I’m pilgrimaging again this year!

This week I’ll be walking, for the fourth time, from the pyramids of Teotihuacan to the Basilica of Guadalupe.

11 hours, 26 miles, carrying prayers and surrendering up what is not mine to carry.

Why walk for hours when I could take a car and arrive in 45 minutes? Why keep returning to this pilgrimage year after year? Why start at the pyramids instead of some place closer within Mexico City?

Because my being craves the holy beauty of walking not to get someplace or leave another, but out of devotion. 

A pilgrimage involves hardship: time, effort.

For me, the walk connects me in a more visceral way with humanity and our desire for the sacred. Whether the pilgrimage is to Mecca or Lourdes, Mount Shiva to Ayers Rock, the pilgrim sets aside their day-to-day life to immerse themselves in a one-pointed focus towards the divine.

In the walking, the old worries, fears, doubts, and concerns of worldly life fall away. We are slowly stripped of who we have been, and all our striving to become, all the goals, all the dreams dissolve. All that remains is the next step. And the next. We are walking back into the arms of the Divine. We don’t need to carry much, as people come out in the hundreds to support the peregrinos: handing out water, coffee, tamales, smiles. There are many ways to honor the Divine. Some walk, some support. All are part of the honoring.

On the surface this pilgrimage is the largest Catholic pilgrimage in the Americas, with over 3 million people walking to the Basilica on December 11th, and over 10 million people visiting that week. 

Under the surface is an ancient heartbeat, a much older Goddess who is calling her children together.

Humans in prayer bring healing both to the earth and their communities; and millions of humans in devotion amplifies and expands the healing.

Each year I walk for myself, and I walk for others. I love the holy burden of carrying prayers. So please share your prayers for yourself or your beloveds. I will hold them in my heart as I walk, and I will then read them all out loud at the Basilica. 

Share your prayers for yourself, or others in the Warrior Goddess Women group, or on my public Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/warriorgoddesstribe

https://www.facebook.com/heatherash.amara

And perhaps you can walk with me on December 11 or 12th: around your block, or to a sacred place for you. May we all be more mindful, compassionate, and surrender up what is not ours to carry as we lovingly carry the burden of what is ours to hold.

Blessings,