A New Year For Cacao Ceremony

Kristin and I traveled a LOT in 2015 and as 2016 drew closer we decided to make our way back towards our home base on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. We stopped in Calgary, Alberta to visit friends and family there over the December holidays. During that time we were invited to host a #cacaoceremony in the home of a lovely friend whom we'd known for many years. We decided that a #ceremony on New Years Eve would be a perfect way of honoring all that had happened in the year gone by as well as help to bring more loving intentions forward into the new year ahead.

Kristin and I had acquired two beautiful new instruments on our travels back to Canada and we were excited to share them with the guests at our new year's eve #cacaoceremony. We had each purchased a quartz crystal singing bowl, one in the key of “F” which is typically associated with the heart chakra and one in the key of ”B” which associates with the crown chakra. We had been experimenting with Tibetan singing bowls for a couple of years and had been working on manifesting crystal singing bowls for quite a while. We felt very blessed to have been given the opportunity to purchase and share these very powerful healing instruments.

The New Year's #cacaoceremony we hosted in 2016 was a huge hit and started a tradition of doing a #cacaoceremony every year at this time. The shifting of the calendar, although it IS just another day, can be a very powerful time to catapult our dreams and desires into reality if choose to make it that. This year we invited a small group to gather at our new home on Gabriola Island where we shared our intentions for what we were wanting to let go of from 2018 and the things we were most excited to manifest in 2019.

Little did we know but the #cacaoceremony in Calgary would kick start a flurry of #cacaoceremonies for us back home on Vancouver Island. When we returned to the island we were invited to share ceremonies in many new and exciting places and venues. Our first #cacaoceremony in Victoria was to celebrate Valentine's Day, what better way to enjoy some 100% pure #ceremonialgradecacao. We co-facilitated with a lovely woman from Victoria, BC whom we'd met during our #cacaoceremony in Sooke, BC, in 2015, named Tanya Devine. She is an amazing didgeridoo player, sound healer and space holder. Together the three of us hosted the largest #ceremony we've every pulled off to date with a whopping 60 people joining us in sacred space.

After we collaborated with Tanya a second time where we hosted a #cacaoceremony for 40 guests in Victoria, BC we began to receive invitations to co-create events with several talented sound healers in the area.

One of our favorite events from the summer of 2016 was a very intimate outdoor #cacaoceremony that we hosted near Victoria with a lovely woman named Tara who had invited us to share our #medicine in the back yard of her home. It's always been a preference of ours to host #cacaoceremonies in nature during the warm summer months here in #Canada, so this was a real treat! We collaborated with her and the amazing collection of alchemy crystal singing bowls she owned to create a magical #ceremony.

Kristin and I also connected with one of our long lost soul sisters in 2016, who also happens to be a very talented sound healer named Astaria Light. Since then we have thoroughly enjoyed co-creating many wonderful gatherings with her. So many people have expressed how much they have loved the #cacaoceremonies and sound journeys that we've co-created with her.

Kristin and I are grateful to have had the opportunity to do some personal growth work in 2014 with an organization called Time To Heal in Duncan, BC who later invited us to host a #cacaoceremony at their newly renovated space in 2016. Through hosting this #cacaoceremony we connected with a woman named Heather who invited us to come and host a #cacaoceremony at her home in Nanaimo, BC. We hosted several gatherings in Nanaimo at Heather's home that summer and we really enjoyed getting to know her and her partner, Andrew.

2016 was the year that Kristin got the message to start hosting women's circles with #cacao. She hosted a series of 7 #womenscircles that year with #keithscacao, each one focused on a different chakra, starting with the root and ending with the crown. Her courage to step into the unknown was inspiring as she was learning as she went regarding the chakras and their many subtle influences in our bodies and lives. The women's circles were a safe place for women in our community to share time together in sacred space, remembering the many commonalities they all shared and helping many to see themselves and each other with more love and compassion. Does it get any better than that?!

One of the other awesome opportunities that showed up in 2016 was that Kristin got invited to share a workshop about #cacaoceremony as a part of the Conscious Goddess Festival which happened in June, 2016. This was the first offer of this type where she had been asked to share her knowledge of this beautiful plant medicine. It was another time when she said "YES" to life and was willing to take center stage after many years of being afraid of speaking publicly.

The more we both put ourselves out there in 2016 the more connections started to spiderweb, helping us to remember why we call our business Cacao Connection. This is one more of many ongoing examples of how when we show up in the world in an authentic way, that life is waiting to conspire with those of us who are courageous enough to follow our dreams! DREAM BIG!!

