Great Mother March Begins 500-Mile Walk from Asheville to Washington

Roughly 100 walkers stepped away from Pack Square Park in downtown Asheville on Sunday morning, launching the Great Mother March, a 500-mile, 32-day pilgrimage bound for Washington, D.C., with an arrival timed to Earth Day, April 22.

The march was founded by Whitney Freya, an Oregon-based artist, author, and educator who first connected with Asheville while teaching painting classes with the local inter-spiritual nonprofit When Women Come to Pray. That experience, she said, made the city the only logical starting point. "It's connected to embodying and being the change we want to see in the world, modeling it," Freya said.

The send-off celebration at Pack Square on Saturday, March 21, ran from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. and included music, movement, prayer, community sharing, and a first look at the traveling mural that will accompany walkers for the entire journey. That mural is central to the march's community engagement strategy: at each stop through North Carolina and Virginia, organizers invite residents to add their mark to it. Participants will also offer workshops and collaborate on service projects in towns along the route.

The path itself carries its own symbolism. The group will walk alongside the Appalachian Mountains, among the oldest ranges on the continent. Freya describes the Appalachians as the symbolic "spine" of the country, and says she hopes the march will let healing and transformation ripple outward from it.

"This is a universal movement," Freya said in a statement released earlier this year. "Everyone has a mother. Every tradition reveres a Great Mother. And we all depend on Mother Earth. This march is a call to honor those truths while reminding us what is possible when we move together, with intention, hope, and love."

Organizers describe the march as a gender-inclusive pilgrimage honoring what they call Great Mother Earth, with themes of balance, environmental awareness, and community unity woven through its 32-day structure. The Center for Conscious Living and Dying, a registered 501(c)(3) based in Swannanoa, hosts an organizational page for the march and can be reached at 828-329-0823 or info@ccld.community.

Those who could not join at the start can still participate. Organizers are accepting registrations for people who want to walk the full route, join for a single day, or serve as a support driver. Registration also provides access to a spreadsheet detailing the route and overnight accommodations at each stop.

If the pace holds, marchers will reach Washington, D.C., on April 22, planting the walk's message of balance and earth-honoring change directly in the capital on the same day the country marks Earth Day.