FACILITATOR TRAINING
This path begins with building sacred relationships
If you are interested in the path of becoming a cacao facilitator with Cuatro Manos y Cinco Volcanes, there are multiple stages in the journey.
Many people call themselves cacao facilitators, but what is needed to hold ceremony, from an indigenous perspective?
We have learned over years of teaching that many who come with a desire to facilitate ceremony are unprepared for how much they change solely through developing personal intimacy with the medicina of Hawaiian cacao. And this is a critical first step, even if you have worked with other cacaos prior to our circles.
The path to becoming a facilitator begins and ends with building sacred relationships, and these take time. They are not check boxes or quick certifications.
Whether you are new to cacao, or have been walking with this medicina for a long time, our circles will support your process in developing the sacred relationships that hold this work.
CEREMONIAL CACAO
Why training with this cacao is unique?
Hawaiian Cacao is one of the rarest and costliest cacaos in the world to make, due to farming costs, labor costs, limited land mass, cost of living, and other factors.
We were called here by Mauna Kea and the island, to develop our relationship to Hawai’i in a good and respectful way, and be stewards of cacao and land. This means a weaving of my Olmeca roots as cacao medicine carriers (the first cacao people), and the medicine of the land and culture of Hawai’i, which is something that nobody else is doing at this time.
The most active volcano in the world…
The big island of Hawaii contains the most active volcanic energy in the world, due to Kilauea, home of Pele, which has been erupting almost continuously for 200 years. New earth being made is a central energy of this cacao.
Should I train with Hawaiian Cacao if I already do ceremony with others?
The energetics of every cacao in the world are unique to place, and the relationship you build during this or any training is not a universal relationship to all cacao. Nor is the way this training is facilitated the same as many other trainings available, due to the unique weaving of identities and lineages we hold, as indigenous wisdom carriers.
Level 1 will be an introduction to relationship with this unique cacao, and is absolutely appropriate to begin with, even if you have worked with cacao for any period of time.
LIVING A LIFE OF CEREMONY
- Building Intimacy with cacao
- Hawaiian Ceremonial Cacao
- Cultural Exchange: learning in indigenous circles
- Offered 2x a year : February, August
LEADING CACAO CIRCLES
- Community Practice + Facilitation
- Learn 6 specific cacao circles to lead in your community
- We offer this level 2x a year each session teaches 3 circles
- March-May
- September-October
FACILITATOR TRAINING
- Energetics + imagery of indigenous ceremonies
- Exploring + embodying deeper practices underpinning indigenous ceremonial work
Level 1+2 pre-req
Available on application basis only
TAUGHT BY INDIGENOUS WISDOM KEEPER
MARITA ONE WHO CATCHES LIGHTNING & KEEPER OF THE THUNDERSTONE
Creator of the Path of IX LLC & Co-founder of Cuatro Manos y Cinco Volcanes Farms LLC
My lineage is Mexican Zapoteca, Olmeca, Purapecha, Sephardic Jewish via Spain, French, and Afro-Cuban. My metaphysical and spiritual training includes work in the Lakota, Mayan, Aztec, Hopi, Apache, and Curanderismo traditions.
I have been chosen and trained since birth for this path.
The way my spirituality is integrated into every day and action in my life, is the same way I teach you to live in ceremony, teaching, training, and healing. I value respect for this path and any medicines or allies we work with, for all of our elders, and I am constantly doing the work of self-integration in order to honor myself and others in this way.
Is this an easy path? No, but the work that I have done and continue to do allows my own sacred relationships to support the circles I am asked to hold for the greater whole. I will continue learning until and even after the day I die, and will always be a student in this life, as well as being your teacher when you enter into these circles.
When you take classes from BIPOC individuals you are helping pay reparations and heal the wound of appropriation and colonization.
LEVEL 1
- Learn to step into a world outside of western culture where a life of ceremony and deep relationship is the norm.
- These circles are about interdependence with all life on the planet.
