The Way of the Wild Goose - Three Pilgrimages Following Geese, Stars, and Hunches on the Camino de Santiago

"With three pilgrimages across southern France and northern Spain defining author and anthropologist Beebe Bahrami's single journey on the Camino de Santiago, [this book] recounts an inner and outer journey full of wild nature, ancient roads and history, quirky pilgrims, wise and humorous locals, and puzzling folklore. It's a ... tale of quest, initiation, and transformation following the Way of Saint James. The book is also a detective story that reveals an old mystery: why is the goose associated with the medieval Camino de Santiago, and how did it come to preserve a whole universe of pagan, pre-Christian lore in one innocent symbol?"--Publisher marketing.

List of contents

Prologue: Meeting the Goose xi

Part I: La Reine Pédauque: A pilgrimage in France

1 On a Goose-Footed Threshold 3

2 The Game of the Goose 12

3 Square One 19

4 The First Goose 29

5 Pigeon, Boar, Rabbit 36

6 The Bridge 40

7 The Second Goose 46

8 The Third Goose 49

9 Amber Wine 58

10 Twenty-Six Ducks 63

11 The Inn 68

12 Wild Boar, Pigs, and Pugs 73

13 The Tempest 78

14 The Recluse 85

15 The Fourth Goose 91

16 La Reine Pédauque 95

Part II: The Mistress of Animals: A pilgrimage in France and Spain

17 The Dice 101

18 The Fifth Goose 110

19 The Well 113

20 The Sixth Goose 119

21 The Ice Storm 126

22 The Seventh Goose 129

23 An Angel and a Saint 133

24 The Eighth Goose 141

25 The Serpent 146

26 The Ninth Goose 158

27 Melusine 168

28 The Rooster and the Hen 173

29 The Deer 177

30 The Tenth Goose 183

31 Red Roses and White Honeybees 193

32 Call Me Ishmael 199

33 The Labyrinth 205

34 The Ebro 217

35 Mistress of Animals 221

36 Prehistoric Pilgrims 227

37 Nirvana 235

38 Sa’di’s Daughter 238

39 Our Lady of Sarlat 240

40 The Sport of Joy 246

Part III: The Swan: A pilgrimage in France and Spain

41 Returning 251

42 The Alchemical Journey 255

43 The Gift 262

44 The Valley Way 267

45 The Eleventh Goose 276

46 Saint Martin’s Goose 280

47 The Fork in the Road 284

48 Cygnus 294

49 Saint James’s Dice 298

50 Mary’s Dice 303

51 House of the Gods 313

52 The Gander 317

53 The Tower 320

54 The Dragonfly 324

55 The Twelfth Goose 328

56 The Castle 336

57 The Castro 341

58 Death 350

59 The Thirteenth Goose 355

60 Arriving 361

61 The Lamia 369

62 Between the Setting Sun and the North Star 373

63 The Swan 378

Epilogue: Meeting the Goose, Again 383

About the author

Award-winning writer and anthropologist Beebe Bahrami is the author of the travel memoirs Café Oc and Café Neandertal and several travel guides, including The Spiritual Traveler Spain and Moon Camino de Santiago. Her essays appear in BBC Travel, Wine Enthusiast, Archaeology, the Pennsylvania Gazette, Perceptive Travel, and other publications. She lives in Ocean City, New Jersey.

Summary

2023 Foreword INDIES Award Winner | Silver: Travel

A pilgrimage-turned-adventure story in pursuit of a pagan mystery on the Camino de Santiago across France and Spain

"In Beebe Bahrami’s The Way of the Wild Goose, a mystery, the wild feminine, and trail magic come together on the Camino de Santiago....Bahrami affirms that the Camino is more than a mere road—it’s an initiation. With skill and insight, she details the joys, challenges, and human kindness she experienced on this ‘great leyline forged from the mix of natural earth energies with the human imagination’ that became her road to self-discovery and a heart-centered life." —Foreword Reviews; starred review

With three pilgrimages across southern France and northern Spain defining author and anthropologist Beebe Bahrami’s single journey on the Camino de Santiago, The Way of the Wild Goose recounts an inner and outer journey full of wild nature, ancient roads and history, quirky pilgrims, wise and humorous locals, and mysterious folklore. It’s a compelling tale of quest, initiation, and transformation following the Way of Saint James.

The book is also a detective story that reveals an old mystery: Why is the goose associated with the medieval Camino de Santiago, and how did it come to preserve a whole universe of pagan, pre-Christian lore in one innocent symbol? Longtime trekker Bahrami decided to find out, and unknowingly catapulted herself into a true wild goose chase, unearthing a magnetically alive and meaningful long walk on the ancient roads in France and Spain—and a journey into the Self.

