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On Ceremony and Pilgrimage

Welcome to the latest edition of our online journal, Writings from Our Community . The writings and images shared here are connected by the theme of Pilgrimage . Whether the tale is of a classic pilgrimage to a faraway shrine, or of a simple journey to honor the sacred geography close to home, each contributor offers a glimpse of the fresh reality that is created when we step outside the usual habits and constrictions of our daily life and into the realm of the sacred.

In the Andes, traditional people regularly honor the sacred landscape near their villages as well as making arduous, less frequent pilgrimages to faraway places. Near their villages, the Runakuna honor local Apus that keep watch over their homes by offering coca, despachos, and heartfelt prayer. A few times in their lives, many of the men and women also venture farther as part of a small village group that travels together to a distant place, perhaps to the festival of Qoyllur Rit'i, the Star of the Snows, in the high mountains. Dancing and praying their way through long days of walking, sleeping in the mud beside the path, sharing food, hardships, community frictions, and celebration within their small group of travelers, they connect their homes and ayllus with the great Apus and their glacial snows, the source of water and life. Shared challenges and joys of the pilgrimage reinforce their immediate ties of kinship to each other and also emphasize that their small village group is an integral part of the enormous, temporary community that takes form at the great mountain once a year.

The stories and images shared here address the realities of pilgrimage in various forms. Some tell of sacred journeys to faraway places of South America, North America, and the Middle East and include deeply personal stories of healing and transformation. Other journeys were closer to home, including some of the ceremonial connections made by regional ayllu members during the sixth part of a seven-year ritual cycle. Ceremonies were offered concurrently around the world, led by Oscar Miro-Quesada with other members of the North American and European ayllus, together in Austria as part of the 2006 Shamanism and Healing conference. The intention of this powerful ritual connection was to create a rainbow bridge between the Old and New worlds, healing divisions that were set into motion centuries ago, when the indigenous people of the Americas were conquered in the 15 th and 16 th centuries.

What these travelers' tales of pilgrimage have in common is recognition of the power of ceremonial relationship between human beings and the living, sacred body of Earth - and an understanding that our actions as individuals and as a community have a profound potential to reactivate the power of long-neglected holy places and to transform our own lives. As we step outside our daily routines and awaken to an awareness of our role as stewards of our planet, each step we take creates and deepens the luminous pilgrimage paths of our world.

We invite you to share your contributions to Writings from Our Community. The next update will take place in Autumn, 2007. Check back with us for more information, including themes for the next updates of these pages or to suggest questions and themes to explore in the future. Meanwhile, if you have questions or would like to share your words or images here, please contact Anita@heartofthehealer.com or review the "Submissions Guidelines" link on the left of this page.