A Travel Essay from the Inner Journey

There is a wonderful part of the Sage’s Golden Path Retreat, where Richard Rudd, the writer of the Gene Keys, who is a mystic, a poet and an exceptional guide in this world of the inner work through the Gene Keys, weaves a little bit of magic in the form a sutra for each Sage word.

You see, every single line of every one of the 64 Gene Keys has its own Sage Word and Sage line; and each of these has a sutra. The Sanskrit word sūtra means “string, thread”. The root of the word is siv, “that which sews and holds things together”. The word is related to sūci meaning “needle, list”, and sūnā meaning “woven”.*

What Richard has done is create these poetic sutras for each of the Sage words, which I have been finding to be wonderful diving off points for deep contemplation of my Gene Keys.

The sutra for my IQ Gene Key 12.2 is called “Advice from a Courtesan” …

Advice from a Courtesan

Of course, when I read the title of the sutra, I had to do my research on exactly what a courtesan was. Like many people no doubt, I went to the first definition in my mind of a courtesan as some sort of high-status prostitute. But that is only one teeny tiny aspect of what a courtesan was. A courtesan was a member of the royal court, a courtier.

In Renaissance times, it came to refer to well-educated and independent women, who would be trained as artists; they were artisans of dance and singing. In ancient India they were the centre of city life and symbolized “both sexual-erotic and aesthetic pleasure”. *

In my mind, I combined these definitions with the definition of the Crone (of course!), and when I did that, I was rather taken by the idea of myself as a Courtesan Crone, bringing my wisdom and creativity, my art and my esoteric knowledge, my magic and my far-sightedness to my milieu. That is the kind of courtesan I want to be!

“No matter what you do, you are forgiven”

This is not a “get out of jail free” card. This is not permission to do whatever I like! This is a clear message to me that I must take full responsibility for my actions, for the choices I make. The forgiveness is really only available when I am coming from the truth of my heart.

This line …No matter what you do, you are forgiven. … says to me … be sure of what you do and say, for there are consequences of every action we take as humans.

This is not an invitation to ride roughshod over life and your relationships. It is an invitation to constantly look into the truth of your heart and ask, what would love do?

This sutra gives you the ultimate freedom to do and be what you want, it tells you that you can behave in any way that you choose, but there is a very subtle layer of censure … just because you CAN, doesn’t mean that you SHOULD.

We debase ourselves if we live without conscience. We cannot reap a golden harvest if the seed we planted was half-developed, rotten. To live a life where all is forgiven, is to hold yourself to the highest standard. It is to know that you are not doing or being anything that requires forgiveness. Of course, that doesn’t mean that everything you do has to be perfect; but if your intention is always pure, then the fruits you harvest, although they may be unexpected, are perfect for what you need in that moment.

If I am always coming from a pure and honest open-hearted place, then even those actions, words, deeds that others do not understand, will be forgiven. I must always act for the higher good, that is why I will be forgiven.

I must always act in the service of the whole.

The courtesan brings her art and her learning to the courts of those in positions of power, and she is there to balance that power with trust and honesty. She is there to ensure equality and synergy. The courtesan brings all the power of the feminine into every situation, tempering the masculine, bringing flow, so that all actions can be forgiven, for all actions are for the good of the whole.

“Inhabit your roles with conviction”

No matter what I am doing, no matter what role I am in … crone, wife, friend, mother, creative, guide … I must be ALL IN. I must be utterly committed to what I am doing in each moment.

Bringing this level of conviction to every role, to every action within the many roles I play, I am ensuring that I am doing the right thing.

Bringing conviction to even my most mundane actions and activities will bring an energy of stability to them. It will bring trust; it will bring ease. If I inhabit every role with conviction, then I will bring my honesty and authenticity into every relationship and every interaction. And oh, that makes me feel so good about myself; that fills me with a level of self-confidence that I never used to know.

Conviction means that everything I do, every role I inhabit, is imbued with that confidence. 

And so that confidence then washes out into the whole.

That is the committed role I am here to play.

“For even as you slide into each other
 Your heart remains untarnished, imperishable, pure.”

Loving another person, truly loving them, loving them unconditionally, wholly, and being utterly committed to them, this is the most incredible feeling.

