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" If the world is a tree,

we are the blossoms "

Novalis

The Goose and The Druid

Published by Philip Carr-Gomm

In a recent interview I was asked: Why have you chosen Druidry as your spiritual path?

I have always been interested in many different forms of spirituality, and for me the name or label I give to the path I tread is not so important, because I think we each have to create our own path in many ways. But what I like about Druidry is that it is an approach that is designed to help me feel grounded and rooted in my depths. And it is light on dogma and philosophy and heavy on soil, rain, fire and wind. It’s like a goose.

A goose?

The goose is the bird that flies the highest in the sky but in the farmyard it is strutting around in the mud. I want a spirituality that can take me very high but which also allows me time to splash about in the mud. At our summer camps we often build a mudpit and just splash about in it. I like an approach that allows me to do serious rituals and meditations and also sit naked in a mudbath. The poet Mary Oliver uses the image of geese wonderfully in her poem ‘Wild Geese’ that finishes:

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

 

Philip Carr-Gomm
2009