Maya spiritual leaders are disappointed with cacao ceremonies because there is no such thing as a cacao ceremony. My name is Solveig Barrios. I'm the co-founder of the Mayan Wisdom Project. I started this project alongside my father, Carlos Barrios, who was a very renowned Mayan elder. And the reason we started the Mayan Wisdom Project is because we were really tired of seeing how many people were speaking about Mayan wisdom in a way that was incorrect, inappropriate, and it didn't even come from the teachings of the actual indigenous Maya people of Mesoamerica.

There were people just making stuff up and also offering things that in the Mayan world are considered dangerous, like either performing ceremonies or teachings that could be damaging to people's physical health, mental health or be considered irresponsible or unsafe. Since we began, I started to see all over the internet something called a cacao ceremony.

And on many occasions, it was not even just a cacao ceremony. It was called the Mayan cacao ceremony. And I started to ask myself, okay, what is this? What is this Mayan cacao ceremony? Because I legitimately asked myself, is this really a Mayan thing because I've never seen it and I did grow up travelling around Guatemala with my dad.

I'm from here. I grew up around Guatemala going to so many different Kotzij’, which is the traditional Mayan ceremony or fire ceremony. I grew up visiting healers and midwives and different teachers of the Maya tradition. And I thought, this is weird because I've never seen such a thing as a cacao ceremony, but let me find out maybe it's from a nation that I'm not so familiar with.

Maybe, I don't know, maybe it exists and I want to know. So I thought, okay, let me go on a rabbit hole, let me go on a research spree and call every teacher who I know. I talk to teachers from the Kaqchikel Nation, from the K'iche’ Nation, from the Q'eqchi’ Nation. In this journey, it was such a blessing because in this journey I ended up meeting teachers who are truly experts in the topic of ceremonial cacao because cacao is sacred in the Maya Nation since ancient times.

And they all told me, no, Solveig, there is no such thing as a cacao ceremony. But there are a lot of ancient practices with cacao and they started sharing them with me. I ended up partnering with a lot of these incredible teachers and cacao producers, and we still work with them today at the Mayan Wisdom Project.

So in the ancient Mayan world, ceremonial cacao was used by healers, but by healers who were properly trained to use it. It was used for conflict resolution internally. So for specific types of individual therapy, or also family therapy. For example, people who are married and a're having a fight, they could be given cacao to talk about the fight or family members fighting could be given cacao to try to resolve the problem.

Why? Because cacao has compounds that cross the blood brain barrier and regulate certain neurotransmitters of the brain that make us feel happy, good, in love, like phenylethylamine, they call it the love molecule, anandamide, they call it the bliss molecule, serotonin, which is responsible for our long term happiness.

Cacao regulates serotonin and also dopamine, which brings pleasure. And cacao makes us feel more empathetic, meaning we can have a better conversation, including if it's a difficult conversation, it's easier to get through a difficult conversation through cacao. It's used during Kotzij’ or Toch, which are the ancient Mayan fire ceremonies, but usually it's not drunk, it's offered to the fire.

In some cases, the spiritual leaders will say, okay, drink it. If the spiritual leader determines it's important for these people to drink it, maybe because they need conflict resolution or some of the effects of cacao to get through some difficult emotion, but it is more commonly just gifted to the fire.

It was used as an offering to strangers, to travellers who had been travelling for a long time and arrived in Mesoamerica and the people of Mesoamerica usually gifted them first cacao so that they could recover physically. It was used for performing better in physical activities because it gives you strength and it gives you energy.

So a broad range of people benefited from ceremonial cacao: from people who worked on the fields and drunk a cup of cacao in the morning for extra energy, to healers who knew how to give it in the appropriate way. Also it has always been used on an individual level, either to make use of its incredible health benefits for the incredible superfood that it is, or for its psychological benefits to get through a difficult day in a better way.

At the Mayan Wisdom Project we’ve partnered with local cacao producers from Guatemala to bring you the most authentic ceremonial cacao. It’s one of our most sought after products from The Mayan Market, our spiritual shop. But if you want to learn more about ceremonial cacao, you’re gonna love The Cacao Healing Bundle as it includes a course to go deeper on ceremonial cacao.
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