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Cacao Ceremony and Sound Journey at Telluride Yoga Festival 2026 with Danielle Klein

cacao cacaoceremony soundjourney telluride tellurideyogafestival yogafestival Jul 05, 2026

Cacao Ceremony and Sound Journey at Telluride Yoga Festival 2026 with Danielle Klein

I was invited back to the Telluride Yoga Festival for the 2nd year in a row!! Returning to a place that welcomed you so warmly the first time around is one of the sweetest feelings in this line of work. 😘
I led 3 sound journey sessions across the weekend. This blog is dedicated to the 1st one: The Cacao Ceremony & Sound Journey, because it deserves its own full story.

What Is Ceremonial Grade Cacao — And Why Does It Matter?
Before I tell you about the session, I want to give cacao the credit it deserves. Because what I use is not the cocoa powder in your pantry. Not even close.
Ceremonial grade cacao is something entirely different — and the distinction matters both energetically and nutritionally.
The cacao plant (Theobroma cacao — which literally translates from Greek as food of the gods) has been cultivated and revered for thousands of years, primarily throughout Mesoamerica — in regions that are now Guatemala, Peru, Mexico and beyond. These are places where the conditions are just right: the moisture, the soil, the warmth that allows this extraordinary plant to thrive. 🌱

Archaeological evidence tells us that cacao was consumed as early as 1000 BC. Residue found in ancient pottery confirms that the people of these cultures were not just eating cacao as food, they were drinking it in ceremony. In conversation. In ritual. As a way of opening the heart, facilitating difficult conversations, honoring Gods and connecting with each other at a level beyond the ordinary.

Cacao beans were so valued that they were sometimes used as currency and traded for food, clothing and other goods. Warriors drank it for energy and divine communication before battle. It was revered as a sacred gift, not a casual pleasure. Ceremonial grade cacao honors this lineage.

Ceremonial Cacao:

Grown with traditional farming practices that respect the health of the plant and the soil
Harvested with intention — often by indigenous farmers who maintain the cultural traditions of the crop
Minimally processed — only lightly roasted, which preserves the full nutritional profile of the bean
Made from the whole bean — not stripped of its natural fats and nutrients the way commercial cocoa is

The result is a food that is genuinely extraordinary from a nutritional standpoint.

What ceremonial cacao contains:
🌿 Theobromine — a gentle, sustained heart-opening stimulant that is nothing like caffeine. It increases blood flow, elevates mood, and creates a sense of warmth and openness. This is the compound most associated with the "heart opening" quality of cacao ceremony.
🌿 Magnesium — a magnesium-dense food. Magnesium supports muscle relaxation, nervous system regulation, sleep quality, and stress response.
🌿 Iron — essential for energy, cognitive function, and oxygen transport in the blood.
🌿 Anandamide — often called the "bliss molecule." Anandamide is a naturally occurring endocannabinoid (molecules that carry messages to the body) that promotes feelings of joy, well-being, and euphoria. The name comes from the Sanskrit word ananda — meaning bliss.
🌿 PEA (Phenylethylamine) — the same compound released when you fall in love. Associated with elevated mood, focus, and a sense of aliveness.
🌿 Antioxidants — ceremonial cacao is extraordinarily rich in flavonoids that support cardiovascular health and cellular protection.
🌿 Zinc, Copper, and Manganese — essential minerals for immune function, enzyme activity, and overall cellular health.
In other words — this is not a drink. It is a medicine.

The Living Tradition
One of the things I find most beautiful about cacao ceremonies is that it is alive.
The traditions that originated in Mesoamerica thousands of years ago have traveled and evolved (as most traditions do) into the modern world. Today you will find cacao ceremonies in yoga studios, retreat centers, festivals, and private gatherings across the globe. The specific prayers, music, and intentions vary enormously, but the heart of it remains the same.

The cacao is prepared with love and intention. Often there is music; singing, dancing, chanting, drumming, instruments played as it is being made into an elixir or drink. The intention is to infuse the cacao with high vibrational energy before it is consumed.

When people gather for my cacao ceremonies, it typically involves:

Opening prayers or collective intentions — sometimes prayers to the four directions, sometimes a personal mantra, sometimes a collective spoken intention
Setting personal intentions
Sipping the cacao together — slowly, with presence, as a shared act of communion
Breathwork
Movement to open the energy channels and receive the cacao fully
Laying down to integrate and be serenaded by the sounds of various instruments

This is exactly the container I created for the Telluride Yoga Festival.

The Session
We opened with breathwork — intentional breathing to clear the mind, to release whatever everyone was carrying in and to prepare the body to receive.
Then we set our personal intentions. I invited everyone to hold in their hearts what they were calling in — what they were opening to — what they wanted this experience to help them with.
Then we sipped the cacao together.
The drink I created was made with ceremonial grade cacao, and I will tell you — people raved about it. Multiple people came up to me afterward and said it was the most delicious cacao they had ever tasted. I put a lot of love into the preparation of that drink — and I genuinely believe that love is an ingredient.
After the cacao, we moved through some energy embodiment movement — designed to open the energy channels throughout the body so the cacao and the sound could move through freely.
And then everyone got comfortable and laid down.
And I played the crystal bowls, gongs, chimes and other instruments.
The sound journey that followed was one of those sessions that takes on its own life. The combination of the cacao — with its heart-opening theobromine and bliss-molecule anandamide — and the various frequencies of my crystal signing bowls, metal bowls, gongs and chimes created something special in that room.
I guided a visualization meditation specifically for this session — one that worked with the intentionality of the cacao and the heart-opening energy we had been cultivating together. The meditation moved us into the sound journey, and the instrumental sound journey carried us the rest of the way.

What People Experienced
The feedback after this session was heart warming.
People said they wanted to do it again — asking me when the next one was.

Multiple people came to me saying it was the best cacao ceremony they had ever attended.

That the drink was absolutely delicious.

That the combination of the ceremony, the movement, and the sound was unlike anything they had experienced before.

One person told me it was the first sound bath they had ever attended — and that they were transported into a completely different dimension. And that is was unworldly and cosmic.

Several people said it was the best sound journey they had ever experienced.
And that right there is everything. That is why I do this work. So you can transform, shift energy and awaken something words cannot always describe. A shift, a change that stays with you...forever.

Thank You 💞
To everyone who came to this session at the Telluride Yoga Festival, thank you. 🙏 You brought your whole hearts and I felt every single one of them.
Check out my other two blog posts about the sessions I led at the festival — the Intuition Activation Sound Journey and the Manifesting Sound Journey.

*Evidence of Cacao: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2141886/

*Surprising findings of cacao in Utah: https://nhmu.utah.edu/articles/utahs-ancient-cacao-surprising-find

Instagram TYF Cacao Video Reel.

Work With Me: Danielle Klein