The Cacao Journals: Intention & the Soul of the Universe

December 24, 2018December 26, 2018 ~ nicole

You are what your deepest desire is. As your desire is, so is your intention. As your intention is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny. – Upanishads

With the new year almost upon us, intention setting is everywhere. Intentions are the new resolutions. Resolutions tend to come with a state of doing: striving, wanting, and forcing. Intentions come with a state of being: listening deeply, allowing clarity to arise and making conscious choices. Sometimes we mix the two and can make a right mess of it, thinking our way into an intention, forcing the outcome, and being terribly disappointed. Familiar past terrain for me.

Setting an intention that comes from the ground of our being (the place that connects head and heart) is the first key to creating what we desire. A beautiful way to set mindful and heartful intentions is to allow them to arise into our awareness from a place of stillness and silence.

A few weeks ago, I was meditating and an intention arose into my awareness. It came out of (almost) nowhere and surprised me. It told me that I was to attend a retreat I had first learned about in the spring from a friend. She had attended a beta test of a new program at a retreat center just south of Todos Santos, Baja MX and thought the program would be perfect for me. She also knew how much I loved Todos Santos, where I have vacationed many times.

I was intrigued and filed it away, not quite dismissing it but not knowing when or how I would be able to attend. During that meditation, it popped back into my awareness with such crystal clarity. My intention setting in the past tended to be less specific, more of a suggestion than an intention. In this case, my intention was glaringly specific and I declared it out loud: “I am going to the retreat. I don’t know how or when, but I am going.” Just saying it felt powerful. I let go without expectation or attachment, trusting that the universe would conspire on my behalf.

The following Sunday, I received an email from an online community board, of which I am a member, sharing that the retreat center was offering a scholarship for an upcoming two-week immersive retreat, but we had to apply online by Monday. I was astounded, overjoyed and inspired. I jumped on it! I submitted my application and the next day was contacted by one of the facilitators, who had attended one of my cacao medicine journeys and recognized my name. What are the chances of that?

At the end of the week, I found out that I was accepted for a full scholarship. It’s amazing when we get clear and ask, what we can manifest…. I have to admit that my manifestation powers are not always exactly “powerful.” When I am clear, they are. When I have no expectations of when or how what I am wanting to manifest shows up, they are. When I am unattached to outcome, they are.

This New Year’s, or better yet whenever you can, take a moment to sit in silence and allow a desired intention to come into your awareness. What arises may seem to come out of nowhere, but trust it. Give it power and strength by declaring it and then let it go. Have faith that it will come. Watch for the signs and act on them when you need to. Tell me when it shows up. I would so love to hear from you….

For the holidays, I picked up a few books from the library to read while snuggled up by the fire. One of them was The Alchemist, which even though I read it many years ago, I felt compelled to reread. I leave you with two quotes from the book that seem designed just for this post:

“[W]hen you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on earth…. And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.”

“[T]ry to make your own decisions…. don’t forget the language of the omens. And, above all, don’t forget to follow your Personal Legend through to its conclusion.”

On New Year’s Eve from 6:00-7:30pm join me at Harmonia in Sausalito or on January 5th at Soulstice Mind + Body Spa to allow your intention for the new year to emerge with the assistance of cacao medicine. To practice your manifestation powers, set an intention to come to my You are Luminous retreat, February 16-23 at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. Just two spots left.

Many blessings and much joy to you this holiday season!

Finding the courage to come out of the woods….

January 12, 2017 ~ Nicole Gnutzman

Do not look for a sanctuary inside anyone except yourself. – Buddha

Remember…the entrance to the sanctuary is within you. – Rumi

I am a woodland elf, or at least that’s what my husband affectionately calls me. I must admit that I do look a bit elvish (someone also once called me Cindy Lou Who from Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas), but I digress…. And I do thrive in the woods; there’s just something about the energy of trees and sunshine.

And so, living into my elvish nature, I lived on “retreat” in the redwoods near Mendocino, CA for the past year guiding clients to find their soul’s path and gifts and deepening my own inner transformation. It was the perfect work–life balance and the most nourishing sanctuary I have ever experienced. I could have stayed there forever nibbling on nuts and berries or whatever elves eat.

p1020734 But Life or Spirit or the Universe had another idea in mind. Just when you think you have let go of everything you no longer need, you realize there’s always more, more to let go of and more to live into….. So, you ask, what had I become so attached to, that I didn’t want to let go of? My sanctuary in the woods.

Yup, I was getting a bit too comfortable there, all cozy by the wood fire, holding ceremony in my sacred space in the loft, and working remotely in my pajamas (actually, I wore real clothes, but I could have been in my PJ’s).

And then, the owner of our cabin (we rented), sold it! I was in shock; I was in denial all the way through escrow; I was simply devastated. And I discovered that I was not immune to the effect of change. The rugs that gets pulled out from under us take many forms; mine happened to be made of wood and glass and stone.

So, we found ourselves having to find another sanctuary, something we had done before, so we weren’t too worried. We’d always been pretty good at manifesting beautiful places to live. Only this time, nothing showed up. Or what showed up was so not right for us that we started to question ourselves. Were we not clear about what we wanted, were we sending Spirit mixed messages, or did She have something else in mind for us?

