Finding Your Way Home; The Secrets to True Alignment

The mystery and magic of Ceremonial Cacao - how ancient medicine can heal the modern heart

• Anthea Bell

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Gorgeous listeners, welcome to this week’s episode of Finding Your Way Home

In today’s conversation, recorded just ahead of Christmas, we dive deep into one of my favourite topics - the world of Ceremonial Cacao. Its physiological impact, its indigenous ceremonial use, and its utter potency as a tool for social and spiritual connection. All from the mind and heart of another rare and precious resource - Noa Geva; decades-long Cacao Facilitator and Founder of Cacao Magic, a Costa Rican organisation committed to sharing the benefits of cacao across the globe. 

In Noa’s words, Cacao is for remembrance - of our sanctity, of our intuition and of our role as stewards of an abundant earth. This precious magic cannot be separated from the communities that cultivated it. And as Noa explains, the Talamanca lineage - that of the Bri Bri tribe of native Costa Rica - use Cacao as the primary healer when any form of emotional, physical or societal sickness is identified among them. It is for the healing of the collective - a powerful reminder for those of us in a Western society, so encouraged to forget the communal, in favour of the individual. 

Highlights of this episode include:

  • The physiological and holistic benefits of this ancient fruit
  • Its sacred role and purpose - enhancing heart-connection, emotional attunement, spiritual awakening and a sense of our collective purpose
  • The lineage of the BriBri; Costa Rica’s only extant indigenous tribe, now numbering 15000 across the Talamanca Region 
  • How Cacao Magic came to be born - the tiniest expression of love from an Israeli family who relocated to Costa Rica to build a new life, led from the heart
  • How to use Cacao in your own practice - whether as a civilian, spiritual-explorer or practitioner supporting others
  • The legacy Creation Story of the Bri Bri tribe, and what it has to teach us about living / loving in the modern age

To find out more about Noa, Cacao Magic and their beautiful work:  

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Thank you for listening; it means the world to us as a team, and to our guests. 

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review and share the conversation with friends who might benefit from learning about this ancient medicine. 

You can also follow us on  @ab_embodiment for updates, behind-the-scenes content, and upcoming episodes, or visit our website for further information. 

And to explore working together more deeply

  • Join our free newsletter for insights, events and self-healing resources.
  • Book a Clarity Call to explore working together intimately in 2025
  • Apply for an Early Bird place in the 2025 Advanced Facilitator Training - From Head to Heart.
  • Reach out via email / socials to apply for a unique place on our private Costa Rican retreat: Journey to the Heart. 6 days of sacred ceremony for self-connection & love, set in the most beautiful landscape you will ever encounter. 

Sending care, wherever this finds you.
 
 Anthea x




Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making any changes to your diet or wellness routine.

if someone is disrespecting Mother Earth or disrespecting another human or animal in the tribe, that is a sign. That the cacao ceremony is needed, anyone can call a cacao ceremony, anyone, whatever age, whatever role in the community can say, Hey, there's lack of gratitude. And so everyone comes together and it's a place to air out whatever needs to be aired out. The ceremony creates this fluidity, this open heart, this happiness for energy to weave itself for energy, to get back into rhythm, the Bribri talk a lot about the rhythm. The ceremony. Is not to heal a certain person. They're not even mentioned or what they did that was ungrateful is completely irrelevant. The fact that someone is out of rhythm means we're all out of rhythm. It means we need to come together. We need to unify. We need to purify and heal at the smallest sign of some person going out of alignment, that means sooner or later, we're all headed that way,

Anthea:

welcome to Finding Your Way Home, the secrets to true alignment. I'm your host, Anthea Bell, movement teacher, mind body coach, and lifelong spiritual seeker. This is a podcast about the depth, weight, and profound healing power of connection between mind and body, spirit and soul, and from one human to another. Together with an incredible range of inspiring guests, we'll explore just what connection and alignment mean. How to get there in a world full of the temptation to conform, and how great challenge ultimately can lead to life changing transformation. Get ready for groundbreaking personal stories, conversational deep dives, and a toolkit of strategies to build not just your inner knowing, but your outer world. Let's dive in.

