Today’s Cacao: Thriving Tanzania

Welcome to your last week of the course! 🎉 Congratulations on making it this far, and for devoting this time and space to yourself and to your relationship with cacao.

Now that we have journeyed through the four elements, we are going to begin by observing the synergy of how all these elements relate to each other.

After today, we will then move into different kinds of meditations and rituals you can create for various purposes with cacao.

For today, we invite you to explore serving yourself a higher dose. This would look like serving yourself 30-40 grams. This is only for those of you who have more time and space to receive this amount of cacao as the experience could be a bit deeper than a meditation dose.

Let’s get started. 😊

Cacao has the ability to create synergy within the body, mind, and spirit. Synergy is when a group of things create a far greater contribution than they would separately. In traditional indigenous medicine, this is what makes a plant medicine sacred - it targets all aspects of the human experience, and can lead to transformational results.

It is no wonder then that all four stages of the ceremonial cacao making progress involves a synergy of the four elements.

First, on the farm, we see healthy soils (earth), rainforest moisture (water), tropical sunlight (fire), and understory wind (air), creating the exquisite ripe growing conditions for healthy cacao seeds.

Second, at the fermentation stage, we see wet cacao fruit (water), yeast and bacteria (fire), aerobic digestion (air), and wooden boxes (earth), all together creating the uniquely perfect conditions for the flavor development of chocolate post-harvest.

Third, we see fire (light toasting), winnowing (air), grinding (earth), and conching (water) dancing throughout our process at the Ora Cacao factory where we transform the cacao beans into potent ceremonial cacao.

Fourth in cacao ritual, we see breath (air), presence (earth), gratitude (water), and a candle (fire), all weaving you into a sacred relationship with all things as you sit down to enjoy your cup of cacao.

This process of synergy ends and begins in aether, the great mystery, which begins at the center, the source, and completes as it moves into infinity, the beyond. Aether is the mysterious cycle of life that repeats itself for all eternity and why we come to sit in cacao ritual, to honor this mystery.

For a visual representation of this process, head to the“Elemental Spiral” page on our website. Cacao invites us to look beyond the ordinary. To turn the mundane into something sacred. You do this when you prepare your cup of cacao with dedication. You create a sacred moment, so then cacao becomes charged with this sacred energy and you then receive it.

By dedicating time to ourselves, our hearts, and our self-development, we create a shift within that causes us to show up to life, to our work, friends, and family in a new way. Can you see how creating synergy within you directly impacts the weaving of your life?

As you’ve learned over the past two weeks, cacao is a medicine that catalyzes harmony. It helps us create new connections, see things with new perspectives, and find support in difficult times.

• What aspects of your life do you see working in harmony, and what aspects do you observe that could have greater synergy? For example, perhaps you feel a disconnection between your family life and friendship life, and would like for them to become more aligned.
• Did your future self share with you how you can begin to make changes to create more synergy and harmony within and without?