Cacao Ceremony & Dance Meditationat Lago de Chapala

On the shores of Lago de Chapala, Mexico's largest lake, Mose and Sam Garrett co-lead a two-hour live cacao-guided ceremony that weaves call-and-response chanting, rhythmic movement, and devotional music to invoke unity consciousness and honor Tonantzin, the feminine principle in Mexican spirituality. Through repeated mantras—"Open up your eyes, open up your heart," "We must be free," "One family"—the ceremony uses music as a vehicle for recognizing interconnection, releasing shame and fear, and activating collective healing through the heart.

What is cacao ceremony and why does it anchor spiritual practice?

Cacao ceremony has roots in Mesoamerican indigenous traditions, where cacao was considered a sacred plant medicine. Unlike recreational consumption, ceremonial cacao is typically a warm, unsweetened preparation consumed with intention before or during sacred gatherings. The cacao plant is believed to open the heart center and amplify emotional and spiritual sensitivity, making it an ideal ally for music-based rituals and dance meditation.

In this Lago de Chapala gathering, the cacao serves as a somatic anchor—participants consume it before or during the ceremony, then allow its heart-opening properties to deepen their engagement with movement and sound. This is not therapy or entertainment; it is a deliberate pairing of plant medicine with devotional practice. The cacao creates a sustained physiological and emotional openness so that the mantras and rhythms can penetrate deeper into the nervous system and psyche.

How does the "Open Up Your Heart" mantra reshape consciousness?

One of the central refrains throughout the ceremony is: "Open up your eyes / Open up your heart / Open up your mind / This is a brand new start." This is not a suggestion or metaphor; it is a direct command to the nervous system and consciousness itself. Mose and Sam Garrett repeat this phrase with increasing intensity and layering, inviting the gathered community to literally activate attention, vulnerability, and mental clarity in real time.

The mantra works on multiple levels. Physiologically, the instruction to "open" signals relaxation and receptivity—the opposite of contraction and defensiveness. Emotionally, opening the heart means releasing guardedness and grief held in the chest. Spiritually, an "open heart" in contemplative traditions is understood as the seat of unity consciousness—the ability to sense connection with all beings. By linking this heart-opening to vision ("eyes") and mind, the chant creates a coherent instruction across body, emotion, and intellect: see clearly, feel openly, think freshly.

The phrase "this is a brand new start" removes fatalism. It tells the psyche: your past does not determine your next moment. Every breath is a new beginning. This is particularly powerful in a collective setting, where dozens or hundreds of nervous systems synchronize around this shared permission to reset.

What does "one family" reveal about unity consciousness?

The refrain "Come mother / Come fathers / Come sisters / Come brother / One family" (sung around 1311 seconds) explicitly names the dissolution of hierarchy and separation. It is an invitation to ancestors, to the divine masculine and feminine, to all genders and relations. The repetition of "one family" is not abstract—it is a sonic and somatic assertion that the boundaries between me and you, self and other, are permeable.

This echoes non-dual teachings found across traditions: Advaita Vedanta, Sufism, and indigenous American cosmologies all assert that separation is illusion, and that recognizing our fundamental unity is both the highest knowledge and the deepest healing. When sung collectively, with bodies moving and voices syncing, "one family" becomes embodied truth—participants do not merely think it, they viscerally experience it.

The ceremony also includes the phrase "no difference between" (sung around 1802 seconds), which directly negates the thought-habit of comparison and judgment. This is contemplative work. The ritual is not asking attendees to believe in unity intellectually; it is creating the conditions for experiencing it somatically.

How do fear and shame get metabolized through repetitive chanting?

Early in the ceremony, lyrics surface: "no more fear / no more shame / no more hiding away" (around 2918 seconds). This is explicit shadow work. The ceremony does not bypass or transcend the wounds held in the body; it names them and, through repetition and the container of group sound, creates permission for them to be released.

When a phrase is chanted repeatedly—especially in a warm, enlivened space with rhythm and collective breath—the nervous system begins to update its threat assessment. Fear and shame typically reinforce a narrative of isolation and unworthiness. The mantra "we must be free" (repeated extensively around 3025 seconds) interrupts that narrative. It asserts freedom as both a birthright and a present reality, not a distant goal.

The chanting also distributes the emotional weight across the group. One person's sadness does not have to carry the full charge; it is held and witnessed by the whole community. This is the function of kirtan and call-and-response traditions—they are containers for collective emotional processing.

What is the role of Tonantzin in this ceremony?

The ceremony explicitly honors Tonantzin, the Nahuatl goddess of motherhood and feminine creative power in pre-Columbian Mexico. Tonantzin translates roughly as "our mother" and represents the divine feminine as both generator and sustainer of life. In the colonial period, Tonantzin was syncretically merged with the Virgin of Guadalupe, but indigenous practitioners continue to invoke her as the primordial feminine principle.

