Wholeness

Enhanced Cacao Journals: Ego Dissolution

~ Nicole Gnutzman

“Could it be that the rational mind destroys the soul?” –from the film, The Next Three Days

I recently watched the film, The Next Three Days with Russell Crowe and in it, he shares the above quote in his college class discussion about the book, Don Quixote. He speaks to the “triumph of irrationality” over trying to be in control.

Many come to a healing session to get unstuck. They realize how much they are “in their heads” and not in their bodies. By allowing their rational mind to take over, they have become disconnected from their body, from their feelings, from their heart and soul. Without conscious permission, they have given their mind almost absolute control. And we know what absolute power can do….

While that may seem a little dramatic, it’s a hard truth. One that I know only too well. Once the mind is in control, it does not want to let go. It colors everything pretty much black and white or shades of grey. Stark or dull. The mind understands the rational and analytical. Duality, polarity and compartmentalizing become the default perspective and a limiting system of belief.

Caught in our minds and stuck in the ingrained grooves of our neural pathways, we repeat the same patterns and behaviors over and over again. Nothing changes until we become aware that we are stuck and why, and then choose to come back into wholeness. I read somewhere that 80% of change is awareness; the last 20% is hard work.

Some, who also are caught in their heads, but aren’t aware they are actually stuck, have as their intention to experience “ego dissolution,” often after having read Michael Pollan’s book or watched his docuseries. Ego dissolution is associated with experiencing being part of something larger than ourselves or feeling a sense of oneness, which is also known as the transcendental. They believe this is what they are missing; and once they have experienced it, they will have more meaning in their lives and see life in a new way.

They also tend to be quite attached to their rational minds and it may not really be their intention to change, even though Pollan’s book is called, How to Change your Mind, lol! They see their potential experience of the transcendental as somehow purely additive.

However, with mind-body separated and not integrated, they are fragmented. And if they are fragmented in their very being, the experience of the transcendental or oneness is a concept outside of themselves. Objectively viewable, but not personally attainable.

Psychedelics can provide a glimpse of the transcendental; however, it remains elusive and external to one’s sense of self unless and until that experience is fully embodied. So, how do you make it personal and embody it? Well, you need an embodied experience.

Unlike some psychedelics, which are known to fairly reliably provide a glimpse of the transcendental, plant medicine, including certain strains of psilocybin, provide a more embodied experience of it.

Plant medicines, which have a consciousness, are also tricksters and teachers, and may choose to provide a purely transcendental experience or they may bring you a full-bodied experience of ego dissolution, also known as “ego death” in the plant medicine realm. On that journey, the medicine may show you that you have some healing and releasing to do to come back into your body. Resisting this re-embodiment can be uncomfortable, so it’s best to allow it and move through the discomfort.

The experience of ego dissolution/death can take many forms: your entire body may become one with the universe/cosmos; dissolve into light and return to the stars or become mulch for the earth; or be dismembered or swallowed by a snake or another animal; or some other permutation of disintegration, which can be terrifying because it is asking you to totally let go of control. And our mind/ego does not like that…. Ego dissolution is not all love and light and transcendence.

Master plants are teachers and healers. Learning a lesson from them is neither linear nor easy. The master teacher wants you to have an actual embodied sense of ego dissolution/death instead of an out-of-body experience of it. Ego death asks for full surrender. You are taken apart–disintegrated, dissolved, disembodied–and put back together–reintegrated, resolved, re-embodied–in a new way.

It may sound scary, but it’s actually tremendously liberating. When you have died metaphorically enough times, not much scares or controls you anymore. Your mind is no longer in control as you become more fully embodied and connected to the Universe, Source, the Divine, Oneness; and ultimately to your own divinity. To face death (even if it’s just your ego) is to feel truly alive.

©Soulscape Coaching LLC

The Cacao Journals: Element Earth, a Home Coming

~ nicole

I arise today

In the name of Silence

Womb of the Word,

In the name of Stillness

Home of the Belonging.

