Upcoming Pilgrimages

Meet Your Guide

My name is Nicolas Lightbody, founder of Lightbody Jewellery.

For nearly forty years I have wandered the wild places of Aotearoa, learning from mountains, rivers, forests, and forgotten paths.

Lightbody began by creating meaningful jewellery rich with symbolism and story. These pilgrimages are the next step in that journey, taking people beyond the artefacts and back to the source of the lessons themselves.

Meet Your Host

Alongside Nicolas is Poppy Lightbody.

With over eight years of experience helping people explore the world through international travel, Poppy brings a wealth of knowledge in planning meaningful journeys and creating memorable experiences.

While Nicolas guides the pilgrimage itself, Poppy helps create the experience around it, ensuring each journey is welcoming, comfortable, and thoughtfully organised from beginning to end.

What Is A Pilgrimage?

A pilgrimage is a journey undertaken with purpose.

For thousands of years, people travelled to mountains, forests, rivers and sacred places seeking wisdom, meaning and transformation.

The destination mattered. But the journey mattered more.

Long before Lightbody Jewellery existed, I was a curious kid who couldn't make sense of the world I was given. One question changed everything: if the very first human arrived here with nobody to teach them, how would they learn what is true?

That question led me into nature. The Living World became my oldest teacher, quietly revealing the same principles over and over again. Years later I would call them the Seven Pillars. But long before they had names, they were simply lessons the world was teaching.

That is what these pilgrimages are about.

Our first walk was one of those days that resists being photographed or explained. The natural world leaned in. Creatures appeared. The sky held. The sea stilled. Somewhere between the forest and the shoreline, something quietly shifted in all of us.

The journey itself is the gift.

We walk again soon, another mystery location somewhere in Auckland.

If something in you is stirring, we'd love to have you join us.

The Living World is still waiting.

Something Has Been Forgotten

The land has not left us.
We have left the land.
And in that forgetting, rivers are poisoned, forests are littered, wildlife is displaced, sacred places fall silent and childlike wonder fades.

The deeper wound is not upon the earth.

It is within our relationship with it.

A Return To Wonder

The Lightbody dream is to help people fall back in love with the world so they naturally become its guardians once again.

Not through lectures or rules.
But through direct experience and sacred teachings.

We naturally protect what we love. And we love what we truly know.

Who This Is For

These pilgrimages are for:

Nature lovers who feel most alive outdoors.
Wanderers drawn to places with depth and history.
Deep thinkers seeking experiences that match the way they see the world.
Seekers of meaning, beauty, and wonder.
Creatives looking for inspiration rooted in the natural world.
People standing at a crossroads in life.
Anyone who feels called to explore the world more deeply.

No prior experience is required. People of all backgrounds, beliefs, and walks of life are welcome.

The Seven Lightbody Pillars

Every pilgrimage is shaped by seven principles drawn from the Living World, timeless patterns that nature has always been quietly teaching.

Nature - As teacher, guide, and reflection.

Consciousness - Learning to become aware of yourself and the world around you.

Order - Recognising the patterns and cycles woven through life.

Initiation - Growth begins when we cross into the unknown.

Creation - Bringing meaning into form and leaving something behind.

Relationship - Remembering our connection to life and each other.

Stewardship - Caring for what has been entrusted to us.

What's Included

  • Guided experience with Nicolas Lightbody
  • Private transport to and from the mystery location
  • Small-group teachings and discussion throughout the journey
  • Refreshments during the experience
  • Lightbody Pilgrimage Gift Pack including an Exclusive Scroll

What to Expect

  • Intimate small-group format, numbers vary by journey
  • Suitable for all experience levels; moderate fitness required. Ages 18+, or 16+ when accompanied by a parent or guardian by prior arrangement.
  • Mystery destination, meeting point confirmed upon booking
  • Bring warm layers, suitable footwear, water.
  • Weather dependent, you will be contacted if conditions are unsafe
  • Full details, dates, and times listed on each individual pilgrimage

The Invitation

This path is for the wanderers.
The deep thinkers.
The nature lovers.
The artists.
The seekers.

The ones who feel there must be more to life than distraction and survival.

The path does not ask what name you give the mystery.

Only that you take the next step.

Many paths. One journey. One living world, Aotearoa.

Explore Aotearoa Pilgrimages Terms & Conditions