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Hola, my name is Keith, and i live in the Mayan highlands of Guatemala, where over the years I have taken a journey with the Cacao Spirit into the understanding and use of Cacao/ chocolate for spiritual purposes... with my teaching/ healing practice, with my personal inner work, and with others in their inner work and in cacao ceremony as a part of the ongoing planetary shift.  I gave my chocolate business to my Mayan worker and friend, and he now ships this cacao all over the world… see cacao sales below.

 

Here I share my understanding of cacao or chocolate as a multi-dimensional teacher and facilitator for creative, spiritual, or ceremonial purposes.  (This is real chocolate… not the common processed type without the compounds effecting consciousness.)  How the “food for the shift” works and how to use it.  How to use cacao for ceremony; how to use cacao spiritually; how cacao works in meditation; and how cacao works for inner processing.  Included is information on cacao, emotional processing, toxic cacao, and international cacao sales.  This understanding is intended for those who are impulsed to journey with cacao, and those developing their own cacao usage in practice or ceremony with others.

 

Teacher cacao was bypassed in the ‘60’s resurgence of medicine plants because it does not act like a psychedelic – it does not take you on its trip, but facilitates your own.  There are Indigenous cacao shamans in Central and South America who prefer cacao over psychedelics, but few have heard of them.  I am not here to speak for them.  I speak from my years of experience with cacao and cacao ceremonies since the Cacao Spirit began teaching and partnering with me in the metaphysical work that I do.  Many tell me I have the best cacao for these inner purposes… I invite your enjoyment through Cacao Sales below.  May you find this information useful for anyone’s cacao.

 

In a contemporary context, cacao is becoming known for its medical benefits, as a ‘raw’ food, and with the ‘bean to bar’ chocolate makers.  Here I discuss spiritual and ceremonial cacao as a connection and partnership facilitator with an open-hearted centering.  On one level a creativity facilitator; on another a practice facilitator, from yoga to meditation; on another level a major multidimensional teacher in accelerated inner transformation.  Perhaps this is not the chocolate you are familiar with. 

 

When not traveling internationally doing ceremonies and sessions, I teach in Guatemala at one of this planet’s energy centers, Lake Atitlan.  Many of the spiritual travelers here experience that in this energy their stories come up in an accelerated way.  Drama.  Some understand that one does not go into the next dimension while carrying all this emotional and belief system baggage.  That ‘density’ is increasingly coming ‘up’, because it must, because it’s time and because you made this choice before you were born.

 

You can feel and move your density internally through meditation or processing, or you can objectify it in reality and feel it through trauma, drama, pain and struggle.  Cacao can assist in the inner process of connecting to that density and to the divine light energy that assists in the transmutation and healing.

 

Welcome to a different understanding of chocolate.  Origional chocolate.  A cacao ceremony is an experience in a group energy… I could tell you about my cacao ceremonies, but that would not tell you about anyone else’s cacao ceremony, because cacao works with you where you are, and with the ceremonial facilitator through where they are.  Cacao brings the door but doesn’t push you through it. 

 

Years ago, cacao offered me this partnership… and I share this understanding with others.  I have become known affectionately as the first non-indigenous ‘chocolate shaman’, and as the ‘real Willy Wonka’… may you have as much fun!

 

You know, it is a circus out there on the new age banquet table.  I know people who after a ceremony or two call themselves cacao shamans and begin doing their own cacao ceremonies.  They use my writings as their own.  Let the buyer use their own discrimination.  Injoy!

  

Background on Cacao

 

According to archeologists, the Cacao Spirit was one of the most powerful deities in ancient Mayan cosmology.  While the former Mayans and Aztecs of southern Mexico and Guatemala are best known, there are contemporary traditional Indigenous cultures in Central and South America who continue cacao use in shamanic ceremony, preferring it to locally available psychedelics.  With today’s psychedelic buzz, you may not have heard much of them.  Although one of this world’s finest spiritual facilitators/ teachers, cacao was ignored in the ‘60’s resurgence of medicine plants because it does not act like a psychedelic – it does not take you on its trip, but facilitates your own. It is Cacao’s choice to return at this time, and I am having fun being part of that flow.

 

Over 200 cacao drinking jars dated 900 to 1000 years ago have been unearthed in an 800 room Native American pueblo in Chaco Canyon, northwestern New Mexico, USA.  The nearest available cacao is more than 1200 miles (1920 km) south in Mexico.  [February 4, 2009, page A14, New York

edition of the New York Times.]  At 8 to 10 servings per pound (454 gm), that much cacao would be heavy!  With 2 major psychedelics (psilocybin mushrooms and peyote cactus) much closer, why this huge expenditure of effort to obtain cacao… what did they know?  

 

There are contemporary Indigenous peoples who use cacao to facilitate a type of collective lucid dream where all journey together in another dimension.  A story:  Invited to visit… walking in past the lower trail guardians (they don’t do tourists)… the shamans were not in the village.  A 9 year-old led the way up to the caves.  Through the limited Spanish on both ends, it was shared that before they went to war with another people, they spent a month meditating in those caves.  

 

When does the war start?  Last week.  Over-shoulder glances to howling laughter.  So they used the term ‘war’ because that is how they understand we solve our differences with other peoples.  They sit in a circle, drink cacao as they have been doing, and as a group meet the representatives of the other people, who drank in another cave, in an adjacent dimension.  Their spirits connect in the same way - you go into their world with them.  If one doesn’t work in this way, they can't participate - there is no ceremony to ‘learn’, and there is no psychedelic cacao to take one there.

 

The medical profession suggests you eat dark chocolate, but they rarely tell you (except in scientific papers) that commonly available chocolate has little of the compounds they have been studying.  Commercial processing developed during the last 200 years eliminates them from real chocolate - 99%+ are missing in Hershey’s, 80% are missing in Lindt – so real cacao has been all but forgotten.  I wonder what that processing has turned those compounds into?  Traditional processing preserves these elements.  

 

The instructions below will work with anyone’s cacao… however: cacao beans themselves vary in the amount of active compounds they contain by a factor of 4… occasional hybrids (most of the world’s commercial cacao is hybridized) have only 25% of the goodies my cacao has… other hybrids are fine for ceremonial use.

 

If you are buying “organic cacao”, sourced politically as organic and fair trade, it is often from larger seeded, easier processed, hybridized varieties - and may not be potent enough for ceremonial use, no matter how it has been prepared.  Just because it says ‘85% cacao’, has nothing to do with how much and what proportion of compounds effecting consciousness are present in that cacao.  I knew a great organic brand, but it changed completely when they sourced their cacao differently.  Try it to find out.  In my limited experience, most organic brands have delightful taste and texture, but are unsuitable for ceremony.  I have yet to meet a chocolatier who showed real interest in the active compound content of their product, tho I have known them to buy my cacao for personal use with several thousand pounds of prime raw cacao in their storeroom.

