Taste, touch, feel, and celebrate the elements for our one year anniversary of Earth Awakening on Earth Day!
Join us for a powerful journey through movement, breath, and cacao. Dance upon the earth, drink in heart-expanding cacao, feel the fire in your heart, and strengthen your connection with your heart and the earth. April 22nd 3-6pm,
Location will be outdoors in Madison, Wisconsin and will be sent the morning of the event.
Event schedule:
Opening Circle
Cacao Ceremony (Bring Your Own Cup)
Yoga
Ecstatic dance
Closing circle
Please bring your own yoga mat, coffee/tea mug for cacao, and water.
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What to Expect:
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Yoga:
The yoga class will be a 30 minute all levels class. I encourage students to bring props if needed (blocks, blankets, bolsters). We will be moving through gentle stretching before we indulge in the lovely cacao and loosening the body for ecstatic dance movement.
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Cacao Ceremony:
Ceremonial cacao or ceremonial-grade cacao is a 100% pure cacao-bean paste that contains a much higher quantity of beneficial, health-restoring, and mood-elevating compounds than any other cacao-based product on the market (like cacao powder, non-ceremonial cacao paste, dark chocolate, etc).
Madleen will be providing cacao grown in the Guatuso Indigenous Reserve of Costa Rica . Madleen had the privilege of walking and connecting with the lands and members of the Maleku Cacao Association. The Maleku are an indigenous tribe of Costa Rica located in the Guatuso Indigenous Reserve near the town of Guatuso. They are one of the two only tribes in the country of Costa Rica that harvest ceremonial grade cacao and only speak the Nahuatl language. What makes their cacao so special is the nourishment provided by the Ceiba tree, one of the three trees the Mayans believed was a portal to the higher spiritual realms.
Cacao ceremonies are helpful for getting clarity, setting intentions, and doing healing work & inner-processing. Being in a sacred space helps you get out of your normal frame of mind, allowing you to experience new insights & perspectives. Depending on the intention of the ceremony they can also be wonderful places to connect with people in a safe, open-hearted environment. Sharing cacao brings us into the same energetic frequency. This often results in deeper more intimate connection with ourselves and each other.
Medicine for our hearts and an ecologically balanced future.
Cacao is not recommended if you are pregnant, have high blood pressure, are on any medication. Please refrain from drinking any caffeine or eating food at least 2 hours before cacao ceremony.
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Ecstatic dance:
Abby will be providing us with ecstatic dance mix. Ecstatic dance is a form of dance in which the dancers, sometimes without the need to follow specific steps, abandon themselves to the rhythm and move freely as the music takes them, leading to trance and a feeling of ecstasy. The effects of ecstatic dance begin with ecstasy itself, which may be experienced in differing degrees. Dancers are described as feeling connected to others, and to their own emotions. The dance serves as a form of meditation, helping people to cope with stress and to attain serenity. Ecstatic dance has been practiced throughout human history, including in classical times by the maenads, followers of the wine-god Dionysus. In the ancient and widespread practice of shamanism, ecstatic dance and rhythmic drumming are used to alter consciousness in spiritual practices. Ecstatic sacred dances are known also from religious traditions around the world.
Ecstatic Dance
1. We encourage dancing barefoot to connect with mother earth.
2. We Dance without words, we use our bodies to express whatever that is living in us.
This makes it easier to be in a Meditative State
3. We Dance as We Are
4. No Substances (Drugs/Alcohol)
No Phones
No Expectations
No Judgements
No Shoulds, No Oughts…
Just Be Yourself; With Respect for Ourselves, the Space, and One Another.