Foreword

• Bahrami will promote The Way of the Wild Goose on the many channels of her established and growing author platform. This includes her ongoing writing of essays and articles with biographical bylines, her website, her two blogs, her presence as an expert on the Camino, France, and Spain on numerous forums—especially Bindu Trips, Camigas, American Pilgrims on the Camino, The Camino Forum —as well as on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, GoodReads, and her Amazon Author Page.
• Galley mailings, review copy mailings, outreach to all media types within the niches of spiritual travel, and spirituality
• Will actively pursue publicity in all forms in all media types focusing on both Camino interest and the spirituality of the Camino. In addition to Monkfish well established spiritual media connections, we will focus on Wisdom Talk Radio, Camino Podcast, Dan Mullin’s My Camino Podcast.

Additional text

“A lingering historic mystery and an unexpected personal twist make The Way of the Wild Goose an entertaining, thoughtful, and valuable addition to the wonderfully digressive genre of the pilgrimage memoir.” —Gideon Lewis-Kraus, staff writer for The New Yorker and author of A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and Hopeful
"A luminous, heartfelt journey. Beebe Bahrami has produced something unique: not one, but three magical pilgrim walks filled with web-footed Virgin Marys and mother goddesses, eerie coincidences, fairies, and Templar Knights—and with enough Cat Stevens, food poisoning, and scientific backup to keep it all real. Big fun!" —Rebekah Scott, author of A Furnace Full of God: A Holy Year on the Camino de Santiago
“In Beebe Bahrami’s The Way of the Wild Goose, a mystery, the wild feminine, and trail magic come together on the Camino de Santiago.

        Carrying a pack filled with “just in case” items, Bahrami set out to walk the Camino, feeling “ethereal energy” emanating from the ground beneath her feet. Intense dreams accompanied her as she followed the sun’s path across the sky, looking for places marked with the sign of a goose, or its three-pronged-footprint abbreviation—places said to be imbued with spiritual energy arising from prehistoric sacred springs and wells, standing stones, and grottoes over which now-ancient chapels stand. She walked in delight, not knowing when or where she would eat or sleep, allowing synchronicities that lifted the veil between her inner and outer worlds to supply her needs.

         Bahrami reveals the heart of the Camino as the heart of the fierce feminine, enshrined in folklore, legend, and the mystery of the goose. She finds evidence that the feminine divine, though dominated by patriarchy, has not been extinguished—although she notes that, by the fifteenth century, women healers were targeted as witches, as churches and states joined in their efforts to dominate and exploit the natural world and all of humanity.

         Both intriguing and marked by delightful descriptions, the book links the past to the present well. Bahrami affirms that the Camino is more than a mere road—it’s an initiation. With skill and insight, she details the joys, challenges, and human kindness she experienced on this “great leyline forged from the mix of natural earth energies with the human imagination” that became her road to self-discovery and a heart-centered life.

         The Way of the Wild Goose is a travel memoir that invites lingering, as well as a return to Mother Earth and her wisdom.” —Foreword Reviews; starred review
"Beebe Bahrami fills these pages with facts about history, religion, geography, and more. She is a scholar, an anthropologist, and the person you would most like to be seated next to at a dinner party…. The Way of the Wild Goose positively shimmers with enthusiasm and wonder. This book will be equally enchanting to the seasoned pilgrim and to those who may pick it up on a whim.”—Annie O’Neil, director/producer of Phil’s Camino, coproducer and participating pilgrim for Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago, and author of Everyday Camino with Annie
“...Bahrami traces the goose symbolism back to European pagan goddesses and uncovers echoes of the three-pronged goose’s footprint in symbols of the Holy Trinity, finding that the goose ‘brings with it contentment, harmony, wholeness, and balance.’ Bahrami’s animated prose pulls the reader into her ambitious quest...” —Publishers Weekly





Praise for Moon Camino de Santiago
“Through her writings, Bahrami managed to charm us with her fantastic storytelling skills. In reading her guide book for Moon, we felt like we already completed the Camino de Santiago and went on an epic adventure of massive proportions from our own living room. Despite this, as any good writer, Bahrami delivered the message with great skill and kept us captivated enough so we await our trip with much anticipation and excitement.”—Cory Varga, You Could Travel blog (https://www.youcouldtravel.com/travel-blog/moon-guide-camino-de-santiago)
“I have spent several hours going through the book and am amazed at the attention to detail and the amount of work that has gone into it. As an author, I shudder to think of how much fact checking had to happen. And the detailed on-the-ground research is mind-boggling – but in the end that’s what made it the incredibly useful book that it is.”—Leigh McAdam, Hike, Bike, Travel blog (https://hikebiketravel.com/how-to-plan-the-camino-de-santiago-walk/)
“Moon Camino de Santiago: Sacred Sites, Historic Villages, Local Food and Wine I think is the best guide by far, among the current (2019) options.”—Backpack45/Shepherd Canyon Books (https://backpack45.com/camino2.html)