Opening your heart to another and allowing them to enter your sacred spaces takes a deep level of trust, and the result can be such a meeting of bodies, hearts and minds that bards might write songs about it. This meeting of hearts can birth poetry and love songs, joy and laughter, the fire of passion and the water of deep emotions.

Love on this deep heart to heart, soul to soul, level, is always a good thing. But even as you allow yourself to slide on silken words and touch into the very heart of another, it is not to lose yourself there. They may be the sun and moon to you, but you must always remember that you are your own sun and moon first and foremost.

All the love, all of the passion, all of that silken slide into the ocean of their love, starts with your own ocean of love. You must love yourself. Your heart is your heart. It must remain free, artless, clear. It must remain pure and good and honourable and whole.

Even as you give it to another, your heart must remain inviolable.

Love is not about diminishing yourself so that the other might grow. Love is about you unceasingly and unfailingly loving yourself so much that the overflow you share with the other is an overflow of such epic proportions that they will feel flooded by it, whilst you still remain replete with self-love yourself.

If the love you share with another is pure and unconditional, then you will never lose yourself in the other, and they will never feel overwhelmed by you. You will be two oceans meeting and forming something greater, something vast and teeming with life. But you will each still be an ocean, full of your own life, full of self-belief, full of self-love.

The advice from this Crone Courtesan is this … give yourself to love, but start with yourself.

All other love can be built into epic romances if your self-love is the most solid ground you build it upon.

Tantra Rings out as Clear as a Bell in this GK12.2

Tantra is not, as many western people think, just all about sex. Tantra is to be one’s own master. It is, as Richard Rudd says, to live with intensity and passion. It is to love with flow and trust.

This is sensuous living. This tantric life is about being so committed to yourself, and so deep in the flow of life itself, that all of your senses are heightened.

There is an ancient explanation of Tantra, in the example of “Sva-tantra”, that says you are the warp, the weaver and the cloth. *

For me, that means you are everything. You are the writer of your own story; the actor who plays every part. You are the meaning of your own life.

Line 2 is about partnership, marriage, so this talk of Tantra could fool you into thinking maybe it is all about sex. But if it is, then it’s about making love with yourself first. It’s about falling so in love with yourself that finally you see that everything is perfect. Your dharma brought you here to this place of deep self-love. Your karma brings you the relationships where you can practice it.

You let yourself live passionately and intensely, and the reward is that you find you are who you were always destined to be. You are whole; you are the warp and the cloth; you are the weaver of your own life.

One tends to think of Tantra as an ecstatic process that involves two, but the ecstasy begins with one. It begins with you, falling in love with yourself and your life, and that love then cracking your heart so wide open that there is now room for another to share the passions and your life.

But it is not for them to drain your passion so that they might join your Dervish dance. No. True Tantra would see two passionate beings whirling and swirling together.

Tantra is Rooted in Spirituality and Ritual

Of course, this all sounds rather wild and frenetic, and of course, a shared love can be that.

But there can be just as much passion and intensity in a glance, in a graze of hand upon hand, in an hour or a day spent in silent contemplation of the beauty of sunset, a wildflower meadow, a sky streaked with gold and magenta.

The Tantra aspect I see here in this line is the sucking of the marrow out of life, that I have yearned for. It is the joy of a simple life shared. It’s the passion of knowing you are walking the right path, with the right person.

It is the absolute certainty that you are connected to each and every being on the earth, and that you are connected to earth herself.

Tantra is rooted in spirituality and ritual. This is esoteric work that would take me a lifetime to explore. I am not going to figure out how to live to tantric traditions and rituals in this one month of the IQ!

So, I shall take Richard Rudd’s definition … to live with intensity, with passion, with flow, and with trust … and I shall apply it to my daily life. This is easy for me to do, for I already am a woman of conviction.

I am intensely passionate about my life, this work, my love.

And I do trust life.

I am the flow of life, I am not just in the flow of life. I trust that the right thing will happen at the right time.

I am trusting life.

Trust in My Convictions is Paramount

Trust is the banks that hold the river of my life and stop me from simply draining away. Trust is paramount in every aspect of my life and in every aspect of this inner work. It is the trust in my convictions that I am on the right path, that I am evolving the way I am meant to be evolving, that is the most important.