MacBook Air Microphone-3:

Gorgeous gorgeous listeners. Welcome to this week's episode of finding your way home. Oh, I have such a beautiful episode for you this evening. I've been waiting for the perfect opportunity to release this stunning voice into your ear buds. And on a very cold and frosty early January week. It is the time. Those of you that know me well, know that about. Uh, a year and a half ago, I entered into a very surprising love affair with ceremonial Cacao, and it started. On a very auspicious. Early June nights when I entered into the most incredible experience on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and met, the one and only Noa Geva. NoNoas the Co-Founder of Cacao Magic, which is a Heart-led organization seeking to spread the magic of Cacao, not just across Costa Rica, but really throughout the world. They are now stocked in every continent globally. And they have a heritage, a lineage that they are devoted to sharing. Who have used Ceremonial Cacao for as long as we know. Noa is a force of a woman profound, deep, spiritually guided and utterly oriented toward decisions made from love over fear. You can understand why I had doored her immediately. And in this episode, we really dive deep into the history of cacao, the meaning of it in a ceremonial context and the spiritual messages that we can gleam from how it's used in the Talamanca tribes, how it's used in modern Costa Rica. And the nature of the ceremonies that are held now all around the world. It's considered to be a heart opener, and I can assure you from passing experience, that is very much the nature of this. Being. And I wanted to let you know, in light of that, for those that haven't caught this teeny tiny behind the scenes announcement, that such is the depth of my passion for this practice. That I will be taking a private group of beautiful souls. On their own personal journey into Costa Rica this late August. The experience that we're running is called Journey into the Heart. It is the most profound opportunity to come closer to yourself than you have ever come before. In the most incredible natural landscape in six days of private ceremony energetics mind, body practice. And we're creating this really gorgeous container for the experience before. During and afterwards, this will be very much on an application basis. So just drop me a message on socials or send an email to the details in the show notes. And I will make sure that a member of the team gets in touch with you and introduces you to how to be involved. It is going to be stunning. And on that note, I cannot wait to introduce you to Noa in all her beauty, wisdom and glory. Sit back sip into your hot beverage. And relish this time together.