Praise for Cafe Neandertal
“This is the most entertaining (and informative) book on archaeology, prehistory, and the cave art of our early ancestors that I have ever read.”—Martin Walker, author of the Bruno, Chief of Police mystery series set in southwestern France, on the “best books on the wine, food, and history of Périgord France,” for Shepherd (www.shepherd.com/best-books/perigord-france)
“[A] beautifully crafted book... Bahrami is a wonderful writer who brings many of the attributes of the novel to a clear and compelling narrative.” ―Cosmos Magazine
“With a pilgrim’s reverence and a scientist’s exactitude, Bahrami captures the textures, smells, and sounds of the excavation sites and adjacent towns.” —Publishers Weekly
“Written with all the flair and enthusiasm of an experienced writer eager to share her love of her subject.” ―Kirkus
“Ms. Bahrami has written a very readable book, blending personal travel experience and history in a relatively off-the-radar swath of France. She seamlessly marries archeology and Gallic culture that brings the region's people and history to life.” ―David Farley, author of An Irreverent Curiosity
“We need to understand who we were in order to know where we are headed. In the caves and forests of France's Dordogne region, Beebe Bahrami guides us on a haunting encounter with what may be our earlier selves, a creature whose passions and powers and motives we have only begun to fathom. A fascinating read for anyone who claims to be human.” ―Peter Stark, author of Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire; A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival
 
Praise for Café Oc
“I became so enchanted with Beebe Bahrami’s soulful accounting of Sarlat that I’ve made arrangements to explore it next year myself.” ―Carla Woody, The Lifepath Dialogues
“Beebe Bahrami gives eloquent voice to a mystical search for belonging. Her rich storytelling, as an observant cultural anthropologist, opens windows into conscious living. Her sense of discovery and wonder, anchored in her life in the Dordogne, is joy made manifest. Follow her writings wherever they lead, as her journey aids in our unfoldment.”―Kim Grant, founder of Bindu Trips
“Beebe Bahrami takes a place of legend and applies its character to her own memoir. She writes beautifully and openly about finding a place that feels right and finding people just as enthusiastic about it—and their life there—and delight in sharing it all.”—Tim Leffel, editor, Perceptive Travel


Praise for The Spiritual Traveler Spain:
“The strength of this book lies in the informative and very personalized list of places assembled by the diligent author. Most of all, Bahrami has tracked down where the sacred ceremonies are still sustained, providing the reader and visitor with an accessible shortcut to living histories and vibrant folkloric traditions and mythologies. The author writes with a felicitous ease, in many ways recalling (in the first person narrative) an earlier tradition of guide books. ”—Richard Hodges, Expedition, Penn Museum


Praise for Historic Walking Guides Madrid:
"Beebe Bahrami's Historic Walking Guides Madrid offers a refreshing change to typical mainstream travel guides. While you get must-see museum and monument stops around Madrid, you also get an amazing slice of rich history…Bahrami's stories about significant writers and artists influential to Madrid's past give a sense of being in these people's shoes by weaving in the day-to-day human element - a detail that many mainstream travel guides seem to lack." —Matador Network
"What I like about this book is the fact that it reveals the rich history of Madrid in a lively and engaging manner, without being dry or overly didactic…Bahrami demonstrates her intimate knowledge of the city as she describes walks that introduce visitors to much more than Madrid's most famous tourist attractions. Her knowledge of its history and her vivid descriptions of the sights bring Madrid's past to life. Walking through the city's historic districts not only allows you to visit important historic buildings and monuments, but you also offer a deeper understanding of how Madrid came to be the way it is today." —Transitions Abroad

 

Product details

• Authors: Beebe Bahrami
• Publisher: Ingram Publishers Services
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 17.05.2022
• EAN: 9781948626637
• ISBN: 978-1-948626-63-7
• No. of pages: 418
• Subjects: Travel > Map accessories, miscellaneous; TRAVEL / Europe / France, TRAVEL / Europe / Spain & Portugal, RELIGION / Mysticism