Why I drink ceremonial-grade cacao - A post *not only* for the newcomers
From the curse of anxiety to sovereign magic: how to live a life that you don’t need to escape from.
I usually speak to cacao fans or facilitators who have already been introduced to some kind of magic through a cacao ceremony or an encounter with the pure cacao drink that stirred up some unknown depth within their being. Having drank ceremonial-grade cacao (the original one from Guatemala) myself since almost to the day 7 years and one month ago and teaching its science, culture, history and medicine since 4 years to the dot.
However I know there are many of you out there (especially on the
network) who are a completely mind boggled by the idea of me writing about a magical medicine that is found when using the minimally processed and well sourced beans of the chocolate tree Theobroma Cacao. Please refer to my article on what makes cacao ceremonial if you are keen to get a glimpse of the cultural and scientific background and why cacao is revered as the food of the gods:
Today I wish to speak to those who are either new and intrigued but unsure if is for them and those that have just found me and eager to learn from me and those that might have already swapped their morning coffee for a morning cacao but wish to go deeper than the typical unintegrated reason of because its heart opening.
And instead of writing about all the potential beneficial effects, the nutrition, scientific facts and spiritual pathways, I present you with a story. My story. Cacaos story. One that intertwines my learnings, teachings and illustrates how powerful a plant can be and how powerful a human can be.
Some quotes of my story to get an idea of what you will be reading about:
My heart was seeking external validation but was closed to my spirit and my body was numb.
I was intrigued. But not yet fine-tuned enough to experience Cacaos subtle yet profound effects.
What followed was beyond everything I expected.
Cacao showed me what was possible and how magic life could be.
My body and nervous system then presented me in return with what I would need to face in order to heal and claim my magical life.
I found myself powerless, clueless and excruciatingly overwhelmed in the most uncomfortable freeze state.
Drinking Cacao helps me to investigate with honesty and care. To go within and face the chaos, the vulnerability, overwhelm or fear.
Now go and make yourself a cup of your preferred beverage and open your mind to new horizons. You might want to open this message in your web browser as it could be too long for your email program.
It is hot. The air glimmering with magnetism, excitement and a little nervous nausea is rising from within. The dusty roads fly by and the view that I had been anticipating for weeks is presenting itself. I arrived.
It was early 2020 when I came to the Lake - Lago Atítlan, home of Keith Wilson and his famous porch filled with cacao enthusiasts from all over the world. Before said world would change drastically.
Three months before I got offered a job at Keith´s Cacao and was invited to join the team for their first annual homecoming in San Marcos La Laguna, Guatemala.
I almost didn’t go, as I finally nested in my 2 bed apartment after years of living abroad, sublets and flatmates. How could this be reason enough to only book 3 weeks away when the flights were covered? Let me tell you…
Prior to meeting ceremonial cacao in 2017, I moved to Reykjavík, Iceland after having had one of my most emotionally lowest years feeling lonely and purposeless. I was just about to replenish my energy in the stunning land of ice and fire. I had practiced yoga for 10 years and been involved in various philosophical circles and open-minded communities, I had an introduction to meditation and personal development. Yet all of the above were mere rational concepts instead of embodied wisdom.
My heart was seeking external validation but was closed to my spirit and my body was numb.
I was introduced to Cacao through a couple of friends I met in Iceland beginning of 2017 in a casual way. They would simply ask if I would like a cup of (legit ceremonial) cacao or a tea or coffee when we met. And I was surprised by this new beverage that it was not a common hot chocolate but very clearly an appreciated special drink, equal if not better than coffee and enough of a reason to join together, connect over and energise with.
I was intrigued. But not yet fine-tuned enough to experience Cacaos subtle yet profound effects.
Looking back I can see myself experience enhanced creativity, inspiration, motivation and sensuality.
Which, as it was beginning of spring in Iceland could have been a result of magically longer days and gorgeous sunrises and sunsets. Combined with an intense phase of directing my biggest art project to date, a multimedia performance installation and theatre piece. I engaged multiple artists in my project, connected various people, established long-lasting relationships and filmed and edited my first videos.
