I first encountered ceremonial cacao a year ago. I was at Puravida, Osho Leela’s conscious clubbing event that coincides with the Pagan festivals. This one celebrated Beltane and included an up-all-night party on the Saturday, supported and assisted by a cacao ceremony.
I was, it must be said, a bit skeptical. I’ve eaten a lot of chocolate in my life and I’ve never found it ecstatic, aphrodisiac or heart-opening in its effects. It makes me happy and tastes great, and in the quantities I used to eat it, it made me fat. But it didn’t make me high, raise my vibration or turn me on – some of the wild claims made by the people who were leading the ceremony.
So you can imagine my surprise when I found myself ‘buzzing my tits off’ after two cups of cacao. It reminded me of my raving days: I felt open, warm, energised, sensual, overflowing with love for everything and everyone. At the same time it had a softer quality than MDMA, less rushy and speedy, and almost no comedown the day after.
At the time it seemed like an exciting and unexpected one-off, a new experience to add to the extensive catalogue of cool stuff I’ve tried and enjoyed. I didn’t realise it then, but I’d finally found the thing I was looking for: a healthy replacement for my old favourite ‘medicine’.
A few weeks later my friend Mary Amethyst offered to bring cacao for us to share before The Night of the Senses. I’d enjoyed it at Leela so I said yes, and 12 of us drank together before heading out to one of London’s most enduring and entertaining play parties. Apart from my one HSP freaking out, everyone found the cacao a brilliant enhancer to the sex party: it made us less inhibited, more open to possibilities and more sensually-inclined.
Over the months that followed, Mary connected with Keith (the chocolate shaman) and did a series of ceremonies with him and his crew. She learnt that the cacao he sources is an ancient-strain, unhybridised original cacao, the same stuff shamans have been using as a heart-opening medicine for thousands of years. Keith had been guided by the spirit of this magical plant to breathe new life into a dying tradition and to bring ceremonial cacao to the West. It is, apparently, just what we need at this time of turbulance, to bring us into balance and alignment with the spiritual.
So began Mary’s love affair with cacao: and as we are good friends, I was often invited to join her in drinking cacao before parties and at friendly gatherings. Slowly I began to fall in love with her too (the cacao, that is) – though in September my soul-coach Avanti said that I still hadn’t fully grasped the depth and power of the medicine and its effects on my system.
And she was right! In January I was lucky enough to drink in ceremony with Angela, one of Keith’s associates, and there I understood cacao’s deeper potential for healing and transformation. As well as the usual effects – feeling delicious, being deeply embodied, enjoying touch even more than usual – I also felt myself connecting with a higher frequency and remembering how much easier and more straightforward life is than I usually make it. I’d found ‘the easy bus’ at last!
Since then I’ve been passionate about working with this medicine and helping others to connect with the magic of ceremonial cacao. I still use it as an alternative party drug, particularly at places like Rumpus where everyone else is enjoying less legal highs; and I’ve been exploring it as an aphrodisiac with lovers, taking us deeper into intimacy, opening our hearts to each other more fully and having better sex when the cacao is flowing through us.
Whatever my ostensible reason for taking cacao (to party, to make love or to meditate), the cacao spirit has her own powerful agenda for me. It’s like I choose to work with cacao in certain ways, but she chooses to work with me (or work me) in her own ways. I love this because I’ve never been ‘in a complicated relationship’ with a plant before. And I’ve no doubt that this is one that will carry on for some time.
Lady Cacao helps me experience more ease. She shows me that the path of least resistance is often the way to go, and helps me trust my instinct and my intuition as to when to release struggle and flow downstream. She reveals where there is heaviness inside me that needs attention and then guides me as to how to take care of those parts of myself. She shows me how easy and everyday ecstasy is and how readily I can touch this place inside myself. She is a friend, a guide and a lover – the kind who is always ‘just there’ when I need her. And she is compelling but not addictive: the longer I work with her, the less I need to drink to have the same effect.
In April Mary & I did our first experiment combining cacao, sensual touch and kink. This felt like a totally natural synergy: Mary is a queen of sensual touch and I’m a king of conscious kink – and of course we both love cacao! So we gathered an experienced group and did a ‘scratch’ … and it was wonderful! As we’d expected, the cacao opened people up more, made everything flow better and upped the sexual energy levels in an already-juicy group. And judging from the feedback, they all felt it too:
“It was softly intense; the cacoa was my lover and my ally.”
“It was a sensual day of gently increased openness. Boundaries could be explored with greater ease and conscious decisions could be made with integrity. The cacao made me feel fluffier inside. More cuddly. I didn’t feel the slightest bit awkward with saying ‘No’ during the play party and they were well received too.” Rob
“It was delicious, chocolate, velvety, loving, space to be and connect with others who are conscious and free. The cacao gave me a heart opening, safe and nourished feeling that was even deeper (and /or easier to access) than usual.”
“It was a delightful opportunity to feel my open heart expanded and connected with others in a delicious, sacred transcendence.”
“It was a wonderful experience of deep connectivity and joy.” Jo
“The cacao opened a loving space with the group and the individuals I was working with very quickly which was lovely.”
“The cacao added something lovely, delicious, heart opening and expanding.”
Now that we’ve experimented with and had feedback from this experienced group, we are delighted to offer this work-and-play-shop to a wider audience for the first time in June. The Touch of Cacao is a day that brings together the things Mary & I know and love: sensual touch, conscious kink, love … and of course, sacred chocolate. We’re really excited to invite you to experience this rich combination of things we love in a safe, held space – and then to have time at the end of the day to explore and play more freely.
So join us, if you feel called, and feel The Touch of Cacao for yourself.
Next Sunday (18th May), Faerie leads The Darkest Chocolate, a demonstration of erotic BDSM with ceremonial cacao, in Prague. And on Saturday 7th June, Faerie & Mary lead The Touch of Cacao in London. Find out more >>
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