John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us

In life, as we take on identities, responsibilities, expectations, attitudes, opinions and defenses, we often lose our truest self, our deep soul. This loss happens slowly over time, so we don’t notice until we find we are “living” a joyless life, one that lacks a sense of wonder and abundance. We become dissatisfied, disillusioned, and ungrateful. We trudge through life and relationships thinking is this all there is?

What remains deep inside of us is a sliver of hope, an untouchable essence that despite hurt or neglect is pure in its light. How do we rekindle that and grow that sliver into a shining, radiant light? We begin by reclaiming who we always have been. That reclamation may look like an archeological dig or even feel like an uprooting as we pull up what took root, shake off the clumps of dirt, and see what’s left to sustain us, which may just be a few spindly, seemingly fragile, tendrils. Those tendrils, while tender hearted, are resilient; they have lasted this long, so they must be.

How do we tend to them, nourish them, give them what they need to grow stronger and push up toward the light? We have to get back to the ground of our being, to the earth of ourselves, to our home. We do this through stillness and silence, dropping deeper into the self by inviting the sacred in.

We begin at the beginning with the element, Earth. Earth as ultimate mother, as nourishment and abundance, as an unconditionally loving and compassionate being, who provides and sustains. Honoring and connecting to the Earth reconnects us to our deep self. This is the indigenous way, the original way of being for us all.

Two questions arise when we look more deeply at our soul loss. The first, “Who am I?” opens us to a sense of rediscovery, curiosity and innocence. Turning our attention to and tending to those spindly roots. The second, “What brings me joy?” allows for exploration, adventure and wonder. The light of joy that nourishes our new/old roots and allows them to flourish. In this space of openness and allowing, we come home to something new and yet familiar, a remembering of who we truly are. Begin by simply asking.

Stilling the mind and dropping into that space through sacred ritual and ceremony, meditative practices, being in solitude or on retreat, contemplative movement, and plant medicine gives us a way to come home to ourselves again and again until home is just where we always are.

Copyright ©2019 Soulscape Coaching LLC

The Cacao Journals: The Five Elements

~ nicole

If you even have a little mastery over the five elements within you, life will happen the way you want it to. – Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

The five elements are energies, not things. – Stefan Emunds, visionary author

When I began working with cacao several years ago, I created an altar for my personal cacao medicine journeys in the loft of our cabin in the redwoods. Enveloped in nature and feeling called to honor it, I was drawn to the elements: earth, water, air, fire and spirit/ether. Each direction of the altar represented an element and I found, purchased or made sacred treasures (crystals and stones, shells and a bowl of water, feathers, candles, a mala and medicine pouch) to honor them. In creating my altar with intention, love and beauty, I honored the elements and myself; it was nourishing, healing and exquisite.

In indigenous cultures, the elements are what everything in the universe is made of; they are all of creation; they are the circle of life. In yoga teachings, the elements help us understand the laws of nature and higher awareness. In Ayurveda, the elements are energies within the body-mind and are guides for our health. In paganism, we are made of all elements: earth our bodies; water our blood; air our breath; fire our spirit. In each of these traditions, when the elements are in balance life force flows positively.

In each of my ceremonies, I call in the elements as representations of the energies and qualities that, when in balance, make us whole and luminous. I created my own form for this, a universal honoring as I call in

  • Earth as Abundance, Nourishment, Love & Compassion
  • Water as Intuition, Flow & Messages from our Dreams and Soul
  • Air as Clarity, Illumination, Inspiration & Vision
  • Fire as Transformation, Life Force Energy & Creativity

The elements can also be identified as feminine and masculine aspects of ourselves: Earth and Water as the feminine; Air and Fire as the masculine. When they are in balanced relationship, we have integrated our masculine and feminine.

We are all whole and luminous in our deepest self and soul; our true purpose is to remember. Remembering comes when we give ourselves the space to drop into the ground of our being, that place of stillness and silence deep inside. No thought lays in wait here to hijack us, no emotion to be triggered, nothing to distract us. To find this place, we have to give ourselves over to it. Not easy at first, but it gets easier with practice; the mere act of intention, helps us to get there.