Noa, please introduce yourself all the way from Costa Rica, thank you, Anthea. It's been wonderful knowing you, meeting you, and growing each one on her path. And so I'm Noa Geva, an Israeli born mother, wife, mother of three wonderful children, and the founder of Cacao Magic Costa Rica, which is definitely another child. I'm a teacher, translator, writer, um, and channel. Yeah. Hoping to support people on their journey and teaching them how to expand into their being, expand into the universe, and express more freedom and love on their path. So I'm really happy to be sitting with you here. From the mountains of southern Costa Rica and sharing some of the magic also of this wonderful country that has accepted us with open arms about 12 years ago. Where you find yourself. Is very unique. As far as a girl that's lived in all sorts of different countries. Um, I have never been anywhere quite like your particular part of Costa Rica. And the magic that you speak of is not just in the cacao, but it's in people's way of being. There was a, a generosity and humility and an openness and a steely, sense of values I wonder if those things, other words that you would choose, well, we're very, very lucky to have been led to live in Costa Rica and The way people look each other in the eye, the way they smile, the way they say hello, the way they take the time to listen to each other has not stopped to move me, right? There's something very, very family oriented, in the culture. And Very much a family flow of if someone needs something, there's always an aunt or grandmother that steps up to help and it's The whole concept of extended family, right, of the extended family being the community, the resource, the backbone, the support that people can rely on is very, very much alive here in the villages, right? We live in a very simple village. There's four last names in the village, so they can literally tell you the names of the grandfathers who founded the village. this village, right? And they've taken us in, they've taken us in and we've also come with a lot of respect, a lot of respect knowing that we're not from here, yeah? And that There's a very key concept in Costa Rican culture called permiso, right, which is permission. And before you do anything, and definitely before you enter to somebody's land or somebody's house, you say con permiso. And even if they invited over still crossing the boundary from the balcony into the living room, it's a big deal. It's a really big deal. If they don't know you, they'll stand outside on the balcony and talk to you. And so being invited into somebody's living room is like, okay, now you're family. Right. You're like a niece or nephew. And so there's a lot of permission, respect. Humbleness woven into the culture. And when we first came up here, you know, a woman said, Oh, we need to give, you know, English classes and we need to give music classes and we need to give drama classes. We need to bring our culture. And my reaction was. No, we don't. They've been fine without our culture. And you might be here in passing. We're here to stay for a very long time. And I know everybody's looking at us. Everybody's looking at us and everybody's talking about us. Right? Informing each other. Are we safe? Are we generous? Are we friendly? Yeah. What is this new creature? Right? It's a guy from another country that speaks. A different language coming into this very traditional, a very grounded community said, I am not giving any of my supposed gifts and culture that supposedly they lack unless I'm being asked to do that. I need to tread very carefully, very carefully. Yeah. And so they've been wonderful, genuine, organic situations. Of exchange, right? Exchange of knowledge, exchange of skills, and people really remember, and this is, I feel, in all Costa Rica, really remember giving. If you've given them something, out of just the goodness of your heart, if you've shared something that has grown in your garden, that means a lot. They'll remember it. Yeah, they'll remember it. Generosity is a very, very high currency and is very much in a culture that not so long ago, what they hunted is what they ate, right? And so generosity was. Very key to survival, right? Because if you hunted and you had meat and I hunted and I didn't have meat, you come over and give me some. That means I can rely on you. That means you're also family. That means you're also community and tribe, and my neighbor grew up eating what they hunted. So it's not like ancient, prehistoric. History here, um, modern life has come very, very quickly. And I feel as a family, we've been looking for healthy environment to raise our kids and feeling like, okay, by healthy, it means kind of turning the clock back on, on modern life, right? Like how, where do we find old values that might be? Disappearing in humanity as a whole. Yeah, and so we've created here again organically a group of families that are looking for grounded living for teaching the kids emotional intelligence for teaching ourselves and each other. Emotional intelligence, right? Learning to work with the land, growing food that we still have a lot to learn. And when we first came here, I was told that one of the local, local, um, farmers was laughing behind my back on how I gardened. I grew up in the city he doesn't read or write and so he looks at me as if I'm better than him. Right. And he, and at the same time, he laughs behind my back on my gardening. And so I talked to him and I said, look, laughing behind my back. It's not the smart thing to do. I want you to come over and teach me. You are a master of working with the land. And he laughed and we, and he taught me how to. You know, plant pineapple and make good holes in the