I’m writing this from the plane, somewhere between Western Australia and home, with that particular kind of exhaustion that comes after being held by people you love.
I’ve just finished choir camp with Mamakin Spender, Virginia Bott, Stacia Gonnion and then spent several days visiting stores through Fremantle and Margaret River with my sister Audrey Moala introducing people to Living Koko and our cacao. Some of those stores have already placed orders, and I’ll share them below because each conversation felt like part of a much bigger journey.
But sitting here on the plane, I keep thinking about community.
About what happens when people gather to sing, move, laugh, cry and simply be together. And about how much of that experience we carry back into our lives. The memories
There is something ancient about gathering in this way. Long before wellness retreats and festivals existed, people gathered to sing, dance, share food, tell stories, grieve, celebrate and make meaning together. These aren’t new ideas. They are old ways of being human, and I think there is a reason they continue to call us back.
Every choir camp gives me so many of those moments. Deepened friendships, enormous hugs, tears, laughter and the kind of tiredness that comes from giving yourself fully to something. There was even a Monday night of New Girl on Dani’s couch with my exhausted and very happy choir sisters. Nothing particularly profound was happening, but somehow it was everything. It was the comfort of being with people who had become family.
I feel such gratitude for Danielle Caruana and John Butler and the love and generosity they continue to offer their community. There is a particular kind of love that comes from chosen family — the kind that helps keep us grounded when life gets complicated, and reminds us that we don’t have to carry everything alone.
What struck me during my time in Western Australia was how much these spaces seem to matter.
WA had a different feeling to Victoria, and it made me reflect on how deeply the years of COVID affected people at home. We lost so many opportunities to gather, to touch, to sing, to dance and to simply be around one another. For many people, I think we are still finding our way back from that.
Perhaps that is why choir camps, yoga festivals, movement spaces and other gatherings feel so important now. They give us somewhere to release what we have been carrying, to see one another again and to remember that we are part of something bigger than ourselves.
And then something beautiful happened while I was visiting stores. I walked into one shop to introduce myself and Living Koko, as I had been doing all week. Honestly, there was something slightly Notting Hill about it — just a girl, standing in front of a store, asking them to love her cacao. lol
During our conversation, one of the customers asked me, “Are you the Polynesian dance teacher from choir camp?”
She hadn’t even been to choir camp. Her friends had, and they had gone home and talked about our cacao and movement sessions.
That small conversation moved me more than I expected. Because there it was: the ripple.
Something that happened in one community had travelled into another person’s life, and then into a shop – where I was standing with a box of cacao asking if they would like to stock it. We talked, connected, and they placed an order straight away.
It reminded me that the things we create with love rarely stay where we create them.
A song travels home with someone. A movement practice changes how someone feels in their body. A conversation becomes a friendship. A friendship introduces someone else to a new idea, a new person or a new place. And sometimes, somehow, that journey leads to a little shop in Western Australia putting Living Koko on their shelves.
This is also what I love about cacao.
For us, it has never simply been about making a good product. Cacao has always been connected to gathering, culture, story, nourishment and relationship. It creates an invitation to slow down and share something together.
The more I travel, the more I believe that what we need is definitely not more noise, more productivity or more things to achieve. We need spaces where people can soften enough to see one another again.
We need community.
We need movement.
We need song.
We need the generosity of people who open their homes and their hearts.
And we need to remember that these aren’t modern inventions. They are ways of being that have carried human beings through generations.
Perhaps our job is simply to keep them alive…To keep making room for one another.
Because the goodness created in those spaces doesn’t disappear when the weekend ends. We carry it home to our families, our friendships, our workplaces and our communities — and sometimes, without even realising it, we pass a little of it on to someone else.
That feels like a beautiful way to build a life.
And a beautiful way to build a business, too.
We are proud to announce you can find out drinking cacao and some of our chocolate range at the following stores in WA:
Denmark Wholefoods Shop – Denmark
Blue Ginger Fine Foods – Margaret River
Gourmet Food Merchant – Cowaramup
Whole Green Pepper – Holistic Health Service – Bunbury
and offered at Kylie Holdem’s retreats and circles
