The Virgin of Guadalupe

She is my muse.

A comfort, an inspiration. Beauty.

She represents the finest qualities that humanity can achieve. Purity, forgiveness, motherhood, love.

This apparition of the Virgin Mary is often referred to as the Queen of Mexico, the Empress of the Americas. She is also known affectionately as “La Morenita,” the dark-skinned saint who was accepted by the indigenous residents of Mexico 12 years after the Spanish conquest began in 1519.

The story is that the Virgin of Guadalupe, the Virgin Mary, appeared before 57-year-old indigenous peasant Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin on Tepeyac Hill four times between December 8 to 12, 1531. She asked him to tell the bishop to build a church on that location.

The bishop did not believe Juan Diego and told him to bring more proof of the apparition.

After telling this to Guadalupe, she pointed to flowers on the hill that were growing out of season. She instructed him to wrap the flowers, including Castilian roses, in his tilma (tilmàtli, similar to a cape) and take them to the bishop.

When he returned to the bishop, the flowers fell out and left an image of the holy virgin on the cloth of the tilma. An image that hangs in the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City to this day.

She has inspired faith and beauty in millions of images made of her, and even more believers. She is their celestial mother. They ask her to cover them with her mantle to protect them, cure an illness, grant a favor or a miracle and pray for them. And they love her unconditionally.