The One With The Cacao at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala
When the afternoon rains came, I knew it was time for the show to start. The view from my terraced hillside apartment overlooking the Guatemalan town of San Marcos La Laguna was the stage and Mother Nature was the performer. The light-filled apartment was the perfect vantage point to watch the lightning shows that dazzled the skies above the three ancient volcanos that stood in the nearby distance - Volcán San Pedro, Volcán Tolimán, and Volcán Atitlán. I’d seen lightning that magnificent only once during the previous year, in a small town outside of Kathmandu, Nepal. That performance was also from a hillside home with windows large enough to see the whole Kathmandu valley. Both experiences had me gazing out at the natural world, wondering why we ever needed televisions.
I’d been in San Marcos La Laguna for a week by then and the hilly town was starting to feel familiar to me. I’d learned my way around the relatively small lakeside town. I’d found a convenient cafe with reasonable Wi-Fi to frequent. I’d figured out where to get my weekly groceries, decided on my favourite fruit stall - the one that always had the ripest papaya - and ascertained the precise moment in the afternoons to walk back to my apartment before the downpours arrived. They called September the rainy season but the days were warm and sunny. Only in the afternoons would the rains arrive as if on cue to cool the humid air.
Lake Atitlán was like nowhere I’d ever been. The lake waters sit in a crater formed by a great eruption of a volcano over eighty thousand years ago. Known as the deepest lake in Central America, it holds special meaning to local Mayan communities who honour its rich heritage, living in small towns on the lake’s shores and offering worship to its waters. In 2023, Mayan culture and tradition blend with bohemian backpackers on their neo-spiritual pilgrimages and long-haired hippies who seemed to have found solace on the lake sometime in the eighties and never left. As with many beautiful places on this earth, modern day and ancient history mingle like the dance of flavours on a dinner plate. My being in Guatemala was also a blend of flavours - spontaneity covered in a sprinkle of deep intuition, or perhaps, visa versa. It started with a sign.
One mid-week afternoon while hiking with some friends in the hills behind Envigado, Medellin, my friend, Kristen, saw a billboard that read “Guatemala awaits.”
“Look, Bianca!” she said. “It’s a sign for you to go to Guatemala.”
We laughed together as I had been talking about the potential of joining an in-person cacao ceremony facilitator training course at the renowned Lava Love Cacao Centre. The plant medicine of cacao had been calling me since I was given a block of ceremonial cacao by my friend Tatiana. Earlier that year, I had participated in one of her intimate cacao ceremonies on the island of Gozo, Malta. I wanted to support her and join the women’s circle she was hosting - an experience that often gave me a deep sense of grounding and connection. The use of plant medicines had become a regular practice for me in the latter years of my life. What started with a recreational dose of psilocybin (aka magic mushrooms) had evolved into a deeply spiritual relationship with plant medicine, inspired by the advocacy of the mainstream thought-leaders Paul Stamets and Dennis McKenna, and validated by the ever-growing research into psychoactive plants and their healing qualities. This newfound interest seemed to suitably align with my re-connection to nature, or what I call ‘my great un-learning.’ I use the word ‘un-learning’ in recognition of the fact that most of what I was taught in my nineties Western, consumerist, capitalist, colonialist upbringing was built upon the model of consumerism, capitalism and colonialism. I was schooled in such a way as to ensure I would feed an economic machine that ate everything in its path to feed the few rich corporations that ruled the world.
Now, of course, an unsuspecting thirteen-year-old girl wouldn’t know she was being primed for the corporate machine. It was a right of passage where she came from. ‘Get good grades,’ they said. ‘Climb the ladder,’ they said. ‘See the shape of this cookie cutter,’ they said - ‘be that.’
If you’ve read my book, you’ll know how this story unfolds. Suffice it to say, I made my way - as best I could - along a different path and eventually, in September of 2023 at the ripe age of thirty-seven, would land here, in a small Mayan village on the shores of Lake Atitlán, Guatemala.