Ceremony, when done with intention, is the practice of giving ourselves over to the stillness, the silence where our wholeness resides. As Vanda Marlow, a wise soul sister, coach and facilitator, shared during her Soul Journey retreat at the Modern Elder Academy, “Ceremony is the intentional doorway into a wider world, a way to still oneself, the mind, and drop deeper into self. It all starts with a seed of intention.”

Ceremony drops us into this space, allowing us to honor each part, aspect and energy of ourselves and drop into the space of remembering who we truly are. Through this honoring, acceptance and integration, we walk in the world in our wholeness; we embody its truth.

In future blog posts (interspersed with other topics), I’ll be sharing more about each of the elements. I also have plans to honor them in a series of day retreats here in Northern California over the coming months and again next year in a week-long retreat to Guatemala. I’d be honored if you joined me in some way even if it just means reading my posts…..

Copyright ©2019 Soulscape Coaching LLC

The Cacao Journals: Healing through Loss

~ nicole ~ 1 Comment

A dear friend passed away this week. I’m devastated, reflective and humbled, all at the same time. Her illness was unexpected, her decline precipitous, and her death sudden. Given the gift of sharing my love for her over the phone by her family and friends, I said goodbye. And then I was just there, standing in the kitchen with my grief.

One of my friend’s favorite sayings was “good grief!” which she often exclaimed when I shared something she found dismaying or alarming. Given the adventures I’ve lived and shared, she said it more frequently than perhaps she or I would have liked! The term always felt somehow quaint and old fashioned, and was classically her.

Curious about its origins and meaning, I looked up the definition–”used to express surprise or annoyance” (Merriam Webster)–and then came across this organization–goodgrief.org, which is “a free informational resource to assist individuals and families in finding the wellsprings of renewal in the grieving process.”

This post was born because of both: the memory of her words and the resource that found me because of them. I dedicate this to my dear friend, Robin, who loved my writing and joked that she read my posts in search of punctuation errors, which she claimed she never found. May she be reading this now and find one or two. In my grieving has come that glimpse of renewal (and a brief smile as I write this).

In reflecting on her death, I came to the realization just how much I would miss her, the uniqueness of her. We had worked together for just one year, eight years ago, and had become “fast friends.” After I left the organization, we stayed close, saw each other a few times a year, and due to our schedules, filled the gaps with long, deep telephone conversations, a rarity in this day and age.

I could share anything with her because of the love and trust we had for one another. My increasingly unconventional life was an unending source of amusement and fascination for her, and while she may not have always understood or agreed with it, she accepted me and it unconditionally; and I her with her ordered closets, martini dinners, and wicked sense of humor. We made each other laugh and we cried together too. She even indulged me by allowing me to share a private cacao ceremony with her, which she, rather surprisingly to us both, loved.

To allow myself to feel fully and grieve, I found myself at the beach, where I often go to release my pain. There, I built a tiny altar of stones and shells in honor of her. As the tide rose, I wept, said goodbye and watched the waves envelop and wash away the altar. I kept one shell, a perfect spiral of a shell, as a beautiful memory of the ritual and of her. I have been carrying it (and her) in my pocket everywhere I go and it gives me such solace. I know she is with me always.

In reflecting on my grief, I came across this wonderful passage, which so eloquently expresses my experience of loss and healing:

“[W]e don’t get past the pain. We must go through it. We can’t go around it or over it or under it either. The path to healing through loss, which means the path to wholeness, requires that we incorporate our pain. To incorporate means to literally take the pain into our body (corps). We get to that place where joy and grief can live together by becoming whole. The process of healing, whether from a physical illness or from a catastrophic life disturbance is a transformational journey. We are changed in the process. The goal is not to be the ‘way we were’ once again, the goal is to be more than we were before, to include more of life. Ultimately the goal is to include loss in our love and trust of life.” – goodgrief.org

Good grief, Robin, I will miss you so, my darling friend! You will always and forever have a special place in my heart and soul. You are my soul sister.

