Someone approaching the church, perhaps to worship, perhaps to seek healing from the holy dirt that’s in a small room off the main chapel.

I saw two women and a small boy putting small amounts of the dirt into plastic bags they’d brought with them; they were using an orange scoop and speaking softly, with reverence; I felt like (and in fact, was) an intruder and didn’t stay. A brochure in a rack beside the dirt warned visitors to neither eat the dirt nor steep and drink it.

El Santuario de Chimayó
Chimayó, New Mexico
photographed 12.25.2015

Also – those bags on the wall are similar to the farolitos in Santa Fe, only these are plastic bags with electric lights inside.