And so I have begun the second stage of my Sage’s Golden Path Retreat. This is the beginning of a six-month long journey through the very heart of my Gene Keys chart. The Venus Sequence, or Venus Stream as it is also called (which I personally prefer, because it’s a very watery kind of journey … you are literally following the river of your emotions!), is the deepest part of the Gene Keys teachings. It is all about love!
Right in the middle of my Venus preparation, I consulted the Dream Arc Oracle on a question that I was contemplating – my fear of ageing and death.
Now I am travelling with Toad. Join me on this side quest!
I have been in a deep pause for the last few weeks of simply being with all four of the Gene Keys of my Activation Sequence, as I sit in this gap … the Activation Sequence in the Sage’s Golden Path Retreat is complete, and I am patiently waiting for the Venus Stream to open.
The four Gene keys of your Activation Sequence are the pillars of you in this lifetime. If the 4 Gene keys were an epic story … what story would they tell?
I have been contemplating my Purpose Siddhi of Wisdom for weeks now, as I rest in the gap between the Activation Sequence and the Venus stream.
I love that I get to revel in this Gene Key for weeks and months on end; it is like marinating myself in a rich, aromatic jus. The meat on the bones of this Gene Key gets more tender, and tastier, the longer I contemplate it. And let’s face it, this is my Purpose key, I’m going to be contemplating this for the rest of my life.
When we first embarked upon DEVOTED with Hayley, she chose some Dream Arc creatures to accompany us on the journey, to support us in our inner work. One of these was the Vision creature associated with the Siddhi of Gene Key 35, the Siddhi of Boundlessness. It is the Quetzal which is really the most beautiful bird and so perfect for this Siddhi of Boundlessness. Oh, and isn’t “Boundlessness” just the most wonderful word?!!
I do like the notion that my Siddhi of Wisdom (Gene Key 48) is an emanation of the earth itself! The earth has innate Wisdom; she knows when to grow and when to lie dormant. She knows when water is needed, and when fire is needed. She has her rhythms and her own resonant heartbeat. She has her times of harvest and her fallow times. She has her new spring growth and her winter die-back.
I just love the idea of my Siddhi of Wisdom being a gift from the gods. I am not a religious person, I don’t believe in just one god. But I rather like this notion of a whole pantheon of gods (or fairy godmothers, or goddesses, or fae spirits!) bestowing gifts upon me to bring to earth with me. I rather like this notion that, of all the people on earth, I am part of a special cadre chosen to bring Wisdom!
In this essay, I am diving into my Gift of Resourcefulness itself.
When I first got my chart, over three years ago now, I thought that Resourcefulness sounded rather prosaic, not very exciting or interesting, definitely not magical or esoteric. But I have come to love this Gene Key so much. It is the deepest Gene Key, and it is my favourite.
Your Purpose is your root; it is your anchor into the earth and into yourself. It is the Gene Key from which the tree of your whole profile grows. It is not just a root; it is the taproot. A taproot is the primary root of a plant, that grows vertically downward. In the plant world, it is the central element or position in a line of growth or development, and that is exactly what this Purpose sphere is in the living entity that is your Gene Keys profile.
The Gene Keys teachings tell us that we are here to learn from the challenges of our Shadows. I am working with my Purpose Gene Key as part of the The Sage’s Golden Path Retreat. My Purpose Gene Key is 48.3, and the Shadow is Inadequacy. Inadequacy is the fear of not having enough, it is the fear of not being worthy enough, and, according to Richard Rudd, it is rooted in uncertainty about the future.
When one thinks of Shadow work, “beautiful” is not always the first adjective that springs to mind! “Dark”, “scary”, “difficult”, these would have been my chosen descriptions before I came to this Gene Keys work; “something to be fixed” would also have been how I thought of my Shadows.
But in the Sage, Richard says something that entirely changed the way I thought about this Purpose Shadow … Your higher Purpose is in your beautiful ordinariness.
What Deeply Fulfils You … It’s not a question, it’s a statement. It’s an invitation to open yourself up to this Purpose Gene Key. All of the Gene Keys in your chart play important roles in your life. If you’ve read any of my other essays or articles, you may have already realised that Gene Key 48 is my favourite Gene Key. It’s the deepest, it’s the well of Wisdom. It holds everything!! What’s not to love about that?!!
There were some things that Richard Rudd said right at the opening of the Radiance sphere, that I came back to right at the end of that month, as I waited for the Purpose month to open. He often speaks about the Sage words and lines as being like acupuncture needles, that get straight to the heart of the matter, and it felt important to look at all three of these together, and now it feels right to share them with you.
