Laura Roberts
Sacred is about making space everyday for what brings us joy. It’s cultivating a living connection with Mother Nature and using our gifts to celebrate her, to protect the wild places that remain on both our planet and within our psyche.
After two years of sipping cacao, from a little van beside the sea to my garden in the Brisbane suburbs, I’m asked to share the story of how Sacred has inspired and influenced my life.
Where to begin? Well, I’m Laura. You may not know me by name, but if you’ve been reading Sacred’s posts over the last year you’ll understand some of what my soul has to share. I am a spirit scribe and wanderer of the wilds. My story is about how I came to believe in magic.
My childhood was filled with imagination. I grew up in the English countryside among the bluebells, foxgloves and daffodils. I was the kind of child who could read a book in a day and fell in love with a world that inspired wonder. Like every child, I knew how to make magic from the seemingly mundane. Unfortunately, as the story goes for so many of us, it was a gift that did not receive the nurturing needed to survive the harsh realities of a troubled town.
It was the kind of place we were all desperate to escape. I felt a huge disconnect in my teenage years, experiencing feelings of depression and isolation. I had friends but we all bore the silent weight of family friction and dysfunctional dynamics. Truths were buried and I survived by existing in a future a million miles away. I knew there was more and searched for it in places that only elicited a deep sense of shame; my teenage years were a cacophony of religion and rebellion.
Thankfully those dark emotions could never distract me from my books. I went to a great university and spent three years asking questions philosophers still haven’t found the answers for.
Is there a god?
How did creation begin?
What is the meaning of it all?
Eventually I conceded that what I was seeking could not be found in books. I bid my beloved library farewell and booked a one way plane ticket across the world.
The next chapter of my story takes place on an island called Koh Ta Kiev. I got baked on a brownie for the very first time and lay under a palm tree all afternoon, taking in the tropical island paradise that was a world away from all I’d ever known. I had done it. I’d escaped. Those months were filled with starry nights, untouched beauty and my first experience with party drugs. It was another cacophony, this time of transcendental highs and spirit-crushing comedowns. Still, I was alive. Since it was life I was looking for, I saw no reason to slow down.
After a decade of nomadism, the pandemic closed the world’s borders. By then I was a yoga teacher, living in a van on a beautiful beach in Australia, living a life that looked idyllic from the outside. But the truth was, my heart felt bound. I was anxious, afraid and addicted to a notion of freedom that meant I could never let love get close. The only place I ever felt free to be myself was on the road, where I could wonder and write, whilst the momentum of travel kept my instincts intact. Not to mention, travel is a wonderful form of escapism. I could forget my past, regrets and shortcomings by drinking in unfamiliar scents, sounds and sensations. I got good at falling in love because I could just as easily fall out.
But I always craved something deeper. I felt a yearning to belong and I longed for love that wouldn’t disappear once the glow faded. Deep down I knew I needed to reconcile my past so I could stand to be present, to find solid ground and feel safe in my body. I’d spent my life severed from my connection to the earth, to my passion, purpose and power as a creator. I didn’t even know I had a body, until I was brought back to it by love.
My journey is described in poetic detail in my book Sown at the Seams with Wildflowers. Though my path took me to dark places I can’t regret a single moment of it. I had to face the truth eventually or I may never have stopped chasing what I now know was my own tail. Eventually I ran into myself and saw that my deepest longing, far beyond my desire for travel, books or existential answers, was love. I was so afraid of it, because I had never felt it for myself.
The truth is, love is simple. It’s honest, sweet and kind. I would never have been satisfied with that before. I was always chasing more. In some ways I expected love to complete me, which meant I didn’t know I was whole. Feeling fragmented is why so many of us suffer and I really want to help people see that it doesn’t have to be that way. Cacao has helped heal this for me, because I know I belong now. I’ve sat with the earth and felt her pulsing with love for me; I’ve heard her speak and I know what it means to have a heart so full, it flows out to others in a rushing river of love that knows no bounds.
I found Sacred in my local organic store. Love caught my eye straight away and later that day I sat in ceremony under the moonlight. That’s when I experienced the heart-warming magic of cacao. Plants inspire me to write so I let my words flow intuitively and posted on Instagram about Sacred. The next thing I knew I had a message from Dan asking if he could share my story. I was so excited that my words had been seen!
