You may leave a ceremony with a full heart and a wish to share what you lived. Perhaps you feel you have found your path. That wish deserves care. But living a profound experience and being ready to guide other people are two different things.
One initiation opens a relationship with a maestro, with cacao and with the living world. Leading a ceremony asks for the preparation that grows inside that relationship, through time, practice and guidance.
I am Giuliano Salas, an Inca priest, and in the path I teach, initiation is part of a relationship that goes on after that first encounter. It is inside that relationship that we learn, little by little, to care for the people who come to our circle.
What grows between student and maestro
A maestro accompanies much more than one ceremony. The relationship makes room for questions, for practice, for learning that takes time. Nobody understands everything at the first encounter. Some experiences need to be lived, returned to and understood with more patience.
There is affection on this path too. Trust grows by spending time together. You learn a song. A new question appears. Something you could not grasp before suddenly makes sense. And the learning starts to find its place in ordinary life.
In the worldview I share, this relationship includes human teachers, spiritual teachers and nature. Cacao and the living world are part of that bond as well. I am speaking of a way of living and understanding the sacred, not of an experience that is the same for everyone.
That is why I do not look at initiation as an isolated moment. I look at the relationship it helps to deepen, and at the commitment that comes with it.
Why the learning needs to continue
An initiation can mark an important change. Even so, it does not hand someone, all at once, everything they need to learn in order to guide others.
We keep studying, practicing and working with our difficulties, our ego and our shadows. That care does not stop when we begin to serve. In the path I teach, becoming a maestro or maestra is an apprenticeship that lasts a lifetime.
So the question is no longer only “Have I been initiated?” It becomes: “What relationship am I nurturing? What have I learned to offer? Where do I still need guidance?”
Each initiation brings something to live with, to practice and to understand more deeply. It is not a collection of moments through which we earn a title. Each one asks us to keep the relationship alive.
What kind of gathering do you want to lead?
A gathering among friends and an initiatory immersion in the forest ask for very different preparation. Before inviting anyone, we need to understand what we are offering.
In my teachings, I organize this work into four levels: social, psychological, energetic and spiritual. This is how I present the path to my students, not a classification of all traditions.
In the way I teach, study and practice, with guidance, can prepare someone to guide gatherings at the first two levels. The energetic and spiritual levels call for a deeper apprenticeship with a maestro who carries the lineage. And beginning to serve at the third level does not automatically prepare someone to guide an initiatory immersion at the fourth.
An experience in the forest can be deeply meaningful. But a single visit does not replace that preparation.
There is joy before any title
Giving the relationship time does not mean standing still, waiting for a special day.
There is joy in preparing cacao with attention. In learning a song. In talking with a maestro and meeting people who feel drawn to this same path. And there is a quiet satisfaction the day we realize we can offer the care we once received.
These moments are valuable in themselves. Confidence grows little by little, and so does the clarity about what we can offer and what we still need to learn.
If you want to lead a ceremony, take this question to your maestro: “What preparation does this gathering ask of me?” Then leave room for the relationship to continue after the answer.
May what cacao awakens in your heart become care for the people who sit in your circle.
If you would like to study this path with me, the Conexão Cacau mentorship is one possibility. It is part of the preparation I share with my students. Online learning does not replace in-person guidance, and on its own it does not prepare anyone to lead an initiatory immersion. Take a look at the program and see whether it fits this moment of your life.