I often reflect on how I made it out of that corporate machine; how I managed to awaken the long-lost memories of a connection to Mother Nature and her endless miracles. I was born in the deep core of modernity, beneath white tube lights in a hospital in the suburbs of Sydney. My first years were spent in an apartment with no garden. Most of my life was spent away from the forests and the trees, getting my food from a thirty-aisle supermarket and my fruit and vegetables packaged in single-use plastic with a profit margin stamped on them. If an alien species came down to visit us and I told them that we pay big corporations to sell us food that is grown in the dirt we stand upon, they’d be befuddled. I can visualise it in my mind - “So what you’re saying is that this Earth provides you with all that you need and yet you work in a job you don’t enjoy to earn money to pay rich people to feed you when you could grow food yourself?”
*Crickets on cue*
At least I had the ocean. She was my life force - my connection to the natural world at a time when the modern industrial revolution almost swallowed me whole. I wondered how I was able to find that re-connection after half a lifetime of walking on concrete floors, never learning how to seed a garden or fend for nourishing food. Was I destined to remember what was forgotten? Are we all destined to remember? I found much of that knowledge by curiously listening to the wisdom keepers - the ones who never lost their connection to the natural world, preserving the ancient ways so they could be passed down through future generations. Here in Guatemala, I was privileged to be among them - one of the most deeply spiritual civilisations to have walked these lands - the Mayans. I was here to learn from them, to be a part of the great remembering and to carry their wisdom in my pocket like a prized jewel, onwards on my journey to wherever I ought to go.
My desire to journey to the lands of Central and South America was, in some ways, motivated by a yearning to be on a land that held this wisdom. This region was a land where pockets of communities still held their connection to Earth. These communities knew oneness; they knew how to work with plants and animals as allies, not separate entities to be used and abused with ethnocentric intentions. It was a land that bore the fruits of sacred plant medicines available to help us connect; to help us see our place in the vastness of it all. It was the Mayans who referred to cacao as the “drink of the Gods.” Perhaps I will never know what they truly meant by this. No doubt they, too, felt a sacredness to the tropical fruit that holds medicinal qualities that guide us and heal us.
In a scientific context, the cacao plant is rich in antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anticarcinogenic properties. The modern spiritual discourse calls the medicine ‘heart opening.’ When drunk in a ceremonial setting, with intention and meditation, it can evoke emotion. I’ve felt this many times in my morning rituals, sitting by my altar, talking to spirits as I feel the warmth of the drink flow through my bloodstream. Sometimes a rush of tears erupts to the surface, as if from a dormant volcano awaiting release. Sometimes, my meditations become so deep I feel myself transported into the cosmos, changing form for a few minutes and then returning to my human skin. Every day is different, but I feel the medicine working its magic, guiding me with the wisdom of the ancestors.
It was a Friday morning when I decided to join one of the cacao ceremonies at the Lava Love Cacao Centre. The ceremonies are run weekly by local Mayan elder Izaias and his wife Izabel in their school located on one of the few narrow stone streets of San Marcos La Laguna. The couple’s cacao ceremonies are attuned according to the Mayan calendar, honouring the Nahual (spirit) of the day. Throughout the ceremony, they call on the wisdom of the Mayan Cosmovision and offer cleansing with the burning of white copal and tobacco.
That particular day was Ajpu’ - the day of the sun. It was a day to honour the light, both external and internal and to recognise the role of the light in our lives. I arrived at the Lava Love Centre about twenty minutes before 9 am. The students were setting up the room, placing offerings of flowers, fruits, seeds and fire in the centre. The altar space during these ceremonies is often set up in such a way that honours the cardinal points - north, south, east, and west. It is an ancient practice dating back to the Mayans’ association of the four cardinal directions to different gods, each represented by a specific colour. This cardinal honouring is also noted in other traditions such as Celtic and Navajo (Diné).