 

The raw food folks usually pay attention to how their cacao feels… the widely available raw cacao from Ecuador has 85-90% of the strength of native Guatemalan cacao that moved north through Central America with the shamans… or, others say that cacao originated in Central America – anyway, the botanists consider it a different variety than the South American type.  Larger seeded hybrids are a cross between these two varieties.  Most ‘raw’ cacao nibs work well in ceremony if you use a bit more.  Be cautious with nausea, the main consideration in eating more cacao containing more bitter but less psycho-active ingredients.

 

Many South American types have a thicker pulp surrounding larger cacao seeds that has been selected by people using that sweet-tart pulp, which is a traditional fruit snack and premium smoothie ingredient.  Look at the seed size for the cacao you are buying, perhaps 10% of the world chocolate supply comes from these smaller beans.  The Guatemalan shaman-selected cacao I offer has a thin pulp and small seeds that requires less than half the fermentation time, generating less heat and acid in the process.  If I could go out and buy ceremonial chocolate this good, I wouldn’t be processing it myself!

 

Real cacao, eaten as whole peeled beans finger-dipped in agave nectar, is used in high-end yoga studios to facilitate that focus.  There are ‘cacao bars’ that do not serve alcohol, where one drinks cacao/ superfood concoctions and connects with others in the open-hearted energy cacao fosters – so different than alcohol (which works as a social lubricant by suppressing fear).  I hear of traders on the stock exchange floor who prefer cacao to coke for the clear focus without the crash/ recovery.  A writer I know tells me he can hold 3 separate story-lines in his head and weave his paragraphs from that.  With a cup of this cacao he holds up to 9 simultaneous story-lines and produces easier quality.  Creative facilitation, anyone?  Connection wherever you want to go.

 

That's right; in the drug department cacao with the goodies in it is one of the best focus enhancers and creativity facilitators on the planet.  Unknown and untapped market, but not the one I'm interested in… I help the creative folks move how they block their own flow.  By the way, in my experience, the addition of coffee to a cacao brew moves it out of the creative-as-connective department and into the straight

stimulant department… but then I don't have a caffeine habit.  As a stimulant, cacao synergy improves coffee… another market.  I remember experimenting for a visiting emotional processing student who was into coffee… you know mocha, this was woke-a!  I sometimes put coconut milk, cardamom, chili, and vanilla in it.

 

 

Using my solid blocks of ground pure cacao… Using Cacao for Ceremony or Inner Work… Ceremonial Preparation

 

Use 7 US ounces (0.2 L) water per person for a thicker 'Mayan Potion', to 10 oz (0.3 L) for a somewhat more liquid drink.  (If rapid assimilation for ceremonial purposes is not needed, you may thin the bitterness of the chocolate with as much liquid as you'd like.)  Heat (doesn’t need to boil) enough chili/ red/ cayenne pepper (a spiritual accelerator) in the water for a good tickle… more if you like, less if you don’t – finely powdered cayenne does not need to be strained.  The chili is traditional and the circulation warming helps get the cacao into your bloodstream… but isn’t mandatory.  Cardamom (or cinnamon, the Mexican preference), and vanilla are flavorful options; add vanilla extract at the end.  Some like a pinch of salt.  Cardamom is a bit of a synergist.  

 

Chop my block chocolate with a large knife into fragments about 1/4 inch (6 mm) or smaller in some dimension, so it softens easily in hot water.  Per person, added to that hot to less-than-boiling pepper/ cardamom water: 1 oz (28 gm) cacao for a meditation assist, to 2 oz (57 gm) for a full ceremonial dose.  A 1-pound (454 gm) package of cacao does 8 - 11 ceremonial doses.  An eggbeater, whisk, or fork works to break-up the heat softened chunks.  After it has 'dissolved', add whatever sweetening you want.  Many who know cacao add no sweetening at all.  With the current state of high energies, I am using 1.5 oz (42.5 gm) given in one dose as a full ceremonial dose. 

 

Until you know cacao, I emphatically recommend drinking 2/3 of a 2 oz. ceremonial dose, and the remainder, slowly, 45 minutes to one hour later, if there is no stomach queasiness at all – a few will get ill

from all that bitter if they drink a full 2 oz. all at once.  Consume the remaining third according to how you feel… a few will have nausea 5-6 hours later even doing it this way so consider going easy at first.  Some, but not all, with low body weight - take less.  Those needing detox or those clean and raw, take less first time - the level of acceptable stimulation will guide you.  If not about liver detox, hours later nausea is usually overdose - it is intelligent feedback from your body and your teacher.  Early nausea is usually a message… we talk about messages elsewhere.

 

Contraindications:  Those who are toxic (as with an intervention like chemotherapy), or need dietetic detox, may become nauseous 5-6 hours after a large dose, as the bitter stimulates the liver… if so drink water!  Those into fasting or raw diet may overdose on smaller quantities.  Lower doses may also be needed for those with low body weights, or those who regard themselves as sensitive, such as to drugs or energies... this could be physiological or belief system based.  Many antidepressants do NOT mix with the tryptophan and MAO inhibitors in this cacao… Google your meds! – I have seen some ripping migraines and lengthy vomiting, and it could be worse.  Heart conditions: cacao increases heart rate significantly, and is a vasodilator, reducing blood pressure.  Go easy at first with very low blood pressure.  No more than an ounce (28 gm) with pregnancy or breast feeding, and not that much until you know cacao and understand your own pace with it.  If you get migraines from coffee, be cautious with cacao.  Real chocolate is fatal to dogs (and I hear parrots and horses) who genetically lack the enzyme to metabolize theobromine… and so have a heart attack.

 

Many can feel it immediately (energetic blending with the Cacao Spirit), and all are getting a buzz in 20 minutes or so.  Deepest effects last 4 to 5 hours...  Some prefer taking a full dose as two portions, several hours apart, or just as you begin to taper from the first ounce or so – workable for day-long focus holding.  I have people begin drinking water about halfway through a ceremony.  Important: dehydration headache, including next day - drink water!  Some find larger amounts of cacao to be gently laxative 4 to 6 hours later… this is normal.

 

Cows milk is said to block intestinal assimilation of flavanoids, perhaps more… the Cacao Deva says no…  If you want that flavor, use vegetable based milk.  In my public ceremonies it’s simply cacao in hot water, with concentrated chili-pepper ‘tea’ and a choice in sweetening available for individual cup and spoon addition.  The spoon incorporates the sweetening and helps keep the cacao in suspension while drinking.

 

Whole beans or pieces (nibs) will not melt in hot water… chew well or use a blender.  Blending works best with less water to produce a thick liquid… then add more ingredients if smoothie making, or use additional water (it can rinse the blender) to thin the thick blended chocolate for hot or cold drinking.  Beans alone without water do not grind well in the blender... as soon as they get warm the cacao butter melts and everything sticks without being finely ground.