I am so glad that the way the Sage’s Golden Path Retreat has been structured means that now we’re in the Purpose sphere, we actually get to be here for two whole months! This Purpose sphere is huge! And the Gene Key I have here (48.3) is deeeeeeep!! It is, after all, the Void, the well, the black hole at my centre!
So, what is “Purpose” in the Gene Keys lexicon?
The Contemplation of my Purpose Gene Key of 48.3, invites the light of Wisdom, which is the Siddhi, to become deep, empathic, compassionate action.
The Sage teaching tells me that this place in my chart, with this Sage Line, is a powerful “moment of recovery”, and it has the power to reorient my whole life.
For the first few days of being in our Purpose sphere inside the Sage ‘s Golden Path Retreat, my journaling and my contemplation were focused on the Sage Word and Line (check out this article for more about that … Affinity and Beyond … and then on the Sutra that goes along with my Purpose Gene Key of 48.3.
And I absolutely adore the Sage Sutra! It is so typical of Richard Rudd … poetic and right on the button!!
We are moving into our Purpose sphere as part of the Sage’s Golden Path Retreat, and I am already in love with my Sage word and Line for Gene Key 48.3, which I have in this pivotal place in my chart.
We often ask ourselves, “What is my purpose?”. What I am asking myself is, “How does this new Sage word and Line fit with how I see my Purpose in the world”?
“The Siddhi of your Radiance is an emanation that breaks through from the essence of your being … Beyond your Gifts lies the realm of the Siddhis, which we might refer to as Divine Gifts.”
“Divine Gifts” … isn’t this what all of this Gene Keys work is leading towards? Am I not trying to tap into perfection and oneness, unity and presence, timelessness and truth?
Oh, the freedom and liberation there is in having the Gift of Authority in my Radiance Sphere … I get to be the author of my own life. I get to write the story of the life I want to live. I get to slow down and savour this story of mine.
Let me tell you, when I first came to this Radiance Shadow of Control, I didn’t like it! I didn’t even like that the word was in my chart. I’m on my fourth journey through the Activation Sequence, and “Control” is still a thorny subject, or a thorn in my side!
I am working with my Radiance sphere right now, and I thought that this would be a really good time to do a Wizardly Words on Wednesdays post about “Light”. The Gene Keys are all about light. You will find references to light in every single Gene Key, in every single sphere. There is a Codon of Light. The whole point of the Gene Keys (if you can even use such a trite turn of phrase for something as huge and life changing as the Gene Keys are!) is to break open the light contained inside your DNA.
In the Mythos for my Gene Key 21.3, which I have in my Radiance sphere, Richard Rudd talks about “heroic mistakes”. I had to laugh when I read that. I’m not sure how many of my mistakes could be considered “heroic”, but some were certainly of monumental, and “heroic” magnitude.
And so, my Travel Essays continue, with a deeper dive into my Radiance sphere. I have Gene Key 21.3 here … the Shadow of Control, the Gift of Authority, the Siddhi of Valour.
I am absolutely loving The Contemplation within the Sage’s Journey … “Sometimes we have to change our direction and even go back the way we came.”
This week, we have moved into the Radiance sphere in the Sage’s Golden Path Retreat with Richard Rudd and Team64. I was excited to read what my Sage word and line would be.
Reconsideration
The power of re-examining our decisions and adjusting accordingly
The Pathway of Breakthrough runs across the centre of your Gene Keys chart, from your Evolution Gene Key to your Radiance Gene Key, and it is of supreme importance in the whole journey of your Golden Path, because it is the Pathway that links your outer work in the world to your inner work.
“One of the key conditions necessary for a breakthrough is an ability to dwell on our life as it is now, rather than what it has been or what it might be.”
Despite the fact that when I first entered the Evolution sphere in this iteration of the Golden Path with Richard Rudd and the Sage’s Journey, I felt kind of stuck, I have managed to write an awful lot! I have already shared five essays about my Evolution Gene Key, and I haven’t even scratched the surface of the Gift (Perseverance) or the Siddhi (Honour)! There is so much that I want to share with you, but you’re going to have to wait for the book!
I am coming to the end of my month in my Evolution sphere, within the Sage’s Golden Path Retreat with Richard Rudd and Team64. My Evolution key is 38.1, with the Shadow of Struggle. Richard talks about this Gene Key as an “energy of stubborn persistence against the flow of life”.
