What is a cacao ceremony?
Cacao is a very versatile plant sprit medicine, and is not subject to the strict dietas (preparation diets and ways of being before and after ceremonies) that are common with the use of other plant teacher medicines.
The cacao can be used in a number of contexts, such as trance dance, blessingways, experiencial workshops, in combination with yoga, or even to add extra bliss and love to parties without the negative effects of alcohol! All of these can be ceremonial to a greater or lesser extent, depending upon the intention with which the cacao is taken and the connection made to the spirit of the plant.
I prefer to use cacao in a more traditional ceremonial context, in which as a participant you are guided to meet the spirit of the cacao plant by drinking a cup of sacred cacao, stating your intention for your healing or insights, or connection you wish to make between the plant spirit and yourself.
By coming together in sacred space and allowing the cacao to meet with us in peacefulness and silence, we can drop deeply into our inner psychic and emotional and energetic space so that we can glean insights and understandings about our outer world in every day reality. In this way you are able to drop deep into meditative space and use the wisdom and connection of the cacao to help you find your own wise centre and inner truth of what your heart knows.
Cacao can help you to become more aware of, and learn to tune into your heart’s messages of inner knowing and intuition- that are more real and relevant for you about what is important in life. These are important messages that can easily become lost in the maze of a busy everyday mind.
Cacao is a very powerful but gentle plant medicine with a particular affinity with our heart centre in physical, emotional and spiritual aspects, without the sometimes very strong psychoactive effects of some of the other master plant teachers.
Drinking cacao ceremonially and journeying with her can bre very helpful in dissolving blocks in our energetic bodies which may be holding us back from realising our truth of self and potential path of happiness. Cacao is not only very valuable nutritionally, but it also contains naturally occurring chemicals which have positive effects on our nervous system that help us to feel blissful and energised.
Anyone can benefit rom a cacao ceremony and it is safe to drink. It is not necessary to have experience in shamanic journeying or of plant spirit medicine work.
Cacao ceremonies work well with large or small groups of people and I also offer ceremonies for individuals.
The spirit of the cacao works well with large groups as the more people present in ceremony with heartfelt intention, the stronger the heart energy generated in cauldron of the ceremonial space.
These are great ceremonies to connect with the spirit of the cacao, or to drop into your inner quiet space and ask her for guidance about your life on a regular basis.
We come together energetically as a group, having the opportunity to share our intentions and insights with each other in confidential, open-hearted space and to journey with the cacao as one collective energy.
Smaller group ceremonies feel more appropriate to work with specific issues, and are held with more of a more therapeutic intention and direction. Cacao is fantastic medicine for facilitating the release of deep seated emotional blockages from your emotional body and it may help you to feel more contained and safer in a smaller circle, or you may prefer the women’s only ceremonial circles.
If you wish to do more personal work, and would like the intimacy of being able to speak in more depth and in private about your intentions, you may prefer a one to one ceremony in which you can be guided on a journey specific to you and your healing. These private ceremonies also work well if you wish to invite a partner or family member with whom you would like to share your ceremonial space.
The Essential Importance of Ritual And Ceremony
The use of Ritual and ceremony have become largely lost in our mechanised, industrialised, reductionist culture, or have had meanings attached that have little to do with the original significance and intentions around what is being honoured.
Ceremonies and rituals have components of remembering, celebrating, connecting and belonging, feeling and emoting.
In a very literal and embodied sense we are re-membering ourselves by getting in touch with where we all come from?- who are the people in our tribe?- what is the meaning of our lives, what is the truth in our hearts, how can we serve this vision best? – before we are re-membered at death on our return, at least in our physical bodies, to Mother Earth.
Ceremonies and rituals are important markers of the passing of time, of the cycles of life. Too often we become divorced from these natural cycles of life and rhythms of nature that are instinctual for us and that enrich our lives immeasurably if we let them back in.
We can ask ourselves the profound questions by stopping the every day chatter of the mind that seems to define our existence as we go about our daily lives. Ritual and ceremony give us time out from things that are the banal necessities of living in modern society in which often ‘ritual’ has been replaced by ‘routine’ as we try to fit in everything that needs ‘doing’. Many of us have been conditioned to live in a culture that demands that we are constantly busy and (therefore overstimulated/stressed out).
Ceremony gives us time to just be present in the moment with ourselves and each other, where we can feel our human ‘being-ness’. We can also become inspired, as to how we can change what might feel like a ‘routine’, or an obligation, into ritual that has meaning for us and is spiritually and emotionally rewarding.
For example, this might be as simple as truly coming into our heart centre and feeling gratitude for our food and thanking the Earth for providing it for us; preparing it with love and consciousness that it is the energy that we give to our physical bodies to enable us to live healthily in them. This turns the routine of making a meal from fresh, whole food ingredients (which some people would argue they never have time to do)- into a ritual of thanking the earth and taking care of the body by eating food that is prepared with the energy of love and gratitude.
My Ceremonial Space