Come home to the birthplace of the ceremonial cacao movement.

It started here, in San Marcos La Laguna, with Keith and a lake and a plant nobody in the West was using this way yet. Our cacao is still made here, by the same families, by hand. Once a year we open the place to the people who drink it.

Nine days. Ceremony every morning, the cacao forest, the taller, Keith's teachings, and a ceremony you hold yourself before you go home.

Reserve Your Space

25 places. Held in English and Spanish. Pay over time with Shop Pay Installments. Accommodation booked separately, we help you with that.

WHEN

March 3 to 11, 2027

WHERE

San Marcos La Laguna, Lake Atitlán

FROM

$1,599, or four payments with Shop Pay. Price rises November 20.

PLACES

25

WHAT HOMECOMING IS

Keith Wilson spent his life learning what cacao does when you meet it honestly. He met it in San Marcos, on the shore of Lake Atitlán, and that is where our cacao is still made, by the same families, in the same taller, by hand.


Homecoming is the one week a year we open that place to the people who drink it.


It is not a conference and it is not a vacation. It is nine days of ceremony, walking, listening, cooking, dancing, sitting with strangers who stop being strangers around day three. You will be in a cacao forest with the people who tend it. You will roast beans and grind paste and taste the difference your own hands make. You will sit with Keith's teachings, on video and in the mouths of the people he taught, and you will practice holding a ceremony yourself, with feedback, before you go home.


Most people arrive because they love the cacao. They leave knowing what to do with that love.

"I always had a deep connection with Cacao, but after this Homecoming experience, I now feel at one with it, 100% connected to the Spirit of Cacao..."

Jenny T.

WHAT A WEEK HERE GIVES YOU

You can buy our cacao anywhere.
You can only do this here.

Once a year, twenty five people, in the village where this whole thing started. Here is what you take home.


  • A TREE IN THE FOREST YOUR CACAO COME FROM

You will spend a full day in the plantations above Santiago with the people who tend them, learn how a pod becomes the thing in your cup, and put a cacao tree in the ground yourself. It will still be there in twenty years. Almost nobody ever meets the place their food comes from.


  • THE TEACHING, FROM PEOPLE KEITH TAUGHT

Rick, Nicole and Carlos learned this from him directly, in this village. Every day includes Keith himself on film. This is the only week of the year any of it is taught in the place it came from, and there is no version of it we can put online.


  • YOUR HANDS ON THE MOLCAJETE, NEXT TO THE WOMEN WHO MAKE YOUR CACAO

Not a demonstration. You roast, you peel, you grind, and a tostadora who has done it every day for fifteen years stops you and moves your wrist. On the last night you eat with all forty of them.


  • A CEREMONY YOU HELD YOURSELF, IN THE PLACE CEREMONY CAME FROM

You design it, you make the cacao, real people sit in it, and afterwards they and the facilitators tell you the truth about it. Most people serving cacao have never once had someone tell them the truth about their own ceremony.


  • THE COMPETENCE, WHICH WILL SHOW

Dose, temperature, timing, and what changes when the room gets bigger. How to open a space and how to keep it safe when someone goes further than they expected. How to talk about the science without sounding like a brochure. This is the difference between serving cacao and serving it well.


  • AN ADVANCED CERTIFICATE OF COMPLETION, EARNED AT THE SOURCE

Issued by Keith's Cacao, in San Marcos, by the people who carry his work. Plus the insignia, which we don't sell to anyone. Add the Power of Cacao course and you finish as a Keith's Cacao Practitioner: wholesale access, the practitioner program, and 600 people worldwide doing this for a living.


Once a year. Twenty five seats. Then the lake goes quiet again until 2028.

IN PERSON ONLY

SOME OF THIS DOESN'T TRAVEL

You can read about fermentation. Or you can stand in the forest and smell the boxes while the man who turns them explains why he turns them when he does.

You can watch a video about preparation. Or you can grind paste on a molcajete next to a woman who has done it every day for fifteen years, and feel her stop you and move your wrist.

You can practise holding ceremony alone in your living room. Or you can hold one for real people and hear, out loud, what landed and what didn't.

Our online course teaches you what to do. This week is the only place we teach you how it feels when you're doing it right. There is no version of that we can email you.

THE CACAO SHAMAN

KEITH IS STILL TEACHING

Keith passed, but his teachings did not. Every day of Homecoming includes Keith on film, speaking about what he learned: where ceremony actually comes from, how to meet the cacao spirit, the meditation he taught for years, and his three rules for anyone who holds space with cacao.

You are not in charge. Let go of the outcome. No sexual energy.

Those three sentences are the spine of the week. The people leading it, Rick, Nicole and Carlos, learned them from him directly and have been teaching from them since.

