Cacao Ceremonies and Women’s Circles.
Cacao, the sweet medicine of the heart.
Cacao has been used in many different traditions, rituals, and cultural roots that vary, though Cacao has always been known as medicine for the heart. It has an ability to crack us open in a way that we sometimes don’t even realize. It’s subtle and profound all in one.
Women were once known as the two-hearted beings, heart, and womb. They are bound and Cacao illuminates the tapestry of this divine connection within us. For the divine feminine to truly awaken, there must be an inner union between the two. The bitter-sweetness of Cacao awakens us to just this.
Our wombs are the keepers of the divine feminine and they are held by the heart. They hold and move the shapeshifting nature of existence that we are as wombyn. When the heart is open and woven with this opening of the womb, magic happens. Our intuition, and our innate wisdom as the medicine keepers we are is invoked. Access to our subconscious is unlocked. Access to our hearts, and what’s simmering below the surface is set free.
I’ve held circles for others since 2016, and have done so monthly for the majority of this time. With each circle, I realize a little bit more, how much the Cacao is the keeper and Grandmother of this space. I have gone through conflicting bouts of serving Cacao as a white woman, not of its cultural roots, and stopped serving it for some time because of this. There is a great injustice to indigenous people, there is a lack of relationship with and acknowledgment of indigenous people, and the hearts of the world are spiritually starved.
Today, for now, I have come to a place where it feels less of service to not serve it out of this uncertainty, than to serve it in acknowledgment of this conflicting truth in dedication to all hearts, to the divine feminine, and the lineages that it comes from. This dichotomy is something I may always dance with. I don’t know what the right answer is, I don’t think that there necessarily is one, and when it comes down to it I’ve chosen to listen to the Cacao and my heart each and every time I decide to serve it, and if the yes is there, I feel I must trust that yes and continue to find my way.
I was introduced to Cacao through the lineages of Mexico and Central America and I was first served this sweet medicine in Ceremony in Guatemala when I was about 21 years old. It left an imprint in my heart indefinitely.
This first experience was nothing intricate, we all sat in a circle on a rugged deck overlooking the jungle and drank out of tall hard plastics cups that reminded me of childhood summers playing outside by the pool. I remember drinking it and skeptically thinking I don’t feel anything - it had been described as majestic and euphoric. It was bitter and rich and simple. We sat in circle and each person had a chance to share.
When it came to my turn to speak, I thought I felt nothing, I was wordless, and like a light switch, the flood gates opened with force. I was shocked as the tears ran down my cheeks and I don’t think I ever found words to speak or the ability to name what happened within, but it moved something in me that was beyond my understanding. That evening I joined a nightly meditation class I’d been sitting with and it was the first and only time in my entire life I sat for an hour and my mind was utterly still. This sweet medicine, the culture, and the people had left their mark.
About six years later, Cacao came back into my life and I began an immersion that was a deeply experiential ceremonial training with Maya roots in a tradition of the Yucatan deeply tide to the Goddess Ixchel. A very particular form of ceremony in honor of the womb, the moon, and the Goddess was shared with me. I held these intensive ceremonies, which included three days of preparation as part of the opening, solo every full moon as an initiation for a year. This is where my relationship with the divine feminine, Cacao, and their power combined truly began and it has all deepened into a very personal relationship and practice since then.
I do not hold these ceremonies today. For many reasons. Ultimately I think of this opening so to speak as a significant time in my life of great healing and awakening that was never meant to keep its form. It complexly opened a door to find my own way with myself, spirit, and being of service. I know my way and perspectives will continue to shapeshift, as we all are forever changing, and I offer this truth as an ode to all of us following the threads of spirit in our hearts.
Every time I sit in circle I find more clarity in my own relationship with Cacao. It’s easy to try and over-explain, and let words distract from the felt sense that is in my heart. I get caught up nearly every time doubting if I have honored it correctly, spoken to it correctly, named the ancestors, and the keepers of the medicine properly so to speak. There is anxiety that is invoked around this, but when I drop within I keep seeing the spirit of Cacao as this wise grandmother looking at me with a gentle smile, holding her pointer finger over her mouth with a gesture of silence. Her heart is full with the women taking her in and she wants to speak to us there.
To find balance with this, I’ve felt the need to write this piece. When I gather in circle, I don’t want to worry about words, and formality, I want to drop in. I also want to share the roots and offer a backstory to those who take this sweet medicine in. I believe this to be very important. To me, the ceremony, and honoring, blessings, gratitude, and prayers are steeped into the experience in the days leading up. Particularly the day of. I spend all day, brewing and steeping the Cacao with intentions of love, spices, flower essences, song, dance, and prayers long before we drink. I want you to know that. Your healing, your awakening, your opening, and your release has been called upon long before we sit down together.
I also want you to know where I source it. I get the Cacao I use from Soul Melody Cacao. It’s from a small farm of indigenous women in Peru. They are a small batch operation so, at times, I find them sold out and I must improvise elsewhere but this is where I find the most sweetness. With these women, who I hope I get to meet face to face and thank in person someday.
Below is a bio of Jane Ruio the woman whose farm I source the Cacao from. I’ve attached a video of her and the women showing the process of harvest and connection. My hope is that all women who circle with me can read this, and watch this video beforehand so their hearts are open to its roots before taking it in. My words cannot do this justice. It’s a felt sense, it’s a heart and spirit sense, and it’s a sense that will be unique to each and every one of you.
I hope you enjoy it, and I hope this gives you a glimpse of the love that I feel with the spirit of Cacao and that it invokes a relationship within you.
Jane' Ruio and the Amazonian Cacao
"Meet Jane’ Ruio, our farmer and loving mother to her family and her cacao trees. Jane’ is the original heartbeat that allowed the dream of Soul Melody Cacao to come to life and expand outside of the jungle.
Soul Melody Cacao is sourced from Jane’s small organic farm in the Southeast Peruvian Amazon Rainforest, where she lives in Boca Pariamanu, an indigenous community nestled alongside the Las Piedras River.
Jane’ learned how to grow cacao from her grandmother at eight years young, and her passion for caring for and learning about plants grew with her. Today, Jane’ grows her cacao amongst banana trees that provide the plants adequate shade, in the cacao forest that begins only a few yards outside her front door. She considers herself to be a doctor for her cacao plants, she cares for them and speaks to them with love, and in return they provide her with delicious chocolate she shares with her family and her community.
Janes’ harvests and processes her cacao by hand, by the help of her family and the women in her village. After the fruit is harvested from the tree, the beans are wrapped in banana leaves and fermented in the sun for 5 to 7 days. Once dried, the beans are lightly roasted, the shells are removed, and then ground into a paste. The paste is placed in a mold which hardens into a block, and then the cacao is ready to be enjoyed! Jane’ considers the entire cultivation process as a sacred ritual. On holidays and the new year, she comes together with her family and friends to celebrate and drink cacao. They even perform dances for the cacao spirit, whom she believes to be the woman of cacao, during holidays.
Jane’ primarily works with women, and she has this message to share, “for all the women, when we have sickness such as sadness, or feeling heavy from all the work that we do, all we need to do is drink the cacao, and our hearts will be lighter, our work easier, and our lives will become more satisfying.”
With sweet Cacao blessings to your heart and your womb,
Abby
