Poet Craig A. Roberts, tangata-tiriti, is from Aotearoa New Zealand,  the emergent island highlands of a vast drowned continent Te Riu-a-Māui (Zealandia). He lives above the deep realm of oceans on e Ika-a-Māui (North Island),  one of over 700 isles. There is a mountain close by called Kapakapanui. From its slopes the waters of the Waikanae River flow to the sea. His father’s forbears left their beloved mountains and glens of Perthshire Highlands to Lanarkshire, Scotland. His mother’s left the ripe fields of Northumbria. Over the generations the journeys of Craig’s forebears brought them to these tectonic isles. 

Craig, previously worked as an applied social scientist alongside leaders as they rowed through infinite storms. Nowadays he chooses to reach others writing poetry to speak into this age of disenchantment. He writes through a Celtic lens on the restorative grace of Solas Chrìost [Christ’s Light] transforming yesterday’s fight with tomorrow’s life. 

He has published five books on journeying with Ìosa Crìost amid the ‘otherness of life’ around us.

Craig is a member of the Community of Aidan and Hilda. When asked to express his core Christian beliefs he says, ‘there is One God Father Almighty made known to us through the God the Son and the Spirit’, and recites this poem inspired by the writings of Saint Irenaeus of Lyons:

Pilgrim Journeys

We are partakers of God 

through the Holy Spirit.


We are transformed by God

through the power of the Cross.


We become made fully human,

the image of Christ - the glory of God.


It’s an intimate journey 

with our Triune God.

An Gèadh Fiadhaich 

As you read Craig’s writings you will find he draws treasured phrases from the poetic language of his forebears, Scots-Gaelic. 

The Holy Spirit (Holy Ghost) also has a poetic name  used by Celts, The Wild Goose. In Craig’s writings he transcends our cluttered urban worlds, comfortable cultural norms and tamed imaginations using the Scots-Gaelic name for The Wild Goose, An Gèadh Fiadhaich.

Anthropologist Brian Fagan in his book ‘The Little Ice Age’ records how in the eighth century Irish Monks, skilled seamen, often followed the Spring migration of wild geese as far north as Iceland. As they journeyed across dangerous seas towards hidden lands they placed their trust and lives to these wild geese.

John O’Meara’s translation of ‘The Voyage of Saint Brendan’ tells of such a voyage across the North Atlantic in the 6th/7th-century, and in the 20th-century adventurer Tim Severin writes of how he sailed in the wake of the great navigator Saint Brendan of Clonfert in a replica vessel (The Brendan Voyage, 1978).

Similarly in the Pacific Ocean, Anthropologist Anne Salmond in her recent book “Tears of Rangi—Experiments Across Worlds” draws our attention to the outstanding navigation of the ancestors of Maori: “As they sailed across the Pacific, stars, comets, clouds, the sun, the moon and birds appeared at different heights in the heavens. At night, successions of stars rose up in the sky, guiding them on their voyages. As winds blew and waves and swells slapped against the hulls of their canoes, it seemed that they stood still in the ocean while islands floated towards them.”

The Irish monks did not settle permanently on isles that ‘floated’ towards them, these were pilgrim journeys. As they journeyed the monks listened for and followed the call of the Holy Spirit with a deep sensitivity and commitment, just as they did in following the wild geese. Their practical accomplishment as ocean sailors to follow the wild geese and their pilgrimage to follow the Holy Spirit were inseparable as lungs are to our breath.

The name  ‘An Gèadh Fiadhaich’ permits us to engage with the Holy Spirit with deeper Celtic intimacy. It calls us pause for just a moment to reflect afresh on the movement of God’s Spirit within, before, beyond and through us.

Let us too journey, to live a way of life in our contemporary worlds inspired by the lives of Celtic Saints: They who loved the Holy Trinity, breathed the Living Word and in their Celtic ways lived-out their faith.

Spend a few reflective moments with these poems:

Letter to Anam-charaid: Rhythm

 Heart of the Wild Goose.

An Gèadh Fiadhaich