"I don't teach Mayan ceremonies or any shamanic rite. The Maya can and should carry that. The mission cacao gave me is different: to return this plant's medicine to the Western world." - Keith Wilson

Other trainings teach you one way of holding a ceremony. We teach you to build your own. Tools, not dogma. The Mayan knowledge stays present and stays credited to the people it belongs to.

the nine days

FROM SEED TO CEREMONY

The week follows the cacao. It starts as a seed and ends as a ceremony you hold yourself.

DAY 1 - THE SEED

Arrive in San Marcos, settle at La Paz. We open the week together in the palapa with the first ceremony, set intentions as a group, and eat dinner as a family.

DAY 2 - SOIL

Morning yoga if you want it. Then we make cacao together, the way it is meant to be made, and Keith speaks on where ceremony really comes from. The afternoon is cacao as an alchemical power plant: the science, the nutrition, the chemistry of why it does what it does. Movie night after dinner.

DAY 3 - SPROUT

The early one. We meet at the dock before sunrise and take a boat across the lake to Santiago, then drive up to the cacao plantations. Harvesting, fermentation, drying, and a talk on how the tree becomes the cup. You will plant a cacao tree. Ceremony in the forest with a sound journey, held by Carlos. Family meal, and dinner on the water at Bambú.

DAY 4 - PASTE

Down to the taller with the tostadoras, the women who roast and process every bean we sell. Roasting, molcajete, packing, labeling. In the afternoon, the Magic Porch: Keith's three rules, and awareness practice with cacao.

DAY 5 - NEXT LEVEL

The inner one. Spiritual benefit, integration, Keith's empath training, and a guided group process led by Carlos. In the afternoon we visit the modern chocolate factory in San Juan and see the other road cacao can take.

DAY 6 - THE SAFE CONTAINER

We build an altar together and talk honestly about what it takes to hold space: presence, group resonance, what to do when something unexpected happens in your room. Embodiment practice, storytelling, and the part nobody teaches, which is how to keep people safe.

DAY 7 - THE CEREMONY

Your day. In groups of six to eight you design and hold your own ceremony, make your own cacao, and get real feedback. Morning session on the business of cacao and the practitioner path, for anyone who wants to make this work.

DAY 8 - CELEBRATION

Remaining practice ceremonies, then a group integration of the whole week. Tuktuks up to Eagle's Nest for the closing: dinner with the taller team, a DJ, and ecstatic dance.

DAY 9 - HOME

Breakfast and checkout. Most people stay a few extra days at the lake. We can point you to where.

Every morning has breakfast together and an optional yoga or meditation hour. Every afternoon has open time to swim, nap, journal, or sit with what came up. The lake sets the pace, not us.

THE SOURCE

THE PEOPLE AND THE PLACE

THE FOREST

THE FOREST

The trees our cacao comes from, on the far side of the lake. You will spend a full day there and leave a tree in the ground.

THE TALLER

THE TALLER

The workshop in San Marcos where every bean is roasted, peeled and ground by hand.

THE TOSTADORAS

THE TOSTADORAS

The women who do that work. They will teach you during the week, and on the last night you will eat with all forty of them. Meet the hands that make your cacao.

SAN MARCOS

SAN MARCOS

A small village on the water, reachable only by boat or a long road. Ten minutes from anywhere to anywhere.

who comes to homecoming

  • You love the cacao

    You drink it most mornings. You have felt what it does. You have never held a ceremony for anyone else and you may never want to, and that is completely fine. Come for the source: the forest, the taller, the ceremonies, the people. Take the teaching as far as you want to take it. Plenty of people come simply to be here.

  • You want to hold it for others

    You want to lead ceremonies, or you have started and you want to do it with confidence and integrity rather than guessing. This week is the top of our path. You will practice on real people, get honest feedback, learn how to keep a room safe, and leave certified.

  • your already serve cacao

    Then the question isn't whether to train at the source. It's why you haven't yet. Your people are drinking something that started here. Come and learn it where it started, sharpen how you hold a room, and leave with the credential that says you did. You also get first access to the room. Watch your inbox in September.

1 3

The week is the same for everyone. The difference is what you do with it afterward.

THE CERTIFICATION

If you serve cacao, this is the training you haven't done yet

Most people serving ceremonial cacao learned it secondhand. A weekend somewhere, a course online, a teacher who learned from a teacher who learned from Keith.

There is nothing wrong with that. But there is one place where this movement actually started, and one week a year when the people who carry Keith's work teach it there, in the forest and the taller where the cacao is made.

You come out of it with an Advanced Certificate of Completion, a ceremony you have held and had critiqued, and a path into the practitioner program if you want to make it your living. Your clients can see where you trained. So can you.