Yet, there was something different, something less rational that started to weave its thread into my consciousness.
I was reminded of my first travels to Cuba in 2011 when I visited cacao trees for the first time and drank thick, rich and potent chocolate several times a day in Baracoa. I always spoke about this place in the east of Cuba with the utmost respect and a sense of magic, as even though I returned there one year later no pictures or photographs exist from my times there. It was like a vortex. Similar to Lake Atitlán in Guatemala, without the hippies and expats.
Mama Cacao has been whispering, and working in the background for a long time before I could truly see her.
In all honesty, I was too busy to hear her call.
I was fully immersed in my art studies which truly blossomed with the Icelandic spring and took flight simultaneously with my raise in cacao intake and exploration. I was busy and loved keeping myself busy. Making new friends, establishing connections, going to art exhibitions, concerts, studying, working, learning, traveling, dating, oh the thrill and misery of dating. Bless my love seeking heart.
I didn’t stop. Until I was trapped inside a little house, I resided in for an artist residency, in the far North West end of the world during a major snow storm.
This was when I decided to prepare the neatly wrapped 40g dose of Guatemalan cacao, that my dear friend Wioleta gifted me for my birthday 6 months prior and I had kept for a special moment. I had been drinking mainly Peruvian cacao as I couldn’t get hold of Keith´s Cacao from Guatemala due to the postal shut downs. And unlike before, I finally made time to indulge in the experience. Instead of escaping the moments or distracting from what arose within me.
What followed was beyond everything I expected.
Trust, so deep and pure that it stopped me in my doing.
Love, profoundly simple, it made me shiver with bliss.
Knowing, that everything was meant to be exactly the way it was. Even the little heartache I moved through at that time felt totally right and happening for a reason.
A week later, during yet another snow storm, I had my first anxiety attack which lasted three days. No cacao at hand (or did I have some but simply forgot that it could help? Not yet being an experienced daily drinker, it didn’t even cross my mind), I found myself powerless, clueless and excruciatingly overwhelmed in the most uncomfortable freeze state. I didn’t know anything about nervous system regulation, wasn’t well versed in internet search nor did I have access to holistic communities and skilled practitioners. I didn’t even have the words to properly describe the state I was in to my friends, who lovingly stayed on the phone for as long as possible but couldn’t advice me further, either.
On the fourth day the storm had stopped and over night snow had melted and gave view to muddy green grass patches on the majestic mountain fjord. I was signed up for a blacksmith workshop in the nearby village. Hammering on steel, forging a ritual knife and sweating by the open fire lifted the curse. I was back in my body, feeling relief and hope. Brigid, goddess of poetry, healing and smithcraft, lit the Imbolc fire and freed my heart from the clenching fist of powerlessness.
In Iceland, lots of people suffer from anxiety and are much more open about mental health than in Germany which led me to not take them seriously, thinking they were excusing their behaviour or avoiding responsibility - until that weekend experience had me on my knees.
It opened me up to compassion and fostered inner(literally)standing for sensitivity.
In hindsight with experience, lots of data collected about ceremonial cacao and its effects on myself - as well as observing cacaos wondrous influence over long periods of time in my ceremony participants - I now see the correlation of my blissed out high and burned out low.
Cacao showed me what was possible and how magic life could be. My body and nervous system then presented me in return with what I would need to face in order to heal and claim my magical life.
This is why I genuinely believe that Cacao can be more life changing than psychedelic master plants. Yes, they might be more intense with fascinating visions and transformative insights. But the integration back to the life you previously had often fails to bring long lasting and sustainable change. They stay memorable experiences that have to be recreated in order to escape life yet again. *I know plenty skilled practitioners though that will aid in proper integration, so this is obviously a generalisation that I notice in the overarching holistic wellness world and mainstream “spiritualism”, please don’t let it hold you back from working with master plants if you are truly called and are honest and integral in your approach to them*
Cacao on the other hand weaves its ripple effects more delicately into your day to day, often over long periods. After the initial falling in love at least. Most of my students (and myself included) experience the blissful honeymoon phase followed by a normalising of sorts. Which doesn’t dim their excitement for cacao, it actually motivates them to go deeper. And that’s where cacao as a facilitator comes in. The spirit of cacao is gentle, doesn’t force any change on you but will not shy away from showing you where in your life adjustments are due in order for you to bring back joy, health and purpose.
