I am working with the Pathway of Initiative at the moment. This is the first pathway in the Pearl Sequence, and it joins the sphere of the Vocation and the sphere of the Culture. This Pathway of Initiative is the gift that keeps on giving! Meghan and I have already co-authored an article about it, The Practicalities of Walking the Pathway of Initiative, and we’ve recorded a Conversations with a Couple of Crones Podcast episode about it. But I feel as if I have more to share.

For the last couple of weeks, as part of my Devoted journey, I have been leaning into this energy of Initiative more and more. I am sharing this offering in our Mining the Mysterious section, because the deeper I dive into this fiery pathway, the more I am seeing the feminine energy in it, the feminine fire of creation.

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. Without the stretch, we don’t evolve. I think it’s just perfect that my Evolution Gift is Perseverance. Look at how I have persevered. I’ve done the damn work. I’ve stepped up, I’ve shown up, day after day, year after year, stretching, growing, evolving. Doing this work, this is my path; this is my service.

Evolution is in the Stretch

Stretch but don’t push.

Stretch but don’t force.

Stretch but rest.

Stretch and feel the pull on my emotional, mental and spiritual muscles, but don’t stretch to the point of pain.

Ease into the stretch. Warm up. Stretch and rest and stretch again. Stretch until it feels like growth.

Then rest and stretch again.

Stretch don’t push.

“Initiative is having the courage to follow the direction of one’s own feet”

I do love this quote from Gene Key 51, with its Gift of Initiative (which also just happens to be my Pearl Gene Key!). You see, I truly believe that this is what I’m meant to be doing … this inner work, this deep diving, this inner exploration!

I have tried to morph myself into other people’s ideas of what I should be like. But it didn’t work.

I can’t be anyone but me. This is my path, to be my natural self. Because I am enough, just the way I am … Oh my god! Did I actually just say that?? I am enough, just as I am. This work is working!!

The whole point of all this inner transformation is to take action.

And there would be no point in doing all of this work, if I didn’t take action. I know I’m meant to do something with all of this work. I know I’m meant to take action from this work, and with this work.

My inner work is my outer work. I am supposed to take action. I am supposed to be bold.

I am making my path. And I like it. I like this path. I am breaking new ground. No one has walked this way before me. But I’m not scared because this is the right path for me.

Walking the Virgin Path

No one else has walked this path because no one else is me. No one else has taken this circuitous route to the Gene Keys. No one else has my exact perfect chart.

My path is virgin and unique. And I’m not falling into Vanity here (which is the Shadow of Gene Key 12, which I have in my IQ sphere, so I know it well). My path is unique because every human is unique. There has to be a reason why I’ve walked this path.

The path I’ve walked to get here, combined with the keys and lines I have in my chart, are important. They paint an intricate picture of a life where struggle could have been the defining principle, but instead it is love.

It is love that defines how I walk this path.

It is love that holds my spine straight and invites me into deep, deep breaths.

It’s love that shows me the way when I feel lost.

It’s love that lights the darkness.

There are no signposts on this virgin path, so I have to follow the love, lead with my heart, let my mind rest and trust me to find the way through.

There is Fear … But I Won’t Let That Stop Me

When I think about taking this inner work out into the world, and walking this virgin path, there are many fears that come up.

There are the fears that I’m getting it wrong … Going in the wrong direction … Leading people astray. The fears are that I will walk off down this path, telling my stories, and turn to see that no one is following me, that no one cares. That I’m telling my stories to crickets!

Take this glorious website of ours. I don’t want to know how many people are watching or reading. I don’t want to see the crickets; in case it makes me despondent and downcast.

I’m not being an ostrich and burying my head in the sand. It’s not that.

It’s just because I know I’m meant to be walking this path.

I am writing because my truths need to flow onto the page. This connection between heart, mind, hand is meditation to me, it’s contemplation. I am creating articles because I love to create and curate images. And the Leadership bit simply must trust that the right people will see my writing at the right time. I don’t need to know the metrics.

Because there may only be one person who is destined to be moved to action by my words. I am not giving myself an out!

“Genius is Boldness”

For me, boldness is the Acceptance I find in my Culture Gene Key, the loving self-acceptance that says, it’s okay to try, it’s okay to take risks, because I will always love and accept myself, even if I fail.

Boldness says, you’ve got something to say.

Don’t hold back. 

Step up.

Be brave.

Boldness is trust.

So, genius is trust.

