Novak Djocovic, Cacao and Hawthorn

As Gerald and I sat in our living room watching Carlos Alcaraz claim his second Wimbledon title last Sunday, I remembered the car journey we took to The Old Rectory in Killyman exactly fifty-two weeks previously.

The sun was shining that day, too, and as we were cruising along the motorway we were listening to the Wimbledon final on the radio. Carlos was twenty years old then and, just like last Sunday, he was playing against Novak Djocovic.

It was a pleasant drive and Gerald and I talked about how we liked the youthful energy of the Spanish player. He was popular with the crowd, a truly likeable guy but we really wanted Djocovic to win.

Novak Djokovic had become a beacon for us in the madness of the preceding years when he had given up on pursuing his 21st major men's singles title at the Australian Open in January 2022. Winning would have put him ahead of Rafael Nadal with whom he was tied at 20 titles alongside Roger Federer.

This tournament was important to him and yet he let it go so that he could stay true to himself.

We admired his commitment to his principles - which happened to be our principles - as much as his commitment to his craft and his sheer ambition and grit. Most importantly we felt less alone at a time when we, too, had given up our freedom of movement for bodily autonomy.

That day, on July 16th 2023, this man's experience and skill were being challenged by youth and ambition and according to the bookies Carlos was favourite to win.

This would be a big match.

I love watching athletes in all kinds of disciplines. We can learn a lot from those who are dedicated to mastering their bodies, minds and spirits and the men and women on the tennis courts in Wimbledon are among the greatest masters of our time.

By the time we parked at The Old Rectory it looked a lot like Novak would hold the trophee within the next hour or so, he had just won the first set 1-6; in my mind this seemed to be a sure thing.

I remember the car being warm from the sun that had been streaming through the front window during our drive and I loved the effects of the warmth on my body. Those few days of sunshine that we are granted here in Northern Ireland are especially beautiful and this day would turn out to be one of them.

The light that day reminded me of car rides during the German summers of my childhood. They were sultry and sticky, the air viscous with heat even with the window down, even outside. There’s a slow, pensive energy in German mid-summer heat that appeals to me and those days contain some of my favourite childhood memories; Weekend drives to the lakes or the outdoor swimming pools in the stifling summer heat anticipating the cold water on my skin.

Heat here is rarely heat as I’ve known it growing up and I find myself wishing for more and hotter sunshine every summer, and then the rain reminds me that the luscious green on this island that I love so much could never be sustained through the kind of summer sun that I am trying to conjure.

I turned off the ignition and we grabbed our yoga mats, blankets and pillows. We didn’t know what to expect from the ‘wellness day’ I had signed us up to.

The event was a fundraiser for a baby loss charity.

I had met the organiser briefly and I knew of the little boy she’d lost. I wanted to support her and thought that Gerald and I would appreciate a day of yoga, chanting, dancing, meditating and meeting new people.

‘Tús Nua’.

I didn’t know then that Tús Nua means New Beginnings and I truly didn’t expect that it would mark the end of an era and a new beginning for me personally.

The promise was that our day would be ‘filled with all things healing, with a sense of community, friendship and love.’ According to our tickets, we would ‘have a chance to take part in many different ceremonies and practices held by a range of practitioners and teachers.’

We followed the signs on the path, through a landscaped garden and into a hall. We were some of the last people to arrive and so we squeezed our yoga mats in behind that of a friend and settled down for the opening ceremony.

This was the first time that I took part in a cacao ceremony, the communal sharing of a drink made from pure raw cacao.

First, we were introduced to cacao as a healing plant.

Cacao is full of antioxidants and minerals and it is considered a health food. Gerald and I have replaced milk chocolate with ever darker chocolate over the years for that very reason.

On a purely physical level cacao is considered to support your cardiovascular health, it supports your circulation. On a spiritual level it is said to open your heart chakra which makes sense given that your blood vessels relax temporarily due to the effect of the antioxidants thus lowering your blood pressure by dilating the micro vessels in your peripheral circulation. There's less resistance to blood flow then and that allows your blood and the oxygen within it to gently swell into every single crevice of your body, all of your organs and muscles (including your heart).

Then the cacao was being served. Each of us walked up to have a ladle full poured into the cups we had been asked to bring along. There was a flow to it as we walked back in a circle to sit with our cup of cacao until everyone had been issued with one. We would all drink it together with the intention of enquiring with ourselves so that perhaps our heart’s desires were going to be revealed to us.

I couldn’t help but smile the entire time.

Partly because I could feel my vessels open as I sipped (another welcome rush of heat through my body), and partly because I was reminded of all the Saturdays during my childhood when my mother made hot chocolate from ‘real’ cacao. I remembered the sticky paste she made in a cup before pouring it into the fresh full fat milk that was heating on the stove.

Then came the sugar, lots of it (sugar and milk were absent in our cups of cacao at Tús Nua).

Saturday cacao came with freshly baked bread that was layered thickly with a smear of unsalted butter. Dunking the bread and butter into the hot cacao used to produce little pearls of fat on top of the liquid chocolate giving it a golden hue and the German rye bread soaked in melted butter and chocolate milk tasted of comfort and home.

It was easy then to identify my heart’s desire: More bread, butter and hot chocolate!

There was no doubt.

This time was different. I sat quietly trying to focus on my heart space to the sound of a beating drum.

What was my heart’s desire now?

Was there anything missing in my life?

Did anything (or anyone) need to get out of my life?

There was a whisper somewhere deep inside but I couldn’t make it out.

Not yet.

I pondered the fact that it was a lot to ask of the cup of bitter watery chocolate I was holding in my hand.