Visiting the Vortex of San Marcos

Kristin and I met a wonderful young man, named Felix, while in Mexico, who became like a brother to us. When he asked if he could tag along on our adventure to Guatemala we were thrilled to have him join us for the trip. We drove together in our trusty 2003 Volkwagen Jetta, loaded to the roof with our belongings, things were pretty tight just with Kristin and I! With Felix riding along with us, boxes and all manner of things would go sliding across the car when I went around the countless hairpin corners too fast and he would laugh hysterically while he held everything together in the back seat. Having him with us really helped us keep the mood light (Kristin had a quick and vicious bout of food poisoning the night before our early morning departure) and to enjoy the experience of driving through some of the most beautiful and remote parts of Mexico.

For two long days we drove together from Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, to Lago de Atitlan in Guatemala. To be honest, I drove the whole way as the roads were pretty sketchy, narrow and in a general state of disrepair. We also discovered on our travels that in many parts of Mexico people drive like a flock of birds which can be both beautiful and dangerous. The first night as we arrived in Ocosingo, Chiapas, we spent at least an hour creeping along a dirt road in very heavy fog with pedestrians, dogs and cattle walking along the side of the road. I distinctly remember Felix saying “I’m glad you’re driving!”

Then on the second day we arrived at the Guatemalan border and it just so happened that they were having a huge fiesta in that village, which delayed our crossing, but allowed us to watch the local horsemen put on quite a show! Felix had assured us from his previous experience that the Guatemalan border could be pretty sketchy, so this was a welcome sight as everyone seemed happy and relaxed. Later that day when we drove past a city in south-western part of Guatemala called Quetzaltenango, there was a break in the clouds that we had to pull over to capture.

It was quite the climb to get into the mountainous region, called the Central Highlands, where Lake Atitlan rests nestled between the volcanoes. Then a wild and windy roller coaster ride back down to the Lake where we encountered a chicken bus that had taken one of the corners down to the lake a bit too sharp and was high-centered. We waited patiently in the dark and they finally retrieved a truck to pull the bus out of the way so that what little traffic had accumulated could continue descending the winding road down to the lake.

We finally arrived at the little casita that my mom was renting and parked our little car by the village square for the night. We got ourselves settled in for the next few days, getting to know the small lakeside community and its many walking paths, curiosity shops and cafes. My mom had begun to host some women's #cacao circles in the little house she had rented and I remember Kristin had attended the first one and had a lot of fun. Singing and sharing songs is a fun part of my mom’s #cacao ceremonies, as she knows a lot of medicine songs and has written quite a few of her own too. I remember quite a few new songs being born from those first few circles she hosted and those who attended were happy to share some of the songs they had learned at other conscious gatherings.

After the first few days we were in San Marcos I can remember Kristin and I saying to each other, “We can’t leave here after only a week... that would be crazy!” We had made plans to take our 200-Hour yoga teacher training together in Mazunte the following week. We were both excited about the training, however we agreed that a yoga teacher training can be done anytime, however, driving to Guatemala was likely a once in a lifetime occurrence! Felix decided that he would love to attend the training in our place, and he quickly found another young lad who was also interested, so later that week they departed to take our spots for the training. Wow, what a world! The synchronicity is magic.

During our first week in San Marcos I remember a few things very distinctly: going to our first #cacaoceremony on Keith’s porch, running out of water for several days and having to walk down to the lake with a 5 gallon bucket to flush the toilet and do dishes and realizing how incredible the whole vibe was in San Marcos. It reminded us both of being back on #VancouverIsland, where we had been living before we had decided to travel. Lots of conscious events to choose from, so many different yoga classes, healing modalities, drum circles, workshops, etc. It was really amazing to be so so far away from “home” and yet most of the people in the community there were travelers from all over the world and somehow it felt like a home away from home.

We had heard a lot about Keith from mom and our friend, Joanna, so we were pretty intrigued to sit on the porch and see what his ceremonies were like. I remember being amazed at how many people showed up for his #cacaoceremonies, people would be squished in like sardines, and amazingly enougn, I don’t remember anyone spilling their cup of cacao! Barbara, Keith's partner, brought out tray after tray with 10 cups or so on each, as well as spices and cane sugar so everyone had the chance to make it as spicy and sweet as needed. I distinctly remember counting one day when there was an exceptional amount of participants and there were 55 of us curious cacao lovers packed in there!

