Embark on a Magical Moon Journey: A Sacred Cacao & Gong Ceremony
This ceremony came directly through Mama Cacao. When I sat with her to tune into what we should be working on together, she guided me towards the Moon. A year earlier, I had taken us to meet the Sun — and now it was time to meet his sister, the one who rules the tides, the cycles, the dreaming, and the deep feminine wisdom that has guided people since before memory began.
When I journeyed to meet the Moon myself in preparation for this ceremony, she came to me as a goddess — radiant, with an extraordinary headdress, ancient and knowing. That is how she manifests for me. For you, she may arrive entirely differently. The Moon is a shape-shifter by nature. She comes in the form that is most meaningful to each of us.
You can do this ceremony at any point in the moon’s cycle, but it was created for the new moon — the time when she is cloaked in darkness, invisible, holding her magic close. If you work with it at the new moon, you are approaching the Moon in her most private and potent phase: the threshold between what has ended and what has not yet begun.
The Moon as Teacher and Guide
The Moon is one of the most ancient teachers humanity has ever had. Long before clocks or calendars, the moon guided planting and harvesting, fishing and travel, ceremony and healing. She still does — for those who are listening.
Her monthly cycle — from new moon through waxing, full, and waning, back to dark — is a complete rhythm of seeding, growing, harvesting, and releasing. Working consciously with that rhythm is one of the most powerful ways to align our lives with the natural world. The new moon is the time for intentions and new beginnings. The full moon is for gratitude, celebration, and release. The waning moon is for rest, reflection, and letting go.
Beyond the monthly cycle, the Moon has long been used to support healing practices in many traditions: gardening by lunar cycles, aligning women’s menstrual rhythms with the moon’s phases, and timing ceremonies and rituals with her energy. The more we tune in to her, the more we find she has always been speaking.
Grandmother Moon — or Grandfather Moon?
In the Mayan medicine wheel tradition we work with, the Moon is called Grandmother Moon and is understood as a feminine energy. This is true in many cultures across the world. But it is not universal — in some traditions, the Moon is masculine. The Japanese moon god Tsukuyomi is male; in some Inuit traditions, the Moon is a male deity.
I share this not to create confusion but to invite freedom. In this ceremony, connect with the Moon in whatever form feels most alive and true for you. What matters is the quality of the meeting, not the gender of the guide.
Cacao and the Age We Are Living Through
I have been working with ceremonial cacao for seven years now, and I believe she is one of the most important medicines for this particular moment in human evolution. We are living through the shift into the Aquarian Age — a time when the old paradigm of taking and consuming is being asked to transform into something more reciprocal, more connected, more alive to the fact that we are all one family on one living planet.
Mama Cacao helps us to remember this. She opens the heart, dissolves the felt sense of separation, and floods the system with oxytocin — the chemistry of love and belonging. When the heart is open, we stop experiencing other people and the natural world as separate from us. We start to feel what we actually are: part of a vast, interconnected web of life. That feeling is both profoundly healing and deeply motivating. It is hard to harm what you know yourself to be.
The Ceremony: Journeying Through the Upper Realm to Meet the Moon
This is an upper realm journey — we are travelling upward, into higher consciousness and higher vibrational space, rather than down into the inner realm. After cleansing our energy field and calling in the seven directions, I guide your consciousness out through the crown chakra and across the world to a place in nature where you feel safe. From there, we look for a way to ascend: a tree to climb, a rope ladder hanging from the sky, a stairway, whatever presents itself.
As we climb higher, the quality of the atmosphere shifts. There is a layer — I experience it as something like a membrane, almost jelly-like — and when we pass through it, we are in the upper realm. Some people feel a clear shift in consciousness at this point. Others simply notice that the landscape has changed.
From the upper realm, we travel further up and out into space, all the way to the Moon. And there we call for her to come forward. She may arrive as a goddess, as light, as a sensation of deep knowing, as a colour or a sound. Whatever comes, trust it. Spend time with her. Ask what you came to ask. And at the end, as always, ask if there is anything she needs from you in return.
How Will the Journey Feel?
Not everyone experiences shamanic journeys visually, and visual experience is not more valid than any other. Some people journey like they are listening to a vivid radio play — the story flows through them as sound and narrative. Some people feel it in the body: warmth, tingling, a sense of being held or moved. Some people simply know — a telepathic sense of what is true or what is being communicated, without image or sound.
When I journeyed to meet the Moon for this ceremony, it was more of a knowing than a seeing — perhaps because it was a new moon, and she was cloaked in her own darkness. That quality of quiet, inward knowing is itself a lunar gift. Trust whatever mode is yours today.
How to Prepare for the Ceremony
Bring these two things:
Your place in nature — a real, familiar place where you feel safe. Somewhere with a sense of height nearby is beautiful for this journey: a hillside, a tall tree, even a high window looking up at the sky.
Your intention — what are you asking the Moon today? A question about your path? A request for healing? Guidance on a decision? Or simply an open heart ready to receive whatever she brings
Practically:
Prepare your ceremonial cacao and set your intention in the cup before drinking
Use good headphones or speakers — the gong frequencies are integral to this ceremony
Make yourself comfortable: lying down or seated with cushions and a blanket
Have a journal ready to capture your experience immediately afterwards
If possible, do this ceremony under or near a window where you can sense the sky above you
Continue Your Journey with Me
The Moon has been watching over us since before the first human ceremony was ever held. She knows your cycles, your tides, your darkness and your light. I hope this journey brings you home to her — and through her, home to yourself.
→ Watch the free ceremony on YouTube
→ Join a live cacao and gong ceremony
→ Book a one-to-one shamanic healing session
We can heal our world, one heart at a time. Let us begin with our own. 🌿
