Yoga, juice cleansing, and magic chocolate

I have been in San Marcos La Laguna now for 3 full days. It is a very strange place. Cool, but strange. The main touristy part of the village has no streets, only footpaths. Scattered through this forest are a large number of places to do yoga, get a massage, or any other alternative treatment you can think of. Most of the restaurants are vegetarian, and there are people who live here known as "keith the chocolate guy" or "dan the bread guy", and its not that they are selling illegal substances and using bread or chocolate as a front, no they just are the guys to find if you want either bread or chocolate. Which i did, obviously.

I am doing one of the many yoga and meditation retreats available in this tiny place. This woman runs it out of the eco hotel/hostel i am staying in, and we do morning and evenings yoga, meditation, and discussion. In addition, for today and tomorrow we are doing a juice cleanse and lucid dreaming workshop. I am doing ok so far, but right now I am sitting in the hotel's cafe because that is the only place to get internet. It is a bit of a challenge to be surrounded by people who are eating real food, knowing that the next thing I get to put in my mouth will be more juice. But I am not hungry, just missing the act of eating! Its a good practice I think, its making me realize how normally I just eat whenever I feel bored, not that I am actually hungry. Like in the yoga class this morning I found myself day dreaming about what I was going to eat for breakfast, just because my brain didn't want to be in the meditative state it was supposed to be in, not because I was actually hungry.

We learned about fasting in the TTC, and one of the supposed benefits of it was that it frees up your mind from thoughts about food. I think it might be the opposite, when I dont eat I think about food more. But maybe my brain will relax by tomorrow and i will feel the benefits.

When I got to San Marcos I had been hearing about this chocolate shaman who conducts chocolate ceremonies with psychedelic chocolate or something and anyway apparently these chocolate ceremonies are one of the must-do things in this town. So I went to one that was held last Sunday in his home. So he makes us these drinks of the raw cacao and water, and we were invited to add hot sauce, raw cane sugar, and this blended liquid made from a type of verbena. After we doctored up our drinks, he told us a bit about how he came to be a chocolate shaman. He came across a native community nearby to Lago de Atitlan and they were growing cacao. He had a vision of the cacao spirit and she told him to try some of this cacao. He did, and he had some powerful experiences and he decided to invite other people to share in his cacao ceremonies. There was nothing really ceremonial about it, we drank the cacao, he told us the story, and then 45 minutes in he said we were supposed to be feeling it. I felt my heart racing and my head pounding because of the caffeine, but nothing too crazy. He said the cacao is not like a drug, it simply heightens your experience if you let it. Well, yeah, I suppose caffeine heightens your experience. So a discussion of various new-agey topics ensued, including topics such as past lives, energies, auras, and more. Then some women started crying and it turned into a group therapy session. And this lasted about 5 hours in total. A bit long for me, expecially after the caffeine rush went away I felt really tired. Apparently every ceremony is different, and it depends on the group, so yeah I would recommend doing this if you are ever in San Marcos. Who knows what the effect will be?

I am hoping the second day of the lucid dreaming workshop will be better than the first. Better in that I hope I do not fall asleep right away. But the lack of food is making me really lethargic, even though I slept a lot yesterday. What happened to the burst of energy these juice cleanses are supposed to bring?