Back to my personal context:
I hadn´t found any practice or tradition that genuinely resonated with me and I was actually very judgmental towards people escaping their lives with spiritual modalities and travelling to adopt other cultures. I was sceptical, even of people´s suffering. Because 13 year old Laura lived through a major life threatening event followed by 10 years of medication and epilepsy treatment. I matured in a way that helped me adopt to society, and I stayed optimistic throughout it all. Because I was very life affirming and couldn’t understand why humans would try to escape life or numb themselves from fully feeling alive. I was numbed out by pharmaceuticals, didn’t have the choice to do so myself, all I was trying to do is gaining back my sense of self, a clear vision and sensitivity. I didn’t consume substances excessively and thought, that all conditions “just” need enough mind control and willingness to move forwards. Bless my traumatised system.
Don’t get me wrong, I am truly grateful for this way of thinking as it anchored me into reality and grounded me many times. I just didn’t account for one crucial thing: that mind control is rather easy when body and soul are in shackles. Once these shackles are opened, a new territory was laid bare.
What has existed under the surface of a functioning human finally found a way to present itself. Fortunately enough I did not look away but acknowledged its need to be felt, seen and heard.
When Cacao entered my life I realised that my heart had always been open to the outside, seeking love from and giving love to others instead of myself.
I hadn´t yet learned how to trust - or even find - my inner guidance, Cacao brought the right people into my life through her synchronistic weaving.
These circumstances and encounters lead me to find my own spiritual practice and helped me realise that I was connected to it all along but simply didn’t acknowledge it. I even studied it in university! But it wasn’t until I made space to listen to my innermost desires and dreams that I connected the dots.
I thought fairy tales (the Celtic and German ones, not Disney) are only for childhood fantasies when actually I was connected to the elementals, nature spirits and the realm of Avalon all along. My biggest art piece to date, a multimedia theatre performance in seven acts was based on an ancient mythological book and my literature graduation thesis was about Arthurian legends. And after meeting an artist who is also a practicing witch I realised that I found my path of resonance. The priestess path which soon illuminated my desire for more sensitivity instead of rigidity.
I actually allowed myself to want to feel, to want to sense, to want to have otherworldly experiences. Not to escape life, but to fully engage with it.
I realised how I had held myself back from experiencing life’s facets.
There was a fine line between escapism and expansion, I finally was able to cross.
Cacao guided me on my spiritual quest but more importantly, it paved the path to my physical, mental and emotional healing journey.
Where I used to react to problems with defence and avoidance, I suddenly became more receptive and started to see triggers as an invitation to learn new things about myself and my environment.
Instead of protecting my heart by closing it, I learned to accept vulnerability and deal with pain, disappointment and sadness whilst staying open for new people.
This is what I call “growing roots”. Because these roots anchor us in life like trees root themselves in the earth. Instead of running away from the unwanted or dissociate from the mundane, we take it as a valuable lesson and can continue to breathe deeply, which enables us to deal with the situation constructively and find creative solutions.
To then grow our branches, reaching high to the sky and blissfully blossom our flowers growing into fruits to harvest.
I wanted to share this gift that cacao gave me. I wanted my friends to feel the trust, the love, the acceptance, the bliss. I began to create circles, rituals and ceremonies. Utterly inspired by the elements and the power they could evoke within us, the remembrance and space to welcome the spirit of cacao in.
Through regular cacao ceremonies that I hosted for friends and sharing the love for Cacao with a wider audience I grew roots within myself, devoted myself to ritual work, meditation, personal development and learned about attachment styles. Well, the last one was actually due to an incompatible relationship I had to painfully learn from, but cacao was a huge support in moving from anxious to secure attachment and eventually leaving the relationship after I recognised my ex was not willing to look at his avoidant and emotionally unavailable behaviour.