 

Bringing cacao to a boil and simmering lightly for a few minutes will produce a thicker, richer, and smoother brew with more dispersed floating butter and fewer settling dregs.  I also find that with boiling, the consciousness effects are a bit milder.  The Kuna boil their cacao for an hour or more; I never tried that.  Because of the increased thickness from boiling, use the greater amount of water mentioned above.

 

Go easy on the caffeine or coffee in the hours before a ceremonial amount of cacao... too buzzy, no focus.  Coffee and cacao as mocha is fine… but a poor combination in ceremony.  The general agreement is that there is little caffeine in cacao… it is mostly a sister molecule, theobromine (it takes a sophisticated chemical test to tell them apart, hence the frequent statements about caffeine in cacao).

 

Fasting before a ceremonial dose is not necessary – and I don’t recommend it for first-timers as an empty system may accelerate assimilation and bring on bitter-related nausea.  Normal or light eating a few hours beforehand is fine.  Cacao acts as a food… few miss eating if using cacao over a usual mealtime.  

 

Ingesting more than 2 oz (57 gm) of this cacao is unnecessary and undesirable for almost everyone.  In my experience 5-7% of people given this much cacao all at once will become nauseous enough to vomit.  Cacao is naturally self-limiting as higher doses soon produce nausea (any bitter in sufficient quantity is emetic).  Some friends gave higher doses a good test to see if cacao can be used in the way that the purging with some psychedelics is a natural part of the process… conclusion… all you get is sick.  The hard way to do a liver cleanse.  Inner work while nauseous doesn’t go very well, either…

 

One ounce (28 gm) per person is enough for many inner activities and may bring on deep emotional release.  Certainly sufficient for open-heartedness.  Everyone is different.  Many have experienced emotional release or energetic blending with the Cacao Deva from munching one bean or from the first sip. 

 

A ceremonial dose taken after about 2pm may have you awake late, unless you are tired from emotional release… although the occasional person can nap on a full ceremonial dose (it is called resistance).  If you allow your density up, and then block its release, expect a ‘chocolate hangover’ the next day until the energies dissipate or you get them repressed again.  It is just energy… it has to go somewhere.  You will have 30-40% more blood flowing to your brain with this cacao… no pharmaceutical drug does this.  Your skin will have almost double the oxygenation… touch is different if your intent or heart is involved.  The heart connecting also contributes to cacao being called an aphrodisiac.

 

A larger or full ceremonial amount of cacao combined with aerobic activity or a hot spring/ tub/ sweat could make anyone nauseous.  Taking cacao on a food or liquid occupied stomach, or with food, will slow assimilation - which you might want sometimes.  This works well with something like hiking, or long hours of focused creative activity.  Cacao has long been considered a marvelous trekking nourishment (although the vasodilation might lead to extra heat loss at sub-zero temperatures).  Reminder: headache, including next day - drink water!  (Theobromine is diuretic.) 

 

Taking a small amount of cacao just before sleeping (try 0.3 oz/ 8.5 gm of my cacao) will help you remember your dreams… I find it works better than alcohol or caffeine which are sometimes recommended for this purpose (I first saw this from channeled Seth in the 1970’s).  My suggestion is to drink enough water to need to pee in the middle of your sleep time and to take the cacao as you return to bed for the later stages of sleep.  There are some scientific papers on the benefit of cacao to tooth decay, as I remember… so perhaps drink it unsweetened.

 

For something like Kundalini Yoga, with its active component, try 1.2 oz (34 gm).  I have had a number of inquiries about using cacao for a dinner, party, or gathering such as a wedding… and especially as a replacement for alcohol.  I have had delightful reports.  For those who want to foster heart-centered connecting in this way, I recommend 1.3 oz (37 gm), taken after the volleyball or any intense aerobic activity… time it for an active period of 5-6 hours… activities such as driving are no problem.  Drinking this much cacao in the evening will have some sleeplessly awake late, so try an ounce (28 gm).  Taking with food will slow assimilation and prolong the active period – which may work well for early afternoon drinking.  Monitor carefully to prevent overdose with second helpings, use much less for children, and consider coconut milk/ cream, cardamom/ cinnamon, cayenne, and vanilla.  You must check for heart conditions and for use of prescription antidepressants (where you may want to be able to Google the particular meds for contraindication with MAO inhibitors).

 

  

Using Chocolate for Spiritual Purposes – As the Ancient Sacred Teacher and Facilitator It Is… Spiritual Cacao

 

Several years ago while living in Guatemala, the cacao Deva/ Spirit impulsed me to explore cacao.  On first use, I understood cacao as a forgotten teacher, and to use cacao as a facilitator with the personal inner-work and processing that I had been trained to do and teach.  We have been having fun.  I often go deep without cacao… I often use cacao – one of this world’s wondrous assistants offered that I might enjoy using and re-introducing Her in this way through my work.  In the same way, She will partner with you in yours.

 

For me, a major advantage to ceremonial cacao is that participants are able to hold a good multidimensional focus for 4-5 hours, allowing more time for deep work without mental or emotional fatigue.  Many find that as their meditational focus-holding ability improves and they learn to work on other levels, a full ceremonial dose is unnecessary.  I haven't used a full ceremonial dose in a couple of months… except to test a new batch of cacao for public sale and to host the occasional local ceremony, which isn't much in the middle of the heaviest rainy-season in anyone's memory… as I write this I am taking a break from international ceremonial travel delighting in my own inner work, which is often without any cacao at all.  Today I am writing, without cacao - but sometimes I use about an ounce (28 gm) with food, perhaps in a green smoothie.  That's my flow.

 

You know the value of asking for help… try cacao with clear intent and experience the cooperative partnership of “the food for the shift”.  Experience cacao with the meditation you use.  Use, rather than judge… trust where this teacher takes you!  Use cacao to foster deeper intimacy with your mate – as a connection and partnership facilitator.  Use cacao for a good buzz, good conversation, good yoga, good sex, emotional or energetic intimacy, or to change your reality – the choice is yours.  Use it as an addictive stimulant… this teacher will take you there if that is a place you have inner business!

 

Certainly, I call cacao a drug, as are all medicine plants… and like anything else it is not for everyone.  I get occasional e-mails from people, often into raw foods, explaining that drugs aren't necessary or desirable for spiritual purposes - that the body can do this on its own.  However fine for them, I don't work like this.

 

Whether such a statement is a high truth or a belief system judgment doesn't matter to me.  If Higher Self, the divine representation within, is impulsing one to use cacao - be that for spirituality or to deal with their addictive tendencies - that individual guidance takes precedence.  I follow, having no right-way to tell anyone.  Of course, discrimination between the voice of higher self, the voice of a belief system, and the voice of addiction is required…   

 

 

Cacao For Innerwork

 

Cacao is a heart-centered cooperative partnership facilitator, assisting in conscious connecting wherever your intent or inner need goes.  If you find yourself with a repetitive thought or image… little daydream… about yourself or another… take it inside, receiving it as yours, then follow whatever your Higher Self is gently getting your attention about.  As one does with dream images, assume it is about you even if it is presented (so you can receive it) as about someone or something else.

