34: A Cacao Circle to Reclaim Your Wild Essence & Sensuality Through Heart Opening Presence
Beltane, Cacao & the Wild Feminine: A Sensory Journey into Spring Awakening
As the season of Beltane arrives, it brings with it an invitation—to awaken, to ignite, and to connect. Celebrated halfway between the Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice, Beltane is an ancient Celtic festival that marks fertility, fire, flowers, and fresh beginnings. Rooted in joy and reverence for nature, it's a time when the veil between seen and unseen grows thin, inviting us to engage more fully with the sensual, the sacred, and the earth-bound.
This spirit of reawakening was the heart of our recent Wand(HER)wild Cacao Circle—a ceremony held to honor the essence of Beltane through breathwork, storytelling, movement, and mindful connection. Below, we explore the deeper themes that emerged from this sacred gathering and offer practical ways to embody them in your own life this season.
Reclaiming Presence Through Ritual
The circle opened with grounding breathwork—deep, expansive, and intentional. Participants were guided to soften into their bodies, breathe into the edges of their physical form, and create a sense of internal spaciousness. This act of slowing down is itself radical in modern motherhood and daily life.
Tip: Begin each morning with a 3-breath meditation. Inhale deeply into your spine, exhale with a soft sigh, and allow yourself to arrive fully into the day. These micro-moments of mindfulness ground your nervous system and increase your capacity to be present.
The Heart-Opening Power of Cacao
Held by the warmth of ceremonial cacao, the circle honored this sacred plant medicine and its long lineage of use throughout Central and South America. Traditionally used in rites of passage, ceremonies, and maternal care, cacao is revered for its ability to open the heart and deepen emotional connection.
In the context of motherhood and feminine spirituality, cacao becomes more than a beverage—it becomes a bridge. Its gentle energetic properties offer a soft but potent awakening, expanding our ability to both give and receive love.
Tip: Introduce a personal cacao ritual once a week. Sip it slowly, ideally in the morning or at sunset, as a practice of gratitude and emotional opening. Let it remind you of your inherent worthiness to receive love, not just give it.
Remembering Through Story: Flowers & Memory
As the ceremony wove its way into storytelling, participants shared memories of flowers and plants that had left imprints on their lives. These sensory recollections—from magnolia blossoms to hibiscus tea—reminded us how deeply nature shapes our identities.
This practice of remembering isn’t simply nostalgia; it’s reconnection. Our bodies, our senses, and our inner landscapes are shaped by the natural world and the sacred details of our everyday lives.
Tip: Reflect on your own "flower memory." What plant, tree, or blossom has left an imprint on your spirit? Journal about a time when you felt connected to it. Let this memory inform a personal altar or seasonal practice you create in its honor.
The Wild Feminine & Sensual Reclamation
Beltane, as a festival, celebrates sensuality—not just sexual expression, but full-body, soul-deep sensory aliveness. It’s about the velvet softness of petals, the sun on your skin, the joy of laughter, and the wildness of dancing in the rain.
Participants were invited to close their eyes and remember—or imagine—a moment when they felt fully alive in their senses. What emerged were images of freedom, exploration, and self-connection. There were memories of biking through sunlit fields, spontaneous forest paths, the scent of spring blossoms, and that feeling of warm soil beneath bare feet.
These recollections are portals. They remind us that sensuality is not reserved for the few or for some other chapter in life. It is available now—especially in motherhood, where we often need it most.
Tip: Reclaim your sensuality by scheduling a “sensory date” with yourself. Take a walk without headphones. Bake something slowly. Choose textures, fabrics, or scents that feel indulgent. Remember that the body is a sacred ally, not an afterthought.
From Stillness to Bloom: Embodying Taurus Season
Astrologically, Beltane aligns with Taurus season—a time of earthiness, embodiment, and devotion to beauty. Taurus, an earth sign, teaches us to slow down and savor. To resist the urgency of productivity in favor of presence and pleasure. It beckons us to feast, to adorn, and to rest.
In modern motherhood, we often deny ourselves these luxuries. We delay joy for a future time when things are calmer, easier, more “together.” But Taurus reminds us: joy is now. Beauty is now. You are allowed to enjoy your life, even in the midst of chaos.
Tip: Choose one area of your life to beautify this week—your dining table, your skincare ritual, your journal. Not for anyone else, but as an offering to your own sacred embodiment.
Sensory Meditation: A Guided Practice
One of the most impactful moments of the circle was a guided sensory meditation, in which participants were led into visualization and embodiment of sensory joy. The meditation encouraged mothers to reclaim connection to their skin, their breath, their memories, and their imaginative inner worlds.
With closed eyes and warm cacao in hand, participants imagined sunlight on their cheeks, the scent of irises and violets, the giggle of a beloved child, and the feel of soft grasses brushing against bare legs.
This meditation was a reclamation of the senses. A call to return home to ourselves.
Tip: Practice your own 5-minute sensory meditation. Sit with a warm beverage and simply notice: What do I feel? What do I hear? What do I smell? What texture is beneath me? Let this awareness soften your edges.
Cacao, Connection & Mothering from Wholeness
As the circle drew to a close, participants reflected on the healing they’d experienced—not through fixing or doing, but through remembering and feeling. The blend of cacao, memory, and presence had created a spaciousness where each woman could reconnect with herself and others.
Mothering from this space—of wholeness, of slowness, of embodied presence—creates a ripple effect. When we are nourished, our relationships thrive. When we feel connected, we model connection. When we live with sensuality and wonder, our children learn to do the same.
Tip: As you close out your day, reflect on one sensory moment that felt nourishing. Maybe it was your child’s laugh, the smell of dinner, or a sunset you paused to admire. Let it anchor you in gratitude and connection.
Final Thoughts
Beltane reminds us that nature is always offering us an invitation: to bloom. But blooming does not happen through force or performance. It happens through tending, through receiving, through deep listening.
The Beltane Cacao Circle offered a rare and beautiful space to do just that—to slow down, to savor, and to remember the wild, wise essence that lives within each of us.
Let this season be your permission slip. To drink cacao with reverence. To wear the soft dress. To take the long walk. To listen to the birds. To feel the rain on your skin. To return to the earth, to yourself, and to the untamed joy that lives at your center.
Learn more about our Cacao Circle facilitator, Ana Gioia
Instagram: @wild_and_sacred
Website: wildandsacredbirth.com/
Ana combines Birthwork offerings with her experience as a Kundalini Yoga Teacher and a certification as a Radiant Child Yoga and Meditation teacher. Ana brings her experience as a mother combined with her studies, life experience, and Guatemalan roots to each gathering — offering connection, healing, movement, intention, and perspective. Ana holds a Masters in Eastern Classics and studied Sanskrit at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, NM. She lives in Kingston, New York with her 2 children. Fun Fact: Ana has been a part of the Wanderwild Family Retreats staff since 2023!
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