The Cacao Edition
On ceremony, reverence, and “superfoods.”
Joseph Dana (JD) is a longstanding friend of WITI and a Cape Town-based writer. He formerly edited the opinion pages at The National in Abu Dhabi and served as Monocle's Eastern Mediterranean correspondent and Istanbul bureau chief. Sign up for his newsletter: “Both/And” - Colin (CJN)
Joseph here. The yoga studio perched on the Cape Town hillside felt like a sanctuary suspended between earth and sky. Through large windows, Hout Bay stretched out below to the Atlantic Ocean, cradled by the ancient, undulating forms of the peaks that make up the Table Mountain range. The last light of the day spilled over the ridges, and inside, the air was still and soft, carrying the faint scent of palo santo and the earthy aroma of cacao.
At the front of the room sat a medicine man named Kailash Kokopelli. Around him lay an array of instruments—a didgeridoo, a drum, a Native American flute, and singing bowls—each one a vessel for our journey. The room was alive with a soft hum of anticipation, the kind that comes when a group of strangers gather on thin yoga mats that will surely cause backaches, nevertheless prepared to step into the sacred together.
Dark and velvety cacao was poured into paper cups and handed out. Kailash opened the ceremony by calling in various directions, holding his cup of cacao up as an offering. He offered to the east, the west, the north, the south, the earth, the waters of the sea, and finally our own hearts. After each blessing, we took a collective deep breath and a sip. He then invited the ancestors—those who had walked before us, whose lives had made ours possible. The ceremony opened me to the legacy of my ancestors within me—both the shadowy, unresolved threads of my father’s lineage and the steady, cherished flame of my mother’s (you can read more about this in the full piece on Both/And).
Why is this interesting?
This is the power of cacao when it is approached with reverence and intention. Cacao is not merely a drink or a commodity; it is a medicine, a teacher, a bridge. But its magic is not automatic. It requires ritual, invocation, and a setting that honors its sacred nature. Simply stirring it into cereal or gulping it down on the go won’t unlock its potential. Cacao’s true power lies in the space we create for it.
Historically, cacao has always been more than just a plant. To the ancient Maya, it was a bridge between the earthly and the spiritual. They called it the food of the gods, and at the heart of this reverence was Ixcacao, the Goddess of Cacao. Her name, pronounced eesh-ka-kow, carries the weight of centuries of devotion. Ix, a prefix in Mayan languages, denotes femininity or sacredness, often translated as "goddess" or "lady." Combined with cacao, her name becomes a prayer, an invocation of the plant’s sacred essence. Ixcacao was not just a symbol of fertility and abundance; she was the spirit of the cacao tree itself.
The Maya used cacao in rituals, offerings, and ceremonies, often grinding the beans into a bitter drink mixed with spices and chili. This drink was reserved for royalty, warriors, and priests, and it was believed to open the heart and bring one closer to the gods. To drink cacao was to commune with Ixcacao herself and to receive her blessings. Even the act of preparing cacao was a sacred ritual, a way of honoring the spirit of the plant and the land that nurtured it.
In a world where cacao is often reduced to a commodity—chopped into chocolate bars, blended into smoothies, or stripped of its cultural significance and often cultivated unethically—calling it by its goddess name is an act of reclamation and resistance. It is a way to say: this plant is sacred. It is more than a “superfood”; it is a bridge to the unseen, a dance between the living and the dead.
This is the role of ritual in plant medicine ceremonies—whether it’s cacao, ayahuasca, or any other sacred plant. The ritual is the container, the space where the medicine can work its magic. It is the act of setting an intention and creating a sacred moment in time. Without it, the medicine is just a substance.
The ceremony is the portal. (JD)
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