fire

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 sacred is even deeper within us

~ Nicole Gnutzman
A [wo]man must go on a quest
to discover the sacred fire
in the sanctuary of [her] own belly
to ignite the flame in [her] heart
to fuel the blaze in the hearth
to rekindle [her] ardor for the earth
– Sam Keen

P1000364I took the liberty of updating Sam Keen’s gorgeous prose about the sacred to include the feminine experience. When he wrote that piece many years ago, he believed that men were in desperate need of connection to the sacred. I would say the same is true of women, especially today, so we can regain and reclaim a deeper connection to ourselves.

The sacred strips us bare of all pretension, beliefs, and assumptions if we let it. It humbles us. Its fire burns away the things we need to let go of. And it is from that fiery, empty place that we can rediscover our inner sanctuary, the sacredness of our soul, and life-affirming connection to ourselves and to the natural world.

My first experience with being stripped bare and made empty by the sacred was in personal cacao ceremony. I cried like a baby while it opened up depths within me that I didn’t know existed.

We all know that chocolate is sacred on our tongues and in our tummies, but in its more raw form (cacao) it has a long tradition of being revered, celebrated, and used in ceremony by indigenous cultures in South and Central America, the place from which it first came.

cacao elixir

Cacao allowed me to find that place inside of myself where the sacred resides, revealing hidden parts of me and my connection to life, and set me on my soul’s path. I’m quite sure I wouldn’t have been so intent on finding my soul’s path if I hadn’t opened myself fully to it.

Cacao ceremony became a practice for me, not a daily one (it can, as you might imagine, be quite stimulating), but certainly every few weeks. It brings me back in touch with the sacred like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. I am so enamored of its power to reconnect us to our deeper selves that I offer it in  one-on-one sessions as well as at retreats or when I’m invited to share it at group gatherings.

Many of the beautiful women with whom I have had the honor to share cacao have said that they experienced profound, heart-opening realizations. My own experience has been one of deep insight and wisdom, unconditional love and compassion, and healing. Although, it hasn’t always been all love and light; cacao opens us up to our darkness too, but in a healing way, so we can become whole again.

When I began this work with cacao, my dreams became much more vivid and profound as if I was tapping into the sacred in all aspects of my life, both waking and sleeping. The richness of dream language is astonishing in its ability to cut to the quick of things. It’s as if the picture it paints is made up of tiny puzzle pieces that we have to rearrange into a new, more meaningful picture we can understand and truly see. If we allow it, our dreams change our perspective; they open us more fully to our inner wisdom.

IMG_2609The sacred wisdom of ceremony and dreams reveal that the sacred is even deeper within us. And we have yet to plumb its full depths. As Robert Johnson, the eminent psychotherapist, wrote in his book, Inner Work: Using Dream and Active Imagination for Personal Growth,  “every expression of the unconscious–whether dream, imagination, vision, or ritual–proceeds from the same reservoir deep within. And everything, therefore, works together.”

Learning to work with our deeper selves–our unconscious–through ceremony or dream work, gives us, according to Johnson, “a deep source of renewal, growth, strength, and wisdom. We connect with the source of our evolving character; we cooperate with the process whereby we bring the total self together; we learn to tap that rich lode of energy and intelligence that waits within.”

We touch the sacred fire even deeper within us.