The Good Story

This is the story of a young woman. Perhaps not a mother herself but over time she became a mother figure to many. She was a teacher in the ways of nature.

Long ago, she lived deep within the forest. No one quite knew how she came to be there. No one knew her parents or her origins. But she belonged to the forest, that much was certain.

She lived quietly and happily among the creatures and beings that surrounded her. She communed with the trees and the mountains, the rocks and the rivers. Those who met her spoke of her kindness, her calm, her gentle presence. For a time she was fondly called the Goodness Goddess.

Yet she was reclusive. And where mystery lingers too long, fear often follows.

While suspicious whispers grew in the village, something beautiful was growing in her favourite clearing.

Each morning, young girls walked the path into the forest to sit with her. They drew in the soil. They made art from leaves and sticks. They lay on their backs and traced stories in the clouds.

She taught them how to truely be with nature.

How to be nature. How to know themselves as part of the whole, not separate from it.

She taught them about bees and the hive mind. How to care for one another as the one self, one hive, how to think together, how to collaborate rather than compete.

No girl was measured against another.

Each had her own gifts. And she delighted in helping them discover what those were.

She taught them about their bodies. Showing them, through the present moment, that pleasure, joy and bliss was their birth rite. She showed them that love was their very nature.

The girls returned home joyful. Because of this most parents trusted her. Her little forest school grew.

And so did the fear in the village.

Rumours of danger spread. Suspicion reached the edges of the trees. Eventually she was captured and questioned about her teachings.

Fearing for the girls, she chose silence.

Her silence angered them. Under chemical force, she spoke. And afterwards when she realised what had been revealed, she was filled with grief and anger.

The village declared her dangerous.

She was sentenced to death.

Yet before she died, in the midst of her grief, she made a choice. She would not leave this realm.

She bound herself to the earth so she could continue to watch over the girls who were now at risk, she had made a promise to protect the lineage and she felt she had failed. So she would return again and again, quietly protecting, quietly guiding.

For lifetimes she remained tethered by love, anger, guilt and regret. And over time she forgot why she was even here.

Until one day, she remembered. With great relief she saw her task was finished long ago, she saw she no longer needed to stay. She realised even, that there was never any reason to stay. Nothing and no one ever really needed her protection.

The ties dissolved. Not bound by fear, not bound by guilt. No longer held captive by her own anger, she was set free.

She became what she always was. She embodied what she always taught. She discovered the Great Mystery was Herself.

She is the Mystery all beings carry in their deepest core. And She, the Mystery never needs anything. Not protecting. Not embellishing. Not diminishing. She just IS. She spreads quietly at first like mycelium, and then, in perfect timing, she blooms, uniquely through each individual, like mushrooms blooming on the forest floor.

She lives wherever goodness is remembered.

She teaches wherever nature is honoured.

She appears wherever people are supported to belong to themselves.

Goodness Gallery is born of that remembering.

And perhaps, if you are here, you are part of that remembering too.