A Travel Essay from the Inner Journey

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! There’s a month’s pause between the end of the Activation Sequence and the beginning of the Venus Sequence, and I personally am going to need it!! Because 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!!

The Sphere of Purpose

So, what is “Purpose” in the Gene Keys lexicon?

Your purpose is not about doing anything, but simply about being who you are.
Richard Rudd, Sage’s Golden Path Retreat

There is such ease in that, such gentleness. Knowing that my Purpose is just about being who I am releases so much pressure. Purpose is not performative. I can be living my true Purpose without anyone seeing, without any outward show.

Purpose is about me being who I am meant to be, being true to my own self, being my natural self. That statement … Purpose is simply about being who I am … links my Purpose directly into all of my other spheres. It becomes the foundation of my whole, holographic Gene Keys chart. It gives me permission and trust to be Dynamic, to Persevere, to be the Author of my own life.

And that’s just the connections to my Activation Sequence. I will next move into my Venus stream and a whole bunch of new connections will bloom out of this place of Purpose.

How wonderful it is to know that my life is built upon a foundation of me being me! There’s no pretence, no artifice or falseness to trip me up or weaken the structure. There are roots that hold me firm, even as the winds of life may buffet me.

“Cultivate a Sense of Inner Calm, Trust, and Joy for Being Alive”

In the teachings for the Purpose sphere, we are given a clear instruction from Richard Rudd … “You must relax into the beauty of your own body and cultivate a sense of inner calm, trust, and joy for being alive.”

That sentence is everything!! That sentiment wraps my whole life up in a perfect bow! Inner calm, trust and joy! Yes! These are the qualities that this life, this work, all the love I have in my life, have given to me. And moving into my Purpose sphere in this last week or so has brought all of these things front and centre in my consciousness.

The calm of knowing that my default setting is no longer the Shadow.

The trust in this work and in myself.

The joy and excitement and dynamism of this work in my life.

All of it has bubbled up and filled me with effervescent froth for this life I live.

And the deeper I go into this work, the more I am able to relax into my body.  I have these moments still of wishing it (my physical body) were different … thinner, stronger, more outwardly beautiful, younger! But I love what’s on the inside, and I do love this vessel that has carried me through some really stormy seas.

This time of travelling with my Purpose, I shall make it a practice to tell my body every day that she is beautiful and that I love her.

The Essence of Our Humanity

There’s this really wonderful thing that the Gene Keys teach us about Purpose, and that is that our Purpose is the essence of our humanity in its most natural and loving state.

Aaahhh! The sigh of relief that comes with knowing that

I am, in my natural state, full of love, bubbling over with love, pouring love out on the people around me. I never really knew, until my husband came back into my life after an absence of 25 years (long story short … he was my first Big Love, The One, then we were separated by life and circumstance, only to find each other again 25 years later!), that love was my natural state. I used to think that fear and anxiety were my natural state. I used to believe that staying barricaded behind my defences was my natural state.

Then love swooped back into my life and everything changed. The cap was knocked off of my well of love, and it started pouring out … and it has never stopped.

When this happened, when love bloomed in my life again, the inner work became less about trying to fix my flaws and more about celebrating all the love I have inside me.

And then along came the Gene Keys and everything shifted again. I started to love myself. Yes, I went back to the Shadowlands, but not to try and fix them, but rather to understand them, to accept them, to transmute them into Gifts.

And my love grew. My love of life, of my husband (which I would have said couldn’t get any BIGGER!), of myself, all grew. My love GREW. My love of this inner work became a passionate vocation.

There is no separation between me and this work; there is no separation between me and love; there is no separation between me and my passionate Purpose in life.  This inner work, this love, this passion, these are the essence of me … to be a truth-teller; to be a word weaver; to be a story holder … this is my Purpose.

Being My Authentic Self

The Gene Keys teach us that when we allow ourselves to be our authentic self, then we are “giving a great gift to the entire world”. Sounds grandiose, doesn’t it? But, oh, wouldn’t that be heaven?! Wouldn’t that be ecstasy? Yes! A thousand times, yes!!

To know that by being my authentic self, I am doing good in the world; to know that the love I pour out sends ripples into the ether that do good in the world; to know that I am a gift to the world … oh! That brings tears, that’s the love I felt I was missing for so long. But look at this treasure I have found … the love was never missing. The love was never meant to come from the external world. The love is right here, inside me. It always has been. It was just obscured for so long by a lack of self-belief, by the false belief that someone else had to love me, in order for me to be worthy. Such a screwed up, arse backwards way of looking at things!

I thought I needed someone else to bestow that worth on me by loving me. 

But, if me being my authentic self is what I’m here to do, then I can let go of all the grasping; I can let go of all the neediness; and I can melt away all those walls of protection I built around my heart.

