Ceremonial Cacao & Yoga: Opening Hearts, Opening Communities

At Earth Yoga Village we believe in honoring body, heart, and spirit with practices that ground us, connect us, and open us to something greater than ourselves. One medicine we have grown to cherish for this journey — subtle, sacred, alive — is ceremonial cacao.

🌱 Origins: From Ancient Trees to Sacred Drink

The story of cacao begins thousands of years ago, in the tropical jungles of the Americas. The earliest known cultivators, perhaps Mokaya or Olmec people, were likely among the first to domesticate the tree Theobroma cacao. Over time, civilizations such as the Maya (250–900 CE) and the Aztec revered cacao as a sacred plant — a gift from the divine.

Cacao beans served not only as food and drink but were even used as currency, reflecting their extraordinary value. The Maya and Aztec prepared cacao as a thick, frothy beverage — often flavored with water, spices, and sometimes chillies — to drink in ceremonies, during rituals of union, celebration, and spiritual offerings.

Thus from ancient times, cacao was more than a food — it was a bridge between humans and the sacred.

❤️ What Makes Ceremonial Cacao Special in Our Times

In the modern world, “ceremonial cacao” has re-emerged — not as a mere indulgence, but as a gentle, heart-opening plant medicine. What sets ceremonial cacao apart is how it's been prepared and how we approach it.

• Mindful preparation: Traditional methods — minimal processing, gentle roasting, small-batch stone-ground cacao — help preserve its energetic, nutritional and emotional potency.

  
  

• Physiological & energetic effects: Ceremonial cacao naturally stimulates compounds like theobromine, and is said to support mood, openness, and a calm, grounded energy.

  
  

• Heart-opening & presence-invoking: Many who partake describe a gentle warming through the chest, a softening of barriers, and a deeper capacity for empathy, presence, and connection — within themselves and with others.

  
  

Ceremonial cacao becomes a “medicine of the heart” — subtle, kind, grounding — an ally for inner work, connection, and healing. It can be also great to combine with more slow, meditative yoga styles like yin yoga and yoga nidra. You can master these beautiful practices with great teachers here with us on our upcoming Yin and Yoga Nidra teacher training course in February.

🧘 Cacao + Yoga, Meditation, Kirtan, Dance & Ceremony

At Earth Yoga Village, cacao complements the journey of yoga beautifully. It pairs especially well with practices that invite openness, surrender, presence — from meditation to ecstatic dance, from breathwork to devotional chanting. Some of the ways cacao enriches our yoga-centered offerings:

• Heart-centered meditation and pranayama: Drinking cacao before meditation or breathwork can help soften the mind, deepen presence, and ease into inner stillness with more compassion and self-awareness.

• Kirtan, mantra & devotional practices: Cacao’s heart-opening quality supports vulnerability, devotion, and emotional flow — ideal for chanting, singing, and sharing collective energy.

  
  

• Movement, dance, ecstatic practices: Whether gentle yoga flow or ecstatic dance, cacao’s subtle lift can help participants move from the neck/brain into the heart — promoting fluidity, sensuality, and grounded presence.

  
  

• Ceremony and community sharing: As cacao was in ancient times, today’s cacao ceremonies bring people together — for shared intention, healing, vulnerability, connection, and communion of hearts.

✨ Our Recent Kirtan at Earth Yoga Village: A Sweet Healing Memory

Just last week, during our 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training, we gathered for a kirtan facilitated by Jane under the soft glow of candlelight and fairylights — and shared ceremonial cacao together to soften and open even wider with this gentle medicine, to unite in healing vibrations even deeper.

As the warm drink flowed, we felt a collective softening. Hearts opened. Voices blended. Some soft and devotional mantras, some dynamic and celebrational ones with laughter. Silence between the chants felt sacred and alive. In that circle, in that moment — we touched a kind of unity, a gentle healing vibration that seemed bigger than any of us alone. It was more than a drink. It was medicine. It was ritual. It was offering. It was community.

🌿 Why We Offer Cacao at Earth Yoga Village: A Ceremony of Heart, Healing & Belonging

Here at Earth Yoga Village — in the green rhythms of Goa, surrounded by earth, sea, and sky — we offer cacao because we honour its roots: ancient, sacred, generous. We use it as a tool — not to escape, but to return: to our hearts, to each other, to presence, to belonging. We monthly offer ceremonial cacao on our Wednesday evening special activity, so you have a good chance to taste the magic if you are coming for a recharging yoga holiday as well.

Whether you come for yoga, meditation, dance, or just to sit in circle — know that cacao offers you a gentle invitation: to soften, to open, to breathe, to feel.

May each sip root you deeper in yourself; may each gathering awaken your capacity to love; may every shared moment become a step toward healing — for you, for the group, for the Earth.

With open hearts — welcome.

What We Offer 🎉

Explore our range of authentic programs.

Yoga holiday retreat 

Conscious living yoga retreat

 Yoga teacher certificate course

 100-hour Yin yoga teacher training  

300-hour advanced Yoga teacher training

all designed to support your healing and transformation.

We invite you to explore our offerings and join us in Goa to recharge, rethink, and revitalize your body, mind, and spirit.