- These circles will also introduce you to Hawaiian Ceremonial Cacao, one of the rarest ceremonial cacaos in the world.
- This opportunity allows you to acclimate yourself to the cultural exchange of how these indigenous circles teach, live, and serve the community.
2 additional SELF PACED CLASSES:
Heartbeat of Hawaiian Cacao
Approaching cacao that is grown in relationship to islands, their energy, and specifically Hawai’i, including some beginning meditations for personal practice. Taught by Michelle Maulette-Evans, Cacao Facilitator
Open Your Heart with Cacao
An intro to approaching cacao as a heart opening plant medicine in the context of these indigenous circles, and some introductions to personal practice suggestions. Taught by Marita, One Who Catches Lightning, Keeper of the Thunder Stone, & Michelle Maulette-Evans, Cacao Facilitator
3 LIVE ZOOM CLASSES 90 MIN | NOON HAWAI'I
2025 Dates:
february 8, 15, 22
August 16, 23, 30
noon hawai'i
Cost: $497 usd
Comes with a special cacao created for this class
SHOPIFY PAYMENT PLANS AND PAYPAL PAY IN 4 AVAILABLE JUST CLICK FULL EXCHANGE OR PAY IT FORWARD
PLEASE USE THESE FIRST IF YOU QUALIFY
LEVEL 2
- This circle is for those ready to step deeper on a journey of being stewards of this medicine, those ready to share cacao to the public.
- In order to support this we have created 6 circles that you can learn how to lead in your community.
- Join us for all 6 or just 3 depending on your pace, time, and level of study.
- Level 1 is a pre-requisite to this be able to take this level
2025 MARCH- MAY Learn to Lead following three circles:
- Sound + cacao : making own sound instrument for ceremony workshop + using instruments creating a sound and cacao circle
- Creation stories + cacao : connecting to your ancient cosmology - oli oli
- Ancestral healing + cacao : connecting to the 4 elements as ancestors - offrenda /despacho
THINKIFIC CLASSES (for personal growth and development)
- Elements as Ancestors
LIVE CLASSES: 6 classes Saturday | NOON HAWAI'I 90 MIN
March 1,8,15,22,29
April 5
SUPPORT: Join our cacao chat support group
$890 usd total for 3 months
comes with 1/2 pound of taro cacao and 1/2 of chaga cacao
2025 September-Ocotber Learn to Lead following three circles:
- Inner child - Modern society has stolen childhood from children through schooling and education in systems. What does it mean to return to a sense of wonder and connection with the universe?
- Healing the mother wound - In indigenous societies all are mothers, trees, humans, rivers. Modern society has stolen mothering from motherhood by focusing on one person to do the work of a village. Wether you are a mother or had a mother all can benefit from returning to our first mother, earth.
- Grief and mourning - An intro to explore grief as something that unites us and not divides us. Indigenous cultures have within their traditions grief and mourning as a natural part of life, not something outside the everyday we are trying or told to avoid.
THINKIFIC CLASSES (for personal growth and development)
Building Sacred Relationships
LIVE CLASSES: 6 classes | Saturday | NOON HAWAI'I 90 MIN
SEPTEMBER: 6,13, 20, 27
OCTOBER : 4, 11
SUPPORT: Join our cacao chat support group
$890 usd total for 3 months
comes with 1/2 pound of rose & hibiscus cacao and 1/2 pound of awa cacao
Expectations for Facilitators
- Those who complete this training will be given 20% off future cacao purchases
- To stay in good standing and receive 20% off you must lead a min 2 community/ 2 paid circles for a total of 4 circles a year and or spend $1,000 usd in cacao and goods
Discover how to hold circles with honor, for the medicina and for yourself
There’s a lot of people waking up. And what I’ve seen is that many spiritual spaces do not teach you how to respect and protect the medicines that we are working with. Ceremonial cacao is reaching so many people in the world, and it is a powerful and needed medicine, but we cannot learn the lessons and receive the healing of that medicine if we are facilitating circles with it in the same energy of disconnection, of escapistconsumption that is commonly practiced in mainstream culture. How can we hold space for others when we actually don’t even know how to hold space for ourselves, to be united within ourselves, and to thus carry the medicina in a cleaner cup?