 

A story from an early ceremony:  A fellow complained that he had a story-line stuck in his head, and if he could just get rid of it, he could get with what we were doing.  I suggested his Higher Self was trying to get his attention about something… so what's the story?  “I'm riding my bicycle along one of the canals in Amsterdam, going into a café, and smoking a big spliff.”  So what's the feeling?  “I'm totally free.”  In the moment… in the flow… in the magic.  We went inside and soon found that he had being free ‘hooked’ to smoking.  He wasn't smoking at this time, so therefore he couldn't be free.  After unhooking at this subconscious level he sat there, grinning, free.  I told him not to re-hook it to cacao.  

 

‘Dark shadow’ density (fear, pain body, blocks, issues, conditioning, belief systems, resistance, emotional toxicity) that needs to be released, or its location in your body, will be brought to your attention.  Whatever message you need will come… just like life!  Your even scarier ‘light shadow’ magnificence… where you are ready to open/ connect/ expand will also be more accessible, if that is what’s up.  Many in my ceremonies sit in the proverbial pillar-of-light and blissfully broadcast that higher-dimensional frequency, making my job easier – that’s holding space!

 

Some systems of healing can work through suspending disease conditions long enough for healthier patterns to be adopted by the whole system.  Cacao often, for example, suspends repression in a selected area (at the head of the queue from a Higher Self perspective) and allows what one needs to work with to bubble to the conscious surface as images, feelings, or through assistance from the body consciousness as physical symptoms.  It can be very subtle or it can be a flood-of-tears popped cork.

 

In using cacao, you work with the density that She helps bring to your attention in the usual way.  In feeling it, or with awareness of its location in your body, get close to it, move to or into it, and let the knowing unfold.  Feel it to the bottom!  As much as possible hold non-attached surrender and pass on the judgment and fixing.  Then bring in the light.  Give the density to whatever portion of your higher reality or the guides you are working with… and it will transmute.  That transmuted energy and the higher energy flowing into the newly opened space heals you.  Do both… transmute the old and call in the replacement.  These things are often in layers like an onion... the next layer will be up in its own time.

 

Afterwards, remember to drink water!  It is a standard concept in release work that the physical analogues to the energies you moved enter the bloodstream… if you drink… you pee… they are gone.  Water is also a metaphor for flowing emotion and can foster your continuing work in the energies for the next several days after ceremonial use.  Many have density up next day and have an opportunity to follow it if they do not reject it as something negative.

 

This medicine plant assists in accessing physical, mental, emotional, psychic, or spiritual arenas… as you require.  Set your intent, perhaps as an issue you choose to work with, and cacao will facilitate connection with wherever you source your guidance, internal and external… however you experience it.  The magic and a deeper focus flow.  

 

Cacao brings the door but doesn’t push you through it.  For many, this fosters a significantly different trust and use relationship

than with psychedelics.  The type of intimacy facilitated by such trust may be an asset in working through issues where fear is involved.  After all, the literal translation of the conquistador era Indigenous word for drinkable chocolate was ‘heart blood’ (so I've read) - and isn’t the fluid that flows through the heart… love?  …”The food of the Gods”.  This is the meaning of ‘Theobroma’ the scientific genus name for cacao (by Linnaeus himself, the originator of scientific nomenclature).  What would a god’s food be, besides love?  

 

What would love do… help with your fear?  Find out.  Find some fear, or other density… inside… cacao, Higher Self, and your body consciousness will show you where it is... (possibly dense, dark, agitated, contracted, tight, or just painful enough to notice)… sit down with it and get to know it… listen to what it has to say to you, this is not the time to tell it where to go, or to fix it - enough of fighting against it… feel it… feel the fear… begin learning to trust this process.  Then step out of the way, bring in your light, open your crown and bring it right down into your heart… put your arm around your fear… let the light flow, it knows what to do.  You don't have to work with fear… beyond letting it go - you might have to work with the part of self (like an inner child) that is holding on to the fear, however.  Soon many can feel fear on the ‘cellular’ level… I call it ‘squeamy’… squirm + scream… feels like individual cells wanting to run right out of the body.  Some have experienced this in life; here it’s done consciously in meditation.  A note… there are several emotional processing techniques that promise you freedom from your density without having to feel it… a workable introduction for those in terror of such feelings.

 

We are all skilled density movers by creatively objectifying ‘external’ mirrored reality and then experiencing it through trauma, drama, pain, and struggle.  You can go within and feel it in meditation, or you can manifest and feel it in reality.  Your choice.  In these times, this process is accelerating - as many understand.  Imagine a higher-dimensional blissful grin spread over your face while a wave of old often-played-out density is deeply felt with full non-attachment, then released/ transmuted first at energetic and emotional levels and eventually at core/ spirit. 

 

Cacao would help you experience this choice to partner with your own higher and denser energies, and the accelerated liberation this makes

possible.  Cacao is in no way necessary for this process, but it can facilitate experience in what we already understand within… with an open-hearted centering.  When you can laugh and cry at the same time, you are very close… sample your mastery.

 

Intentional cacao use is a relationship, a partnership - you are dancing with a being.  It’s physical form is called cacao.  And as with intimate or business partnerships, your issues, your emotional and energetic density, will come up… manifesting physically or emotionally.  Yes, you will play out your stuff with cacao, like any other parent-partner-lover-teacher.  With cacao density comes up relatively gently, and in a way you can work with it, or choose not to.  A natural tendency for many is to assume that the clearing process, if negative, is about the cacao… many in relationships think it’s about the other person as well - you may know this as blame.

 

Some into avoiding or repressing emotions are not going to be happy with regular cacao use, especially if they have completed much of their physical level purification and are otherwise ready to continue detox in emotional arenas.  If you view cleaning up your emotional and vibrational toxicity as an imperative for these times, you might find cacao to be an asset.  To an open heart!  

 

Cacao headaches:

 

•a. The theobromine in cacao is diuretic, and headache is a typical physiological signal for dehydration… 

•b.  Cacao may work with you through the emotional body, and water is often needed to “keep things flowing”, as literal metaphor and more… headache can be the re-hydrate indicator here as well… 

•c.  Cacao is a partnership facilitator.  One of the things that it helps you communicate with is your subconscious.  As Carl Jung pointed out, the language of the subconscious is symbols, images, and metaphors (as you probably won't allow yourself to hear it directly, as voices in your head).  In this culture, a head-heart/ left-right brain disconnect is the norm.  Here a headache is the perfect metaphor - the head hurts

because it is attempting to meet an expectation that it understand and solve reality - for which it is not the appropriate tool.  Even with heart and higher input, the head is not the tool for things like directing one’s journey.  

 

Headaches are common with cacao… who else tells this truth in such a direct way without a big trip.  Who else will stand up in your reality and lay what you need to hear on the line, straight.  In your face… from behind it…  Ouch.  I have seen many headaches lessen or stop following heart opening and integration work.  