ground. And so we are definitely looking up to him. He knows when it's going to rain by seeing how the butterflies and the birds are acting.. And, and he knows where to plant things and when that's very, very valuable knowledge that we're more than happy to have him and others. Teach us and teach the kids. And so, yeah, it's been, it's been a huge blessing and a long search to find people who walk with respect. That respect their word. that respect each other, that have their children as their first priority. Yeah. Um, that see humanity, life in the world in a similar way. It's been a miracle and a godsend to have other families to grow with., Yeah, we're very, very blessed. So, I am so struck, so, so deeply struck by everything that you've just shared, and actually some of it I haven't heard before, which is kind of wonderful, because we've been in connection for over a year now, and every connection moment that we have is so unbelievably rich for me. What I felt like I was hearing, even although I've been in your community and I know exactly what you're speaking of. It was as though because you had extended your arm of generosity to me, then everyone that I met within the village, in the two places that I visited, I had that same feeling that I was welcome. And I know that my intention of being with you was so much to learn and the whole time you've been speaking I've had the BriBri creation story in the back of my mind. So for those that don't know, the BriBri lineage is the lineage that, Noa craft of cacao has come through, um, and if you feel open to it, because I'm hearing the echoes, I wonder if you might describe for the people listening a little bit about the Bribri, a little bit about your time with them, and how they conceive of humanity and cacao. I'd love to. Yeah, it's very important for me to acknowledge the Bribri. The Bribri are the largest tribe that still survives in Costa Rica. There's 11 tribes left. The Bribri is the largest one. They're the only tribe that still speaks their language. It has their traditions. there are still very much people that speak only Bribri, right? That need a translator to communicate in Spanish, um, that haven't left their mountain. They're incredibly special people. And when I talk about my village, The village is Costa Rican, right? The Bribri live in the Talamanca Mountain, and they've been there since, since the beginning of time, and they see themselves as the people who have the mission to be the guardians of the earth, the guardians of the water, the guardians of the air, and I think it would be wonderful if I could share The creation story, because it informs so much of the worldview of the Bribri, yeah? And Spirit had it that we were led to meet the Bribri. And when I first met them, I just wanted them to adopt me. I just wanted, you know, to become an apprentice and to live in the jungle with them. Because They are so grounded, like meeting a Bribri is like meeting Mother Earth in flesh, right? They have generations and generation of people who are part of nature and haven't forgotten that they're part of nature, right? Because we're part of nature too, objectively, and yet our lifestyle. And our thoughts about nature, our relationship to nature hasn't quite mirrored the fact that we're part of nature. And so when I met people with a different, truly different worldview, truly different way of walking on the earth, of relating to the earth, my initial reaction is that I just want to be one of you. Like, can I? You know, let go of my DNA and I let go of my people's, um, karma and my people's tendency to be very brainy, very mental. I just wanted to cut myself off from that was, was my feeling when I first met the Bribri. And I'm very, very grateful that the Bribri didn't adopt me because what they said was, no, you can't study with us. And let's have another meeting so I can explain to you why not and by what seemed to be a rejection right of seem sounded like a no was a beginning of a wonderful journey right of putting me in my place and helping me understand my place. And so I'd like to share with you their creation story, right? Of the order. And I invite the listeners to get comfortable and close your eyes. And if you have cacao, drink cacao and, um, and really. Imagine the reality described by the story, okay, and see what comes up for you. Does it feel natural and right? Is there resistance? Is there a contrast? It's a medicine story. And for the Bribri, it is not a story. They call it a cosmovision. It's the way they see the cosmos. It's the way. The cosmos is. So in the beginning, there was Sibu and Sibu is the energy of creation. Sibu is pure light, shining the light of a hundred suns. And Sibu is neither feminine or masculine, it's just pure creation energy, playful creation energy. And in the beginning, Sibu separated light from darkness, then Sibu separated the oceans from the earth. And then Sibu started getting playful and started creating the plants. Each plant with a different mission and a different shape, some plants for medicine, some plants for food, some plants for art, some plants for construction, and then creativity got more creative and started creating the animals, some four legged, some two legged, some hairy, some smooth, some crawling, some flying, and each one different, unique, each one with their own Mission. Then Sibu created the first people, seeds of corn, and created a conical house made from the plants of the jungle for them to live in. Sibu put and the people's hearts, the knowledge of the plant's missions, and the animal's missions, and how to relate to each one of them. And then Sibu said, I have given you everything, I have nothing more to give you. If you will ask for more, I