In a moment of deep sadness, I prayed to Spirit and asked why I was losing my home and sanctuary, and She gently told me, “Your sanctuary is within. You carry it everywhere you go. It is all you need.”

Perhaps it was time for me to come out of the woods…. Especially now. Staying in the woods when conscious awareness and activism are so needed at this time would have been my version of running away, an escape from hard reality, a retreat of a whole other kind.

So, here I am, writing this from our sailboat in Sausalito, our tiny home on the water for now, re-engaging with life, old friends and community; finding ways to be of service; and bringing my gifts to guide others to find theirs, so we may heal and be whole, strengthen our resiliency and resolve, and co-create the world we want to see.

We all have our own woods to which we retreat. And we each are our own sanctuary. What’s needed now is for us to find the courage to come out of the woods, find ways to nourish our inner sense of sanctuary, and find ways to share our gifts and be of service.

sun-mask-ceramic

My happy, shiny giving place

September 25, 2016 ~ Nicole Gnutzman

“I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.” – Maya Angelou

I have always been a fairly giving person (well, my older sister might have issues with that; I did take her Teddy Bear when I was one year old after all…). But that was an anomaly. And I’m truly sorry, Michelle!

When I arrived at our retreat terribly weak after having had the stomach flu (see my earlier post, “Surrendering to what is”), all I had left to give was my heart. Nothing else remained of me. I found myself giving freely, fully and completely. A light within me shone brightly.

I’ve given from my heart before, but this was different…. This time, I realized that I had no expectations whatsoever of receiving anything in return. Now that may sound obvious or even trite, but it’s actually kind of deep.

I always thought I gave without expectation or condition. On the surface, absolutely. But on a deeper level, I realized that sometimes I gave because I wanted to be accepted, loved, and appreciated; other times I felt obligated or that it was the “right” thing to do; or I gave because someone else had expectations of me. Certainly not horrible reasons to do things, but not pure of heart. Not from that happy, shiny place deep within me.

In my weakened state, I was absolutely empty, in a good way. I had no ego left–no pretenses, no armor, no yearning. From this glorious state of emptiness, I didn’t expect anything; I didn’t need anything; I was free of any and all expectations of myself and of others. All I cared about was that those to whom I was giving felt loved and supported. It was fantastically liberating. And what was so delightful and beautiful was the abundance of unconditional love I received from our retreat tribe. I am so grateful to all of you.

This experience filled me with such joy that I was reminded of when I lie in a hammock and haven’t a care in the world. Just me and the hammock in an energetic exchange expecting nothing of the other, while being fully supported as our energy flows back and forth. I definitely want more of that (no expectations of course)!

The question for me is: “How do I come from that place all the time?” “How do I give without condition or expectation in every moment?” Just knowing that happy, shiny giving place exists is a big realization for me. And sometimes, just knowing something is possible makes it easier to access until it becomes the only place from which giving comes.

Now, I’m off to find me a hammock :)!

The gift of retreating

September 11, 2016 ~ Nicole Gnutzman

“There is nothing more natural than for Life to align with Light in a sacred dance of co-existence and co-creation.” – Birgitte Rasine, The Serpent and the Jaguar: Living in Sacred Time

The Lake (Lake Atitlan) called me back and I returned, not alone this time as on my first solo retreat, but with 10 beautiful and brave souls, who were open to whatever awaited them there. And what awaited was more than any of us imagined.

As we opened to our retreat, we left the bustling world behind and immersed ourselves in a new energy, an interplay of quiet solitude and tribal community, relaxation and movement, restoration and revitalization, and receiving and giving.

We closed ourselves off to the world as we knew it and entered a cocoon, a sanctuary, to emerge from our chrysalis more vibrant and alive, and with bright wings that allowed us to rise above ourselves and the world and see with new eyes.

We lived into the spiral of life, the intertwining energies of the four elements: creation and destruction (fire), nourishment and growth (earth), deepening and flow (water), inspiration and clarity (air). And we yearned to take that emergence and transformation home with us, back into the world.

Re-entry into that world is always challenging after retreat as it seems less real or even unreal, an alternate reality of frenzied, ungrounded energy, disconnected from our own deeply felt experience while on retreat.

Retreating brings us back to our true selves, and we want to bring that radiant energy and truth back with us. It can feel like a burden as the world does not always welcome truth and radiance, but it’s a gift we must give to the world, knowing that everything we give will return to us perhaps not in that moment, but in time.

Our inclination may be to protect what we experienced, shielding it from the unremitting, relentless darkness of the world. If that helps us to keep the light within us alive, then let us hide it for awhile, but know, to hide it for too long, weakens it; it needs to be given to others, so they may shine too, and in their shining, their energy comes back to us. It is the energy of life, the spiral on its return journey, the law of attraction, flow.

If we have one mission in this life it is to rediscover who we truly are, so we can offer our light and our gifts to the world as we walk on our soul’s path. Retreating from the world for just a little while to deepen that connection to ourselves and to life itself allows us the spaciousness we need to restore that light. And then we, and others we touch with our light, can shine.

Many of us will return again to Atitlan. Our retreat may become an annual celebration of the transformative power of the Lake and our own transformation….

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