Happy Valentine’s to the Eagle & the Condor, may they be one again

February 7, 2017 ~ Nicole Gnutzman

I honor myself…As the divine feminine blends with the masculine. I now come into balance. – Trudy Vesotsky

When the sacred masculine is combined with the sacred feminine inside each of us, we create the “sacred marriage”of compassion and passion in ourselves. –Matthew Fox

This past Saturday, I held cacao ceremony for a women’s group and their partners in a gorgeous yurt nestled in the redwoods. To honor their coming together as couples in ceremony, which is a rare and beautiful thing, I created a theme that called on western astrology, Mayan cosmology and Amazon prophecy to reflect the energy of the divine feminine and masculine. I knew it would be a wild ride full of potentiality, which in itself is such a luscious word full of rich, nuanced meaning, that I simply had to share the experience here with you.

This past New Moon on January 28th was in Aquarius, an Air sign, that is independent, innovative, rebellious, evolutionary and brings the winds of change and inspiration. It is full of spirit energy, symbolizing “the eternal giving of life and spiritual food of the world.” * Aquarius brings the gift of expanded consciousness, a paradigm shift towards “love, inclusion and integrity”* while balancing intellect and insight, intuitive energy and integrated, transformative power. It is a powerhouse of the most inspired qualities of the divine masculine and the divine feminine.

Right now we are all being called to awaken together to use our voices and power to defend and protect our rights, the planet and all people–we are rising into our truth. This is our vision and our inspiration, and one we need to embrace together to attain.

From the stars and planets of western astrology, we reached across time to Mayan cosmology and the day sign of February 4th, 2017: Kame, which means death, the cycle of life, and transformation. It is a time of profound change, soul level choice and higher expression. It asks us to face and release our fears, so we can relax into our soul’s true purpose and potential. The number 2, associated with this day, signifies duality and choice, relationship and self-sacrifice; it is the number of lovers, of course.

From the Mayan world, we entered the Amazon rainforests to honor the prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor, which foretold that human societies would split into two paths: one of the Eagle, which symbolizes the path of the mind, the material and the masculine; and the other, the Condor, which is the path of the heart, intuition and the feminine. The prophecy also foretells that the potential exists within all of us for the Eagle and the Condor to come together and fly in the same sky when we create a new level of consciousness and live in balance with nature and within ourselves. It is up to us to activate the potential.***

Each of these reflections of energy–from the prophecy of the Amazon to Mayan cosmology to western astrology–show us the path of where we are being asked to go, towards a higher expression of ourselves, the balancing and integration of masculine and feminine energies.

As the supine couples emerged from their cacao journey, each was transformed. The men in circle expressed their gratitude for the powerful feminine energy they felt in the room, and within themselves, while they had tears streaming down their faces. The glowing women shared how fearless they felt connecting to their divine masculine. Their tears and their joy at being reconnected with themselves, their partners and life itself was testament to what’s possible when we live into our fully conscious potential. It was truly divine.

I echo what one of the women of light shared as we closed the beautiful and powerful ceremony by wishing you a “Happy Valentine’s Day.” May it be a day of the divine expression of the power of love and reconnection.

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Copyright © 2017 by Soulscape Coaching LLC.

*from Aquarian Styles: http://aquarianstyles.tumblr.com/post/100854962887/the-water-bearer-symbolizes-an-eternal-giving-of

**from Mystic Mamma: http://www.mysticmamma.com/new-moon-in-aquarius-january-27-28th-2017/

***from Pachamama.org: https://www.pachamama.org/blog/the-eagle-and-the-condor-prophecy

Accept or decline the mission

August 2, 2016 ~ Nicole Gnutzman

You may think you have no resistance to finding your purpose, but if that were true you would probably already know it. – Tim Kelley

Finding our purpose in life can be terrifying and sometimes perplexing. I know. As I was first exploring mine, I received a guided message saying I should make a documentary about ceremonial cacao. It came as a total surprise.

While I know a little something about cacao ceremony and am fascinated by the history of cacao, I know absolutely nothing about making a documentary. I, being the “doer” that I am, starting wondering how I could fulfill this “mission.”

My sister has an MFA, has taught film production and now heads the Media Studies program at a community college, and made a documentary film (a very long time ago), so I thought, she can help me! I even took the step of approaching her and she was mildly enthusiastic (she’s Canadian and still lives in Canada, so maybe I should have taken that mild enthusiasm more seriously :)).