will shit on you. That is the only thing I haven't done. In closing creation in that way, Sibu observed this lush, abundant, colorful, musical world that he created. And Sibu lives in a hammock. Sibu doesn't work. Yes, Sibu projects, imagines, gives tasks to the plants, the animals, the angels. And observes what happens. Sibu spends most of the time, creation lives in the hammock. And so observing from the hammock, and contemplating Sibu thought, what would happen? What would happen if my people forget? What would happen if they forget that they have all the knowledge in their heart, that they're surrounded by everything they need? I want to give them a gift, I want to give them a gift that will help them remember what can hold the gift. Sibu thought of the plants and the animals and what came up was the cacao family. And the cacao family Our four sisters were four goddesses, two are very tall and beautiful, one is not so tall and not so beautiful, and one is very young, and Sibu felt that to decide which sister will hold the gift of remembrance was such an important mission that Sibu turned off the light and disguised itself to be Sibu. As an ugly old man, and in this body of an old man, went over to the hut of the Cacao sisters. And as the sisters saw this old man approach, they said, No, no, don't let him in. Don't let him in. We don't want no old man here. And the two older sisters took their hammocks and tied them all the way up under the roof. The third sister invited the old man in, gave him a chair, gave him hot cacao, and listened to him. The end. And after a while, Sibu asked her to marry him. She felt in her heart and said, Yes, I am to be of service. And the sisters laughed and cackled. And one of them laughed so hard that she got tangled in her hammock. And the other one laughed so hard she fell. And a big stench filled the hut. And see boom and seal. It's the third sister didn't pay any attention to them and walked out of the hut. And as they cross the threshold of the hut, the disguise fell off and the brilliant shining light of 100 sons or some say 1000 sons filled the jungle. And the sister said, no, it's Sibu, marry me, marry me, I'm more this and I'm more that. Sibu said, no, to serve my people, to hold the gift of remembrance for my people, I need the cacao that is humble, that listens, that is to be of service. And in the Talamanca Mountains, there are four species of cacao. And the only syrup, that we always have around, is the one for ceremony. And the other cacao's can be They're not used for chocolate and they are very tall. You have to climb up to get them, get the one tall one. The other one literally does fall down when she's ready and has a very, very pungent smell. And Sihou is incredibly generous, right? Talking about the value, deep embedded value of generosity. This cacao starts giving fruit from the trunk before she has branches. Eventually she has branches and leaves. Her sole purpose is to give. And so children can pick the cacao because it grows so, so close to the earth. And that, for me, embodies the culture of the Bribri of the original people, right, of these mountains and reminds us something so basic and so simple and yet so foreign and forgotten in so many cultures and so many lineages. And one thing they've really taught me is that each People, each lineage, each race, each culture has its own mission and gift. And so what they did was to send me with the cacao. They said, be clear, which I'm happy to be clear with the listeners that cacao is a tropical American medicine. It is not the ancestral medicine of my ancestors or your ancestors. For that matter of fact. And what we've been asked to do by the Bri Bri is to let people know that it's from tropical America and to ask them, please, to use it to purify their own blood and their own lineage and to come to peace with their own lineage because they are proud people. They know what their lineages they know what their clan is. Yeah, so when you meet them, you know, okay, I am such and such from the constructor clan and they have a long line, just like the plants with a specific mission. And they have pride in that. And it's a healthy pride as there's no arrogance or comparison. Each clan is equal and different sending me, sending us and sending our apprentices and clients on journeys to. Ask themselves, Okay, who is my mother with this cosmic vision? Who is my grandmother with this cosmic vision? If I look at them as animals with a mission, animals with a gift and so setting aside, biological or psychological story. Of who they were and what kind of person or what kind of mother or what kind of traumas they were holding and passing on. This new perspective saying, wait, I'm supposed to be carrying on a gift and the Bribri sent me on a mission with the cacao saying, do whatever you need to do, whatever rituals, whatever ceremonies to truly find what did your ancestors do to connect with spirit, right? Your ancestors didn't drink a cow to connect with spirit. Your ancestors didn't go into sweat lodges. to connect with spirits. And so it's all good and well to use these grounded native rituals as a tool with respect, knowing full well, they're not my blood lineage medicine and to look for that. And, and that's been a fascinating journey full of healing and, and forgiveness. and finding many gems and treasures that make me feel connected to those who came before me. for the listeners, I closed my eyes and I listened to Noa, and I've heard the story many times. And I felt the reverberation of that going through my body. I felt my spine letting go in a way that it hasn't in days. And actually, even as I hear myself speak, I've gone down to my normal vocal pitch. So there is something