Keith held regular #cacaoceremonies every week on Sunday and Wednesday from 12:30-5, sometimes even 6:00. On Mondays there were crystal ceremonies for people who were “experienced” #cacao drinkers, where Keith would spread out his incredible collection of crystals and gemstones for the group to enjoy. Keith was a geologist in one of his former lives so he has an incredible knowledge of the stones and also their subtler energetic qualities. It was so amazing to be able to hold some of the larger crystal balls, smoky quartz pieces and stones that I’d never even seen or heard of. These were usually more intimate ceremonies where we got to know some of the more “serious students” of Keith’s very non-traditional “school for light workers, healers etc” that were diving deep into their own emotional processing and healing work.

We rented a simple casa (house) right around the corner from Keith and Barbara’s place for 7 weeks of our stay in San Marcos, which was about as convenient as it got to attend their ceremonies. We also had the great pleasure of getting invited to package some cacao while we were there, as they would seek out volunteers to help package about 300 pounds of cacao in the evening after ceremonies. As a volunteer, at that point in time, you could have your choice of a free ceremony, free pound of cacao paste or pound of cacao beans. Since there were two of us, we exchanged a lot of our bagging for #cacao paste that allowed us to do our own inner journeying on the days between Keith’s ceremonies. We both had some deeply profound experiences of using Keith’s Cacao on our own and we did a lot of work to get more clarity about our direction in life.

While in San Marcos we participated in a one week liiqud #fast where a local school organization raised enough funding in one week to feed close to 60 underprivileged kids, pregnant mothers and elders for a whole year! We had experimented a bit with #fasting before that, however it was quite profound to use #keithscacao every day while we were fasting and go on shamanic drumming journeys while our bodies were purified and nourished deeply from the inside out. We also read several amazing books in the time we spent in San Marcos including one about Plant Spirit Shamanism that helped guide us to deepen our connection with the #cacaospirit. We also entered into a dieta (longer intimate diet with the medicine plant of choice) with at least a ceremonial dose of cacao each day for weeks on end. Let's just say we got to know the Spirit of Cacao REALLY well. I also read books about cosmic consciousness as well as an online book about a Polish man’s experience of not eating any solid food for over two years! I did another fast of 11 days on just liquids and it was one of the times when I experienced the highest levels of clarity in my whole life to that point.

One weekend we were lucky enough to experience the Festival of Consciousness which was a 3 day buffet of events, hosted by locals and different #yoga, #meditation, #dance, #counselling, #alternativemedicine and #soundhealers. I remember one of the events very distinctly, a #crystal #singingbowl #soundjourney where the man hosting was surrounded by at least a dozen crystal singing bowls. We got there early and I remember Kristin asking me, “Where are you going?”, “As close to those singing bowls as I can get!”, I replied, as we both laid down on yoga mats directly beside his blanket. There were dozens of people under a huge open-air palapa and for an hour he took everyone on quite a wild ride using the different vibrations to stimulate different feelings and sensations as well as memories and visions. We knew we wanted to find some of those magical crystal bowls back home in Canada!

Through the experiences that we had using #keithscacao as well as those we witnessed while sitting in Keith’s ceremonies, we recognized that this subtle yet powerful medicine was too good not to share with the world. We considered what this would look like for the two of us as we had just started our new business, One World Wellness (www.oneworldwellness.info) mere months before we left on our adventure. We had also coined a name for our #cacaoceremony “business” as Cacao Connection (www.cacaoconnection.info). So as our visit to Guatemala came to a close, we considered how much of #keithscacao we would take with us back to Canada. In the end we decided on 150 pounds- I know, it sounds a bit crazy, but after all the experiences we had while at the lake, this seemed like a logical decision to help spread this amazing medicine as much as possible along our travels, as well as when we arrived back home on Vancouver Island.

Little did we know that we would only be back in #Canada for six weeks and then we headed back out on the road to help one of Kristin’s oldest friends who was preparing to birth her first child in Houston, Texas that August. I remember loading up the car on May 1, 2015, pulling down to Keith’s “warehouse” where his happy-go-lucky Mayan friend and business partner, Izaias, helped me load the three boxes full of cacao into our car. We said goodbye to my Mom as she was heading across the lake to an event focused on cacao ceremony, sound healing and kirtan. It was hard for us to drive away from Lago de Atitlan that day...it is such a magical place. Keith used to say in his ceremonies that that part of the planet was 1-2 years ahead of the rest of the world as far as the level of consciousness and we could certainly attest to that. We had both undergone a major shift in consciousness by using cacao, fasting, and sticking with our daily yoga practice. Little did we know that our journey with #cacao had only just begun!