01    IN THE NORTH

02   LET YOURSELF BE GUIDED

03   SPIRIT KNOWS

04   THE DREAM OF THE EARTH

05   JOURNEY TO GRANDMOTHER EARTH

06   SHINING LIGHT IN THE DARK

07   GRANDMOTHER FLORDEMAYO

08   DREAMING WITH JON CHING

09   CACAO SELFCARE RITUAl

10    Reverence

11     SEVEN DAYS OF REST

12    ThANK YOU MEDICINE WHEEL

13    COMING FULL CIRCLE

Text by SERAP KARA  · Picture by GRIT SIWONIA

Let yourself be guided to the soul of plants, their ancient roots, and universal messages allowing you to see the world as one shared global system.

Understand that within traditions you'll find an essence reminding you that you are deeply interconnected with the living world around you. 

Let yourself be guided by the Cacao Elder Spirits onto a path of remembering. Remember the natural cosmology and feel the power of ritual and ceremony.

Follow the Cacao Elder Spirits to experience rest, nourishment, and inspiration in the innernet of your soul. 

Visualisation and imagination is an essential element of my spiritual practice allowing me to travel the innernet of my being. Hardly do I know, where Spirit will lead me, yet when I'm relaxed, I receive the guidance with ease. I imagine a picture or place and allow a part of me to travel there, while I am here, rooted and grounded. Often do I travel when I write.

Without knowing, the energy takes over and it is me who is guided, by a force, breathing through me, guiding me through dimensions, along the roots, to the elders, the earth mother, along the world tree up into cosmic spheres where transcendent light of many colours reins. I have to remind myself to receive also while I’m being guided. I anchor into the body. 

Descend a spiral staircase that leads deeper and deeper into the earth. Step by step, you follow the path down.

You enter a dark cave and feel your way along the walls until you reach the room of the earth mother, where it is warm and red from the glow of the fire.

In the middle of the room, you see an ancient woman stirring in a cauldron that stands on the fire.

She is the great-grandmother of time. She stands there and stirs the porridge or soup of life.

You look at her and feel her elderly energy, her kindness, and wisdom. You sense her eternity and permanence.

You feel you know her. You realise that everything is present in her all the time. In this magnificent woman are all women, all forms, diversities, and ages.

You understand that women have always been there and will always be there; a woman becomes a woman again, similar yet completely different.

In her, everything is created, everything is present, the child, the young woman, the fertile woman, the mother, the old one who is free of fertility and motherliness.

You stay with the earth mother as long as you like. When you go back, you take the confidence which you have experienced into your everyday life.

All places on this land have an energetic quality to them.  The spirit of place. As soon as I moved here I felt it, in this particular house, a feeling I may never leave.

Internal limitations I already held within allowed the external energy to attach itself. This presence added to a sense of hiding. Fear of being seen, invisible. It wasn’t me. I sensed it. But could I trust the sense? 

It took seven years and an encounter with a witch - she who sees and knows - for me to trust and release this energy. She owned the powers she sensed and saw with her whole being. She was willing to show those places of herself that sees and knows the other mysterious unseen but felt world and guide that soul home.

I have feared the witch as I have a deep rooted fear of this part of myself. It has been a luminous journey to trust in this sense of intuition and authority that burns strong within.

This fear of myself reflected in my absence in the world and inability to bring my visions into reality. I needed alignment. I needed to set that soul free so I could set myself free and align with what I am called to. 

Meeting her allowed me to trust more deeply my inner compass, intuition and sensual perception of spaces. This trust in who I am and holding true to my essence needs presence.

"This cleansing with sacred herbs is also called limpia. These herbs have been used for eons in doing a cleansing. It is removing, cleansing your body, removing any energy that does not belong there, whether it's the stress of the day, whether it is discomfort of pain, whether it is the thought of anger, the feeling of anger, whether it is the uneasiness of being upset, whether it is the uneasiness of jealousy, whether it is the uneasiness of wanting to control things, whether it is the uneasiness of not knowing your own boundaries, whether it is the uneasiness of having problems with relationships and trust. 

We cleanse ourselves to heal ourselves from these things because we as curanderas and curanderos cannot help another human if we have not worked on ourselves and allow ourselves to release from these things that might be within us that do not allow us to do the best work that we can. We need to allow ourselves to clear ourselves of all of these abnormal feelings so that we can be a clear vehicle of the light so that we could be clear when we do a healing and we're not affected by our own things."  – Grandmother Flordemayo

After the Christmas season’s indulgence, January is a wonderful time for me to bring back my attention to my body - through nourishing, detoxifying food, gentle movement, as well as loving self-care rituals.

