The Spirit is a Wild Goose ~ Celtic Advent Day 2

Greylag goose, Jacqueline Durban, 2013

We come to Celtic Advent Day 2.

The 'Wild Goose', an Geadh-Glas in Gaelic, Geif Gwyllt in Welsh, is the name that Celtic Christians are said to have given to the Holy Spirit, perfectly embracing the untameable, free, & unpredictable nature of our connection to the indwelling Divine. There is little proof that the name was used before the 1940s but, for me, that doesn't discount the symbol. Christianity comes from a land of dry desert & wide open spaces where, perhaps, things are more obvious. Here, it finds itself responding to a landscape of green misty valleys & sea fog, of ever-changing tides & sheets of grey rain. Nothing is obvious here. Rather, like the Grail, it is only half-glimpsed before it's gone and we are lucky if we can catch a feather or two to reassure us that it was here at all. In the goose, Spirit is embodied in the form of a wild bird bridging water, earth, & sky, and that image is a vision of both God & land.

For our ancestors their goose would probably have been a Greylag, like this one encountered in my canal days. The Greylag is the ancestor of our domestic goose, having been domesticated as early as 1360BCE. The connection of the goose to the Divine is long. She is associated with the Sumerian healer Goddess, Gula, the Egyptian Sun God, Ra, & the love Goddess Aphrodite of Greece, where goose fat was once used as an aphrodisiac.

At Advent we await not a tamed & domesticated God but one who is destined to accompany us as we stand against entrenched power, a God who sought wisdom in the wilderness of desert & mountain. The goose, who in the winter comes to our shores to find sanctuary in the marshes, estuaries, & edge places, is a perfect reminder that we wait for a Wilder God, freed from a year of watching the Church both speak out against, & enable, many injustices in the world, made new in the pure starlight & biting cold of Midwinter, born outcast to call us back to the holy edge.

Great Spirit, Wild Goose of the Holy One.
Be my eye in the dark places;
Be my flight in the trapped places;
Be my host in the wild places;
Be my brood in the barren places;
Be my formation in the lost places.

Ray Simpson, Community of Aidan & Hilda, Holy Island of Lindisfarne.

On this second day of Advent we might also consider a daily devotion which could be gently adopted as a reminder of the journey we are on. I love the Celtic Advent Calendar from Contemplative Cottage. I have also set an alarm to chime every 3 hours from 9am to midnight each day until Christmas Eve. I love this practice because it echoes in part the monastic Liturgy of the Hours. When the bell rings I spend a few moments in mindful contemplation of the starlit dark, even if that only means taking a few deep breaths. I hold expectation gently. As Susan Forshey of Contemplative Cottage says, this is an opportunity to practice grace.

Celtic Advent Resources ~

https://contemplativecottage.com

including the Celtic Advent Calendar 2019

https://godspacelight.com/blog/

https://www.faithandworship.com/Advent/Advent_Celtic_Christian_Celebration.htm

'Celtic Advent: 40 Days of Devotions to Christmas' by David Cole https://www.eden.co.uk/celtic-advent/