Unedited conversations about sovereignty: at work, in the body, and in life.
I'm Raquel, a first-generation Salvadoran American, cacao maker, and income strategist in Northern Virginia, and the creator of the 3P Method: Purpose, Presence, Prosperity. This is where I think out loud about career transitions, income design, cacao as ancestral plant medicine, ritual, and what it means to build a life without extraction.
Maybe you're leaving a system that doesn't fit. Maybe you're curious about cacao. Maybe you're the first in your family to figure this out. Wherever you're coming from, you're welcome here.
Raw, unscripted, and made for the ones who are still figuring it out. Hit follow, and take your next step without panic.
www.miriamraquelsands.com (https://www.miriamraquelsands.com?utm_medium=podcast)
Season 3: Ep 7🌾 Cacao, Reciprocity, and Legacy: What It Means to Thrive, Exchange, and Become
* What does money mean to you now?
And not just in the short term. What does money mean to you in the long term? In your relationships with others? In the lifestyle you’d like to have? In your values? Or the values that you want to develop? What does money really mean to you?
* And what does time mean to you?
In the short term. In the long term. Are there certain things you’re not willing to trade in exchange for your time or your money?
And looking at these examples of the buffalo and cacao: Neither is extinct now.
But the legacy—the history, the systems, the things that transpired in order for these entities, these life forms, to exist as they do now—means that they are not what they used to be.
I don’t think the buffalo can just roam as they once did. Just like cacao. Now there are farms. There are supply chains. There are markets.
So what does it mean to be in relationship? To be in a reciprocal relationship? To have reciprocity in your life?
But for me, as I develop, continue to experiment, and continue to learn in this business as a farmers market vendor, as someone who still has an office job, I ask myself the same questions:
How long will a job be worth it for me?
When is enough enough?
And for the sake of what or who?
I feel a deep sense of pride and humility and gratefulness that I get to be a steward of cacao on behalf of my ancestors.
And in this way, I develop and hone and strengthen my relationship with my ancestors. With my family. With my lineage. With my culture. With my history. And I also get to create a new chapter.
A new sense of meaning and value and culture.
Because I don’t speak Nahuatl. I don’t speak Qʼeqchiʼ.
And now there is a new language I speak. I am cultivating new ground. And I think that’s ultimately where we will wrap up this journey. Because the journey is, I think, creating, sustaining, and then creating again.
That’s the circle.
And I think we, as a people, are coming to that full-circle moment.
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12 Sept 2026
Ashburn Eatloco Northern Virginia Today 🌿
Hi friends! If you haven't met me in person and are in the northern Virginia area come on out to Ashburn! I'll be here from 9am - 2pm at the Eatloco Farmer's market.
I sell hand-made cacao drinking blends (grounded cacao herbs and spices ready to drink in the morning or night time. Add in with your coffee or milk/creamer of choice), hand-poured cocoa scented candles, tote bags and stickers all hand-designed!
This may be my last farmers market of 2026 so stay tuned for an update on my online shop where Virginia residents can buy cacao, drinking blends and candles from me
Note: My business currently operates under cottage law which means that I can only ship in the state of Virginia for the time being next year. I hope to get a commercial kitchen and be able to ship throughout the East Coast and the USA.
See you soon! Thanks for being part of this online and in-person community ❤️
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.miriamraquelsands.com (https://www.miriamraquelsands.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)
17 Aug 2026
The Last: What a Year of Building Resilience Actually Looked Like
The word edge comes from Old English, and it carries two meanings folded into one: the cutting side of a blade, and a point — a tip, a limit, a place where something ends.
I find that distinction worth sitting with longer than we usually do. An edge is both a tool and a boundary. It’s the thing that can sever, and it’s also the place where something simply stops. We use the word constantly without touching either of its original meanings — I’m at the edge of something; this is an edge for me to push through — but we rarely ask what we’re actually invoking when we say it. A blade. A limit. Something that can cut, and something that contains.
This is the real question underneath capacity: how do you define how much you have, in any given moment, with any given person? And once you know — or even if you don’t fully know, even if you can’t articulate it — are you willing to act on that information?
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.miriamraquelsands.com (https://www.miriamraquelsands.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)
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Podcast Authority Score: 44 / 100
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27
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