Copyright ©2019 Soulscape Coaching.

The Cacao Journals: A Call to Wholeness

~ nicole
Dare to wear your soul on the outside…. Respond to the call: the call to passion and wholeness, the call to joy and fulfillment, the call to claim the magnificence and bounty of your own true voice. – Gloria Burgess

I can still be astonished by the healing power of Mama Cacao. I’m so close to the healing I received from her that sometimes I lose perspective. I still marvel at it, but most of the time, I’m just walking around in me all day, so I’m used to wearing my soul on the outside. When someone else experiences her healing power, my ears perk up and my perspective shifts. I see the soul healing before my very eyes; I feel it in my heart and soul.

In previous posts, I’ve mentioned that a cacao medicine journey or ceremony is a practice where your relationship with the spirit of cacao deepens over time with each ceremony. And sometimes she calls you to a further deepening, a deeper immersion.

A cacao dieta (diet) is that immersive practice. It’s a 10- or 14-day daily practice with cacao as healer and me as your guide. It begins with intention-setting, then a group or private cacao ceremony (this can be done virtually), followed by daily self- practice (as short or as long as you wish) with cacao either in the form of a bliss ball or a half serving of the cacao drink I share in ceremony. At the mid point of the dieta is a check in session to see how your deepening is progressing and if any adjustments need to be made. The dieta concludes with another cacao medicine journey, followed by a closing integration session. It can be profoundly and deeply healing.

A dear client and friend, who has experienced several cacao medicine journeys with me, recently felt called to complete a cacao dieta after she received a message in ceremony. She set her intention for her dieta as one of self-love to heal her inner wounds. At our mid point check in, she and I found ourselves in a state of absolute astonishment. I share her own words with you as a testament to her healing:

“I thought I had all this work to do and found it wasn’t about that at all…. Wholeness is always there. It’s learning about letting go, a 56-year process in the lightness of being. Embodying all I am is all I had to do. I am loving life.”

She felt herself opening to self-love and understanding that forgiveness does not require rehashing everything. There was none of “doing that to her.” She learned she just needs to be and when she does she feels luminescent. She has never felt more grounded in her life.

It makes me tear up as I write this because I know that all of us are whole in our deep soul. The truth of that is such a beautiful remembering.

Feel and follow your call to wholeness…. xoxo

Copyright ©2018 Soulscape Coaching LLC

Crystal Heart Wisdom I: Your Inner Bling

~ nicole
You know the world is a magical place, when Mother Earth grows her own jewelry. – Sagegoddess.com

This is the first in a series of posts exploring the concept of Crystal Heart Wisdom.

Each of us, just like Mother Earth, has a crystal at her core. Ours is our heart core, which (because we’ve all been wounded there) we have found ways to protect from further hurt. But that protection or armor keeps our inner light and our love a prisoner. It’s only through awareness of this armoring and taking the time and effort to remove it that can build our crystal core.

Letting go of our armor, which once protected us, and is now getting in the way of deep connection to ourselves, life and relationships, is one of the keys to becoming whole and luminous.

Recently, at my women’s retreat, I shared a simple and rather raw drawing (done in pencil crayon :)) of the energetic aspects and qualities that, when in balance, create and reveal our pure crystal heart wisdom. This journey truly only begins, and must begin, by taking our armor off and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and transparent. Boundaries are necessary, of course, but I’ll get to that in a later post.

To allow ourselves to do this we must first want our life to be different than it is, and to want it so badly, that we’re willing to fully see and embrace who we are. What’s so amazingly and achingly beautiful is that underneath all that armor, we are whole.

When I moved from Canada to the States, I left behind a beautiful home, a relationship, close friends and family, everything except my dog, Lola (my ex kept our other dog). I so wanted a full life and love, brimming with joy and depth, and being fully seen and met. And I knew I had to be different to open and receive that life and love.