so healing about the story and also the practice of listening, listening without motive, listening with curiosity, listening to something so deeply rich in history. And when you said, That the instruction from Nibirbi had been to come to peace with your lineage. I was like a, an actual impact for me. And we started our conversation before this, before we hit record, we were talking about your personal pathway in letting go. of a couple stories that have been with you. And I wonder if you'd feel comfortable to speak to what you were just describing, coming to peace with one's own ancestry and the gifts of that and how that also relates to the stories you choose to offer your energy to in your day to day life. I'm very happy to, and I'd be curious. To to see what comes up because I haven't talked about this and so, um, I feel and know that as a being I was born rebellious. Inwardly disrespectful and very blessed to have been born with kind of my own authority. I had a very, very clear, um, inner knowing of what's right. And that was a huge contrast with the birth family that I chose to, to be born to. And I feel the culture. I chose. And so for years, as long as I can remember, outwardly, I was the perfect child and, uh, you know, the, the pleaser and, uh, obedient and inwardly rejecting pretty much everything. Yeah. And, and also promising myself also from a very tiny, tiny age that I will create a different life for myself. That I will live by the definitions that I will create. and on some level I feel, right, it was kind of like putting my truth on hold, cause I was very quiet and again, outwardly, absolutely the perfect child. And so promising myself that my time will come, right? To be independent, to create my own reality, to live by my definition of. Love of family, of community, of truth, integrity. I didn't have those words as a five year old. Um, I had those feelings. I had those feelings. And so, as much as I did that once I left home, searching for different tools, searching for different ways of living. A lot of resentment built up in my cells, in my body for all those years of disagreeing deeply with the reality and the reality. outwardly flowing with it and pleasing it and, and abiding by it, right? For all those years, because I've never expressed, I, I put my expression on hold, and so that resentment had to come out. Right at some point, and it actually came out when it was safe, right where okay mission accomplished on some level I've created what I promised myself, which also reminds me of the of the bravery what they do well, and the symbolism is is impacting me. When they build a house, it is a sacred process. Right. And what they do is they talk with the trees. If they're going to take the bark or going to take branches, and they let the trees know who the house is for when they take the materials, right? And they tell the trees that that person's a good person, right? And they build quietly, each one knowing exactly their role. It's a whole story that we can share another time, the story of the original creation of the conical house. And at the end of the building, they burn in a big bonfire all the leftovers and that bonfire lets the trees know that they've stood good on their promise, mission accomplished. Yeah. And again, I had to learn that wisdom from them by being ignorant because when they finished building, they said, we need to wait for sundown for the inauguration. I said, no, look, you guys are tired. We don't need an inauguration. You can go home. And they looked at me with big eyes going, Oh no, no, no, no. We have to do it. And the inauguration was one of the most beautiful ceremonies. Where each one in the circle said words of gratitude about their process of building. We got to say words of gratitude. And the fire, again they explain, sends The message to the providers of the material, right? The bushes and the trees. We have done what we set out to do. And they say that without that, the spirit of the trees comes to haunt you, right? So unless you signal to yourself and the tree, I've done what I sent out to do. You're going to get sick and haunted, right? And I feel like I've been going through that kind of fire, physically, for the last 10 years. The last 10 years, I've had, um, a lot of heat in my liver that expressed itself in my face. It's been quite the journey to unpack the resentment, to express the resentment, to write it, cry it, pray it, um, breathe it, and give it space, give it the space that it needed. The end. And also physically treat my liver, right? All those years of pent up resentment were held in the liver. And so it's been a very interesting process that has given me many tools and met with many healers and shamans and, and, um, right, and one wonderful, um, Mongolian, uh, channel and, um, I should use the future teller said to me very simply, she said, once you come to peace, with your past, with what was, and especially with what wasn't, especially with what wasn't, um, it will go away. And, and I'm happy to say that I truly feel after really addressing it emotionally, spiritually, and physically, that I do not feel resentment in myself, which is a very big thing for me to feel and, and acknowledge. As you speak, I feel what you're speaking. And I see it. I know your face. And I know the, the imprint. I can feel what comes off you. And there is a, a radiating that I can feel. see and sense now, which is interesting because the past two conversations that we've had, you and I both have been talking about challenge. We've been talking about the context of the world. We've been talking about the collective trauma. And so there's been this really fascinating storytelling on an individual basis and on a collective