Place Matters...
I’m not going to dance around it, I see a lot of misuse of cacao in “ceremonial” settings, and I’ve heard a number of elders talk about it too, people who have worked with cacao for generations.
I don’t actually see anyone else teaching the way I teach ONLINE because what is needed is a way to understand how to work with this medicine in new settings, where the environment is not holding you and doing the work for you. Take the cacao out of her home and the work that YOU must do as the practitioner changes. Put the cacao into the hands of people who don’t have relationships with their environments and the work that YOU must do as the practitioner changes. This is why this ceremonial training was birthed. That, and cacao told me to do it, and when she speaks, I listen.
LEVEL 3 Available 2025
- MUST APPLY
- 12 month training
- Must take level 1-2
LIVE CIRCLES:
- Ritual Baths for Ceremony
- Business Acumen for a circular economy
- Energetics and Imagery
THINKIFIC CLASSES
- Way of The Feather
- Corn, Cacao & Cosmology
- Cacao and Cosmology 1
- Feeding the Fire of Transformation
- Emergence
- 100 days of Ceremony
LIVE CLASSES: 12 classes 2x a month 2 hrs TBD
SUPPORT: Join our cacao chat support group
CEREMONY TRAINING & CACAO DIETA
This is not so much the doing of ceremony (rose petal madalas) but the being of what it takes to be a ceremonial leader. By stepping into this role you will first be asked to step deeper into yourself with radical compassionate honesty. We will work not just on the"outer circle" of ceremony but the inner personal one as well. Deep shadow work is part of this experience. You will also be taught SAFE practices and learn how to build alliances to continue holding a space with integrity.
PLANT DIETA & CLEARING
You will receive a box of Ceremonial Plant Medicine including : Atoli, Cacao Tea, Fern Tincture, Nibs, Cacao
You will also receive an HOLA & ALOHA ritual box for clearing
SHADOW ALCHEMY & INTEGRATION
Session will be led by Rose of Live bi Design. Focus will be on integrating aspects of your denied self, and an intro on how to bring this process into the concrete work of offerings, branding, and business.
IN CLASS CEREMONIES
We will schedule multiple ceremonies within the group where you get to participate and be called on to lead at times as you practice leading ceremony.
$3200 usd total for 12 months comes with over $800 plus in goods
FAQ's
How to begin your journey with cacao
- Free info video link
- Sign up to our Level 1 which is open to anyone interested
- Set up a time to interview with Mixsh or Vesna. They are my trusted student and have been with me for a long time. They are on a deep medicine path and I trust them implicitly. We are also in daily communication together.
Why do we interview for some levels?
I come from a tradition where this is the way it is done. You find someone within the circle to speak for you, present you, stand for you. Then you are presented to the teacher.
Yes it’s a few more steps than an easy click and sign up but I try to honor my ancestors and how this way has for myself and others provided the necessary small steps to walk deeper with the medicine. ALSO
- Typically in the traditions I have learned in, one would have to spend YEARS finding and courting a teacher regardless if the teacher accepted them or not.
- This journey of LOOKING and FINDING the right teacher and medicina is for a reason, and it is part of the overall spiritual journey.
- We want to make sure you are committed to learning, walking the path and helping this medicina reach those that are ready.
-THERE WILL BE A SERIES OF QUESTIONS TO ANSWER AS PART OF THE BOOKING PLEASE TAKE TIME TO READ THROUGH THEM, ANSWER AS BEST YOU CAN (try not to just say yes/no) and please read the CACAO HEALTH info at the end and ACKNOWLEDGE.
*THERE IS A MINIMAL FEE TO APPLY ($25 USD/$40 AUD) No refunds or exchanges. This is a very intensive process and this fee honors the time that Mixsh takes with you