“A loving heart is the truest wisdom.” – Charles Dickens

Here’s what I discovered when I named my armor. My nickname, behind my back at work, was “The Ice Princess”. My light was still there, but it was behind a wall of ice. I didn’t let anyone get too close and as a result, I was perceived as cool and aloof, polite but unapproachable, perfectly professional and reserved. My armor was perfectionism (and beneath that a “numbing out” with excessive exercising and heavy social drinking). Hiding behind my armor had hurt me more than it had protected me.

Deeply unhappy and unfulfilled, I said to myself, “How do I need to be different to have the life and love I most want?”  And that’s when everything changed: I found the love I wanted because I was clear about what I needed and was open to receiving it; I made new, deep friendships because I shared who I truly was and what I cared about; I became a better leader at work because I allowed myself to be open and transparent with my team. This was the first BIG step on my journey to wholeness.

So, I invite you to ask yourself two questions: 1) “What is my armor?” and 2) “How do I need to be to have the life and love that I most want?” Explore what comes up for you and whether you are ready to step on that path of self discovery because of what becomes possible when you do. You may just find the deep connection you’ve always been looking for.

More Crystal Heart Wisdom to come….

With love & light,

Nicole

Copyright ©2018 Soulscape Coaching LLC

 

The Cacao Journals: our Mother Wound

~ nicole
“Every Mother contains her daughter in herself and every daughter her mother and every mother extends backwards into her mother and forwards into her daughter.” – C.G. Jung

It was my Mother’s birthday on the 21st of February. She passed from this world last year, and I’m writing this in honor of her. Her light remains bright in my life.

And we had our issues and wounds as many mothers and daughters do. We loved each other, respected each other’s choices, and we had our wounds. Those wounds certainly were not gaping and festering, but they kept us from truly understanding one another and being close.

Through reflection and inner work, I came to see and accept that my mother had her own wounds that had been handed down from generation to generation. Our wounds were ancestral and even collective.

When I first began working with cacao in personal ceremony, I encountered the whole, deep feminine, which was profoundly healing for me. The more I worked with IxCacao, who I came to call Mama Cacao, the more my mother wound was healed at all levels: personal, ancestral and collective.

In cacao ceremony at two beautiful spiritual gatherings this past weekend, I expressed how I had received the first of many healings of my mother wound in my very first personal cacao ceremony.

In my first of many ceremonies, I found myself inexplicably crying, rocking myself, and releasing an emotional burden that I wasn’t fully aware I had been carrying for a very long time. Spent and exhausted, I lay down, wrapped myself in a blanket and curled into a fetus position.

My original intention for personal ceremony had been to invite in and open to IxCacao, the spirit of cacao. It was only after I broke fully open, or She broke me open, that She appeared to me. I found myself sharing with Her how exhausted She must be from healing everyone (I do not know where that came from) and invited Her to come sit in my lap and rest.

She merged into me and I felt Her in my whole body, especially in my heart. My heart got tighter and tighter, and was so constricting that I asked why She was holding on so tightly. She responded, “I am not the one holding on.” She then said, “I will always be there for you,” which struck my heart like a lightning bolt of unconditional love. I felt loved for the first time in my life and I was able to truly love and accept myself.

I realized then that I needed to let go of Her. I birthed Her out of my womb and felt my heart open completely (and, yes, I know, this is beyond all rational explanation).

In this first experience with cacao, I was both mothered and mother. It healed my mother wound on such a deep level that my own relationship with my biological mother, who was still alive at the time, became more healthy and whole.

After working with cacao, I was able to tell my Mom, “I love you,” which was not something that our family did, and I was able to be all of me in her presence regardless of her expectations or wishes or beliefs. She would say what she had been “programmed” to say, and it didn’t bother me in the least. In fact, I was able to laugh to myself, see the Truth and love her.

When my mother fell ill last year, and I was at her bedside when she died, I became the mother, showing a tenderness toward her that I did not know I had (never having had biological children of my own). This tenderness came from healing that deep, core wound through the feminine plant medicine of cacao.