Trust is a sister to acceptance. When I can accept that all is exactly as it should, then trust becomes natural.

This was a huge breakthrough for me.

Learning to trust myself and the flow of my life took off so much pressure. This is not a laissez faire, “why bother when the fates have it all decided” attitude. No, this is absolute trust that life wants the best for me, and even if it seems hard at the time, I can trust that I am strong enough to handle it.

I am going to live the life I want to live, I am going to live it passionately, and I know I can trust life to always bring me the right thing.

Addendum

Gene Key 7 – Pulse – Dream Arc – Ram

In the Held container I am in with Hayley Curtis, when she asked us to consider the Ram’s wisdom, and then to answer this question … “Consider what you wish to grow in this lifetime”, I felt so deep in the contemplation of my IQ Sage word and line and sutra, that I didn’t think I’d want to take time away from that to consider Ram’s wisdom, nor think about a different Gene Key. But then I read it and it actually felt like it fitted perfectly with what I was feeling about my Sage word “conviction”, and with what has been going on for me as I contemplated my Sage.

Conviction is all about living a sensuous life and I have been exploring what that means for me. It means living life fully, through all of my senses; it means living the passion I feel. It means being hyper-aware of the world around me.

So, Ram’s invitation to “go outside and get my hands in the soil” felt like a direct as well as a metaphorical instruction! I want my hands in the soil, I want to feel the earth and plants in my garden.

I crave nature. I walk in nature every day and it is about so much more than moving my body. It’s about absorbing the beauty around me through my sight, my sense of smell, my hearing. I am noticing everything at the moment, and I am revelling in it.

I loved the invitation as well to bring greater health to my physical body, because that is exactly what I am doing right now. My body has been crying out for me to take more care of it. And the most important thing for it right now is rest and absolute stillness.

So, to read Ram’s invitation into stillness and silence felt perfect. That feels like the place I have reached naturally as I am travelling through the Venus again. I chose stillness as a word, as an energy to come along on this Sage’s journey with me, and life keeps bringing me the message over and over again that this is what I need … to slow down so much that I stop and wait in stillness and silence.

I go into the deep well of wisdom inside me, the ultimate feminine state, and I wait for the next step, the next breath, the next truth, to arrive in the stillness of my being.

I feel as if, by doing the Sage’s journey, and spending 16 months slowly moving through my Golden Path again, I am giving myself the gift of going inside so that I truly can cultivate my roots.

My contemplation of my Sage word is asking me to lean deeply into the essence of Tantra, which means to live with intensity, with passion, with flow and with trust.

And that feels like exactly what Ram is asking of us. I need to live intensely in order to grow the life I want. I need to trust that I can dive into the darkness of the void and always be safe; I can trust the darkness inside me, because it is the birthplace of light.

I had never read about Ram before but it feels so connected to everything in my chart and in my life right now. It is a warrior of light, like my GK38. It is the void like my GK48. It is about true leadership like my GK21. And it is about stillness, like my ally the Toad. That’s quite the band of powerful beings to be travelling with me.

I love this line in Ram … “Open to the sacred feminine and watch as the sacred masculine is born”. This is a good reminder of the balance I need to bring to this work, to my life. I am deep in the feminine with the Sage’s journey, but that doesn’t mean casting out the masculine. It means embracing it and bringing balance.

I honestly didn’t think I was going to want to divert my contemplations from my IQ, but actually Ram’s message felt like a kind of unifying factor for a lot of the things coming up for me right now.

And all of this … the stillness, the passion, the intensity, the void, the balance, the deep feminine … this is what I want for this life (and the next!).

Most of the photographs I’ve used in this essay are of beaches and waves. Something about the movement of the water seemed to suit what I was writing about. And there is one of me whirling like a Dervish in Savernake Forest, which was taken by my husband. There’s also a photograph of an art journal card. And it’s all finished off with a photo of a bit of poseur of a sheep, or is it a ram!?

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

* I am very grateful to Wikipedia for all my research information. I am a regular donor to the Wiki foundation, so I feel okay about sharing their awesome bank of information.