Two mysteries. One boy. No easy answers.

Why are some people bullies, cruel instead of kind? And when I think they’re coming for me, why do I freeze up and stammer instead of doing something useful or at least normal?

Thirteen-year-old Joaquin can’t stop wondering about questions like these.

After escaping a dangerous drug cartel in Mexico with his mother and little sister, Joaquin is beginning to fit in with his new community in Ohio. He jokes around with his new friends, helps out around town, and loves to go to the library. Things are looking good until …

The bully. The freezing. That useless feeling.

He turns to his journal to sketch and write and try to figure out why the bullies act like they do, and why he acts like he does.

Joaquin has always loved people, nature, and especially animals. If he could, he’d help everyone and everything. But how can he help the whole world when he can’t even stand up to one bully?

Can clues to solving these mysteries be found in an old fable and a dream?

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Good Goose, What's In The Name?

Good Goose takes its name from the old Aesop's fable, The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs. Here, we're thinking about our relationship with the Earth this way:

Once Upon a Time...

A peasant had a remarkable goose. Every day, she laid a golden egg. The next day another. The next day another. And the peasant wanted them all right away. Why? Was he greedy? Was he afraid there wouldn't be enough? The story doesn't tell us. All it tells us is that the peasant cut the goose open to get all the eggs out at once. This, of course, killed her. There was no pile of golden eggs inside. And then the goose was no longer alive.

Being alive was what gave her the potential to keep bringing forth golden eggs. In killing the goose, the peasant destroyed that potential. At Good Goose, the whole story becomes a metaphor for our relationship to the living Earth. The goose symbolizes Mother Earth—nature, our living planet. The golden eggs —the gifts and possibilities that only a living Earth can keep bringing forth.

Realtionship with Mother Earth

A good relationship with the Earth asks us to remember that we're dealing with a living world, not merely a supply of things for human use.  Food and water. Forests and oceans. Whales and worms. Us. Each other. Everything we make. Potential for things we haven't yet imagined. So back to the peasant. He didn't understand what he had. He thought about the golden eggs, but not about the living goose who produced them. He didn't stop and appreciate how remarkable she was—or what she was giving him every day. What if he had?

We can ask those kinds of questions about the Earth.

• What does the Earth need?
• What keeps the Earth healthy?
• What helps life grow and flourish?
• What does the Earth do when she's healthy?
• What might we discover about how nature works best when we pay attention to her?

Being Aware

We can begin by paying attention to the fact that we live inside the living world, observing it from inside ourselves. Sometimes it may seem as though we're standing apart, looking out at nature. But we are nature too. We can observe the nature outside and inside of us. Our bodies are taking in and responding to information all the time. We see, hear, smell, taste and touch. We experience emotions, impulses, intuitions, imaginings, hopes and desires. Most of it comes and goes. Sometimes something holds our attention and could be worth thinking about.

Sometimes something doesn't seem right. The air smells dirty. The water tastes strange. Something we're eating doesn't seem fresh. A park is littered with trash or so noisy we can hardly hear the birds. One part of town has plenty of trees and shade, while another has hardly any and feels much hotter. Why aren't there any fish in the river? Why have there been so many huge forest fires?

And so much we have and need is worth appreciating and protecting: Clean air. Cool shade on a hot day. Clear water. Trees. Healthy soil. Food that nourishes us. Beauty. So many different kinds of ecosystems with animals and plants we've never even imagined yet to be discovered. Groups of human beings all over the world in a huge variety of amazing places, with lifestyles and languages and customs to befriend.

We could teach and learn and share together endlessly. The list of what Mother Earth provides goes on and on and on and on. The peasant took the goose for granted. He didn't appreciate what he had until it was gone. We don't want to make the same mistake with our precious jewel of a planet, our Mother Earth!

Good Goose Vision for Our World

• Calm

Calm is about protecting the natural sound and lightscapes that all living things need to thrive. It means eliminating, controlling or containing loud noise, heavy vibrations and bright lights that can damage our hearing, strain our eyes, disrupt sleep, stress wild and domestic animals, and fracture our shared environment. By fostering tranquility, we create safe, peaceful spaces where ecosystems and human communities can live in harmony.

• Kind

Kind means caring for all the people, other animals, our habitats and all the ecosystems. This is kind to all of us as it keeps the planet’s vital air and water systems in harmony. Kind means giving all young people the guidance, boundaries and support to empower them to safely fulfill their potential and do their part in caring for our world.

Good Goose Vision for Ourselves

What’s outside gets inside.

Earth’s many ecosystems are connected, forming one enormous living world—and we are part of it. The Good Goose is our symbol for that world, always giving us what life needs: air, water, food, light, sound and so much more. Everything enters us in a different way, from breathing in through our mouth or nose or absorbing things through our skin or eating with our mouths or sensing light and sound with our ears and eyes and brains and bodies. So whatever we put into the world—from substances in our air, water and soil to the light and sound around us—affects the living systems inside us too.

That’s why our vision for ourselves is the same as our vision for the world: clean, green, calm and kind. Healthy living systems, including us and the animals and plants, need balance, Being kind to the world outside is also being kind to the world inside us—and it works the other way, too. All of our choices help shape what is grown, made, sold and shared in the world around us. 

Humans have a bundle of special superpowers. Other animals have some of these qualities too, but humans can use them all together to choose our own future. We have curiosity to ask big questions, imagination to solve problems, language to connect and share ideas, and compassion to care with our whole hearts.

Because we can learn and pass on what we know, we change how we live! Often for the better. That's why we don't live in caves and hunt like wild animals. Instead, we invented comfortable dwellings, agriculture, transportation, and amazing gadgets.

For many of us though, living in busy cities with our devices can make us forget the big secret: WE ARE PART OF NATURE! When we aren't careful, we often hurt the very environment we are part of and depend upon.

Fortunately, we can use our ultimate superpower—COMPASSIONATE INTELLIGENCE. By using our smart brains and kind hearts together, we can choose new goals so we can enjoy all the things we love, while making sure other humans, plants, and animals thrive on Earth too!

Good Goose Mission

In the belief that our fullest potential connects us to our higher purpose for the greater good, the Good Goose mission is to share inspiration, information and images through the goodgoose.org website and the upcoming book to help us each express our full potential, our compassionate intelligence.

 Self talk:

I am good.

I am compassionate.

I am intelligent.

I belong.

I am unique.