I am a writer and always have been, though it took me a long time to believe it. My whole life I’ve contemplated creation, wondering what mysteries the stars contain and how I might master the art of listening to them. When I recognise someone who can, my instinct is to celebrate that, using my love for words to tell stories I believe the world needs to hear. I interviewed Dan for a podcast I was hosting at the time and wrote a feature article about Sacred’s ethos, vision and extraordinary gift for stirring people’s hearts.
When I moved to Brisbane at the start of the year I bumped into Dan (who was only in town for one day!) the very same day a writer’s role became available. I told you, magic is real. I became Sacred’s Scribe, something I’m truly grateful for every single day. With Sacred, I get to be myself, express my truth and celebrate the light burning brightly in each and every beautiful soul.
So what is it about words and why do I stretch myself - physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually - in search of them? They are like stars to me. Glittering edges of something I can’t quite comprehend, something so vast and beautiful I fall silent in my awe of them.
Yet, I have to try and express my wonder. It’s as natural as breathing, and as necessary. I used to believe success would mean selling a million books or doing a TED talk (there’s time yet!) but I know so much better now. Sacred is about making space everyday for what brings us joy. It’s in cultivating a living connection with Mother Nature and using our gifts to celebrate her, to protect the wild places that remain on both our planet and within our psyche.
In some ways I feel I’m only at the beginning. But I know the places I’ve been have prepared me for what’s to come, and I’m so in love with life as it is that I will never again neglect the tending of my own heart. The glimpse of light I saw in that dark hour steadily grew to shine so bright, I no longer ricochet as painfully between night and day. I don’t relegate my shadows to abandoned corners and I’ve let go of my shame. I can’t imagine why I felt so unlovable, what darkness I felt I contained that couldn’t be made beautiful with a little loving awareness.
That’s where I’m at now. That’s the message I want to share.
You are so worthy of love, it’s not even a question.
If you feel any sense of inadequacy, because of where you came from or choices you’ve made, I’m here to tell you that’s where your power is. It’s all in the stories we tell ourselves and every time we choose to grow, there is always enchantment to be woven from the heartache. There is nothing so extraordinary as choosing the life we are destined for. The one we dreamed of as children, the hopes we nurture in our hearts as we grow and try to make sense of the world. All I’ve ever wanted is to be in love and write, and now I get to do it every day. In all my searching I’ve found, time and time again, that love is not what we expect. We have to let it surprise us. We have to allow it to take shapes we’ve never even imagined.
If we could design our lives according to what we think we desire, we’d make a total mess of it. Our brains are complicated, beautiful things. Malleable and adaptable, which makes us both incredibly resilient and remarkably delicate. The answer is trust. Be a co-creator. Show up and do your best, and let life itself be your soulmate. Life can be your mother, lover, dance partner and collaborative creator. It sleeps beside you every night and stirs you awake each morning, with a caress of sunlight on your face. Life is what we crave. And it’s always here, waiting for us to open our eyes to what’s right in front of us the whole time.
And so, it’s time for me to answer the question I’ve been asking everyone.
What is sacred?
Sacred is the feeling I get when the world is quiet and I’m still enough to hear a leaf on the wind. It’s the rolling wave of a conscious breath, drawing life into my body and offering the space I contain as a temple. It’s inviting love to make itself known through my thoughts, words and actions.
I know life is sacred. I see it in the eyes of animals, in the unfurling of flowers and colours of a changing sky. There is a truth that permeates everything we experience with our senses and it’s that life is beautiful.
It is beauty I pay homage to every time I rise up, to become stronger, more resilient, more than I ever thought I could be. I no longer restrain my love and live to refine the expression of wonder I feel each day. In doing so I hope to stir the wild knowing in our hearts that we belong to this.
Our relationship to the world is sacred.
True love is our nature and balance - delicate, precious balance - is sacred.
I return, with every sip of cacao, to my heart and to presence. That’s where magic lives and we carry it with us by knowing it’s our birthright to create the life of our dreams and to live on a planet that is healthy, harmonious and whole.
Connect with Laura
Instagram | www.instagram.com/artful_listening
Website | www.artful-listening.com
Poetry | Sown at the Seams with Wildflowers
Connect with Love
Rose Cacao | Shop