 

More stimulation than you want is overdose.  Above that nausea begins.  A bit more cacao and you will throw-up.  Cacao is bitter… enough of any bitter will produce nausea, and with more become emetic.  At around 3.5+ oz (100+ gm), the average person will be miserably awake and throwing-up repeatedly for hours, perhaps much of the night.  (I've had the occasional person in my ceremonies who doesn't listen to me, because they know that in the drug world, if a little bit’s good a whole lot’s better.  I have learned to strictly monitor cacao availability.)  

 

Consider also that lower-dose nausea may be a metaphor – for something one wants to throw out, or for something coming in: “I can't stomach that.” - for whatever life issue cacao is assisting to surface.  Those who have been resisting such messages from themselves for some time may get a rather forceful heads-up, especially if they are headed toward manifesting something far less desirable. 

 

I've had the occasional person in a ceremony leave early... throw-up... return open and without judgment... deal with their issue... have some more cacao... and continue ceremony in a powerful way.  Rarely, cacao in normal dosage will work along the lines of some plant psychedelics, where physically purging parallels purging on other levels.  I don't see this too often, but it can be lengthy and uncomfortable, however effective.  

 

Your chocolate shaman says… Enjoy!

 

 

Toxic Cacao and Emotional Detox

 

For a portion of the raw foods movement, cacao is considered a toxic addictive stimulant to be avoided.  Here's what often happens: cacao brings messages to the surface consciousness about inner reality in need of healing.  Raw foodies are trained to use their body to monitor dietetic choices… to understand negativity that they feel through their body as feedback about physical toxicity.  Oops… messages misunderstood… bad cacao.  You think the symbolic keys to your emotional toxicity saying dig here for inner healing gold are going to feel like the coastal coconut I opened for today’s lunch?  Cacao does not work the same with everyone.  Others on a raw diet experience “the best day ever” from cacao consumption.

 

Many into raw foods are physically clean and their consciousness is ready to move into emotional detoxification, a next step in a common progression.  From cleaning the physical body to cleaning the emotional body.  Their emotional and psychic channels are clogged or disconnected, like most everyone else, so through their clean and perceptive physical bodies cacao flows a map of their next step in healing.  Of course, if you don't have that understanding personally, or you have a support system telling you that your emotional cleansing process is instead harmful toxic symptoms, you will have no idea what to do with the metaphors to your inner healing that cacao and other levels of your being have presented you with.   Keys to basic ‘Know Thyself’... which you may understand as important in most any spiritual system.

 

Many have had the experience of, for instance, doing a liver detox, and having someone tell them that their cleansing reactions are a sign that the detox program is bad for them.  I get this exact situation from quality raw food instructors not trained in emotional and spiritual detox.  Raw teachers tell me about the folks who are toxic following cacao ceremonies and I tell them about the folks who when shown how

to cooperate with ‘what's up’ and follow their ‘toxic’ symptoms, are able to use those messages to lead them into their next step in life-changing inner healing and growth.  

 

With cacao as in life, if you don’t listen to the messages, they get louder.  More than one raw teacher tells this very story on their web-site…(well, not quite this way)… about why they stopped using cacao: the unwanted and misinterpreted-as-toxic messages eventually became intolerably loud and the obvious option was divorce.  Perhaps they have played out the same scenario in other life arenas… as issues scripted from within, and not about whomever is playing the other end of that script for their own purposes.  Or one can blame their damn ex and in writing about that toxic addictive bitch, believe they are talking about the cacao.  Without the training I received to clean up my inner act and then teach, long before my introduction to cacao, I wouldn’t have understood what to do with the friggin metaphors, either.  

 

If you do not want to hear what your caring subconscious mind would have to say to you, as the consensus reality teaches us all, you may not like cacao, and She may see to it that you keep your distance.  In addition, cacao works with you where You are… if you want an addictive stimulant… if you use cacao that way… you got it!  Is that about you or the cacao?  You may not be familiar with native teaching styles that have so much respect for who you are as an individual on your own sacred journey that they trust and allow you to have that journey finding your own way… with guidance always available if you ask… and consider that as unconditional… love… the same teaching method God-Goddess has always and is today using with you. 

 

I really appreciate the preparation work that fasting and raw foods teachers have done for me in working with many of those I see!  Cacao is one assistant in the progression from using a physical substance like food to do your detox and healing, to partnering in meditation with a multi-dimensional divine light energy to do your detox and healing.  Cacao as a divine energy?  Sure, centuries ago… sure, traditional shamanism… today, cacao as multi-level facilitating consciousness - the divine energy and resultant empowerment are your own…  Old age and new age.

 

Clearing emotional issues, cacao or not, gets you out of your own way, so who you really are and the gifts you have can come through… can come and get you - you won't have to look for them.  One does not go into the next dimension while carrying all that emotional and belief system baggage.  That ‘stuff’ is increasingly coming ‘up’, because it must, because it’s time and you made this choice before you were born… a facilitator like cacao is going to present you with it and with the higher connectedness to move it in more elegant ways than playing it out as externally manifested drama.  As with raw detox, many need personal assistance (I certainly did) in understanding the process as it is outside of the consensus reality box and easy to judge as not something you want to go through… however wonderful in the longer run.  

 

There are those for whom the stimulation from cacao is not something they want in their day.  Dandy.  Maybe their message is also to stop overdosing and use less.  Another non-indigenous cacao healer I know gives people one morsel – just a taste - of her chocolates and they often go into spontaneous emotional release.  There are those for whom what surfaces in emotional detox is not something they want in their day, as the conditioning to repress such issues leads.  Dandy.  Their path or schedule is different.  There are those who are discovering that emotional or density detox is a logical extension of physical detox and they and their worlds are drawn into these understandings.  Dandy, and as I experience it, that is where so many are today.  Raw has prepared them well.  Cacao is one option among many, and for some makes an excellent partner in this portion of the journey.

 

OK, lets look at a few other things common on the toxic cacao sites I've looked at.

 

•This typical example was copied to me by one of the toxic cacao raw teachers to illustrate the harmful effects of cacao:  From Paul Nison’s site www.rawlife.com  [I couldn’t find it there and with the raw site where I did find it, Google flashed me warnings about numerous pages on the site that loaded viruses into their servers… perhaps a hacked site]  “I ate a bunch of cacao last night because I kept hearing such great things about it from other raw foodists. I felt like I was on some serious drugs last night, and did not feel well at all!! I woke up at

6am with an awful headache and threw up. Now I feel so sick!!”  An overdose story given as intelligent understanding about cacao…  Would you consider a pizza binge as intelligent understanding about the overall nature of a raw food diet?

 

•It kills animals.  If… as with dogs, parrots, and horses… their genetics do not include the metabolic enzyme that handles theobromine - they eat cacao, have a heart attack, and die.  So is that about the cacao or the genes?  Bad cacao, down boy…  I learned in high school that this variety of incomplete truth along with a sensationalist (it kills animals) appeal is a manipulative literary device called yellow journalism… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism …need I mention that cacao can help?  Perhaps you can relate to my sense of humor.  

