Cacao is a wise elder plant with an abundance of teachings.
How do we access those?
To begin, cacao beckons us to slow down and observe. This is key for listening to the spirit of cacao and plant medicines in general.
Dedicated and long-standing observation of the natural world has been a crucial aspect of human survival for millennia. It’s how our ancestors figured out the right timing for planting, harvesting, and hunting. It’s their observations of the cosmos that guided societies.
Today, most of us don’t need to rely on our skills of observation for survival. For many of us, it’s barely a skill we use regularly at all.
When was the last time you simply sat outside in nature and observed your surroundings for a prolonged period of time?
Most of us will be quick to distract ourselves.
Yet it's in the moments of "just being" that nature speaks.
The wisdom of the plants speaks in subtle ways.
Perhaps you take a sip of your cacao, have a thought, and the wind blows by as confirmation. Or a sensation in your body arises, and suddenly a bird crosses the sky. This is the language of nature, and this is the language of plant spirits like cacao.
We’d like to invite you for a little challenge for your next cacao ritual.
Instead of accompanying your cacao with a practice like movement, journaling, or a sharing circle, see what happens if you take your cup of cacao outside, and like the cacao pods that need shade, you find a place underneath a tree and just sip your cacao there.
Nothing else.
No music, no phone, no distractions. Just you, cacao, and nature.
Do this for at least thirty minutes. Set a timer on your phone, place it on “do not disturb” and bring yourself into total presence.
Listen to the wind, watch your thoughts as they flow by with each sip of cacao, look into the skies, watch the leaves rustle, and even look into your cup of cacao.
It is in those subtle moments that cacao speaks.