basis and definitely when you were speaking of resentment and what was not given. My gosh, I think that is so universal for the people listening to notice the amount of stored up energetic life that has been given to something that was not there. or their feeling of something that was not there. Something that's coming through particularly strongly is the way that personal healing creates collective healing. And one of the things that I learned from you first when I was studying cacao was that when there was considered to be sickness in an individual, Then one of the things that was done, of course, was that the group was brought together for, for ceremony and, and to, to use cacao on that, on that basis to heal an individual lack of gratitude was how you described it. So thank you for, for bringing that together in my experience. It's very important to acknowledge that it is challenging to be grateful when we're experiencing pain, right? So, you know, coming out of nowhere and saying, Oh, well, just be grateful is a spiritual bypass, right? And so it's very important to. Observe and acknowledge where the person is, and what cacao helps the body feel is an expansion and the neurotransmitters of serotonin and dopamine, and so it helps change the brain chemistry and also dilate the veins, and so we feel physically more comfortable in our body. And emotionally we feel happier and so it brings us closer to expressing what's going on for us and to be grateful. And the way to pray in the Bribri culture is to start the prayer with thank you. Always, right? Creation said do not ask. So it's not, Oh, you know, I'm so small and I'm asking. No, it's thank you. Right. And it's thank you for this pain or this emotion leaving me or being on the way out. And so it's coming from a place of equality with creation of empowerment. Like I know it's just a question of time. I know it's just a question of. Either receiving the tools or making the steps or both. Yeah. And thank you that what I'm calling in is on its way to me. And also with full faith of, okay, it's just a question of time and making the right steps and going through the right doors, right? Whether they're in in order or out and so gratitude for the bravery is a way of life. Yeah, it's a way of life where when they see each other, right, walking through the village or visiting with each other, they ask each Kenna, which means how are you? And the only answer that I've heard. is bwai bwai, which is good, good, how are you? Good, good. How are you? Good, good. And they ask each other hundreds of times and, and every day. And if someone is not good, good, if someone is disrespecting Mother Earth or disrespecting another human or animal in the tribe, that is a sign. That the cacao ceremony is needed, anyone can call a cacao ceremony, anyone, whatever age, whatever role in the community can say, Hey, there's lack of gratitude. And so everyone comes together and it's a place to air out whatever needs to be aired out. And it's a place to create alliances. It's also a place for different clan members to meet each other. And many couples and marriages result from cacao ceremonies. Yeah, you're with an open heart. And someone seems interesting to you again, whether it's for collaboration or creating a family together, the ceremony creates this fluidity, this open heart, this happiness for energy to weave itself for energy, to get back into rhythm, the Bribri talk a lot about the rhythm. Yeah. They say that a child by the age of 11. Is expected to truly and fully get into the rhythm of the tribe, right? Which means to collaborate and to help and support with whatever's needed in the fluid life of the tribe. Yeah. And the ceremony. Is not to heal a certain person. They're not even mentioned or what they did that was ungrateful is completely irrelevant. The fact that someone is out of rhythm means we're all out of rhythm. It means we need to come together. We need to unify. We need to purify and heal Now they don't have doors or windows. They don't have a police system or judicial system. And so at the smallest sign of some person going out of alignment, that means sooner or later, we're all headed that way, right? So if someone throws plastic on mother earth, that's time for ceremony, right? That means that that person is not living the consciousness of being Mother Earth. Yeah. And you know, we always say that in the mountains, the ceremonies are few and that for some reason, cacao has come out of the jungle in the last, in our case, in the, in the last eight years, but probably in the last like 10, 12 years, it wants to be used by the global community. Right? Because in the mountains, they have their rhythm. They live in their rhythm and they have the tools to make sure kids grow up in the rhythm. But there's this harmony that keeps feeding itself that keeps nourishing itself and they have very clear boundaries of what's in rhythm and what's not. And they want us out here in the world to sit with cacao daily, to sit with families, to sit with our communities, with our neighbors. So that we can remember and, and create lives that are more respectful of ourselves, of our soul, of our mission, of our gift, of our lineage. Right? We've all received torches. Just by the fact that we're alive, we have our ancestors blood, physically, we have the genes of our ancestors, we have the memories of our grandmothers, as far as the Bribri are concerned, the Bribri who talked to me, can't speak for all the Bribri, changing our relationship with ourselves, is with our blood and being aligned with our soul's mission is revolutionary, and it might be the only revolution that's truly real. It's unbelievably impactful, what you're sharing. That idea of rhythm