As our April Ritual Report mentioned, this month opened up the Eclipse portal with a New Moon Eclipse in Taurus that will close in May with a Full Moon.

There is much change on the horizon for us all. With Mercury’s position this retrograde, it’s all about reviewing and reflecting on our relationships, including our relationship with ourselves and to Life.

This is important work we can do as it will set the tone for the next six months of our lives. When we are clear and centered in how we relate to everything around us, positive opportunities surge and the changes we wish for are more available.

During this time, there are practices we can turn to to help us through the shifts and to make the most of them with an open heart. Pausing and reflecting before acting, resting, and focusing more on planning are just a few. The Mercury Retrograde invites planning and reflection beyond action, so flowing along with this energy will make this time easier for you.

Here we share a beautiful cacao ritual for reflecting on all your relations. Cacao has the power to open us to profound honesty about where we stand in the grand scheme of things. Its medicine calls us to observe our relational patterns with compassion. It helps us resist less to acknowledging the truth of our hearts.

You will want at least one hour of uninterrupted time for deep inquiry in this cacao ritual. It is a ritual that you can repeat throughout this Mercury Retrograde, focusing on a different relationship each time. Be sure to have a notebook handy for your reflections.

Healing Relationship Cacao Ritual

• Begin by preparing your cacao and lighting a candle. You may open the ceremony with a spoken request for guidance in the vision of the chosen relationship you will focus on.
• Choose one relationship in your life that you would like to focus on for healing. Ex: Your relationship with yourself, your relationship to your job, your relationship to a friend/loved one, etc.
• As you sip on your cacao, close your eyes and begin to recapitulate the history of this relationship. The highs and the lows. What brings you joy, and what hasn’t felt fully aligned.
• Ask yourself and ask the spirit of cacao to show you where you have abandoned parts of yourself in the relationship, where you haven’t been fully transparent with yourself or the other.
• Once this is clear, you will take your journal and begin to free-write how you can regain your full power within the relationship or show up with more compassion.
• If you feel called, you may even wish to “rewrite” the story of this relationship in the future. How would this relationship feel fully aligned to where you’re currently at? How would you show up differently, and what ideal results would come from your new attitude and perspective?
• When you feel complete, you may wish to make a small offering to the Earth with some sacred herbs. Take a small handful, find a place that calls you in nature, and pray over the herbs, infusing them with your prayer for the relationship you are focusing on, and then giving it to the Earth so that it may be transmuted with the Earth’s power and love.
• Lastly, you can close your ritual with April’s Cacao Invocation.