In sacred ceremony, IxCacao becomes our surrogate mother, unconditionally loving us, showing us her deepest compassion, and sharing her infinite wisdom. She is our healer, teacher, guide, and mother. She comes from the earth and reconnects us to Mother Earth, to ourselves, to our mothers, and to all of our relations. She heals the original wound, which we all have; the wound of our disconnection from Mother Earth.

There’s a deep wound in people–that they have been so cut off from the source of their being, their mother, their Earth Mother. – Francis Story Talbott II

I’ve been blessed to witness how many women attending my cacao ceremonies have reconnected with their mothers, who have passed, and healed their relationships during their journeys. Their gratitude for this healing and their radiance is so beautiful to witness.

Cacao is healing heart medicine for the mother wound in us all. I share Her love, so that we may all reconnect to the source of our being, to the mothers who have come before us, and to Mother Earth, who bore us all.

Copyright ©2018 Soulscape Coaching LLC.

 

The Cacao Journals: Luminosity

~ nicole
No matter how long the room has been dark…the moment the lamp of awareness is lit the entire room becomes luminous. You are that luminosity. You are that clear light.
– Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

I always set an intention for personal cacao ceremony as it informs Spirit of what I would like to receive. Mind you, I don’t always get what I ask for, but I always receive something and it’s always the medicine I need in that moment. And there are times it is so profoundly transforming, I just marvel at the message.

In one of my early journeys with cacao, my intention was to discover who I truly was. I was both curious and in need of knowing. Granted, it was a big intention, one we often ignore in our fast-paced lives or one we struggle to answer. I decided to give it up to Spirit. So as I embarked on my journey with cacao, I asked, “Who am I really?”

What I noticed first was a tingling in my hands, actually more of a “sparkling.” Then my whole body began to glow, and the glow grew and grew, until it filled the entire space with luminous light. It was so exquisitely beautiful and infinite.

The message I received was, “Be your luminous self,” and I wrote these words in my journal, “I am without fear. I am luminous. I am.” I had just experienced my own inner light; and it became a touchstone for me; an indelible, radiant image; a resource state that I could return to again and again even in my darkest moments.

What it allowed me to do–knowing that, at my core, I am the light–was begin to peel back the remaining protective layers that kept me “safe” because I realized that nothing could actually harm or extinguish my inner light. I felt as though I was removing the last chains holding me captive, the last layers hiding my light; it was, as you can imagine, incredibly liberating.

I began to see reflections of this light in people I met, some of whom met light with light (that was incredible), and others, who had turned away from the light and were held captive in their own darkness. I found myself no longer willing to hide or diminish my light. My thinking was if my light is untouchable and infinite, then I can shine it.

In the healing arts, we’re often told to create a luminous egg of light energy around us, so we don’t take on other people’s energy. It’s a form of protection. What I discovered is that I no longer had to pull this energy in to build an “egg;” when I radiated my light, it came from an infinite source.

What’s so beautiful is that this light is in us all. According to Mayan cosmology, we are the light, descended from the stars to which we will return. I happen to be from Orion, according to a Mayan shaman, if anyone is wondering :).

Unfortunately, on this earthly plane, our light is held captive by the protective strategies we took on when we first got hurt deeply. Instinctively, at that first inner wounding, we protected our heart from more hurt; and, out of fear, we hid our light, the essence of who we truly are. Without realizing it, our lives became controlled by fear.

When we begin to realize these strategies are fear-based and are the very thing holding us back from what we truly want and who we truly are, we want to let go, but we’re still afraid because we don’t quite know how.

Seeing a glimmer of your own light is crucial as it’s what will inspire and motivate you to not be afraid, to heal the hurt, and become whole again.

So, how do you see your own light? It starts with being curious, willing to see that you have become your own captor, and opening to receive the message. And it may require some cacao :). Or another catalyst that allows for gentle inquiry, witnessing and inner work.

That’s how I began my own journey, and how I guide my clients to begin theirs.

You are Luminous.

Are you open to seeing and reclaiming your light?

I’d be delighted to have a conversation with you about reclaiming your light. My gift to you for the holidays. Because we all need more light in the world….

Copyright ©2017 Soulscape Coaching LLC