After all it was just cacao, wasn’t it?

But then this felt like it mattered somehow. Was it the intention, the presence of everyone around us, my consenting into the contract of sharing this moment in reverence for this substance?

Was it much different to sharing any other kind of meditation I had ever engaged in?

Different to Yoga?

To breathwork?

Would there be a revelation?

The closing part of the ceremony entailed an overview of what else we could get up to for the rest of the day. I stepped outside, barefoot and forgot about the cacao.

There had been a drizzle of rain while we were inside and the grass under my feet felt lush and cool. The sun was back and it heated the grass and pavements. I walked the perimeter and eventually bumped into Gerald again and we walked side by side for a while.

Somewhere over there some young folks were having a rave in the sun, the yoga had been cancelled.

Gerald went to check out an activity and I sat outside the Lomi Lomi tent and was invited in for a massage.

‘Amazing!’, I said and laid down for my massage, it was bliss.

About an hour later Gerald found me by the tent and we got some food and walked around grounding ourselves and noting the different surfaces under the soles of our feet. The ground was warm now and I could feel the warmth entering the soles of my feet and travelling up through my limbs and into my core. The sun was shining from above.

We were happy!

‘This massage was amazing, Gerald!’ I’d highly recommend getting one.

And so Gerald waited outside the Lomi Lomi tent for his turn as I tagged along with a friend to yet another meditation.

This one was a Shamanic Journey.

Another ceremonial ingestion of plant medicine: hawthorn tea in this instance.

This time I was reminded of all the herbal teas my gran used to give to me. There was always a concoction on the go, always! Hibiscus with fennel one day, peppermint the next and chamomile for a sore belly. Being a modern woman of the 80s, my gran had taken to enjoying her tea with a little pill of aspartame because sugar makes you fat!

Bless her.

If my memory serves me right, she had given up on her nifty little poison dispensers sometime between then and her 90th birthday some thirty years later.

Once we had sipped our hawthorn tea, there was another invitation to self enquiry, this time through a partner exercise.

Lock eyes with a stranger and ask each other the question:

‘What is holding you back?’

The answer came in a flash: ‘My regulator!’

The meditation that followed was to provide us with guidance and help us overcome the obstacle we had just identified.

You can read more about how the solution was revealed to me in my blog post ‘About Time’.

By the time I was finished, the news from Wimbledon was in.

Gerald told me that the young Spaniard had duelled Djokovic to the bitter end. This final would go down in history as the longest Wimbledon final by duration. Carlos Alcaraz beat Novak Djocovic in five sets; 1–6, 7–6(8–6), 6–1, 3–6, 6–4. It took them 4 hours and 42 minutes to thrash it out.

Wow! The disappointment didn’t last long, who wouldn't cheer for a twenty year old with a trophee?

On the car ride home I revealed my plan of handing my midwifery registration back to the Nursing and Midwifery Council to Gerald who, thus far, had been feeling some resistance to the prospect of me giving up the option of working in the health service for good (I had toyed with the idea on and off).

I told him about the meditation and how certain I was that this was the right path for me.

He didn't feel afraid at all for me this time.

He backed me up immediately.

He understood the conflict that I was feeling in continuing to be a representative for medical midwifery and I still love him for strengthening me in my resolve in that moment.

Night had fallen by the time we reached the motorway, the stars were out.

We talked about our day, about the connection we felt during the Kirtan at the end when we shared stories and song with beautiful strangers and beloved friends.

We talked about Novak Djocovic and Carlos Alcaraz.

We talked about birth and death and everything in between.

We talked about the future.

I wonder what it was that day that led to me finally hearing my inner voice and letting go of the registration. Was it the conversation we had about Novak Djocovic's conviction to give up a thing he loved in order to stay true to himself or was it the constant connection that day to my subconscious mind through meditation? Was it the cacao or the hawthorn? Or was it the bare feet on the earth and the sun on my crown? Was it the combination of it all that finally revealed that it was time to let go? Although I had been thinking about giving up my registration before, the final resolve that rolled over me that day came as a complete surprise and I am glad I got to experience this complete knowing that I was doing the right thing.

I will always remember Tas Núa' as one of the most pivotal experiences I have ever had.

364 days later, last Sunday, I thought about everything that had happened since that day. So much has changed not least the dynamics on Centre Court (this year Carlos Alcaraz only needed three sets to defeat his opponent).

Change is inevitable and it is constant; In tennis, in football (next time, England!), in business and in one's personal life.

Change is good and most New Beginnings are signified by an end.

'...beginnings and ends are hinged together and folded back against each other, like shutters, like angels' wings...' (Jeannette Winterson, from The Lion, The Unicorn and Me).

There's a new change coming to Essentially Birth:

The Greenhouse Wellbeing Hub is closing its doors for good by the end of September which means that I will loose it as a home for my clinic on Mondays in Dungannon.

I have been thinking back and forth about whether to find another venue in county Tyrone to continue to offer my services to the people there and I have decided that I won’t.

For now I will focus on my clinics at The Little Yoga House in Belfast and on my Born Through Yoga venture with its owner ,Tara.

Born Through Yoga is a group birth prep course that includes movement for birth. We’ve had one round already and doors are open for our September intake. There’s a link at the top of this page and I’d love to see you there with your birth partner!

There’s also another offering in the pipeline for women who want to witness their friends or family in holistic pregnancy and birth. The details of this 8-week course, which is going to run in Spring ‘25 and is a collaboration between Faye from Birthfreedomproject and me, will be announced very soon.

To join the waitlist send me an email to [email protected]