By centering Tonantzin on her festival day, Mose and the community are reclaiming and honoring feminine energy as sacred, generative, and central to liberation. This is political and spiritual simultaneously—it counters patriarchal erasure and activates the receptive, nurturing, cyclical wisdom of the feminine. The presence of the lake itself—water, the feminine element in many traditions—deepens this invocation.

The lyrics include addresses to "mama" and "mother," calling on this energy to guide the community home (around 1311 seconds). This is not sentiment; it is practical magic. The feminine principle, in this context, is both the source of life and the force that can heal separation and return the scattered self to wholeness.

How does movement and dance deepen the meditative state?

Unlike silent meditation, a dance meditation ceremony uses rhythmic movement to anchor the teachings in the body. When the body moves with intention—swaying, stepping, gesturing—the rational mind quiets. The primitive brain and the nervous system come online. Movement also generates heat and circulation, which helps ground the cacao's heart-opening effects and prevents dissociation.

Dance in ceremonial contexts is not performance or entertainment; it is a form of prayer. The movement itself becomes the mantra. When coupled with call-and-response singing and collective rhythm, dance creates a state of flow and synchronization that is difficult to achieve alone. Neuroscientifically, this synchronized group movement activates oxytocin (the bonding neurochemical) and reduces the activity of the default-mode network (the brain network associated with self-referential thinking and rumination).

The result is a state of embodied presence—fully in the body, attuned to rhythm and community, released from the tyranny of the thinking mind. This is what "see who you are" (repeated around 2254 seconds) invites: seeing yourself as you are when the conceptual mind steps aside, when the heart is open, and when you are recognized and witnessed by others.

What does "we are mirrors" teach about relationship and shadow?

Midway through the ceremony, Sam Garrett sings: "We are mirrors reflecting the colors and lessons / are easy to bury and just walk away with the shame" (around 3674 seconds). This is a teaching on projection and shadow work. In Jungian terms, the people we encounter are mirrors of our own psyche—both our light and our darkness.

When we meet someone and feel triggered, the trigger often points to an unintegrated part of ourselves. The temptation is to bury this realization and carry the shame in silence. The song names this pattern and suggests an alternative: manifest the people you meet deliberately, recognize them as mirrors, and "fall deep in love with [their] soul" because you are seeing your own soul reflected.

This is radical forgiveness. It dissolves the victim narrative and activates personal responsibility. If everyone is a mirror, then everyone is also a teacher. The ceremony is thus also a teaching on how to transform relationship from a source of harm into a path of awakening.

How does the ceremony close, and what does "freedom" really mean?

As the ceremony progresses, the refrain shifts to "We must be free / freedom / freedom" (sung with escalating intensity around 3025–3423 seconds). Unlike political freedom from external oppression, the freedom invoked here is internal liberation—freedom from fear, shame, reactivity, and the illusion of separation.

The closing mantras shift toward abundance and unity: "More love / More peace / More unity / One family" (around 3515 seconds). This is not a utopian fantasy; it is a declaration of what is possible when consciousness recognizes its essential unity. By the end, the participants have chanted and moved together for over two hours, their nervous systems synchronized, their hearts opened by cacao, their sense of separate self temporarily dissolved in the container of collective sound and movement.

The closing song, which includes the phrase "I'll do it for you" (around 4043 seconds), returns the focus to love and commitment. After experiencing unity, the commitment is not to remain in transcendent bliss, but to bring that energy back into relationship—to act from love, to honor the other as oneself.

Where to go from here

If you are drawn to this work, consider exploring cacao ceremonies in your region—many facilitators now offer them. Learn about the history of Mesoamerican sacred plants and the indigenous traditions from which they come. Study kirtan and call-and-response singing, either through recordings or in-person gatherings. Investigate the teachings of non-dual traditions (Advaita, Dzogchen, Sufism) that underlie the "one family / no separation" philosophy.

On a personal level, notice where shame and fear create contraction in your body and relationships. Practice the mantra "open up your heart / open up your eyes" as a somatic inquiry: What happens when you give yourself permission to see clearly and feel openly? Who in your life is a mirror for your own unintegrated material? How can you transform that mirror into a teacher rather than an enemy?

Finally, consider the role of collective practice. While solo meditation is valuable, the nervous system heals and transforms most rapidly in safe, witnessed community. Seek or create spaces—whether cacao ceremonies, kirtan, dance, or singing circles—where you can synchronize with others and remember that you are not alone, not separate, and part of an endless family of consciousness.