Cacao, Ceremony, and the Call to Lead
How a sacred plant taught me presence, power, and connection
At a private lagoon outside of Tulum, Mexico
Cacao came into my life at a time when I was longing to reconnect to myself. I slowed down completely and put a pause to my business so I could go inward.
Along that journey, cacao showed up.
In Mexico, where I was living at the time, it was prevalent — commonly paired with other healing modalities. During that time, I was taught how to connect with the spirit of fire (espiritu del fuego) and the spirit of cacao (espiritu de cacao). She (cacao) helped me feel like a more expanded version of myself. To feel the embodiment I had been craving, in a sweet community where I felt empowered to finally be the powerful leader I could feel yearning to get out.
One cacao ceremony led by a friend was paired with powerful breathwork that led me to the floor, letting go of every piece of me attached to the “shame of existing”. Another powerful ceremony led by two angelic friends from Iceland brought the joy of experiencing the deep love and connection I sought in my family. I sat on the floor with my partner’s family and cried tears of joy for the love I was finally able to receive from a motherly figure. His family saw me in a way I had never been seen by my own family and had subconsciously been craving this deep connection.
After the ceremony, all of these parts of me felt reconnected. I had the power to remember this connection to who I was inside and I felt one day I would share cacao with many more.
I had no idea that years later in Joshua Tree, California cacao would find me.
The gift of cacao I received from my sweet friend + teacher
Presented as a gift from my sound healing teacher for connecting her to a beautiful opportunity where she could teach sound healing facilitators in Sedona, I was gifted a half pound of cacao. For those of you new to cacao, it comes as a block — similar to chocolate, but more of a 1/2 inch thick block of pure cacao.
The cacao she gifted me was straight from Guatemala where she had just finished her cacao certification at a lovely family farm in northern Guatemala.
The fact it was from Guatemala pulled at my heart strings too, because when I was a child my grandparents would frequent small Guatemalan villages multiple times a year. They would build schools, bridges, and clean water systems as my grandpa was a civil engineer and they just loved the culture and people so much. Ever since I was little it was my dream to go to Guatemala to continue their work and meet the people they impacted in these small villages. They would come home with little gifts of Guatemalan weavings + small toys for us at Christmas.
Anyways, so my sweet friend brought me this Guatemalan cacao + I felt so blessed. That same week I began drinking the cacao every morning as my new morning ritual. Wake up, go on a walk, come back home and make cacao, sit outside and take in the view of the Joshua Trees in the shade and meditate. I began to pray to the cacao, and each morning I would offer a spoonful of my cacao back to the earth in gratitude for all the wonderful things I had in my life at the time.
Sound bowls and our last cacao ceremony instruments in the Mojave Desert
It was a couple days into this new morning practice when my intuition started to go off — I heard the cacao + the land my home is on ask me to offer cacao to the community. It felt like the land wanted the love that was cultivated by gathering people all together in ceremony and we would be loving on the land every time we gathered.
I agreed, but didn’t think much of it until one day I hopped on my computer and felt this strong urge to stop what I was doing. I grabbed a sketchbook and immediately started writing down ideas for a cacao ceremony — what I would share with people, my experiences with cacao, how cacao can benefit us, and so much more. Soon after I had filled the page with the whole outline of a cacao ceremony and I jumped back on the computer to create the link for people to reserve their spot.
The beautiful altar at our cacao ceremony