It wasn’t until a whole year and a half after my anxiety attack in the Westfjords in Iceland though, that I actually started to grasp my anxious headspace patterns and the amount of worries I engaged in.
Space holding - for myself and others - became my everyday and soon my dependency patterns became obvious and breaking them unavoidable.
There was purpose, fun and passion, serenity and depth. I noticed myself not needing to fill out every blank space in my diary to avoid being “lonely”. I actually enjoyed immersing in my own space and practices for a whole day without seeing anyone else or packing heaps of activities into each hour. For some this might seem normal, for me it was revolutionary.
This was the time when I got offered to fly to Guatemala.
You might understand now why I had to think twice.
As someone previously always on the hunt for a new exciting project to take on (or two or three), I suddenly was at peace with spending the winter months in Germany - “dreadful, how do you manage?” Shouts my past self who made sure I travelled to Cuba or Panama at least until April. “Sipping delicious cacao in my all sage green living and ceremony room with my plants and sheep skin and a book called Avalon Within on my lap” answers my present self.
Alas, I took the book with me. And how grateful I am in hindsight, because the week I was supposed to return from my cacao fuelled Guatemalan work trip, my flight got cancelled as society decided to panic. George Orwell would have nodded knowingly about the unfolding in 2020.
Some travellers made it over the Mexican border to get home but I decided to stay, found myself a romantic tree house with a huge exotic garden, mountain view terrace as an office, two guard dogs and filled my kitchen with all ceremonial cacao I could find in the village shops. Despite the variety, Keith´s Cacao became my non negotiable daily medicine. Nothing compared. Receiving the blessed blocks from Keith and Barbara themselves on my weekly visits was the cherry on top.
I was blessed with an ideal climbing tree in my garden in which I sat everyday with a cup of cacao and listen to the wind in the leaves, the birds and occasional rooster. Or sang with music in the ears. Or meditated and daydreamed. I would sit in this tree for hours.
Yet what I really longed for was water. And don’t get me wrong, I was at a gorgeous lake but due to lockdown regulations, no one was allowed to sit by its shore! Crazy, really.
So I would wake up extra early, at 4.44am - “cringe, you set your alarm to angel numbers?” Exclaims my esoteric allergic past self, “l wanted to try it, being in hippie heaven, please give me a break” my present self rolling up her eyes - to go to the lake before the first police patrol arrived at 6:30am. I watched the sunrise, read my Avalon Within book and admired the Lady of the Lake.
Then I passed by the local bakery and waited until they opened the gates at 7am and tell me they had blueberry cronuts that went down a treat with my cardamom coffee on my jungle view veranda whilst replying to emails in my role as customer service for Keith´s Cacao, facilitated the power of cacao training and transcripted Keith´s Empath Training. During the afternoons I helped Keith to moderate his online cacao ceremonies and twice a week I held my own, one in English and one for my German cacao and Avalon course that I created, launched and held exclusively during this time at the magnetic Lake Atitlán.
Here I was, a self employed online entrepreneur in a hippie hot spot full of psychonauts and spiritual seekers. “What a nightmare” sighs my security seeking, judgmental and heady past self. “Time to be brave” declares my present self.
Cacao became my full time job and still is in 2024. I since have left Keith´s Cacao to fully focus on my own Cacao training, Dieta, Avalon Course and Priestess Path and am eternally grateful that I still am part of the community. I have to thank Keith for finding the trust and empowerment within myself to - quote Keith - get out of my own way.
I think to this day the most significant and magical experience was arriving at San Marcos and going straight to Keith´s porch to sit in ceremony for 8 hours without break nor food. Just Cacao, Keith´s transmissions, energy work and partner exercises with which the synchronicities started.
It is hot. The air glimmering with magnetism, excitement and a little nervous nausea is rising from within. The dusty roads fly by and the view that I had been anticipating for weeks is presenting itself. I arrived.
Keith´s porch has brought so many people to Cacao, to themselves and in connection with others and this energy is palpable, a tangible feeling of magic!
