the energy I want to bring to the story of my life.

I am the author of my life and I write for right.

All of the photographs were taken on a recent trip to Saunton Sands in North Devon … three days of complete relaxation, just walking on the beach, playing in the sea, and taking lots and lots and lots of photographs of the beautiful beach. There is something so wonderful about the quality of the light when you are near the sea, and it felt like the perfect place to be as I deepened my contemplations on the Radiance sphere.

You can see more of my photographs on my Flickr page.