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.

This is to be Richard’s last Gene Keys Retreat that he is guiding, and as I have never experienced what it’s like to do one of the Gene Key’s own Retreats, I thought I’d try it, no, I KNEW I had to do it! Here’s how the Gene Keys team describe the Retreat …

The Sage's Golden Path is not a journey to finish, but a living stream to enter. As you step into its current, you join a fellowship of souls daring to listen more deeply, to soften more fully and to embody the higher purpose hidden in your DNA.

Now, if you’ve been reading my articles or posts, you’ll know that I am literally in the last week of a year-long Golden Path retreat with Hayley Curtis – Devoted.

Why, you might be asking, would I do it again?!

I Want to Go Deeper

Well, here’s the thing … the deeper I have gone into my own Gene Keys profile … then the deeper I want to go.

The more breakthroughs I have in my own understanding of myself … then the more work I want to do on myself, to find out more about myself.

The more wounding patterns I dig into and the more healing I do, and the more self-love and self-esteem I grow … then the more I want to grow! Who doesn’t want more love in their life? Who doesn’t want to build self-esteem from the roots up?!

This inner work, which I have been doing for almost thirty years now, is a life-long endeavour. It doesn’t stop. You don’t reach a point where you think, okay, I love myself enough now, I’ll just get on with my ordinary life.

The Inner Work IS My Ordinary Life

The inner work is my ordinary life.

And since I discovered the Gene Keys three years ago, I have had an incredible map of my interior world that is so exciting, so invigorating and so intriguing, that I simply do not want to stop exploring it.

I’m in this Gene keys work for the long-haul.

Which is why, after 18 months of working one-to-one with Hayley, the obvious next step was to embark on the glorious deep-diving, heart-opening adventure that has been Devoted … a journey into myself in the company of twelve like-minded, like-hearted women.

And which is why, as we are wrapping up our year’s sojourn, I am preparing myself for the next epic voyage … the Sage’s Journey.

And I am so happy that my closest friend and dearest confidant, Meghan, is also on this journey with me. There could be no better travelling companion for me. We get to share another 16 months of walking the Golden Path together.

And as if that weren’t exciting enough … Richard Rudd, my Golden Path,  and Meghan as a fellow voyager … our dear friend, soul sister, and guide extraordinaire, Hayley Curtis, is one of the actual Guides within the Sage’s Journey. I mean, does life get better than this?!!

Making Journals

Another thing you may know about me, if you’ve read my posts and articles, is that as well as being a journal writer and word-weaver, I am also a journal maker, a book-binder, a crafter of the vessels that hold our deepest thoughts and musings.

I decided that I was going to make myself a special Sage’s Journey journal during these holiday weeks of Christmas and New Year.

I knew I wanted to employ some of the new bookbinding skills I’ve been honing over the last year or so in the glorious Art of Bookbinding course I’ve been doing with the awesomely talented Moneeza Khan of Lotus Blu Book Art, but I had thought that my journal would be covered with one of my cyanotype prints.

But then I got to thinking about the Dream Arc animals for my Life’s Work/Brand Gene Key, and I had the idea that I would make a leather-bound journal … bound in Goat hide. So, I bought myself a goat skin and set to work.

The stages of creating journals

I got terribly carried away right from the get-go, as I set about tearing and folding paper for the book block, using a delicious mix of cream and white watercolour papers and some of the gorgeous recycled cartridge paper I like to use … I prepped so much that now I was making TWO journals!! But that’s okay!! I write A LOT!!

Four days of tearing, folding, stitching (I used French link stitch on linen tapes), gluing, dying (the fore edges … one is gold and one is blue with golden flecks) … and hey presto! I have two gorgeous journals ready for my next adventure!!