Why Cacao?
Cacao is at the heart of this story, guiding us towards a vision of greater collaboration, harmony, and love.
For generations, cacao has been a sacred plant medicine to many original cultures, including the Mayans in Guatemala, where we source our cacao. The seeds were once used as currency before coins and bills, offered to the spirits during fire ceremonies, and used as a drink in conflict resolution to open hearts and foster respect between people. Today, it is still being used by families in the mountains of Guatemala as a daily drink to gather the family together and a medicine to soothe crying babies.
In the modern world, this plant has been commodified, exported, processed in heavy machinery, pumped with synthetic flavorings and processed sugar, and sold as candy. The cultural and medicinal benefits of cacao have been stripped away, along with the spirit that gives us life. This is the story of all industrialized food today…
But the living world is incredibly intelligent. The spirit of cacao is returning today as a potent medicinal plant and is teaching us how we need to be treating all our food: as sacred, and as medicine. It invites us to start asking questions: how was this food grown? Who was taking care of it? How many hands or machines did it touch? Is its life force still in-tact?
The life force of a plant we call light fiber. It has the ability to nourish us just as much as vitamins and minerals, but on a deeper level. Light fiber is maintained in a food when it is treated with respect, when the soil is rich and the people tending the plants are happy and well-paid. The industrialized food system does not treat people and food with respect; it’s not a surprise why so many are sick.
The light fiber of cacao has incredible properties. People experience it opening their hearts, lifting their moods, and even sharing messages through intuition that guide people to make better decisions. It helps mend broken relationships and connects the heart with the mind so you can think from a more loving place. Cacao is here during these times to help usher in a new phase of humanity, one that is woven with care and respect for all life. It also has incredible nutritional properties you can measure in a lab, but it’s the light fiber that makes this plant even more holy and powerful.
Cacao lives what she teaches – she thrives in biodiverse food forest environments, ecosystems with many relationships and connections. Like us, she is susceptible to more disease and pests when planted in monoculture environments – through this she shows how she wants to grow and teaches us that life prefers biodiversity and communion.
The original caretakers of cacao know this, which is why they have cacao plants living among other trees like copal, banana, black pepper, cinnamon, allspice. They are the guardians of these food forests, and at increasing risk for deforestation and displacement, which is why we need to come together as a global family to protect them. Once we come around cacao as our core plant ally, we will see a beautiful, diverse, vibrant world unfold, threaded together by a love of life, a commitment to relationship, and a dedication to seeking harmony.
We give great thanks to the spirit of cacao and the people who have been caretaking these seeds for generations, who know her wisdom and power, while the rest of the world degrades and destroys the traditional ways. We consider cacao to be a friend and companion in this turning of times, a plant ally to walk with to help show us how we can live in deeper alignment with life.
Most of all what she shares is that it starts with love. She helps us to open our hearts, to feel ourselves again, feel each other, and walk forward with more compassion. She helps us to slow down our nervous systems that have been overworked this last century, and warmly invites us into a different speed and way of relating. Cacao is medicine for the heart and soul. From this place we can create beautiful worlds together, ones that serve all of life.
We are committed to centering cacao in this story and sourcing directly from families who respect the spirit and medicine of cacao, so we can offer it in its highest form. We are also excited to share the other medicines that grow around cacao like cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper, allspice, turmeric and ginger, whose flavors (not surprisingly) pair perfectly well altogether.