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. 

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. This imagery of the freedom of the birds to travel over the ocean as opposed to a Gael’s confinement on boat or isle is told in Gaelic songs of the sea.

Màiri Sìne Chaimbeul, from Sabhal Mòr Ostaig in the Isle of Skye, writes of the prevalence of sea in traditional Gaelic song. These songs reflect the close love/hate relationship the Gaels experienced with the elemental forces of the sea, and their necessity to engage with it in spite of its inherent dangers to kith and kin.

Anthropologist Brian Fagan in his book ‘The Little Ice Age’ records tales from the eighth century of Gaelic Monks who often followed the Spring migration of wild geese as far north as Iceland. These monks saw the ocean as a worthy opponent that could not be ignored. Ocean isolation was akin to the life of the Desert Fathers of Egypt. As skilled seamen and navigators they voyaged towards hidden lands placing their trust and lives to these wild geese who flew above the roar of waves.

Similarly in the Pacific Ocean, 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.”

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). 

The Gaelic 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:

Ode to a Long-haul Voyage

Letter to Anam-charaid: Rhythm

An Gèadh Fiadhaich

 Heart of the Wild Goose.