Bio
Meet Rudy Pila
Founder of Community Cacao
Rudy Pila is a spiritual entrepreneur that is passionate about being an active member of helping make the world a better place.
Rudy believes that creating a better world means learning to love the world. And the best way to love more is to understand and get to know it. We must be active and fully aware members of Earth.
At first this was a wonderful realization and quickly turned into a daunting and overwhelming task. Which lead Rudy to the first step, get to know ourselves first.
On getting to know ourselves, we can then express our needs and boundaries more clearly and be an example for those around us.
Rudy Pila is a forever-student of getting to know herself and encourages others to do the same through her many heart offerings.
Cacao is her favorite 'plantcestor' to work with because cacao is a gentle stimulant that gets us out of our heads, "I wonder what they are thinking" to "How am I feeling and doing?"
Out of our minds and into our hearts/bodies.
Hearing the Mayan folklore of Cacao being portrayed as a goddess emerging from the rainforest only in times of chaos and imbalance between humans and earth, Rudy found herself deeply resonate to this mission.
Rudy's History
Born in the Philippines but raised on a 3 by 7 mile island 13 miles off the coast of Rhode Island, Rudy Pila had quite a unique yet modest life.
Rudy grew up in the only Filipino family on the island, helping her single mom clean houses to make ends meet. She quickly grew tired of the small island life and graduated early from high school to adventure out into the big world. She found herself in all sorts of cities and wherever she worked, she always found herself in a management position, even at the young age of 18.
After having lived in a few different cities, Love moved her to another city closer to her hometown, Newport, RI. She picked up a few shifts at a local café and within a couple months, she found herself in a management position. From what she was taught growing up, she should have been feeling happy and fulfilled. She had a wonderful relationship, a great place to stay, a job that offered great pay and responsibility, yet she still felt something was missing.
This hole only grew bigger and bigger.
At the same time, she was getting to know and befriend many of the locals. One of whom was a business entrepreneur that came in regularly.
One day, he came in really excited about this thing he had just discovered. It was cacao...
At this time, Rudy had no idea what cacao was or what it was all about.
It wasn't until she went to visit her family in the Philippines for the first time in almost a decade that she would begin to understand the importance cacao in her life.
She spent a month with her family in the tiny village she once lived her first years of life. On the last day, as she and her mom were waiting for the bus to head back to the city, her extended family were saying their goodbyes and giving gifts for her to eat and/or to take home to the US.
Her grandmother approaches her with a handful of loose beans as a snack for the road.
Rudy had never seen them before and so she asked her grandmother what they even were and she replies, "It's tablea. You know, cacao."
Rudy was shocked to hear this and asked how her grandmother got them.
Her grandmother replied, "You don't know? You're lolo (grandfather) loved cacao and planted over 25 trees in our yard. I'm surprised you didn't see them. They are everywhere!"
This synchronicity upon return to the United States, had Rudy in utter disbelief. She could not wait to tell her entrepreneur friend what she had just learned on her trip.
He invited her to her first cacao ceremony and for the first time in a long time, she was able to truly feel her own heart talking to her. And the message was loud and clear, "You're not happy. Quit your job."
While it was a difficult decsion to make, Rudy sent in her two weeks and found herself looking for another job.
The Universe had other plans. Within the time she left her job, she also split with her boyfriend and found herself untethered.
On one of her last days in Newport, she met up with her entrepreneur friend, to let him know that she was leaving for someplace else and someplace warmer!
Her original plan was Florida but when he suggested that she go visit the chocolate shaman in Guatemala, for reasons yet unknown, it resonated with her and she decided to book the tickets the next day.
Not long, she found herself alone in a foreign country, where she barely spoke Spanish.
She spent her first few days crying and alone, until she was able to attend a cacao ceremony with the renown chocolate shaman, Keith Wilson.
At this time, Rudy neither meditated nor did she belief in a higher power, or God, but something kept calling her back to the porch for the cacao ceremonies.
She didn't fully understand yet but everything leading up to that moment had cracked her wide open and all she could do was listen to her heart.
So she did.
She spent over three months in San Marcos La Laguna and sat three times a week on Keith's porch from 1pm to 6pm. She learned a lot about energy and the how to tune into her own inner knowing.
When she left the lake, she went back to Rhode Island to sell most of her belongings and to buy a back pack.
Originally she was going to work the summer to save up more money but she was so sensitive to energy that she could FEEL how unhappy and stressed everyone was.
She decided against working the summer and opted that it was time for her soul to live a little.
She backpacked across the states to Oregon specially for Rainbow Gathering but stayed longer for Oregon County Fair. Her active connections lead her to Washington and even up to Canada. Back down to Oregon and California. She also spent some time in New Mexico and got to work with an amazing group collective known as the NOHM.
This group is an organization based out of Asheville, SC, that is focused on education and shifting the narrative of how we consume. She still works with this organization but mostly to join them in the jungle of Costa Rica to work Envision Festival.
