Wild Goose Festival 2025
Cosmos moment: Full moon. Sun slow (clock behind sun).
Last weekend was the annual Wild Goose Festival (August 28-31). My wife and I have attended every year for the last 5 years, and every year I have been one of many presenters.
I met a few first-time festival goers this year. When they asked me why I keep going, I said mostly two things: the energy of the people and the spirit of the festival.
In my experience, everyone there loves god, although there are atheists, people who are angry at god, and others who might not describe themselves that way. But that’s my sense of the people there: lovers of god. If we take god to mean beings of goodwill working together for the common good (to offer a rough definition of an undefinable concept), that includes atheists.
The other reason I keep going is because, in my experience, the festival is like a spiritual sandbox. It’s a place for me to try out new material to a receptive audience. And it’s a place for me to be in touch with many other people sharing the best of their knowledge, skill, or wisdom as we experience the middle phase of the eternal formula: order, disorder, and reorder.
My wife goes because for her, the Goose (as regulars call it), is a spiritual retreat that fuels her all year long. Both of us have learned a lot there, from simple exercises like the Council of All Beings, to profound truths, like the trend of estrangement among adult children and parents.
This year, my aunt Elsa joined us. It was her first time there.
The whole experience is too much to try to communicate in one essay. So I plan to write a few posts about this year’s festival. To get started, I’m sharing my schedule, letting that speak for itself a bit.
Here is my itinerary for the three days we were there ...
Thursday, August 28
Chebon Kernell, presenter
9:00 pm: Beer & Hymns
Friday, August 29
John Pavlovitz, presenter
11:00 am: [my presentation] Loving God: the Antidote to Domination Politics
Pablo del Real, presenter
12:00 pm: Eco Story Circles: Practices of gratitude and grief in these times with my wife
Connie Burns and Scott Hardin-Nieri, presenters
Friday 1:00 pm: "Ain't Gonna' Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round: African American Spirituals for Place- Making and Future Casting"
Starlette Thomas, presenter
[personal break]
2:30 pm: Weaponized Words: How to use trauma-informed practices to disarm: reclaim language, reduce shame, and increase understanding of ourselves and others
Nichole Myles, presenter
4:00 pm: Worldly Christianity for a world sick of religion
Troy Riggs, presenter
5:00-9:00 pm: conversations and food
9:00 pm: Beer & Hymns
Saturday, August 30
10:00 am: Nurturing Networks of Care
Roberto Che Espinoza and Jeff Koetje
11:00 am: It's Hard to Be Human: Experiencing Salvation as Wholeness-Making
Shaleen Kendrick, presenter
12:00 pm: Stories of Poverty, Excess, and Just Living; What can we do?
Elizabeth Magill, presenter
1:00 pm: \Life is in the seeking, love cannot be stagnant, and will always crave more.\
Justin Sinclair, singer / songwriter
AND
Theology in the Public Square: Faith Rooted Organizing to Repair the Breach
Hanna Broome, presenter
2:00 pm: Future Vision for the Local Congregation
Keri Ladouceur, Stan Mitchell, Zach W. Lambert, presenters
3:00 pm: Bearing Witness in the Struggle: The Black Church, Hope, and the Work of Liberation
Perzavia Praylow, presenter
4:00 pm: [break / conversation]
5:00 pm: Discovering the Spiritual Wisdom of Trees for Challenging Times with my wife and my aunt
Beth Norcross and Leah Rampy, presenters
Note: The festival ended on Sunday, August 31. But due to a long drive home, we left on Saturday evening.
Of course, there is a story behind every experience on the schedule, and several more stories not on the schedule. Let’s dig into them in the next few posts, god willing. In the meantime, did you click on any of of the session descriptions? You might try one or two, just to get more of a feel for this unique annual festival.