What Is Cacao And Why I
Incorporate It Into My Ceremonies.
A Humble Accounting.

I first tasted ceremonial cacao in Guatemala, in a small ceremony led by a Mayan elder in a village outside San Marcos La Laguna, on the shores of Lake Atitlan.

I didn't know what I was walking into. I had been traveling through Central America, following something I couldn't name a pull toward something older, something that predated the productivity culture I was trying to leave behind. A friend told me about the ceremony. I went, half curious and half skeptical, with the lingering rational voice of my corporate self telling me this was probably just warm chocolate.

It was not just warm chocolate.

Within twenty minutes of drinking the cacao, I felt my chest open in a way I hadn't experienced before. Not dramatically. Not like a psychedelic. But gently, persistently like a window being unlocked that I didn't know had been sealed shut. The elder spoke in Tz'utujil, which was translated, and what she said was simple: the cacao is a teacher. You don't take it. You receive it. And you ask it a question.

I asked mine. I'm not going to share what it was. But the answer that came quietly, in the space between the drumming and the silence changed the direction of my life.

What ceremonial cacao actually is

Ceremonial cacao is not hot chocolate. It is not a cacao latte or a cacao powder from the grocery store. It is the minimally processed paste or block of the whole cacao bean Theobroma cacao, which in Greek literally means "food of the gods" grown, harvested, fermented, dried, and prepared in ways that preserve its full spectrum of compounds.

Theobromine, the primary active compound in cacao, is a gentle cardiovascular stimulant and vasodilator. It increases blood flow to the brain and heart. It is also a mild mood elevator and focus enhancer but unlike caffeine, it doesn't spike and crash. It opens you gently and sustains that opening.

Ceremonial cacao also contains anandamide a compound whose name comes from the Sanskrit word for bliss. It is sometimes called the "bliss molecule." It binds to the same receptors as cannabinoids and creates a natural sense of ease and open-heartedness. This is not hallucination. This is your own biology your own capacity for joy being gently unlocked.

Beyond the chemistry, ceremonial cacao contains significant amounts of magnesium, iron, manganese, zinc, and antioxidants. It is genuinely, measurably good for the body. But that's almost a footnote to what it offers when used in a ceremonial context.

The Mayan history of cacao

The Mayan people have worked with cacao for at least three thousand years. In Mayan cosmology, cacao was considered a divine plant the food that the creator gods gave to humans to help them access wisdom, clarity, and connection to the divine. The Mayan word for cacao, "ka'kaw," appears in hieroglyphs dating back to the Classic period. Cacao was used in rituals marking births, deaths, marriages, and harvests. It was also currency so sacred that it was both given to the gods and used in trade.

The tradition was largely suppressed during colonization. Spanish colonizers brought cacao back to Europe and over time it became the sugar-laden chocolate we know today stripped of its ceremony, its intention, its sacred context. The Mayan people never stopped holding the tradition, but it was driven underground, where it survived quietly through generations of keepers.

What is now called the "cacao ceremony revival" in the wellness world began, in large part, through a man named Keith Wilson known as the Chocolate Shaman who lived for years in San Marcos La Laguna, Guatemala, and received training and transmission from Mayan elders. He began sharing the practice widely in the early 2000s. Many of the practitioners holding cacao ceremonies today trace their lineage, directly or indirectly, to those teachings.

"Cacao was never lost. It was protected. And now it is being shared which is both a gift and a responsibility."

On cultural appropriation a transparent conversation

I want to be honest here, because I think this conversation deserves honesty rather than avoidance.

I am a white American woman who learned a Mayan ceremonial practice in Guatemala and now incorporates it into my wellness work in San Diego. That is not a neutral thing. I am aware of it.

The distinction I try to hold imperfectly, and with ongoing learning is between appropriation and appreciation. Appropriation extracts a practice from its people, strips it of context, profits from it, and gives nothing back. Appreciation receives a practice with acknowledgment, attribution, and reciprocity.

Every time I facilitate a cacao ceremony, I tell this story the real one. Where the practice comes from. Whose it is. I name the Mayan people. I point people toward sources rooted in the tradition itself. I do not claim expertise or mastery. I am a student sharing what I have learned, always with the instruction to go to the source.

If you ever feel called to go deeper with ceremonial cacao, I encourage you to seek out practitioners with direct lineage especially Mayan-led ceremonies and collectives. Mayan Moon Collective is a place I trust and return to.

Why I bring cacao into ceremony

I incorporate cacao into my ceremonies my Summer Solstice events, my retreat gatherings, select group coaching circles for one reason above all others: it opens the heart.

Not metaphorically. Physiologically. The vasodilation from theobromine literally increases blood flow to the heart. The anandamide creates genuine biochemical ease. The ritual of preparing and receiving the cacao slowly, with intention, with gratitude shifts something in the nervous system before a single pose is practiced or a single insight is shared.

People arrive to ceremony in their heads. Full of to-do lists, anxieties, the noise of their day. The cacao combined with breath, with intentional silence, with the setting of the container moves them into their bodies. Into their hearts. Into the present moment. From there, real things can happen. Real feelings can surface. Real clarity can arrive.

That is why I use it. Not because it is exotic or fashionable. Because in my experience, it works. And because the people who shared it with me believed it worked believed it was medicine for three thousand years before I showed up.

I try never to forget that.