The Way of the Wild Goose
Journey with Beebe Bahrami on her path along the Camino de Santiago in her book, The Way of the Wild Goose.
The Way of the Wild Goose: Three Pilgrimages Following Geese, Stars, and Hunches on the Camino de Santiago
Written by Beebe Bahrami
When long-time trekker, writer, and anthropologist Beebe Bahrami made her first full 500-mile hike on the Camino de Santiago, via the Way of Saint James, across southern France and northern Spain, she met French and Spanish pilgrims who told her that the Camino was more than a Christian pilgrimage. They explained that it was also a great leyline, a path of earth energy that could transform one by walking. They added that under the 1,200-year-old Christian pilgrimage road, a more ancient, pre-Christian initiatory path could take one deeper into spiritual experience and consciousness. A person engaged it by looking for signs along the way. Signs? Many, she learned, but that the most potent were those associated with the goose.
The leyline idea made sense to her, for she was already feeling it as she stepped along, an uncanny hum from the earth that seemed to support her every step. But signs and geese? What did this have to do with pilgrimage, let alone spiritual initiation? She dismissed it as a wonky idea, dropped it quickly on the trail, and forgot about it.
Following The Wild Goose
But the goose would not leave her alone. It appeared as Bahrami walked, in village and landscape feature names, on medieval churches and monasteries, and most unusually, as a part of a massive inlaid stone board game, the Game of the Goose, in the Plaza de Santiago, the Spanish name for Saint James, in the Riojan city of Logroño. A popular European children’s game similar to Snakes and Ladders, in Logroño Bahrami, learned that the Game of the Goose was intentionally set there by city planners and with the church’s blessings to serve as a metaphor for the pilgrimage, as well as for life. She learned that the goose was seen as a creature of luck.
But what else did the goose mean beyond luck, signs, and children’s game? What really led it to become associated with spiritual initiation, pilgrimage, and the Camino? No one seemed able to give her a straight answer, but by now, she was intrigued.
The Ancient Pilgrimage Before the Christian Era
It took Bahrami three returns on three more through-treks on pilgrim paths in southwestern France and northern Spain to unearth the answers, ones that were rooted in ancient, pre-Christian times and that had survived to the present in the seemingly innocuous form of the goose. As Bahrami pursued the mystery of the goose, part skeptic, and part seeker, she encountered wise and humorous locals, quirky and questing pilgrims, and unusual evidence in stones, local stories, and practices that revealed that the way of the wild goose was indeed a real and vibrant pathway, a parallel universe to the Christian Camino de Santiago. She discovered that though the medieval Camino was officially dedicated to Saint James the Greater, older native goddesses and gods still dwelled under the surface and continued to influence the way.
Most stunning, she found that the goose was very likely an ancient Eurasian earth-centered mother goddess who took many forms, but the goose was among her most prominent forms or association. Ideas about the goose were crumbs, clues, and survivors of an older spirituality, ones that even found their way into stories of Mother Goose.
In all this, what Bahrami did not anticipate was that the outer goose adventure would take on an inner twist; that way, the wild goose would pull her into her own initiatory journey. She began as a curious bumbling trekker and ended as a seeker on a full-blown medieval adventure in modern times.
This three-part outer and inner adventure of The Way of the Wild Goose is a travel narrative about wild nature, ancient roads, and mysterious lore that tells a modern story of initiation, challenge, trail magic, and deep personal transformation. Something of a cross between Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, and Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, The Way of the Wild Goose is a travel narrative and a detective story unearthing an old mystery and unfurling with it a magnetically alive and meaningful long walk on the ancient roads in France and Spain.
About The Author
Beebe Bahrami is an award-winning travel writer and anthropologist known for her travel narratives, memoirs, and guidebooks. Her most recent book, Moon Camino de Santiago (Avalon Travel/Hachette, 2019), firmly established her as an expert on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage routes in southern France and northern Spain. She has dedicated three decades to unearthing the mysteries, lore, and many-sensory experiences of this massive and ancient network of roads that are all destined for the northwest of Iberia. Bahrami is also known for her essays and articles on travel, archaeology, outdoors and adventure, food and wine, and spiritual and cross-cultural themes.
A Colorado native based in southern New Jersey, Bahrami extends her idea of home on regular visits, semi-nomadic treks, explorations, and excavations in southwestern France and northern Spain, one of Europe’s most ancient, deeply traversed, wild, and culturally rich landscapes. Ever since she first stepped onto the Camino de Santiago in 1995, she knew she had found her place in the world and has delved deeply into these ancient paths and places across France and Spain.
In addition to Moon Camino de Santiago, she is the author of several other travel books, including two travel memoirs, Café Oc—A Nomad’s Tales of Magic, Mystery, and Finding Home in the Dordogne of Southwestern France (Shanti Arts Publishing, 2016), and Café Neandertal—Excavating Our Past in One of Europe’s Most Ancient Places (Counterpoint Press, 2017), and two narrative guides, The Spiritual Traveler Spain—A Guide to Sacred Sites and Pilgrim Routes (Paulist Press, 2009), and Historic Walking Guides Madrid (DestinWorld Publishing, 2009). She also has been a writer for Michelin, including the Michelin Green Guide: Provence (2006).
Bahrami’s essays and articles have appeared in BBC Travel, Archaeology, Wine Enthusiast, The Bark, Bon Vivant, The Pennsylvania Gazette, National Geographic books, Expedition, Fodors.com, Transitions Abroad, and Perceptive Travel, among others. She is the author of travel content on Spain and France—particularly on the Camino de Santiago, Madrid, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Camino del Norte, and Aquitaine—on Bindu Trips, a travel itinerary website. She is also a journey expert with the Smithsonian Journey tours, “France and Spain’s Basque Region,” and “Across Northern Spain and Portugal.” She co-leads a sacred writing and art retreat at Flores del Camino, in Castrillo de Los Polvazares on the Camino.
She maintains two blogs, Café Oc, on life in the Dordogne, and The Pilgrim’s Way Café, dedicated to exploring the world on foot and through its foods and traditions.
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