THE LAND IS WALKING US HOME
October 4, 2021
Today I am launching this website that is devoted to a pilgrimage of stories. Pilgrimage begins with a heart’s prayer, a call, the desire to journey with a wish. Pilgrimage brings us into a rare form of intimacy with the lands that hold us, receive us, and move us as we travel. It is vulnerable—and some would say foolish—to expose our deepest prayers to the elements. But what if this is where the magic happens?
The birthday of this pilgrimage of stories is intentional. While most of the stories on this site are fictional, the significance of this date is deeply rooted in the magical mysteries of the peoples of the Sonoran Desert, and the many souls who have lived and prayed with these lands.
I grew up in Nogales, Arizona, right on the other side of the border from Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. Fifty-seven miles south of our border cities is Magdalena de Kino, a small city of about 25,000 people. Every year at the beginning of October, people from all over the region flock to this Sonoran Desert city in Mexico. The collective gathering is a pilgrimage that culminates in a festival in the town plaza on October 4th. Some pilgrims drive into town, and many walk—sometimes even finishing the long journey on their knees. People arrive with their petitions. They come praying for miracles of all sorts. Some come with heavy hearts, asking to be forgiven for a harm they’ve caused. Others walk in honor of the dead or in thanksgiving for answered prayers. Some of the most dedicated pilgrims are people of the Tohono O’odham nation. They walk the furthest. Their pilgrimage takes days on foot, sometimes walking as far as 120 miles to get to the central plaza of Magdalena de Kino. Many carry staffs with ribbons that serve as markers of past pilgrimages.
For many generations, the October gathering has been among the most significant spiritual pilgrimages of the Sonoran Desert. What do the people come for? Who do they pray to? Ask different people and you’ll get a different story. Some say it is to honor Father Eusebio Kino, a Jesuit missionary who established most of the Spanish missions in southern Arizona and northern Mexico. Padre Kino died in Magdalena, and people come to whisper prayers to his bones. His skeletal remains are on display, still partially held by the earth, in the same spot where they were excavated in 1966.
Many pilgrims come to honor San Francisco Xavier, the missionary saint to whom Padre Kino was particularly devoted. There is a cherished wooden statue of San Francisco in Magdalena. It is a corpse-pose statue, with the santito lying peacefully in repose. Devotees line up to have their turn at praying with him, bringing San Francisco their petitions and promises. The tradition is to try to lift the santito’s head as he is lying in stillness. If a pilgrim’s heart is carrying unexamined burdens, San Francisco’s head will not budge, try as they might to lift him. However, anyone with an open heart can lift the santito’s head easily in the palm of their hands.
Some people say Padre Kino and San Francisco Xavier are actually one in the same—that Kino was a later incarnation of the missionary saint. To make matters even more complicated, the date of the festival, October 4th, is the feast day of Francis of Assisi—not Francis Xavier. So it is a celebration of two saints named Francis and one Padre Kino. Throughout my life, all of this seemed very convoluted to me. I never had any interest in Kino or Francis Xavier. I visited the holy site a few times with my parents. I saw Padre Kino’s bones and lifted the saint’s head. I still didn’t get it. Why such profound devotion to missionaries?
I now have a different take on the matter. I now believe that the land is moving us. The land itself is asking for us to walk, to move, to follow ancient patterns and courses that we can’t even understand. It turns out that in establishing his series of missions throughout the Sonoran Desert, Padre Kino traveled the ancient trading routes that indigenous people had been using for thousands of years. As might be expected, the routes more often than not followed the course of rivers. In fact, when Padre Kino first established the church mission in Magdalena, he named it Maria Magdalena de Buquivaba, combining the Spanish with the indigenous. The name translated to “Maria Magdalena of the place by the river.”
When pilgrims set out to walk to Magdalena today, they walk roads whose hidden footprints extend to a time that defies our grasp of history. The road guiding the pilgrims’ path is none other than the path of the ancestors. It is the land, the mountains, and rivers. Sure we tell stories about the saints and the missionaries, and we look forward to our turn at the statue to see if we will be able to lift Francis Xavier’s head this year. However, the factual significance of the stories fades. The stories themselves take on the layered and shapeshifting quality of the land itself. The land changes. We change. Our stories change. The reasons we give for walking change. Still we walk. We find our way to a land and a place with prayers whose full scope we can’t even understand. I believe it is none other than the land walking us home—pilgrimage after pilgrimage. Lifetime after lifetime.
This year there are no fiestas in the plaza. The pandemic and cartel violence have made for a muted reception for pilgrims. I cannot walk this year but intend to return on foot one day.
