Peruvian Cacao Ceremony - Multi-sensory Ritual Settings as Mental Health Infrastructure

​Location: Ceremony Room

​This workshop offers a multisensory ritual experience using Indigenous-origin cacao as a form of non‑medical mental‑health support. Grounded in ancestral healing traditions and informed by transcultural psychiatry and sensory‑regulation science, the session treats cacao as a relational practice that fosters self‑regulation, clarity, and resilience. Participants engage with ethically sourced ancestral cacao in a carefully designed sensory environment—bitterness, warmth, sound, posture, and visual simplicity—crafted to invite nervous‑system safety and coherence. The ritual provides a temporary container for recalibration without requiring belief systems or therapeutic disclosure, offering instead a direct return to embodied presence. Through this shared psychophysiological experience, the workshop highlights how nourishment, environment, and symbolic structure can function as public mental‑health resources. Participants leave with a felt reference point for regulation, greater sensorial literacy, and a renewed sense of agency. The session is facilitated by Andrea Falcón, a Quechua‑descendant practitioner whose work bridges Indigenous knowledge with contemporary mental‑health frameworks.