Responding to Life with Peace and Creativity

I have done some really deep work in the last three years of travelling with my Gene Keys, and it has opened me up, like a flower in sunshine. I have opened my heart to the possibility that I can always respond to life with peace and creativity. I have opened my mind to the possibility that this is my default setting … to be in that place of peace and creativity, no matter what is happening in my external world. Three years of opening myself more and more to the wisdom of the Gene Keys has changed me.

I am no longer afraid. 

I am no longer angry at life, or railing at the injustices wrought upon me. 

I have lived a life that has brought me here. I have lived a life that has taught me much. And now, with the Gene Keys teachings permeating my cells, I live this wisdom every day. I feel my Gifts rising. I feel my reactive tendencies melting away.  I feel the peace and creativity I have craved for so long wrap around me.

This work has led me deep into my interiority and what have I found there? That I am worthy, just as I am. That I am good enough. That I am love.

My Purpose in life is to love; to be peaceful and creative, yes, but first and foremost, my Purpose is love.

“Imagine that the greatest reason for you being alive is simply to be alive!”

Oh my god!! The freedom in that. The exhilarating joy in knowing that the whole point in life is simply to be alive! To be aware of life pulsing through you and around you in every moment; to feel life coursing through your veins and fizzing in every cell. There’s no need to strive for power or gain, there’s no need to scramble after control or to find the answers to every question right now!

I need only be alive!

Aware of every breath.

Aware of the natural world around me.

Alive!! Breathing! Growing. Evolving.

Being!!!

Oh, the ecstasy of simply being alive in this glorious world.

“Let Your Inner Gifts Shine Out and Be in Service to Others.”

As I cultivate more peace inside myself, I am witnessing my inner gifts shine out. I am seeing my inner light reflected back at me from the world around me. I know that I touch people. I know that I move people. I know that by pouring my essence into the words I share that I am helping people. I am in service to this work. I have the astonishing privilege to do this work in a deeply troubled world, in a time of great turmoil and turbulence. I know how lucky I am. No one is bombing me. No one is shooting at me. I am able to sit here in the comfort of my own home, safe in my own skin, doing this work. Therefore, it is imperative that I share it. I have a duty to emanate my love, my light, out into the world. This is my service.

The Mythos

Wrapped up in the Sage teachings is a mythos for each of the Sage Lines.

In case you’re unclear about what that is, here’s a definition from Wiktionary …

“mythos” is … Anything transmitted by word of mouth, such as a fable, legend, narrative, story, or tale (especially a poetic tale); A story or set of stories relevant to or having a significant truth or meaning for a particular culture, religion, society, or other group; a myth, a mythology;  A set of assumptions or beliefs about something. 

Just to remind me, my Sage word is Affinity; the line is “Becoming an anchor of stability in troubled times”, and the Sutra is called “The Lifebelt”.

The Mythos for Gene Key 48.3 expands upon the Sutra of The Lifebelt, and tells me that I have “come into this life to learn to be a lifebelt in times of crisis”.

That is a big responsibility. But it’s also a crystal clear instruction as to what my service in the world is. To be a lifebelt! To be someone who can be a place of safety for others as well as for myself.

There have been so many life-changing things that I have learned about myself on this journey through my Gene Keys … I have learned that I am worthy of love. I have learned that I am good enough, just the way I am. I have learned to trust myself.

And, of supreme importance, I have learned that I carry my safety inside myself. This lesson was completely life-changing for me. I had been that frightened woman for so long, desperately seeking safety and rescue in other people, yearning for someone to come and save me! I no longer need anyone else to make me feel safe. I am my own damn lifebelt. I don’t need anyone else to throw a lifebelt out to me. I am my own rescuer. That understanding was one of the greatest breakthroughs of the last few years.

And now, with this understanding that I am actually here to learn to be a lifebelt in times of crisis, I see that this was the whole point. This was the Purpose all along.

My service is wrapped up in this because I am here to show other people that they too can be their own lifebelt. I have long thought that I am supposed to teach people about the power of doing this inner work, and safety is one of the hooks to hang that teaching on … by working on yourself, by taking the plunge into your own interior world, you can never drown under the weight of all the darkness and pain you may encounter there, for you carry with you, always, this safety net, this lifebelt. You can always save yourself.

Permission to NOT Get it Right First Time

“Firstly, you must learn, over and over again, to give this Gift to yourself.” 
Richard Rudd, Sage’s Golden Path Retreat

And again, this is like permission to keep on doing this work. It was such a massive relief to read those words … “over and over again”! Because sometimes this work can feel repetitive, like I’m going over the same ground again and again. Because it is! And I am!! I am learning through practice to always remember that I am my own lifebelt; that there is no one else coming to rescue me; that there’s nothing outside of myself that’s going to fix me.

I am going to keep practicing until I remember I am safe in my own arms! Until I remember I am the rescuer in my own story. If I learn this over and over again, then eventually I will slip on the lifebelt with ease, and no fuss. Just slip it on like a second skin.

My Presence Will Become Unwavering

The Mythos for GK48.3 holds this promise … that by doing this work, I will eventually become a woman whose very presence will become unwavering, and that my presence will be felt by those around me.