Today I am launching this website that is devoted to a pilgrimage of stories. Pilgrimage begins with a heart’s prayer, a call, the desire to journey with a wish. Pilgrimage brings us into a rare form of intimacy with the lands that hold us, receive us, and move us as we travel. It is vulnerable—and some would say foolish—to expose our deepest prayers to the elements. But what if this is where the magic happens?
The birthday of this pilgrimage of stories is intentional. While most of the stories on this site are fictional, the significance of this date is deeply rooted in the magical mysteries of the peoples of the Sonoran Desert, and the many souls who have lived and prayed with these lands.
I grew up in Nogales, Arizona, right on the other side of the border from Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. Fifty-seven miles south of our border cities is Magdalena de Kino, a small city of about 25,000 people. Every year at the beginning of October, people from all over the region flock to this Sonoran Desert city in Mexico. The collective gathering is a pilgrimage that culminates in a festival in the town plaza on October 4th. Some pilgrims drive into town, and many walk—sometimes even finishing the long journey on their knees. People arrive with their petitions. They come praying for miracles of all sorts. Some come with heavy hearts, asking to be forgiven for a harm they’ve caused. Others walk in honor of the dead or in thanksgiving for answered prayers. Some of the most dedicated pilgrims are people of the Tohono O’odham nation. They walk the furthest. Their pilgrimage takes days on foot, sometimes walking as far as 120 miles to get to the central plaza of Magdalena de Kino. Many carry staffs with ribbons that serve as markers of past pilgrimages.
For many generations, the October gathering has been among the most significant spiritual pilgrimages of the Sonoran Desert. What do the people come for? Who do they pray to? Ask different people and you’ll get a different story. Some say it is to honor Father Eusebio Kino, a Jesuit missionary who established most of the Spanish missions in southern Arizona and northern Mexico. Padre Kino died in Magdalena, and people come to whisper prayers to his bones. His skeletal remains are on display, still partially held by the earth, in the same spot where they were excavated in 1966.
Many pilgrims come to honor San Francisco Xavier, the missionary saint to whom Padre Kino was particularly devoted. There is a cherished wooden statue of San Francisco in Magdalena. It is a corpse-pose statue, with the santito lying peacefully in repose. Devotees line up to have their turn at praying with him, bringing San Francisco their petitions and promises. The tradition is to try to lift the santito’s head as he is lying in stillness. If a pilgrim’s heart is carrying unexamined burdens, San Francisco’s head will not budge, try as they might to lift him. However, anyone with an open heart can lift the santito’s head easily in the palm of their hands.
Some people say Padre Kino and San Francisco Xavier are actually one in the same—that Kino was a later incarnation of the missionary saint. To make matters even more complicated, the date of the festival, October 4th, is the feast day of Francis of Assisi—not Francis Xavier. So it is a celebration of two saints named Francis and one Padre Kino. Throughout my life, all of this seemed very convoluted to me. I never had any interest in Kino or Francis Xavier. I visited the holy site a few times with my parents. I saw Padre Kino’s bones and lifted the saint’s head. I still didn’t get it. Why such profound devotion to missionaries?
I now have a different take on the matter. I now believe that the land is moving us. The land itself is asking for us to walk, to move, to follow ancient patterns and courses that we can’t even understand. It turns out that in establishing his series of missions throughout the Sonoran Desert, Padre Kino traveled the ancient trading routes that indigenous people had been using for thousands of years. As might be expected, the routes more often than not followed the course of rivers. In fact, when Padre Kino first established the church mission in Magdalena, he named it Maria Magdalena de Buquivaba, combining the Spanish with the indigenous. The name translated to “Maria Magdalena of the place by the river.”
When pilgrims set out to walk to Magdalena today, they walk roads whose hidden footprints extend to a time that defies our grasp of history. The road guiding the pilgrims’ path is none other than the path of the ancestors. It is the land, the mountains, and rivers. Sure we tell stories about the saints and the missionaries, and we look forward to our turn at the statue to see if we will be able to lift Francis Xavier’s head this year. However, the factual significance of the stories fades. The stories themselves take on the layered and shapeshifting quality of the land itself. The land changes. We change. Our stories change. The reasons we give for walking change. Still we walk. We find our way to a land and a place with prayers whose full scope we can’t even understand. I believe it is none other than the land walking us home—pilgrimage after pilgrimage. Lifetime after lifetime.
This year there are no fiestas in the plaza. The pandemic and cartel violence have made for a muted reception for pilgrims. I cannot walk this year but intend to return on foot one day.
Skeletal remains of Padre Eusebio Kino