Lavender Malin is our founder & chocolatier.
She is a Usui Reiki master, herbalist, intuitive healer, cacao ceremonialist, guided meditation facilitator, womxn's circle leader, singer-songwriter, poet, elixir alchemist, potions master, mental health advocate and nomadic student of the world.
Founder of Nightlight Wellness, a Reiki healing platform and traveling herbal apothecary, Lavender uses the beautiful medicines of Reiki, cacao, herbs, meditation, music, spoken word, and the powerful energy of community to clear away blockages and bring souls closer to their inner light. Her mission is to awaken and empower the healer within each human, so we may all heal the world.
San Pedro, Lake Atitlan, Guatemala
Lavender’s cacao journey began many years ago in New York, when she sat in a traditional Mayan cacao ceremony for the first time, and felt the clear, loving, motherly energy of cacao’s divine feminine spirit come through the drink. She began sitting in bi-weekly ceremonies and deepened her relationship with this sacred plant, its indigenous heritage, and herself. Cacao’s nurturing spirit assisting her in cutting out toxins and patterns from her life that no longer served her, and gave her the tools to dedicate herself fully to the healing path.
Eventually, Lavender trained to become a cacao ceremonialist under the Mayan Tzu’tu’jil tribe’s lineage, learning about the Mayan calendar, cosmovision, and sacred traditions surrounding cacao. She tasted a fresh cacao bean for the first time in the cacao jungles of Costa Rica, and she spent time with the Tzu’tu’jil tribe in their homeland of San Pedro, Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, sitting in prayer and ceremony with the very tribe through which she found her connection to cacao’s sacred spirit, deepening her understanding and relationship with the plant & with the indigenous wisdom around it.
It wasn’t until she moved to the volcanic neverland of Big Island, Hawaii that Lavender began fermenting and processing cacao from the pods, and singing and drumming her gratitude and prayers to cacao trees in recognition of her Mayan spirit family. It is only fitting that this exploration and deepening of her walk with ceremonial cacao led her to the beginning of Goddess Cacao:: the making of mindful chocolate, and the reminder that cacao is always sacred, and can always be a ritual, and always comes back to the Mayan ancestors from which it first came, in every single form it is experienced.
~ Discover how each bar of chocolate is made with intention and fused with the sacred energies of the Mayan calendar
~ Acquire a beautiful meditative way to invoke the spirit of cacao and turn your moment with your chocolate bar into a sacred ritual
~ Learn more about how we’re giving back to the Mayan tribe to which we owe so much of our cacao wisdom and connection
The Goddess Behind ‘
Goddess Cacao’
We are named after Ix Cacao, the powerful Mayan goddess of the cacao tree. As cacao is a sacred Mayan medicine, and as our founder studied and trained under ancient indigenous Mayan lineages and traditions surrounding this delicious plant, it is a very fitting origin.
Ix Cacao is present in the very first creation myths the Mayans have. She was the first to give the gift of agriculture to humans. She is the goddess of abundance, creation, fertility, and Pachamama/Mother Earth. She is called upon to promote good harvest. She is a fierce protector and guardian of cacao, of the medicine so cherished and worshipped in Mayan history it is known as the Food of the Gods:: the plant that was given to humans as a gift so our minds may rise to the level of the cosmos, so that we may know true divinity and true enlightenment comparable to that which the gods experience themselves.
Ix Cacao is kind, gentle, loving and yet also fiercely strong and protective. She reminds us to be abundant, to be grateful, to cherish the Earth and to be open and ready to receive the endless gifts she wants to give us— and to be fierce and dedicated to our conviction to the universe, to our higher selves, to our greater purpose, and to Spirit.
Enjoy your little piece of the cosmos with your divine Goddess-blessed chocolate.
Mayan Nahuales, San Marcos la Laguna, Guatemala