And isn’t that exactly the lessons I’ve been learning all the way through this journey?

Trust myself to know where to put my foot next.

Trust the wisdom coming up from inside me.

Trust that I am safe to step out into the unknown.

Trust that I can take the virgin path and not get lost.

Trust that my love for myself is greater than that tricksy fear of failure that wants to keep me small.

“Genius is Boldness” (which is a Richard Rudd quote from the Gene Keys, by the way!)  sets up a vibration of excitement and anticipation.

It brings together all the elements of my journey and builds a fire with them; it tells me to take my light out there.

“Genius is boldness” means don’t be afraid to feel the fear and take action anyway, because inside the fear is the seed of love, the seeds of my gifts.

Hayley Curtis is a prime example of this. She steps into that boldness every day and doesn’t give a flying fuck whether people like it or not. Because she knows her people will hear the genius as a clear bell.

I Need to Balance the Outward Action and the Inner Stillness

I really love this concept of outward action and inner stillness being a balanced cycle. It is not sustainable to be in outward action all the time. I love that vision of filling my inner cup up in the stillness of contemplation, then pouring it out in action. Then filling it up again.

Again, I am reminded of the breath.

I breathe in and fill myself with life-giving oxygen, I breathe out the fire of action.

I like the sense of rhythm. I like the feeling that action, my service in the world, is only complete and right, if I build stillness into it. I need the stillness after the in breath to rest, to allow ideas and understanding to come bubbling up from the well of the unknown inside of me.

Life becomes a perfect dance of action and rest, service and stillness. The action comes out of the rest. The rest is not a reward for the action. Oh, that changes my thinking around.

Rest then action, not the other way around. The rest enables the bold action. The stillness is where the creativity is birthed.

Building periods of stillness into the structure of the Cauldron is how we will keep it fresh.

We will take time to be still, to allow the next idea’s seed to germinate; we will allow ourselves the inward reflection and contemplation on what that seed might become.

And then we take action!

Looking at that Balance Through the Lens of My Vocation and Culture Gifts

Leadership and Acceptance are the Gifts of my Vocation and Culture spheres.

Acceptance allows me the grace to rest. Acceptance knows my limits; it knows that I cannot be all go go go! It knows my body is older and needs time to rest between activities.

Acceptance knows that I need the stillness of my morning journaling to allow the breakthroughs to come and the contemplations to settle.

Acceptance knows I need to rest.

Leadership is the bold outer action. Leadership is the fiery out breath. Leadership is bold, but it is born out of the Acceptance of how much energy I have to give.

Acceptance is a deep sigh.

Leadership is fire

Acceptance is soft and gentle stillness.

Leadership is bold action.

Acceptance is feminine, Leadership is masculine.

But the feminine comes first. She sets the rhythm for the dance. Leadership may take the steps, but Acceptance is what brings the balance.

I just love this image of my Acceptance and Leadership dancing together.

In an old, patriarchal paradigm, Leadership would be leading and directing the steps, with Acceptance meekly acquiescing to be taken along.

In my new way of thinking, where the feminine comes first, Acceptance knows the energy that is available, she knows how to balance the movement of the steps with the gentle stillness of the internal being. She sways and glides, she intuitively knows where Leadership should step next.

She is the choreographer, and Leadership is the dancer who brings her vision to life with movement.

The Cyclic Nature of the Pathway of Initiative

My guide, Hayley Curtis, spoke of this cyclic nature as stepping out a little, and then reflecting and checking back in with your heart, and I have been thinking about this a lot, and I have been seeing it as the expansion and contraction of my breathing. It is cyclic, it is a rhythm.

And it is gentle and it is easy.

I think that initiative should be gentle too. Sure, I get all the fire analogies and the bold action; but I can be fiery and gentle. I can be bold and rhythmic.

And it can be small steps.

I don’t need to throw myself straight out there, all guns blazing, trying to do everything at once. It’s allowed to be incremental, this initiative of mine.

And I love the idea of taking small steps out into the world, then moving back into my heart to reflect. It feels natural.

Humans have gotten out of the habit of reflection, with all the noise that is happening around us all the time. We’re plugged into devices and social media every waking minute; there’s no room to breathe in that world.

We need to breathe more!

I need to breathe more! How can I expect myself to grow, or to expand; how can I expect myself to stay balanced in this fiery initiative, if I am not breathing?

How can I expect myself to be bold and moving in rhythm; how can I expect myself to dance, if am not breathing deeply and properly?