and alignment, I mean, they sit so much at the heart of everything that I'm passionate about. When I use the word embodiment, all I mean you walking in integrity in every sense, you know, I think it's so easy to be defined by your context and to believe that you know what your context is, right? So the mind becomes really creative in how it distills and distorts and, and, um, storytells about where you've come from, where you find yourself to be. And, to act in trance in accordance with what you believe to be. And this idea of being deliberate, being conscious, noticing, The impact of me putting my rubbish in a particular place. I was talking to another guest on the podcast yesterday and she was saying that one of the, the things that had really caused her in to have a deep reflection was she went to a kind of a membership club that she goes to often, and she went into the bathroom, and as she walked in, she saw a towel that had been used had just been left discarded on the floor., it struck her as such a lack of connection between the impact of my usage and what that does on, on your experience. And she went on to tell a series of, of other stories, including one where a child in a park fell over and really hurt themselves and couples walking by and no one stopped. And we see these things all the time. And in my understanding, I've always brought that back to a disconnection from self, a disconnection from whatever sense of divinity fills your heart with joy, and a disconnection from others. But the other thing that's really coming through as I listen to you is how much fear has become like a vapor, and how surreptitious that can be in the way that people see and live. I work with, with apprentices all over the world, and it's always fascinating to me to explore with them their, their lineage and also their lifestyle. And so an apprentice I sat with this week, the exercise, one of the exercises I gave him his homework was. What does it bring up in you to imagine people living without doors and windows?. Does it bring up certain memories? Does it bring up fear? Does it bring up judgment? a certain deep wish to live that way?, people and humanity have learned to distance themselves from each other, to distrust each other, and to also live in delusion of, oh, well, that's not my business, or that's not my responsibility. And creating smaller and smaller circles of who are my people, who am I beholden to, who depends on me, who do I depend on. We become so, so independent. And I take groups to the Bribri tribe and they're blown away, the Bribri are blown away by the people I bring. And we were standing in the kitchen one day and one of the women in the kitchen asked, Wait, where are you from? And where are you from? And, Well, you took a plane alone to come here? And I asked her, you know, have you ever left the territory? And she said, yeah, I went once to the big city. I said, alone? She said, no, with my family. And it dawned on me, I said, how do you say alone? We don't have a word for alone. The closest we managed to discover together was they have counting numbers for things. They have different counting numbers for people. And they have a concept for one person. That's the closest they can get to alone. Okay. They do nothing alone. There's always a minimum of three women in the kitchen, keeping a fire. And so again, feeling where does that touch us? So, so one woman came from Holland. I think she cried for about 12 hours after that realization that there are people do not have a word for a loan, let alone value it and the contrast coming from a culture that values. independence and doing things by yourself, not depending on anyone and, um, really impacted her. Is that serving her in the long run? Is that how she wants to grow old? And, um, I'm happy to say again, I want to keep her privacy. She made huge changes in her life from that realization., If we put independence and like, individual leadership on a pedestal as a value, what is that creating? What is that creating for families, for, for older people, my love, I'm attentive to your time and Yeah. It's been so rich. I wonder if you would lead us with parting word or concept. Hmm. Hmm. We can't live in the rhythm of the Brie Brie or the rhythm of tropical America and what we can do and what we're encouraged to do and what I encourage everyone to do, including myself, is to live more and more by our inner rhythm. Right. First, really taking the time to see ourselves as unique beings with a mission. And gift inherited from our lineage, right? We are together with them. We've been given a torch and we continue walking with that torch. And so acknowledging that and embracing that and observing that and accepting that, yeah. What is your, what is your mission and getting really clear on that. And receiving whatever support you need to get clear on that. And the more you can live from the alignment with your unique and beautiful mission, the more you can be in gratitude. And the more you can create a life you can be grateful for. And the more you community can be grateful for who you are. So thank you, Antje, so much for doing this beautiful work. Um, walking your mission and searching for alignment. It's what we're all doing. That's all what we should do with kindness. Thank you. so much for being with us and dear ones, I leave you with those stunning words about listening into authenticity and noticing the gratitude that that creates. And I will catch you for another episode soon. I send you love wherever you are from the depths of my heart. Gorgeous listeners. Thank you. So. So. much. For your ears. I hope. You enjoy today's. today's. episode. To find. More about our. Featured guests. Have a look in the show. Notes.