 

•Animals do not eat cacao… so therefore you shouldn’t either.  Maybe cacao’s purpose does not have to do with feeding animals, except through the pulp.  Maybe cacao’s purpose would help you get to the place where you could address your concerns directly with the Cacao Deva… the Spirit, the consciousness behind the form.  Believing one gets answers to such questions solely at isolated mental levels is a fear-based toxic addiction and consensus reality norm – need I mention that cacao can help?  3 gold stars if you got that someone with this major addiction, and in denial about it, might be rather negative about anything that would be a threat to their habit…  

 

•Native people do not eat cacao, except ceremonially.  Go visit the Kuna.  In the late 1990’s it came to the attention of medical researchers that these tropical island Indigenous Panamanians did not have the expected high-salt-diet = high-blood-pressure, and when the cause was understood to be cacao, the current scientific interest in chocolate was born.  The Islanders drink chocolate as their primary fluid intake.  Chocolate not pulp, and mostly traditionally processed.  Yes, I know there are raw websites where the author repeatedly explains how much research they have done, and then tells you that no native peoples consume cacao except ceremonially.  

 

I have looked at a few papers in the scientific literature on the Kuna and their cacao.  I mentioned earlier: http://www.medsci.org/v04p0053.htm   Some papers are not publicly online, and therefore cannot be Googled – here I suggest Chevaux KA, Jackson L, Villar ME et al.  Proximate, mineral, and pro-cyanidin content of certain foods and beverages consumed by the Kuna Amerinds of Panama.  J Food Composition Analysis 2001;14:553-63 for those who would accept the native-peoples-not-consuming-cacao authoritative statements repeated on the toxic cacao raw food websites.  Check it out for yourself.  

 

In Costa Rica I know of Indigenous peoples who consume cacao, in and out of sacred ceremony.  Yes, I know there is a photo of a Costa Rican Bribri child eating cacao pulp on the website of a raw foods teacher who spends a lot of time in that country, and he uses that photo to reinforce his argument that native people do not eat cacao.  My experience, and also what I've heard from others who work with Indigenous peoples in this area, is different.  Perhaps it’s a tribal difference.  It is my understanding that there are also people, Indigenous and not, in southern Mexico who consume locally processed cacao on a regular non-ceremonial basis.  Cacao travelers passing through my town in Guatemala have told me of their time with them, whatever that’s worth.  Also other natives in Panama and the remote Mosquito of Honduras and Nicaragua.

 

Now… I have an agenda-driven story myself:  More than once upon this time there was a person of great understanding who cleaned out with raw foods and the body became amazingly physically perceptive… this one influenced many and may have had a website or few to assist… naturally, to minimize life dramas and bring increased fulfillment, Higher Self wished that certain inner issues on the life-purpose schedule… be cleaned up… as the physical house was in order, it was time for the mental and emotional houses… and so brought gentle teacher cacao into this one's field… there being a kindred resonance between them… 

 

Teacher cacao found many channels disconnected or clogged in the emotional and psychic departments, nothing unusual here, but found a finely perceptive physical body, most unusual.  Through cacao’s forte of facilitating communication with other

levels… in this case the subconscious… some inner resistances were gently suspended (perhaps you know this as grace)… and along this now-ready body pathway flowed one metaphor after another to spread before this one a map of the inner density ripe for healing… for cacao respectfully presents one with choices to be made from your own empowerment… magnificent, even magical, wouldn't you say?  Understandable that cacao was once considered divine…

 

Alas, the symbolic messages about inner density, naturally a tad on the negative side, were misinterpreted as the toxicity itself… for feeling feedback about toxicity through the body was an important part of this one's healing roadmap… and this one had never been taught about other whispers from within… perhaps you haven’t either…

 

Cacao presented new metaphors… louder metaphors… more specifically pointed metaphors... not only did they go nowhere with the surface consciousness, but deep within they aroused a great uneasiness, as that part of this one knew where each metaphor pointed and had the supreme task of keeping this one ‘safe’ by protecting that programming, keeping selected pathways closed or restricted, and keeping a one-way-only lid on certain emotional depositories…  As the great one continued to consume cacao, this situation became entrenched resistance, like an inner war… so soon the relationship with cacao was terminated, as you might imagine under these circumstances…

 

But all did not live happily ever after… a disturbed inner part remained and was worried that teacher cacao would return… in order to protect this one, and in league with other parts-of-self, a plan was hatched… projection and blame arose from within and pounced on a mind defenseless without the knowing truth of the heart… the mind, having experienced similar painful scenarios from other areas of life, bought the whole story… and as you may have guessed, soon a new plan arose… cacao vendetta… toxic cacao… spread the word!

 

And that word fit right into the larger plan, keeping people not ready for the next cleanse away from cacao, and keeping them out of the ceremonies of those who taught it.  Thank you toxic cacao.  Others left the raw fold, whether leaving raw eating or not, because they dared to consider that one's beliefs about food have more causal impact in physical reality than the food itself… opening the door to cleaning up other beliefs and fears.  It's all good.  

 

Perhaps some of these toxic cacao folks would like to look into their addictive substance that never requires more, year after year.  If you go through cacao’s door… and have addictive issues… will you judge it in blame, get lost in it in addiction, or choose to use the healing potential available in the light.  Those who believe that choice is just about the cacao, will surely have difficulty with the personal level on which this facilitator works.  

 

About that level… why do you suppose real cacao waited until now to again become better known, and with whom is She working?  My ceremonies and groups, in which cacao is not necessary and often unused, but helpful for many, are training and experience in navigating that level – it’s not for everyone.  In contemporary lingo, we could say this is one way of blending your expanded normal consciousness with higher dimensions for the practical purpose of remembering and using the flowing inner art of healing and creating ones reality in partnership with Higher Self and the Light.

 

Absolutely, cacao can be used in an addictive counter-productive manner, and I know people who do.  If you don’t want to deal with those issues, don’t eat the teacher.  Those issues will arise in another way, as one put them there for good reason.  There are many ways to address ones inner density… and always, trauma, drama, pain, and struggle are popular and time tested - you can even do them with cacao.  That’s ok… cycle through it ‘till you’re done.

 

 

Notes for Head and Body… Notes Bin

 

De-fatted cacao powder, raw included, sometimes has a poor compound balance for ceremonial purposes… try it.  Use less as most of the butter (up to 50% of the cacao weight) has been removed through hot hydraulic pressing.  It is removed commercially so that the remaining cacao can be ground much finer without melting.  Many chocolate products, like bars, have some, all, or extra butter added back for smooth texture.  

 

Cacao powder is yummy in a blended mix of 2-3 medium avocados, a ripe banana, a can of coconut milk, cardamom, vanilla, and maple syrup, pitted dates, or honey (in order of preference) for sweetening… chocolate-avocado mousse!  Thicken by adding the cacao powder last until the blender begins to create an air pocket.  Serve in a parfait or wine glass topped with a raspberry or few, or shaved coconut.  You can use my ground cacao with a slight loss of textural smoothness, but often an increase in flavor.    In this case, first blend or boil the ground cacao with the coconut milk.

