goose

"These birds!...I keep noticing them," I said to Bill as we were walking through the Luxor Temple on our last day in Upper Egypt. "I'm not sure if they're ducks or geese. I'm hoping ducks because geese are kind of assholes." 

As soon as I said it, I realized that they are totally geese. 

When they are drawn in full color, they are clearly Egyptian geese, a breed of bird that exists in the wild still today. 

While living in the US Midwest, I spent enough time with Anishinaabe friends to know that when a creature keeps presenting itself and drawing the eye, it's time to stop and pay attention because she has a message. 

So I sat down in the temple's forecourt and searched for an interpretation of goose medicine. According to Kandace Keithley of Bird Clan Messenger, "Goose offers us the medicines that we can only find through partnership, community and teamwork. When we are committed to our healing and the vision for our lives, that is the time we begin attracting our helpers and partners."

Then I thought, 'Wait a minute. These aren't Canada geese or snow geese from Turtle Island. These are Egyptian geese!' So I searched again. 

In ancient Egypt, geese were closely associated with Geb, the god of earth, and were, by extension, symbols of fertility and abundance (SJP Tours,  Bailleul-LeSuer 2012). 

Partnership, community, fertility, abundance---that's pretty consistent symbolism, actually.  

Before this trip, I'd been feeling itchy and restless in my current life, but unsure what I could or should change. This extended time of intense togetherness with some of my oldest and dearest friends had prompted me to think about the value of connection, of knowing and being known. 

I still don't know what I will change, but pausing to pay attention to goose and the messages she brings from these two different cultures separated by so much time and so great a distance makes me feel like I'm thinking in the right direction.