The Nectary is Good!
On village-ish-ing and the reclamation of goodness
I’ve never loved the beloved (metamodern-adopted) phrase “goodness, truth and beauty.” Something about it feels too clean, too simple, too dry.
What about the dark, the forgotten, the ugly, and the unnamable?
But last month I had an encounter with Goodness, and something clicked in at a deeper register. I had a truly beautiful experience of a more whole “good.” And it felt great :)
For most of my life I’ve usually oriented towards beauty (art school grad) and truth (photojournalism degree).
Goodness was always the third step child chilling in the tripartite but usually not getting the full recognition it deserves in my heart.
Until The Nectary.
I am here to proclaim that The Nectary — a two month relational monastery, research lab, and pop-up school that just completed in Washington, D.C. — is the embodiment of GOODNESS.
In the closing circle after my 10 days time there in April, I just kept repeating this word: good, good, good. The food: GOOD. The people: GOOD. The work: GOOD. The vibes: REAL GOOD.
It’s like I finally got goodness - really got it - for the first time.
I’m sorry if this is slightly unsatisfying to hear - The Nectary being good. I mean, Tucker, what does that even mean?
It means that perhaps the only thing better than greatness is Goodness.
The Nectary was buzzing at a level better than perfection - something less clean than perfection but also more true and whole. Like honey, it’s a lil messy and sticky, yet also sweet and soulful.
Goodness hums at a deeper register. It’s something I feel in my belly. Like, fuck ya, that’s good shitz right there.
But it’s not great, like how this music video is great.
The Airbnb that became The Nectary’s home was mid.
The food thanks to chef Sabra Saperstein was really, really good. But nothing too elaborate or fancy.
The group practices, like daily Down & Ins™ (spotlighting each person and going deep into their unfolding edges) were all wonderfully good. But really in the end they were just simple expressions of collective intimacy and care.
And, for me, that’s why goodness is great: it’s more like real life.
The Nectary was really close to my regular ole’ daily life. But it was daily life shared with good people, in good company. And the field of nourishment that opened up as a result was seemingly ensouled with goodness.
It was something like: village-ish-ing.
Wow, I think this is my new favorite term :) It’s a good one!
Maybe I’m just an old fart (almost 37). The highs and buzz of peak experiences just aren’t as appealing to me these days. The Mount Everest of moments for me nowadays are sitting and drinking a cup of tea with a good friend, cracking jokes and gossiping about our amigos. So simple.
Even better when those friends are my collaborators, and we spend all day Guilding together, as happened during The Nectary’s “Guild Day” where Cheryl Hsu and me did our best to weave people into the source soup of our soul work, inviting the collective to create a honey hive in the heart of our offering, so goodness can flow in and through the network.
We play together so we can work together so we can serve together so we can grow together. But these aren’t distinct moves. The boundaries between them are so paper thin that it feels more effortful to imagine them as real than it does to simply bask in the goodness of knowing they’re all always happening, even when we forget.
We’re just village-ish-ing.
If you didn’t know about The Nectary and have read this far, and probably still don't know what it is, that’s okay, because I’m not totally sure either. It was basically a group of good friends who trusted Dechen Ellen to be research agents for village-ish-ing and culture-vibing and (re)sourcing and pollinating-transformation in the Devil’s playground, aka Washington, D.C. (jk I love D.C. — gem of a place!)
The Nectary is also — in vibes, mission and structure — probably the closest expression to what the Sourcekeepers Guild is up to: supporting friends, helping each other’s soul work flourish, creating containers for culture-building, re-membering village-ish-ing, devoting our care to the goodness of Sacred World, which at The Nectary manifested as everything from taco night with Liz Reese’s family, to working our asses off coordinating both internal and public events (shoutout to Dechen), to classy outings at the National Symphony Orchestra (thanks Zen), to basking in the delight of our friends offering their heart’s deepest dharma to a packed house of Washingtonians.
I hope I can be a father one day and give my kids a good life. Maybe they’ll live a great one - that’s up to them and God. But it seems my part in the play is to serve the goodness of their lives. Maybe that’s true for all of life. To be and become a servant to Goodness.
I sense I’m starting to get it: goodness is something like living with an open heart and loving what is.
That feels good, even when it’s far from great.
May y’all have a real good day 🍯
Love, Tucker
Special thanks to Dechen Ellen for sourcing The Nectary, to Sabra Saperstein for tending the hearth with beauty and care, to Tyler Wakefield for keeping the lights on through economy stewarding, to Cheryl Hsu for our amazing guild jams, and to all who participated both locally in D.C. and from across North America. May the goodness be of benefit 🙏
Great....excuse me GOOD writing ;)
Such Goodness