For those of you not familiar with the Gene Keys, they are 64 archetypes of being a human. And each of the 64 Gene Keys has 6 lines, akin to the 6 lines of the I-Ching, which give a particular flavour and nuance to the archetype in question. For the Sage’s Golden Path Retreat, Richard has expanded the teachings, and has created a word and sutra, a contemplation and a mythos for every line of every key.
In my Evolution sphere, I have Gene Key 38.1, the Shadow of Struggle, the Gift of Perseverance, and the Siddhi of Honour. This GK38 is all about Warrior energy.
“Dedicated intention and focus
that embraces and works with weakness”
These are words that go along with “sincerity” as the Sage wisdom for my Evolution Gene Key of 38.1 (the Shadow of Provocation, the Gift of Perseverance, and the Siddhi of Honour).
“Dedicated intention and focus” are most definitely what my inner work is all about. I could not have continued, for so many years, to return again and again to my interior world, were I not 100% dedicated to this work.
The concept that “attitude is everything” is woven through the whole ethos of the Gene Keys teachings; it is, in fact, woven through your entire Gene Keys chart.
And nowhere is this more apparent than in your Evolution sphere.
I have Gene Key 38.1 in my Evolution sphere; this is the Shadow of Struggle, and it is, quite frankly, a bit of a double whammy for me. You see, the whole Evolution key is all about struggle … we evolve, just like every species evolves, through struggle.
My beautiful friend, Meghan, did a fabulous Wizardly Words on Wednesdays post a couple of weeks ago, about “Up Levelling”. Yes, we know that “up levelling” isn’t a Gene Keys word, and you would be right in thinking that the main point of our Wizardly Words was to give you our take on, and our personal definitions of some of the words in the Gene Keys lexicon.
In so many of the Gene Keys, as you listen to Richard Rudd’s audios, you will hear him say, in one way or another, “you do this through creativity”, or “you access this gift through creativity”.
We have now moved into our Evolution sphere in the Gene Keys Sage’s Golden Path Retreat, and once again, Richard Rudd has gifted me with the most perfect word and line to encapsulate my Gene Key 38.1 … the Shadow of Struggle, the Gift of Perseverance, the Siddhi of Honour.
And the word he has chosen for 38.1 is “sincerity”.
Every Gene Key is made up of three parts, three frequency bands … The Shadow, the Gift and the Siddhi. The Siddhi is the highest frequency band, and it relates to “full embodiment and spiritual realisation”. Which is pretty heady (and heavy!) stuff. The word ‘siddhi’ is from the Sanskrit meaning ‘Divine Gift’.
The Gene Keys teachings invite you to hold the Siddhi in your mind and heart as you are contemplating the Shadow of your Life’s Work, as a counterbalance, as a way of not becoming consumed by the heaviness of the Shadow.
In the Gene Keys teachings, genius is defined as “the natural manifestation of a human life when it is allowed to expand without force.”
When you are working with your Life’s Work, this first Gene Key in your Golden Path points to how your inner genius wants to express itself.
In this essay, I explore my inner genius for Dynamism.
Ever since I first heard my guide, Hayley, talk about the concept that we all come into this life to play our piece in the great collective puzzle of life, the idea has intrigued and, frankly, terrified me!
What even is my piece? Will I ever find it? Will it be good enough?
How will I know if I’m playing my piece “right”?
The Sage’s Journey has begun. This is the beginning of a new chapter for me. This is a return to the beginning of my inner journey. But that does not mean it is a backwards step. Oh no. This is a spiral path that I am walking as I do this inner work.
For years now, as I’ve approached the end of each year, I’ve cast my mind forward to the new year, which is about to begin, and I ask myself, usually in a journaling session, what words are going to be my compass, my lodestars, for the coming year. So, the question really is …
What is it that I want to bring into my life in the coming year?
This is how I spent my final week of my glorious Devoted journey … I sat with my journal for five days, for many hours, and I moved through each sphere and pathway that I have dug so deeply into, over the last year. But me being me (and indeed, who else can I be?), I wrote a lot more than “a few sentences”!! This is a very long long-form article!! You might need a pot of tea for this one.
It has been a tradition of mine for almost 30 years to sit with my journal at the end of the year and look back to see what I had done, or what had happened, during that year that I could celebrate.
This has always been the time where I find the nuggets of gold in the year, the moments of joy, the achievements.
Starting in January 2026, I am embarking upon a 16-month journey through my Gene Keys Golden Path … The Sage’s Journey with Richard Rudd.
The deeper I have gone into my own Gene Keys profile … then the deeper I want to go.
And the Sage’s Journey is the next step for me.