 

Coconut milk is delicious with cacao… with cardamom and vanilla making a fine gourmet drink… but would slow assimilation ceremonially.  One ounce (28 gm) cacao to a pint (0.5 L) of water for a decidedly rich social drink… add one can coconut milk per half-gallon (2 L).  Drink too much and you will be up late…  The first time I took this to a pot-luck, there were complaints as it was more popular than other more preparation-intensive dishes…  

 

Almonds are a standard addition to many Mexican chocolate products.  For funk-sional Mexican molé, a chocolate sauce that is often not sweet, work cacao with warmed nut butter and chili… sesame/ tahini the flavor-coordinating key… season with garlic, cinnamon, anise (half the cinnamon), cloves (half the anise)… sweeten with soaked raisins… thin with raisin soak-water.  I like some cardamom and ginger.  Drizzle over dinner or dip veggies.  For this fun, hang in Oaxaca’s (Mexico) 20 de Noviembre Market after (if needed) you’ve done some inner-work clearing beliefs about sugar, so objectification from that big one is not intrusive.   (This molé is without the usual non-olive flavorful oil addition as there is already enough oil for me… in the same way try

pesto with 20% oil, remainder water… enjoy more green stuff that way.  An all-cilantro pesto has a reputation for heavy metals detox.)

 

Cacao is an excellent synergist… most known is combining with psilocybin mushrooms.  A full dose of each together is overdose!  Try 1.3 oz. (38 gm) 40 min. to an hour after taking a psychedelic in moderation.  I have used lower doses of cacao topped off with some caffeine drink as needed for 18+ hour-a-day automotive driving.  Central American roads require a good focus.  Cacao is often combined with other superfoods, notably Maca.  My favorite is with Mucuna pruriens, especially a concentration like that from Ultimate Superfoods.  Regular Mucuna, try Agape Tea and let me know.  

 

Cacao also synergizes well with Ujuxte/ Maya Nut/ Ramon Nut – from the largest tree in the Central American rainforest and a staple of the lowland Maya before they became corn planters (barely discovered as a superfood) – check out Maya Nut Institute/ The Equilibrium Fund for one of the most needed and cleanest environmental organizations around.  You might have to come to Guatemala for some… the roasted nut tastes a bit like chocolate… great smoothie ingredient.

 

Cacao is a wonderful facilitator with today's tantric/ goddess temple pathways.  The increased bloodflow from cacao assists with sensitivity and sensation, the focus/ connecting qualities help you feel and stay with the movement of the energies and with your partner, and the heart centering pulls those energies upwards.  With ‘bottom up’ tantric practices where sexual energies are to be elevated through all your issues into other realms... consider also using cacao to partner with your own higher-dimensional existence and invite that presence to transform and open the energetic pathways in a ‘top down’ tantra you may find both ancient and in easy harmony with today’s so-available magic.  …The root will party right along.  Then invite your ‘terrestrial mother’ up to unite with the ‘celestial father’ you’ve brought down into your heart.  Overflow with the progeny of their divine mating.  Know self as a luminous lantern of divine light.  Engage your partner from this elevated resonance, knowing that your energies can be guided to similarly meet. 

 

If you want to remove the cacao butter from ground cacao like mine, or from finely blended beans, make your hot chocolate with hotter water (but not boiling which will disperse the butter) and then let cool in a wide-mouth container with an occasional short slow stir in the beginning of cooling; after cooling, optionally refrigerate and then lift out the solid butter.  You may re-heat, stir, and re-cool the butter in additional water to clean it up.  Re-add butter to chocolate treats, use cosmetically, or make a chocolaty fragrant medicinal salve for friends… melts at body temperature.  If your drink is going to cool or be refrigerated and you do not want the butter to separate or plug the container neck, use water less than 120°F (49°C) to soften the shaved cacao.  A customer in a local restaurant once got up and left offended without paying when served a cup of my cacao as hot chocolate, because of the butter droplets floating on top of the brew… a first meeting with real cacao…

 

A link for the compounds in cacao from a raw foods perspective:  http://www.sunfood.com/MyPages/about-cacao.aspx   

And from a related commercial site with many references and abstracts:  http://sacredchocolate.com   

Another site covering the psychoactive compounds in cacao:  http://chocolate.org  

Discussing what happens to processed cacao and the effect of real cacao on the heart from the American Heart Association:  http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/116/21/2360 

A scientific resource link from an industry promotional organization:  http://www.worldcocoafoundation.org/scientific-research/research-library/Cacao_HumanNutrition.asp  

You might like checking out this somewhat more approachable paper:  http://www.medsci.org/v04p0053.htm   This paper offers quantified research on the comments of the western-trained medical doctors in the Panamanian hospital system in the San Blas Islands Autonomous Territory.  Doctors who in 15 years have not seen a heart attack, strokes and other cardiovascular problems are almost unknown, cancer is low, diabetes (with overweight native American white flour and sugar eaters) is 39% of normal, and blood pressure is low even at advanced age and high-salt consumption... all this in a population that has double the old folks, as many Kuna’s work on the mainland and later in life retire back to the islands.  

 

The medical scientists have noticed that after decades in a mainland environment with processed cacao and whatever one would say produces the above ubiquitous maladies, they receive the full benefits, even late in life, after they return to the islands and to regular consumption of local traditionally processed cacao.  All the medical/ scientific buzz about chocolate began when someone noticed the high-salt-diet islanders do not have high blood pressure.  The early studies determined it was the cacao and not genetic.  The Kuna’s drink a bit less than an ounce (25 gm) of cacao a day, I believe.

 

A note: with all the scientific study of the Kuna’s generations of traditional cacao consumption, I have not seen any negative effects reported in the literature.  The Kuna’s do not live longer than anyone else; they die from the results of AIDS, infections (like malaria and tuberculosis), long-term parasite complications, and accidents (tho not auto, no roads in the San Blas).  The medical scientists have noted that most of us do not live in a tropical environment with the same prevalence of such infectious disorders, and over the past decade they have been looking into cacao.

 

I know several folks off their high blood pressure medication with regular lower-dose cacao use... cacao works where 5 prescription medications at once do not.  There is also much in the scientific literature about cacao lowering bad cholesterol and raising good cholesterol, that the increased blood-flow to the brain may delay dementias like Alzheimer’s, and some about cacao as a heavy metal chelator, binding and removing them from the body.

 

Considerable scientific research has used special cacao provided by M&M/Mars Company who developed and patented a process for this cacao after the early medical research in Panama with the Indigenous Kuna and their cacao.  You can read all about their Cocoapro chocolate (50% missing) on their website… they add a bit of this cacao to M&M’s (now 97% missing, formerly 99% missing), and to Dove Dark Promises (95% missing).  If you eat about 15 Promises (and don’t get sick), you will get about the buzz from a Lindt bar (80% missing).  Mars does not sell their 50% chocolate as such… they recognize it acts like a pharmaceutical drug, even though it is less potent than most chocolate

was 200 years ago.  I wonder if their lawyers decided that 5% strength chocolate was enough.