It was a time of simply doing without thinking, a time of inspiration and courage, of flow and dedication. I would have never thought to be working online and be living a digital nomad life, it was simply following the call of my tribe back home that wanted community in time of separation and loneliness and the work I started back then at the lake is now supporting my little family.
Whilst I was pregnant with my son I went fully self-employed and against all plans my little business kept going and feeding us. My partner Sean is enchanted by Cacao, too and enables me to continuously show up in service to the sacred plant and its teachings.
We met in Glastonbury, where I moved to shortly after I left Guatemala, before another lockdown would have me stare at the Glastonbury Abbey and the otherworldly Tor from my window sill everyday. How we met, our love and break up story, how we dealt with our unplanned pregnancy and what other crazy synchronicities unfolded is a story for another book but to close this one, I would like to tell you the most recent piece of magic which cacao had in stall for me:
Cacao helps me to care for myself and find courage to become more sovereign. Taking the reign over my life.
Sovereignty comes with questioning our norm. It is not easy. I myself have given away my power and put my trust into the external - be it other people, institutions or conditioned beliefs. Taking my power back wasn’t as simple as giving it away. It came with facing my deepest fears of abandonment, rejection and survival.
Can you open your heart when your heart is broken? This became the guiding question of my work with cacao.
There often is a subliminal fear of opening the heart, which asks for "protection". Keith taught me that protection is only needed when we don't feel safe. But if we learn to connect with our open heart, trust ourselves and gain experiences that show us how powerful a loving, pure heart that is radiant from within is, we realise that it does not need protection, because every hindrance becomes an important part of our journey and as such is valued rather than wished away. Gratitude is our ultimate protection.
After educating myself in the rite of initiation that is required to becoming a mother and free birthing my first son *leaves space for future potential*, I can say that I successfully managed my anxiety and am in trust instead of worry.
Of course, motherhood comes with its own worries and challenges, and I am far from being healed completely from all my past wounding and insecurity. I simply don’t let them direct my life anymore and I found a place within that is my own guiding light.
A place of love, that knows the way, even when fear tries to obscure it.
Drinking Cacao helps me to investigate with honesty and care. To go within and face the chaos, the vulnerability, overwhelm or fear.
Not only can I feel acceptance, love and compassion in times of crisis, but I can also arm myself with more resilience, curiosity and playfulness in the long term - which proves to be true medicine in challenging moments to come.
We create our world ourselves.
And we all know the concept that everything is inside, within ourselves. But in order to understand it we need a certain openness. That all of our thoughts and feelings are within us. And therefore can’t be blamed on the outside.
They can of course be triggered externally, through situations and people. But we produce the thoughts and feelings ourselves, emotions don't come to us from the outside.
Our life and how the world treats us is a mirror of our beliefs, thoughts, actions and words.
We are not to blame for our inner experiences but neither is anyone else. If we want to liberate ourselves we have to shift our perception and start seeing reality in a different light - or at the very least we have to BE THE ONE that takes responsibility because no one else will.
The beautiful thing is that the mirror also works the other way and reflects the blessings we bless ourselves with. As soon as we start taking a true honest look in the mirror and take responsibility in our own two hands (with a cup of cacao!) life will reflect this back to us through people that offer us help, accompany our journey and suddenly we might even get that apology or recognition, maybe from a different direction than we previously reached out for it - and we might not even care about it anymore. Because we are holding ourselves accountable and no on else.
This is massively freeing.
TAKING RESPONSIBILITY for myself doesn’t only mean fulfilling my daily tasks, it is much more complex than that. It means that I need to take full responsibility of my own FEELINGS; EMOTIONS; THOUGHTS; (RE)ACTIONS and DECISIONS. I need to stop expecting miracles to fall from the sky and stop waiting for a saviour or protector to figure life out for me or to hand me purpose and security.
I am not saying however that there are no miracles, on the contrary: THEY ARE INSIDE OF ME and therefore everywhere outside, too!
All wonders of life are within and the world presents these miracles when I unlock them inside of myself through becoming sovereign.