Every year, I choose one or two words for the year, words that embody the energy that I want to bring to the coming year … here I am, two weeks from the end of 2025, and in this morning’s journaling session, I realised that I actually HAVE been living in the energy of these words this year.
The deeper I go on this inner journey, the more trust I am finding within myself, even when I find that my Gifts are hidden breath layers of self-doubt, beneath layers of inadequacy.
My Gifts are scary, because what if it turns out that I am not good enough to live up to these Gifts … Dynamism, Perseverance, Authority, and this 48th Gift of Resourcefulness? What if I’m just not bloody good enough?
I have come to see that there are two sister themes that run through my entire chart, indeed, through my entire life … Love and Trust.
I have a sneaking suspicion that these run through everyone’s charts, like golden threads that hold the tapestries of our lives together … love and trust … these are our greatest treasures.
You may be wondering if A Cauldron of Crones is meant for you, especially if you are younger than your crone years, and indeed you may struggle to identify with the archetype of the Crone at all.
So, I thought I would tell you about why it is important for me to share this inner work with the world, and what sort of women might benefit from embarking on their own inner journeys.
I am working with the Pathway of Initiative at the moment.
My friend and guide, Hayley Curtis, talks about how the energy of the Pearl Sequence “stretches you to the edges of your evolution”.
Without the stretch, we don’t grow.
The Pearl Sequence, for me, is about learning a new relationship to money, and to adopting a new attitude towards prosperity, and to redefining what I mean by “success”.
Words saved my life.
Writing righted my life.
And now I don’t want to stop.
I know that I will never stop writing. My journal is where I can lay my burden down, my journal is where I can explore how I feel, where my fears are coming from.
My journal is the garden where I plant my seeds of ideas, my seeds of who I want to become.
A tiny step, like accepting the gift of a book and daring to think that maybe, possibly, hopefully, I could actually do it, I could actually write every single day for 12 weeks, led me here, to this creative cauldron, to all this transformation that has occurred in my life over the last few years (decades!).
This week’s Wizardly Word is “Accept”, the second stage in Breakthrough. “Acceptance occurs as we begin to get used to the discomfort”. Acceptance is NOT resignation to your fate. It’s so much deeper than that.
I’d like to tell you the story of my journey through the Venus Sequence. This has been life changing for me. Going through my Venus Sequence for a second time has been incredible; I have gone deeper than I ever have before; I have journeyed into the deep wounding of my childhood; I have held my relationships close and found such treasures in them.
This is the epic story of my Gene Keys Activation Sequence. We tell these stories and create these images so that we might remember, day after day, the breakthroughs and insights and epiphanies we are having as we do this inner work.
Where we talk about remembering … and forgetting and why we are devoted to a lifestyle to support our remembering.
This week’s Wizardly Word focuses on a theme which runs through my contemplations like a thread of gold through this enormous tapestry of life I am weaving … the theme of TRUST.
Where we talk about our favourite sphere and how the Venus Sequence impacts our relationships.
Where we talk about the Epic Tale of the SQ Gene Key and go on an exploration of Puzzle Pieces.
Where we explore what it means to us to bring playfulness into the inner work.
Where we answer a question from our Gene Keys Guide, Hayley, and we explore the topic of self-love
I am learning patience, as I learn more about myself. The patience is being born out of my trust in life and my trust in myself. It’s taken a long time and a hard road to get right here, right now, and it was worth it.
When Meghan suggested we write a blog together, I responded with a resounding YES! Our “blog” very quickly morphed into this website. Within a couple of days of the idea being hatched, we’d come up with the name, A Cauldron of Crones, Meghan had bought the domain name, and she had launched herself into creating this glorious space. A Cauldron of Crones is our home on the world wide web of women.
I think it’s fair to say that I am an entirely different person to the one who started this journey. But I am still the same, because this strong, loving, trusting woman is the real me.
Where we talk about our Attraction Sphere and new approaches to relationships.
Where we talk about the Gene Keys we wish were in our charts!
Where we talk about our favourite Gene Keys and about the Art of Contemplation.
The One About Who We Are (And How We Got Here)
Hello friends and welcome to the second installment of Wizardly Words (on Wednesdays), where Meghan and I are playing with a vocabulary exercise to utilise the incredible words Richard magicked together to create the Gene Keys written transmission. We’re starting off this first month bringing the four words that are the bedrock of the Gene […]
There are so many ways to practice The Art of Contemplation. There are probably as many different ways as there are people practicing it! Here are some of the ways Lizzie contemplates.