I want to tell you something I left out of the first invitation, because it needs more room than an announcement allowed.
There is a morning, somewhere in the middle of the pilgrimage, when the light comes down off the snow before it reaches the floor of the valley. The prayer flags above the monastery start to move in a wind you cannot yet feel.
The mountains are still in shadow. The peaks are already gold.
You stand outside the lodge with tea in your hands, and the air is thin enough that your breath slows on its own. You do not have to do anything, the mountain is doing it.
This is what the arc of the pilgrimage is built to honor.
We arrive in Kathmandu on the eve of Holi, the Festival of Colors. The first day is for landing – the body recovering from travel, the welcome dinner, an evening sound healing session that opens the pilgrimage gently.
The next day, the city moves into color. Pigment in the air, music in the streets, strangers laughing and throwing handfuls of pink and saffron at each other until everyone is the same shade of celebration.
The nervous system needs to remember it is alive before it can be asked to settle. And the body opens through joy first.
From Kathmandu we move into the foothills and walk through the ancient temple squares of Patan. We continue south to Neydo Monastery, where we spend the night within a living Buddhist monastery and retreat centre.
The city falls away and the evening practice is held by resident monks. The morning bell wakes us, and there is teachings, and blessings.
There is a particular quiet of a place that has been used for practice for a very long time. This is the threshold.
Most of us, if we are honest, have been standing at one for some time before we ever leave home. The monastery makes it visible.
Then we drive north toward Langtang National Park, and the walking begins.
Our route is a quieter one – through Sherpagaon, away from the busier trekking corridor, into rhododendron forest and across river valleys, through Tamang villages where the rhythm of life is held by mountain time.
The walking days are not strenuous in the way a workout is strenuous. They are long, slow, gradual, embodied. Four to seven hours each day, with rests, with stops for tea, with time to notice.
The altitude rises steadily, and the body has to meet it. The air thins and the breath has to settle. The momentum of ordinary thinking becomes impossible. The body sets a pace, and the mind has to follow. This is the ascent.
We sleep in eco-comfort lodges chosen for warmth and rest – heated beds where they exist, attached bathrooms, solar power.
Each morning begins with practice – meditation, breathwork, movement, yoga. Each evening, we gather for reflection, teaching, and integration as the pilgrimage unfolds.
After several days of walking, we arrive in Kyanjin Gompa.
Three thousand eight hundred and seventy meters. Glaciers above us. Prayer flags everywhere. The silence at that altitude has weight. You can hear the wind move through the flags before you feel it on your face.
We spend two nights here, and this is the heart-centre of the journey. For those who wish, there is an optional acclimatization hike to Lower Kyanjin Ri at dawn, where the whole range opens in front of you.
For those who choose to remain in the valley, there is time to rest, write, walk quietly, visit the monastery, or simply be still. Both are honored and part of the work.
One evening, we walk together to the monastery and meditate inside the Sound Room – a small stone chamber held by centuries of practice. I am not going to try to describe what happens there. It is never replicated.
Then we return, slowly, back down through the valley, the body remembering thicker air, the legs remembering descent, the silence we have been inside coming home with us.
We close the pilgrimage in Kathmandu with a final wellness bodywork session – the same sound healing that opened the journey now closing it. The arc seals.
You come home, but not as the person who left.
I first encountered Reiki within these landscapes, twenty-eight years ago, and have returned in one form or another ever since. The arc of this pilgrimage is built from what I have learned, over almost three decades, about how these mountains work on the people who let them.
If you have been sitting with the first invitation, this is what is underneath it.
If you’d like to apply to join me, click here.
Spaces are limited, with half the retreat already full.
The wider announcement goes out on the full moon.
With love,
Bronwyn
P.S. Here’s a special sound journey as a gift to you to help you attune to the transformation that’s possible during this pilgrimage.