Bohemia Village Voice

Visit From the Cocoa Spirit

It was an icy evening when he came to my home with a small circular white container pulled from his backpack.
“Open it,” he said as he warmed his cold hands above a candle flame. Inside was a smooth, hard, deep brown substance. I was unsure of what it was until one deep inhale through my nose told me that this was –
“Chocolate!”
“Yes, it’s chocolate,” he replied, “but not like the chocolate you buy in shops here, this is the good stuff. It’s pure, made from only the cocoa bean. My sister has a chocolate farm in Costa Rica; she makes it.” I stood, listening, enjoying the rich aroma.
“It’s said that pure chocolate like this is a healing medicine for the heart. The spirit of the cocoa plant goes into your heart and helps you to heal and to open up to more love. The best way is to make it into hot chocolate. Two cups at least will make the medicine work well. Would you like to try it?”
“Of course,” I answered eagerly.
We heated water in a pot and sliced and ground the solid chocolate, and then added it to the water. The chocolate melted and transformed the clear liquid into a creamy drink with irresistible swirls of rising steam. We poured two cups and drank. As we finished the first cups, we poured another and drank until it was all gone.
It was an hour later when I felt an incredible rush of energy in the centre of my chest, as if my heart had been asleep and it had just woken up. My consciousness had travelled to somewhere else.
In an empty space I saw a door. I opened the door and found that beyond it was a dark room. I hesitated to go into the darkness.
“This is the door to your heart. Do you fear to enter?” a gentle voice spoke. Entering the dark room, I found that it was full of thick dust and cobwebs. A broom appeared in my hands and with it I swept the dust and cobwebs away. With a chain light-switch hanging above my head, I turned on the light.
Standing in a round igloo-shaped room with mirrors on all sides, I saw myself reflected, looking back at me.
“When you love others, you love yourself,” the gentle voice said.
“When you send love out from the centre of your heart, your love will be reflected and sent back to you 1,000-fold from all directions.” I understood.
The energy in my chest transitioned into an overwhelming feeling of both intense love and also deep pain, pouring from my heart and through my flowing tears. An image of a spark of light flying through space came to my vision.
I recognized that spark of light to be me. Other small sparks of light, glowing in different colours, came and flew alongside my spark for a while, and then left again. Over and over, I was joined by many others who would come and then go. The gentle voice returned.
“As you are travelling on your journey you will be joined by others who have come on a mission to help you. They come, and only when you have learnt what they have come to teach, will they leave again. Sometimes the most important lessons to learn are the ones which hurt the most. These other sparks love you so much that they are willing to do anything to help you to grow on your journey.”
I understood.