waterfowl in my life: july synchroblog

I was delighted to discover the existence of the Wild Goose Festival last month!  It also amuses and intrigues me to think of the Holy Spirit as a wild goose.  I'd never heard of that symbolism.  This month's Synchroblog asks participants to write about their experiences of the Festival or, if they did not attend, to share how the "wild goose" has made herself known in their lives.  I was unable to attend the Festival this year, but I really want to do so someday!  I do have some experience with the impact of ducks and swans on my life, however.  Swan symbolism has some Celtic roots as does that of the goose, so I'm expanding this month's topic to waterfowl for my purposes.  :)  I'm sensing the Goose doesn't mind...

A counselor once told me that I needed to "find my ducks."  "Huh?" I said.  She explained that participating in some sort of community with like-minded and like-spirited people would help with my depression.  "You know," she said, "like the ugly duckling story.  I guess I should say you need to find your swans."  Either way, her phrase stuck with me.  Just as the "duckling" in Hans Christian Andersen's tale discovers that he is not ugly, he just isn't a duck, I needed to figure out the ways in which the religious beliefs I'd grown up with were and were not true to the person I am.  And I needed to find my swans.

After that conversation I was more attuned to ducks and swans and enjoyed watching how they popped up in my life.

I enjoyed the silliness ducks sometimes seem to have, and that helped me enjoy my own silliness.  I watched ducks live in community, and I reflected on swans' fierce loyalty to each other.  On my one-day retreat last December, I learned more about the symbolism of swans and their representation of transformation, intuition, and dreams.  A few days after that retreat, while driving in town, I saw a swan sitting by the side of the road, in the grass between the curb and the sidewalk.  She was just sitting there serenely, as swans seem to do, all alone, as if swans always sat in urban areas with no water immediately nearby.  I took that as a totem, a symbol of the liminal space in which I've been living for several years.  A sign and a promise that transformation is taking place.  Perhaps a community is on the threshold.

And now I've been goosed.  Canadian geese live with the ducks in the river which flows through the center of our city.  When I watched the ducks I watched the geese as well and enjoyed how they also followed their leader everywhere, honk honk honking, waddling, gliding.  Geese live by the motto "Leave no goose behind."  When they migrate, if one goose becomes injured or ill, another stays with the first until he/she either heals or dies.  I love that.  What has the Wild Goose said to you lately?

 

More Synchroblog posts, including some from people who were at the festival:

Anna Snoeyenbos – Wild Goose Festival – A Spirit of Life Revival

Lee Smith - Goose Bumps: Opportunities Everywhere for Offense. A Fair and Objective Review

Ryan Hines – 30 Years Later – “Controversy” at Wild Goose

Karyn Wiseman – Flying With the Goose

Kyla Cofer – I went to the Wild Goose Fest and came back in love

Brian Gerald Murphy – Born Again (Again) at Wild Goose

Chris Lenshyn – Chasing the Wild Goose

Cherie at Renaissance Garden – Wild Goose Return

Deborah Wise – Wild Goose Chasing

Custodianseed – “every day they eat boiled goose”

Will Norman – Back from the Wild Goose Fest

Martin at Exiles in NY – Greenbelt and the Wild Goose

Kerri at Practicing Contemplative – Waterfowl in My Life

Allison Leigh Lilley – Chasing the Wild Goose and Catching the Wild Goose: Thanks and First Thoughts

Abbie Waters – Jessica: A Fable

Steve Knight – Why Wild Goose Festival Was So Magical

Tammy Carter – Visual Acuity and Flying

Michelle Thorburg Hammond – I heart Jay Bakker and Peter Rollins

Matthew Bolz-Weber – Remembering Wild Goose

Paul Fromberg – Celebrating Interdependence Day

David Zimmerman – Wild Goose Festival: A Recap

Dan Brennan – U2, the Wild Goose, and Deep Freedom

Mike Croghan – The Wild Goose is Not Safe

John Martinez – The Table

Callid Keefe-Perry – Gatekeeping the Goose

Eric Elnes – The Inaugural Wild Goose Festival: Recovering Something Lost

Shay Kearns – The Power of a T-Shirt, Apologizing to Over the Rhine, and Public vs. Private (Part One)

Glen Reteif – Duck Duck Goose

Peterson Toscano – I’ve Been Goosed, What I Carried Into Wild Goose, and What I Blurted Out at Wild Goose

Seth Donovan – About More than “The Gays”

Exiles in New York – Greenbelt and the Wild Goose

Tammy Carter – Visual Acuity and Flying

TSmith – What I’ll Take From Wild Goose

Dale Lature – Wild Goose Reflection

Steve Hayes – Wild Goose Chase?

Minnow – Grace Response

Christine Sine – Encounters With A Thin Space

Jeremy Myers – Giving Up the Wild Goose Chase

Robert – Thoughts On the Inaugural Wild Goose

Anna Woofenden – Slippery Slope Reflections

Wendy McCaig – Loosing The Goose

Joey Wahoo – Into The Wild

Rachel Swan – goosed

Patricia Burlison – I Called Life

Jason Hess – While At the Goose

The Bec Cranford – Wild Goose

Anthony Ehrhardt – Chasing The Wild Goose on Independence Day

Unfinished Symphony – #5 – The Last Post … for a while