 

 

International Cacao Sales  

 

***Note: local prices for cacao have gone up 40% since the last bean purchase (speculators with $billions in the commodity markets ... and now Ivory Coast trouble...) so email for updated prices before ordering!***

 

Delivered by the Post Office to any address.

 

Available as:  •hand peeled whole beans with broken pieces (nibs),

                     •finely ground in a solid block of pure cacao, or

                     •mixed, specify pounds of each

 

Shipped in one US/ Guatemalan pound (454 gm) bags.

 

To USA, Canada, and S. America in US Dollars:

 

Cacao Net Weight          Your Cost Delivered              

   Pounds    Kg           $/Pound     $/Kg        Total       

      6         2.7             13.67       30.07         $82 

     10         4.5            12.00        26.45       $120            

     21         9.5            10.50        23.10        $220              

     41       18.6              9.76        21.50        $400 

 

To Europe, Australia, and the rest of the World in US$:

 

Cacao Net Weight          Your Cost Delivered              

   Pounds    Kg           $/Pound       $/Kg       Total       

     6          2.7            17.00         37.80       $102 

    10         4.5             14.50         32.00       $145   

    21         9.5             12.60         27.80       $265 

    41        18.6             11.70         25.65       $480

 

The available quantities are chosen to maximize value from the Guatemalan postal system’s official shipping weight categories – so more than 41 pounds requires a second box.  No sales of less than 6 pounds - it is a 45 min boat ride each way (on a calm day) to the post office…  And please, no intermediate weights… that throws the box into the next higher-priced shipping category without sufficient sales to pay for it.

 

Available as mostly whole beans with cracked pieces (nibs) - they keep better, and a good chew or a blender with water is all that is needed for preparation.  Or available finely ground in a solid block - or mix your order - please specify pounds (454 gm) of each.  

 

How it works:  In PayPal you can send money to glowtogo@yahoo.com.  Enter your shipping name and full post office or street mailing address.  Include a note with your email address! and tell me how much cacao you want as peeled beans/ ground

blocks/ or each mixed.  When the money appears in my account, I confirm by email with you and contact Isaias for shipping.  I email you when your order has shipped.  He gets a certified return receipt from the post office.  Postal shipping times average about 3 weeks to North America or Western Europe.   

 

Those in foreign countries who need an invoice in their own language to pick up the cacao, you may do the PayPal form that way in US$ and email me with your choice in cacao type (include shipping address) in English.  Referring to the cacao as roasted (tostado in Spanish) takes it out of the agricultural product category and into the cooked food product category where importation regulations are much easier, especially if you are ordering whole beans.

 

Also available is simple paper retail packaging, of blocks or peeled beans, in pound or half-pound, with a great graphic… inquire.  Cacao in blocks, and bulk or pound bags of peeled or unpeeled ‘raw’ beans can be shipped by air to a major airport in quantities of 50 kilos or more… inquire.  Prices get better above 100 kilos.  Just getting started here.

 

 

About Lava Love Ceremonial Grade Mayan Cacao 

 

This Guatemalan cacao is harvested, fermented, and dried in virgin Pacific coastal rainforest mountains by Mayan people.  [20+ years ago roads were bulldozed into these mountains to remove the select hardwood species of value, leaving the canopy intact.  The booming Indigenous population then used this access to under-plant in coffee and bananas, sometimes cacao – that’s typical coastal virgin where the rainforest still exists… it is relatively untouched only in remote high-slope areas.]  On old botanical maps of the native cacao-growing regions of Central America, the largest areas indicated are Pacific Guatemala… where this cacao comes from. 

 

When I need cacao, the Cacao Deva (consciousness/ Spirit behind the form) tells me where to go to get the beans with the compounds and energy best suited for the work I do.  That’s my ‘certified’…  I have walked into the mountains, into steamy coastal-plain towns on market day, and into city wholesale markets… over the last several years I have been buying cacao a few hundred pounds at a time.  Every trip for cacao is an adventure.  

 

After sufficient nibbling and communication with the cacao Deva, I almost always buy the small-seeded criollo (wild/ native) variety that has spent millennia with peoples using this plant for spiritual purposes.  These beans have undergone the traditional fermentation process with the sugary pulp that surrounds the seeds.  The seeds sprout and then die in this hot acidic ferment, the same as with almost all ‘raw’ cacao and all chocolate.  The transformation into chocolate continues enzymatically as the beans are dried.   With standard chocolate, roasting finishes the flavor.

 

This chocolate is traditionally processed to assure full potency.  A quick light toast over a wood fire (beans need soaking or toasting/ roasting to remove the husks, the almond-like papery skins) and the beans are individually hand-peeled by Kaqchikel Mayan women in an Indigenous community.  This gives income directly to these women, and is often the only independent income they have.  Hand-peeling allows the few moldy beans per pound to be removed rather than machine incorporated as nibs – for me an essential consideration with this cacao.  And besides, this supports Mayan chickens as well.   The women are paid by bean weight before peeling, so there is no incentive to include poor beans.

 

This cacao is not ‘raw’ (but, then, neither is most raw cacao… another story).  I have communicated about raw preparation with the Cacao Deva and experimented for years.  As I understand it, She requests fermenting and husk removal, and toasting/ roasting for that removal is fine and optional, although it is much preferred for regular use.  Because traditional cacao is usually dried on the ground, there can be surface bacteria and molds – a simple bacteria-killing toast is the only way I’ll peel.  This cacao and its preparation works for us and the metaphysical work that we do.  Wild-crafted in the old way from non-

hybridized and non-plantation under-story trees in an ancient tropical rainforest, this is straight-up traditional cacao. 

 

Our cacao in blocks is ground in an antique mill used only for cacao… it comes out just warm enough (just above body temperature) to be soft, and is spooned into bags to harden as it cools.  Attention: This cacao has not been 'tempered', a heating process common with chocolate products, so the cacao butter begins to separate within the blocks, first appearing as little white rings and soon turning much of the block dusty gray.  This is completely normal.  It can be slowed by refrigeration, or reversed by re-melting – put it in a black bag in the sun.

With all my international ceremonial travel, I have given this business to Isaias Mendoza, my 22 year old Mayan worker/ brother/ ’son’ of 7+ years.  We go for cacao together, I help with the contacts through my work, and I get great cacao for my ceremonies.  All sale proceeds are his, I volunteer my time.  His extended family does all the peeling.  Isaias is shipping directly to you.  

 

Enjoy this sacred Food for the Shift!  Keith

 

This cacao ships all over the world – contact Keith at  glowtogo@yahoo.com  or in Guatemala, Isaias at 5094-5053.