  • Advanced Certificate of Completion, issued at the source
  • A ceremony you have held, with structured feedback
  • The insignia, which we don't sell to anyone
  • Optional: add Power of Cacao and finish as a Keith's Cacao Practitioner
  • Wholesale access and the practitioner program, if you take that path
  • 600+ practitioners worldwide to belong to

The Power of Cacao add-on is optional and priced separately. You can also add it later.

WHO HOLDS THE WEEK - MEET YOUR FACILITATORS

RICK WESSELS

RICK WESSELS

Rick runs Keith's Cacao. He [met Keith in year / worked alongside him for X years] and has been teaching from his work since. He opens the week, leads the Magic Porch session on Keith's three rules, and holds the morning on the business of cacao. [One line from Rick on why he teaches this.]

NICOLE GNUTZMAN

NICOLE GNUTZMAN

Nicole [role, background, how she came to cacao]. She holds the guided conversations that run through the week, the participant introductions, and the group work where the room starts becoming a room. [One line from Nicole on why she teaches this.]

CARLOS MARCUS

CARLOS MARCUS

Born in Mallorca on International Chocolate Day, Carlos is a sound wizard and cacao whisperer whose path has carried him from the stages of London to Keith Wilson's porch in Guatemala, by way of ancient temples and sacred mountains. Blending years as a sound engineer with deep ceremonial practice, he helps others tune back into their own frequency and remember the truth of their song.

What the ticket covers

  • Nine days of programming, March 3 to 11
  • Daily cacao ceremony
  • Breakfast every morning at La Paz
  • The opening family dinner, the family meal at the forest, the dinner at Bambú, and the closing celebration
  • Dinner on the last night with the forty people who make our cacao
  • The full day trip to the cacao forest, boat and road transport included
  • The taller workshop and the San Juan chocolate factory visit
  • Optional daily yoga and meditation
  • Practice ceremony day with facilitator feedback
  • Advanced Certificate of Completion, and the insignia
  • Translation between English and Spanish throughout

NOT INCLUDED

  • Advanced Certificate of Completion, issued at the source
  • A ceremony you have held, with structured feedback
  • The insignia, which we don't sell to anyone
  • Accommodation. We hold a block at Hotel La Paz and send you the link when you book. There are also options across the village at every price.
  • Flights and ground transport to San Marcos
  • Lunches and most dinners. San Marcos is full of good, cheap food and eating out is part of the week.
  • Travel insurance, which we require
  • The Power of Cacao course add-on
  • Wholesale access and the practitioner program, if you take that path
  • 600+ practitioners worldwide to belong to

The Power of Cacao add-on is optional and priced separately. You can also add it later.

Reserve your place

$1,599

or four payments of $400 with Shop Pay

Nine days. All programming, ceremonies, the forest, the taller, breakfast daily, five shared meals, your certificate. Accommodation booked separately.

Reserve Your Place

Full refund through December 1, 2026. After that your place is transferable to another person or to Homecoming 2028.

  • Early - $1,599

    until November 20

  • Standard - $1,799

    November 21 to January 6

  • Full - $1,999

    from January 7

QUESTIONS

Do I need to be a practitioner to come?

No. Most people who come aren't. About a quarter of the room will be, and you'll learn from them.

Can I pay over time?

Yes. Choose Shop Pay at checkout and split it into four payments. Available for customers in the US, Canada and the UK.

Do I have to hold a ceremony?

The practice day is the heart of the week and we hope you take it. You'll be in a group of six to eight with a facilitator, not alone in front of a crowd. If you really don't want to lead, you can hold space in your group instead.

Is this the same as the Power of Cacao course?

No. Power of Cacao is our online course and it teaches you what to do. Homecoming is the in person week at the source, and it's the only place we can teach you how it feels when you're doing it right. You can add the course to your ticket.

Will I be certified to lead ceremonies afterward?

You leave with an Advanced Certificate of Completion from Keith's Cacao. To join the Practitioner Program you also complete Power of Cacao, which you can add on.

Is this a Mayan ceremony training?

No, and we're careful about that. The Mayan tradition belongs to the Maya and we honor it during the week. What we teach is Keith's work: how to hold cacao in a way that's yours, with tools rather than a script.

How much cacao will I be drinking?

A ceremonial dose most days, prepared properly. If you need to sit one out, sit one out. Nobody will push you.

Can I come with a partner or a friend?

Yes, and it's a good idea.

What's the group like?

Around 25 people from all over. Past Homecomings have run from twenties to seventies.

What if I've never been to Guatemala?

Neither had most of the room. We send a travel sheet and we'll help you plan.

Come to the information call

We run a free call before every Homecoming. Rick and the facilitators answer questions, people who came last year usually turn up, and you can get a feel for it before you commit to anything.


Leave your email, and we'll send you the call details, the full day-by-day schedule, and our travel sheet for getting to San Marcos.


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