Oh! That is what I want. I want people to feel comforted and at ease by my presence. I want them to feel safe. Oh. It would be such a gift to be able to emanate safety. What a superpower that would be … to make people feel safe, simply by my unwavering self-acceptance. Because that’s what lies beneath the safety … complete and utter self-acceptance. If I am perfect just the way I am, then it follows that I am safe, because I am safe to be me, wholly me, naturally me, ALL me. And that fulfils the promise that my Purpose truly is to be my authentic self.

 

We are in an epoch of deep unrest and destabilisation, as Richard Rudd describes it, and as we can see every time we look at what is happening in the world. The Mythos declares that I will be sought after in these troubled times, because of my own sense of safety.

If this is true, and why would I doubt is when so much else about these teachings have proven to be true, then I must practice this internal safety I feel, when I am “out there” in the external world. I must practice not being shaken by the tragedy and horror I see around me. I must practice, externally, the trust I feel inside, that everything is exactly as it should be.

And that doesn’t mean “putting a brave face on”. It means BEING brave.

It doesn’t mean faking ease and joy to bolster morale. It means BEING easeful and joyful and allowing that to shine out of me.

It means breathing my own safety.

It means feeling my own anchor firmly rooted on the seabed, every time the seas around me are turbulent.

There is so Much Hope for Me inside this Sage Teaching

There’s this brilliant thing that Richard Rudd says here about GK48.3, which made me laugh with joy, and also made me sigh with relief. (Is everyone who’s doing the Sage’s Golden Path Retreat sighing all the time too, I wonder?! Sighing and crying seem to be my standard way of getting through every day!!).

You may spend much of the first half of your life cultivating this inner stability in order that you can then offer yourself in service in the second half of your life.
Richard Rudd, Sage’s Golden Path Retreat

Well, I’m definitely in the second half now, and life certainly brought me enough lessons to allow me to cultivate my inner safety! Now is the time for service. Now is the time to spread out ripples of safety to the rest of the world. If ever there was a clarion call to share my love of the inner work, it’s this. I am meant to share it. I am meant to teach people how to be their own lifebelt.

I can only teach my way, through writing. But I can layer in the Gene Keys. I don’t want to be a Gene Keys Guide, but I do want to share the impact they have had on me.

So, this is my path now. To keep on sharing. To keep on doing the work.

And It Gets Easier, the Older I Get

So, the next part of this teaching is that although I might have spent many years continually cultivating this inner stability, it is never too late to draw in the treasures I have within, and that, in my later life this will become much easier for me! “Phew!”, is all I can say to that!

And, aaahhh! It is so true!! Richard is right on the button again. There has been a blossoming, as I have moved into my seventh decade. A deepening of the work. A deepening of my understanding of myself and this path that I am on. And what has happened? Life just gets better every damn day, and the treasures I am bringing back to the surface are the finest and most precious of all …

Self-love. Self-acceptance. Trust. Compassion. Wisdom.

I am safe to be myself now. I am safe to dive into my interior world with no fear of drowning. I am safe to fully embrace this work.

And I am safe to be myself in the external world. I am safe to be my whole, true, authentic self, for all to see. I am safe to speak my truth, without fear of judgement, ridicule or denigration.

Of course, those things may well come my way, but they are not the icebergs I used to fear would sink me. They are merely the flotsam and jetsam of another’s wreckage. They’re not mine. And they do not touch me.

Perhaps I needed to be in my sixties before this blossomed in me, all this self-love and understanding, so that I could truly say, I give not one fuck about what others think of me or how they judge me, for I know that they are judging me from a place of their own fear, and their own shadowlands. That’s their problem. Not mine. Not my farm, not my pig, as my friend Meghan would say!!

Advice For Travelling with Your Purpose Key

This month, find ways to relax deeply into your physical body, learn from the Shadow of Inadequacy, ignite the Gift of Resourcefulness and discover your higher Purpose with the Siddhi of Wisdom.
Richard Rudd, Sage’s Golden Path Retreat

Ah, what a glorious invitation … relax deeply into my physical body. That sounds perfect. Creativity relaxes me. Rest restores me. Walking in nature relaxes me.

So, basically, just do more of life the way I love to do life!!

Oh, this is my favourite Gene Key!

I have some incredible keys in my chart … 25, 55 and 64 … but this one, this 48, this is my home. This is my natural setting.

And how perfect that it is here, in my Purpose sphere, the foundation, the roots holding the whole glorious tree of my life steady and strong.

This is who I was born to be …. A Resourceful woman, full of Wisdom.

A rooted and grounded woman.

Gene Key 48 is me, and I am Gene Key 48.

All of the photographs I’ve used in this essay are of trees. I do love to take photographs of trees … bare trees and trees covered in golden autumn leaves, trees full of spring and summer greens. Young trees and old gnarled trees.

Trees felt so right for this Purpose Key, because I feel it’s all about me being deeply rooted in myself and in the earth.

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