One of these rituals is the ritual of self-massage. In Ayurveda, this practice is called Abhyanga. The act of anointing ourselves from head to toe with warm oil. Especially during the cold, dark times of the year, this ritual gifts me with comfort and well-being.

For the self-massage, I enjoy mixing a nourishing body oil. In the winter months, I use a warming sesame oil as a base, while in the warmer summer months I like to switch to more cooling oils like coconut or others.

I intuitively pick one or more essential oils to mix in, depending on which scent and energetic qualities I feel called to at the moment, such as relaxing lavender, grounding cedarwood, uplifting wild orange, or a herbal oil like rosemary.

I set up a comforting space for my ritual, with candles, blankets, cushions. I put on some soothing music. I warm the oil up by placing the bottle in hot water for a couple of minutes. Then I prepare my Cacao - a simple recipe with Cacao paste, water, and a tiny hint of Cinnamon. When everything is set, I leave the outside world behind and focus solely on myself for a good amount of time.

How I found reverence for myself by working with sacred plant medicine. - My journey with sacred plants started in the Summer of 2019. My friend Dominic arrived back from Guatemala and wanted to share what he learned from Ceremonial Cacao with me. I watched closely as he crafted the most beautiful ritual with Cacao in my kitchen before we moved outside to be in ceremony under the darkness of the New Moon. It was spectacular. As he stood up, arms in the air, invoking energies, worlds, spirits, directions, and more, I felt a portal open and a rush of energy move through me. That night, I drank Cacao for the first time. We sat around the fire, talking, singing, drumming, and we shared deeply and intimately. There was a sense of magic in the air and after that, I felt myself reawaken.

Fast forward to now, I have learned so much from my time sitting in ceremony with sacred plant medicines, friends, mentors, and spirit guides. One month ago I started a social dieta with the Master Plant Bobinsana. Kara, the beautiful Medicine Woman holding space for me, explained how to clean myself through a bland diet and the importance of doing so to open my connection to the plant. I restricted my diet accordingly and started the process. One week in, and the information landed like a blossoming lotus in my awareness: I had a deep realisation that to truly connect with the plant spirit of Bobinsana (or any sacred plant medicine) I was to cleanse the vessel of my body and my mind. It made absolute sense and so I committed fully to the process, in reverence of the plant. 

• Look to the north. imagine the deepest darkness, but also the glittering snow and the element of earth. Then, turn around so that you can feel the power of the north in your back. Take your time to feel this.

• Continue clockwise and stop in the northeast. Look in this direction and feel the wide view of the landscape in the first dawn. Turn around and feel the power of the northeast at your back. Give yourself time to feel this direction.

• Now, step into the east, into the direction of air, sunset, and spring. Turn around and feel the power of the east nurturing your back. Receive the medicine of the east.

• Turn further to the southeast. Connect with the sensual power of the swelling nature. Turn around and feel this power energising your back. Take your time to feel this.

Within the light of Imbolc we opened Cacao Mama's apothecary and invited you to be In Ceremony with us. Together with our plant family, we composed 12 editions with more than 120 free articles, rituals, meditations, and inspirations for you to feel held and inspired. 

To me, 'In Ceremony with Cacao Mama' has been a spiritual practice; I showed up and tuned into the currents of our time to weave the global teachings of my beloved Cacao teacher with the wisdom of the German land I was born in. I feel peace, complete and content with the medicine of the European people that will, from now on, guide me on my journey through life.

Being 'In Ceremony' is inspired by the teachings of the Andean medicine man Puma with whom I study. Through him, I was allowed to see from a higher, the Andean condor perspective. He opens every session with the words: "Today is the best day to be in Ceremony", pointing to the magic dance of life to be witnessed by you and me.

In the light of Imbolc, I seed new visions. I dream of a centre for the International Cacao School in Southern Europe where we can meet in person in 2022. And I intend to weave a living bridge to Colombia to awaken the Cacao Gardener within the collective matrix. Come and join us on a journey into the spirited Cacao forest. You are invited to being In Ceremony with us, always.

Thank you for witnessing. With ♥︎ Serap

Meet the Cacao Gardener with whom we intend to plant a spirited Cacao forest ecosystem in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, the place the indigenous wisdom keepers, the Kogi Mamos, call the 'Heart of the Earth'.