Anyway, I soon realized that I actually didn’t want the responsibility of making a documentary. There are far better, more qualified people who could do it, and I had an inkling that my path lay elsewhere. It would have been a fun diversion, but documentaries need to be passion projects, they can take forever to be realized, and I just didn’t have quite enough passion or time.

Plus, to be honest, the thought of traipsing through the rain forest looking for indigenous shamans; the depth of relationship needed to gain their trust, so they would allow us to film them; and the time required to do this away from home and my husband, scared me. It was so far away from my current experience and I felt it put things I valued at risk.

I know now, and I even knew then, that what our soul wants for us is not always on the easy path. Could I actually say, “no,” to this?

So, I asked myself, why did Spirit give this to me? And then I just happened upon Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, in which she reveals that “inspiration will always try its best to work with you–but if you are not ready or available, it may indeed choose to leave you and to search for a different human collaborator.” So, I was off the hook…. I could leave this for someone else to take on as their mission and continue to look for my soul’s true purpose. Which is exactly what I did.

Just recently, not that I was looking for further confirmation, I read Tim Kelley’s True Purpose: 12 Strategies for Discovering the Difference You Are Meant to Make, in which he shares that “you can accept [your mission] or decline it” and “your soul can give you a new instruction that is at a higher level.” That’s what keeps happening to Tim, and that’s exactly what happened to me. I declined one mission only to have another one be revealed to me, one that fully supported what he calls my “blessing,” or what I like to refer to as my gifts, the things for which I am a “catalyst, a facilitator of some process.”

The reason that I like to talk about being on your “soul’s path” is that, while our purpose and gifts are foundational, our mission or “highest level instruction” continues to evolve and grow, building on that foundation. Our soul’s path is an unfolding, one which is revealed to us as we walk forward with trust.

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Celebrate the ceremony of your life

May 20, 2016 ~ Nicole Gnutzman

Ceremony creates change. Live your life as a ceremony, and this will lead you to a process of positive change, following a path of spirit, and allowing you to ride a different wave in your life.

~ Sandra Ingerman, Walking in the Light: the Everyday Empowerment of a Shamanic Life

I never was one much for ceremony. Sure, I cried at funerals and weddings, the emotion simply overcoming me, sometimes without warning and almost always surprising me, but pomp and circumstance would leave me dry eyed and even a bit bored. What was all the fuss about? What was missing for me was the meaning behind it all, a deeply felt connection to the true spirit of ceremony.

And then I discovered another kind of ceremony, and it involved chocolate, actually raw cacao. My life and my perception of ceremony changed forever.

I first came across cacao ceremony in the movie, Chocolat, with Johnny Depp (Roux) and Juliette Binoche (Viane)–I’m not sure which character I fell more in love with. In the movie, Viane’s father, a pharmacist, travels to South America to discover new remedies, and is introduced to cacao and seduced both by it and Viane’s eventual mother. I too found myself seduced by its power to “unlock hidden yearnings and reveal destinies.”

I trained as a chocolatier because of that one line in the movie (I truly wanted to find my destiny and thought chocolate was it), and I began to seek out cacao ceremony, which at the time was a hard thing to find. When I found it, and a teacher, I went deep into that world.

Cacao ceremony opened a whole new world to me–one of infinite abundance, connection to spirit, reverence for the earth, compassion for myself and others, and a deeper knowing. It’s hard to believe that all that magic can come from a little cacao bean.

I came to understand that in the indigenous world, ceremony is a part of daily life, honoring the connection we have with the elements (earth, wind, fire and water), life and death, and rites of passage. The meaning and significance of each ceremony is clear and is a way to deeply acknowledge and accept change as a part of life.

Ceremony, in reconnecting us to life itself, allows us to feel compassion for ourselves and others, deepen our connection to our true selves, and understand that we are part of something much bigger and more beautiful. It is then that the change we want to open ourselves to becomes truly possible. Our fears slowly drop away as we realize, as Sandra Ingerman so eloquently shares, that spirit wants to guide us through change and we can ride that wave through life.

What becomes possible when we honor the ceremony in our lives? For me, authentic, meaningful ceremony offers and creates an opening to true connection, compassion and change. And that is a reason to celebrate.