I peered through the door to watch the students prepare the altar. A short Guatemalan woman, her waist wrapped with a pink and blue loincloth, walked around the room with a thurible emitting white smoke from the burning copal. The central altar was adorned with flowers; four quadrants of bright purple, yellow, red and white surrounded a clay model of the cacao goddess IxCacao with cacao beans at her feet. A medicine drum sounded in softly in the distance. I could smell the incense from the waiting room and it calmed me as I awaited what would be a powerful three-hour ceremony.
We were called into the room. Izaias sat at the front, puffing on a lit cigar emitting white smoke around his aura. It was ceremonial tobacco, used by elders to evoke protection and a deeper connection to Source. He was dressed in traditional Mayan cloth, with a red scarf draped around his neck - the colour associated with sun and life. When the drumming stopped, we all drew our attention to Izaias. He prayed in his native tongue and then, after a moment of silence, proceeded to speak in English.
He started with a story; a deeply moving story that made me feel as though I was not sitting in front of a man of pride or superiority. Rather, I sat before a humble man who, like me, had been on his own journey of self-discovery and spiritual attainment. Izaias shared how he came to serve the cacao medicine. He shared how his family had estranged him and his wife for going against their Christian upbringing. It took only three generations to all but completely wipe out thousands of years of spiritual shamanism and replace it with strict, devout catholicism. How malleable the human mind can be.
Despite being cast out of his family home and losing the respect of many family members, Izaias continued to honour his soul’s calling to practice shamanism and work with plant medicines. His story inspired me. It sounded familiar. I’d been judged and cursed many times for not following my father’s religious beliefs. I almost laughed a little when Izaias shared how his family told him he was “devil worshipping.” I’ve had the same discourse thrown at me. That’s what the fundamentalists do - anything that doesn’t adhere to their way is considered heretic or devilish. I’ll say though, if the practice of healing and creating a loving space for connection is considered devilish then perhaps the devil ain’t such a bad guy. Maybe I’d have him over for tea some time. We can talk about all the things we’ve supposedly done wrong in the eyes of those who curse us. I’m sure we’d have a lot to talk about.
The drum started beating again. It was time to drink our cacao. A Mayan woman, accompanied by one of the young ladies, who I assume was participating in the training, handed us a small bowl, made using the base of a coconut shell, carved and primed. Soon after, another woman poured the silk-like chocolate drink into my cup. I could smell the aromas of spices, perhaps a hint of cardamom. We were asked to sit with the cacao until all held their cup. Then, after a prayer from Izaias, we drank. It was warm in my throat, bitter though. The use of sweeteners like milk and sugar are not used here - not in the traditional ways. The more bitter the cacao, the higher the cacao compound. Theobromine swam through my bloodstream, awakening me as every minute went by.
“Close your eyes,” Izaias spoke gently. “Today is a day to connect with the ancestors and the spirits. Those who have gone before us, those who walk with us, and those will will walk after us.”
He guided us through a deep meditation as if holding our hands and walking us through worlds. The combination of the sacred ceremony and the cacao in my bloodstream took me to another level of consciousness. It was not as though I was experiencing a psychedelic trip. It felt more like a deep meditation - a kind of hypnosis. Some of his words brought tears to my eyes. Others in the room sobbed. For me, they were the kind of tears you release when you experience deeply profound gratitude or remember something you have long forgotten. It was beautiful.
The cacao stayed with me that afternoon, long after I left the ceremonial space. Walking back to my hillside apartment was as if I’d woken up from a dream, and when I walked through the doors, I fell to my bed. I sobbed some more, releasing emotions like letting butterflies out of a cage. And then I slept, curled up in the foetal position, held by some cosmic blanket that earthly words can not describe.
That was the day I knew the power of the cacao medicine. That was the day I knew that I might one day honour the myth Izaias shared with me and guide the medicine out of the forests, and into the hearts of those who come my way. “When the world has lots its way,” he said, “the spirit of cacao will stand up and walk out of the forests and find its way into people's hearts to help them remember who they are.”