Cacao Medicine
The many faces of Theobroma Cacao
What is Cacao Medicine?
In many nature-based cultures, everything has a soul; everything is alive. Every animal, plant, tree, fountain, hill, stone, or element has a spirit and a heart; it is "animated." In this way of seeing life, nobody is ever alone, and everything can become a friend or a teacher. We can commune with nature on a much richer and deeper level if we begin to see and feel life everywhere, and we can seek the company of a plant or animal as we seek the company of a human being.
And so one day, the Cacao spirit came out of the jungle to commune with the whole world. To bring the remembrance of our connection to the beautiful nature that surrounds us, the remembrance of beauty, joy, and the deepest heart intelligence, compassion, and the remembrance of the wisdom of the elders who knew about the magic of life.
Cacao holds the power of gentleness.
It is a strong and, at the same time, gentle psychoactive plant medicine. Mama Cacao gently opens doors for us to step through, if we are ready.
This plant medicine helps to burn away old and dense energies, and it can feel like a warm embrace for the heart and soul. The energy of the Cacao Medicine then encounters the emotional body in a tender and loving way, opens the heart and the expression of the heart through the voice, and helps to bring us back to where we belong: into our natural state of being in the heart, out of doing mode, overthinking, and rationalizing.
Ceremonial Cacao is very different from the cocoa powder (and industrial chocolate) you may have used, which is made through a de-fattening process and chemically modified using potassium carbonate on the cacao bean. This process causes the loss of most of its ingredients, energy, and sacredness.
A little historical background:
1519, the first Cacao beans were brought to Spain, where the Europeans added sugar and milk, which inhibits the antioxidant powers of Cacao on a physical level, and, of course, on the energetic level contaminates its healing potential. The cheap mass-production of Cocoa had begun.
The Cacao that is traditionally used for thousands of years as medicine for the heart, body, and soul is carefully and respectfully harvested, fermented, and dried under the warm light of the sun. It has its full potency, flavor, and medicinal effects.
Theobroma cacao has many names: it has been called "food of the gods," "medicine of the shift," "liquid love," "medicine of peace," and many begun. Cacao was taken in tribes, communities, around the fire, or in marriage rituals.
We honor Cacao by drinking it together and sitting together to celebrate life and this beautiful medicine that we can share, experience, and from which we can learn again how easy it can be to drop into our hearts and live from there. The Tribal Community, which celebrates the Cacao Spirit in the animated world view, listens to Cacao's message on how to live in harmony with the natural world again.
The history of human interaction with the Cacao tree and its fruits reaches back millennia. This ancient creature has accompanied humans, like other sacred plants, for thousands of years, helping our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies to heal and find back into balance.
In the Mayan creation story, The Heart of Sky, "the gods" created the first human using water, earth, corn, fruits, trees, and cacao. In another Mayan myth, Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, brought the Cacao bean to earth from the garden of life and taught humans about medicine, agriculture, and how to live in harmony with the forests.
In many ancient traditions, like the Olmecs and Aztecs, Cacao was used in many different areas of life for shamanic purposes, rituals, and ceremonies (marriages, baptisms, sacrifices), but also as currency and as medicine. Cacao was not only sacred but had the same value as gold.
I feel that especially in the times we live in now, it is important that Cacao becomes "golden" again, as my wonderful Cacao elder teacher always says. We need heart opening, gentleness, a warm embrace, and a being that opens doors for us, so we may step into a more meaningful, colorful life, embracing the art of balancing the inner and the outer world.
Through this beloved medicine, we learn to talk from the heart again, remembering the trust and surrender to life.
Pictures taken on Martinique in 2019, where I learned to care of Cacao trees in permaculture.
On a physical level, Cacao builds up resistance, fights fatigue and exhaustion, detoxifies and remineralizes, helps with digestion and mental fatigue, and helps with shortness of breath! (Therefore, in some cases, I serve a cup of pure, ceremonial Cacao before a Breathwork session).
Cacao is an incredibly complex superfood, a phenomenon, with over 1200 chemically individual components, and therefore is a food AND medicine. It acts on the physical body first, offering many minerals, nutrients, and neurotransmitters. The blood circulation, for example, is accelerated by up to 40%.
Some of the key ingredients are:
— Theobromine: active vasodilator, increases circulation, stimulates the heart muscle, relaxes bronchial smooth muscles, and plays an important role in intracellular signals/communication, reduces fatigue, reduces blood pressure, anti-inflammatory
— High in magnesium, iron, calcium, potassium, copper, zinc…- hypotensive agents; free radical scavenger!
— Anandamide: "bliss molecule," psychoactive, improves memory, lowers physical and mental pain, helps with depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder
— Tryptophan: "falling-in-love molecule": amino-acid, hormone-balancing, reduces anxiety, balances mood
— Phenylethylamine: improves mood, improves cognitive functions
— Oxytocin: the "bonding hormone": it is released in the brain during childbirth, for example, or when we hug each other.
… And many others…
Another interesting characteristic of Cacao is its "number". The number five: The white, five-petaled flower is used in tinctures to treat fatigue and reconnect to one's center: the heart.
The Cacao pod and its nutritious and sweet Cacao fruit flesh inside that surrounds the beans also have five chambers. Cutting the pod open reveals the sacred symbol of the pentagram, or five-pointed star. The pentagram has many associations - one is the five elements of Water, Fire, Earth, Air, Ether.
Likewise, the five-pointed star within a circle was the Egyptian hieroglyph for the underworld womb, where rebirth is said to occur.
We discover more of the facts, the mythic, the magic, and the holistic benefits of The Food of the Gods in the Cacao Ceremonies I hold in The Freedom Tribe.
Thank you, Mama Cacao, for speaking through me. I learn from you day by day. You help me remember beauty and softness, when the rough and left-brained daily life takes over. I am forever grateful to have heard your calling.
Here is what Lisa wrote a few month after her first Cacao Ceremony with Sandra in
The Women’s Freedom Tribe retreat:
The Cacao Wolf
She leads with her heart
With her love for cacao
With her sea-blue eyes
Sparkling with femininity
And the divine
Her smile, an embrace
Full of warming, wild flames
Inviting all to join her
In her open-hearted ways
Her drum is her heartbeat
And there is no purer story
Thank you, Cacao collective!