There is no one to blame once you start this journey to wholeness within and that is often the reason why so many turn back immediately and stay on the comfy couch of suffering.
Sovereignty is simple, but far from easy in a world where we are taught to rely on the external. This is the portal to liberation from the conditions of your past and expectations of your future.
In my case it was all about facing my fear of death AND the fear of being misunderstood and considered “wrong”. I was planning to free birth my child, meaning no health care professional nor official midwife being present at birth. Unimagineable for most and irresponsible for others. However I was educating myself accordingly and took appropriate measure of risk before, during and after birth.
I had to free myself from all past conditioning, including my history of hospitalisation, and the connection of trust I had built in doctors and health care professional and put over the trust of myself.
Having a free birth is the most natural thing in the world, I was literally built for it. Mary gave birth to Jesus in a stable, goddammit. And yet we seem to have leaped away from it in the past century. Sadly losing trust in our abilities and resourcefulness of birthing life on our own terms, in our sovereign magic.
Sovereignty is the portal to the magical being that YOU ARE NOW; already.
The biggest shift was and still is the growing faith in a magical life where mystery is real and I enjoy every moment, knowing I deserve a happy family and pleasurable life and simply need to get out of my own way to claim it.
The idea of Magic, this blurred misty and mysterious concept that connected me to my childhood fantasies and soulful longings has become an integral and practical part of my life. Instead of daydreams and complicated performance rituals I now know that the art of Magic lies in three things:
Living from love instead of fear.
Embracing the Unknown and allowing the rational mind to make space for the inexplicable.
Practicing intention and attention on everything, the mundane, the day to day AND the meditations and ceremonies.
It is windy. The sun is forcing her beams through the fast moving clouds and hitting my face just right. Spring its emerging and the year of the dragon just began.
I have some time to write before putting my 1.5yo down for a nap and prepare for tonight´s fundraiser cacao & dance medicine event in Glastonbury. A friend proposed a question to ponder:
“What was the most beautiful thing you ever allowed yourself to do and what did you get to experience because of it?” Sean and me both immediately answered “Saying yes to having Fynn (River Eoin)”.
Here is to saying yes to love.
And finally, in unison, my past and present selves speak:
“Cacao is not a painkiller, it is a medicine. And YOU are the cure!”.
Want to try it for yourself?
Be patient and kind and willing to be in it for the long run instead of the quick fix. And at the same time don´t limit yourself, time isnt linear and quantum jumps are possible. As Keith would say: you can take the hard bus or the magic bus! :)
This is the cacao that changed my life, with an affiliate link you can use to support my work. Keith´s Cacao offers shipping worldwide.
If you loved the personal share, please subscribe to my other publication as I share more personal processes and inner alchemy as well as myth and the path to Avalon over there.
I would love to hear:
Why are you drinking ceremonial cacao? What has changed since you drank it? And if you aren’t yet fully immersed in her magic: are you ready for change?
Here on
you find me talking specifically about cacao usage and cacao facilitation.Founding Members have access to two guided 15-days Cacao Dietas with opening and closing ceremonies (live and recorded).
The first Cacao Dieta is about the embodiment of cacaos teachings and how we can integrate her magic into our daily life to become the sovereign beings we are meant to be: We start at Spring Equinox, german ceremony on March 22nd & the english ceremony on March 25th - you will get all details automatically as a founding member!
The second Dieta is exploring shadow work with cacao and transformative inner healing (which can also manifest as physical or external healing in your relationships), we will start September 29th 2024.
As a yearly founding member you also have the exclusive possibility to use your payment as the first instalment of my Facilitator Training THE MAGIC OF CACAO!
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Laying here reading this, feeling my baby kick and my love preparing frames for artwork in the other room. Relishing in the magical mundane. The ever present perfection of what is. Thank you for sharing!
Oh I love hearing this journey… it is so inspiring and magical and deep!! I did my first ceremony about 7 years ago and have journeyed with Mama Cacao since but I haven’t allowed myself to fully immerse I don’t think… still a part of me not fully trusting of the healing I know it will unearth. I really feel like it is time though… xx