Feeling the first warm spring sun gently caressing your skin is probably one of the most blissful sensations there is. It brings you back to the present moment and feeds your soul. It makes you feel good, hopeful — and alive. The sun shining on you changes everything.
Nothing on our home planet is, in fact, more essential than the sun. The sun is the star the Earth spins around. It drives our weather systems and gives energy to plants, which in turn provide food and oxygen for all living creatures. The sun is a reminder that everything on our planet is interconnected, and that we, as human beings, are part of the natural world. Without it, there simply can be no life on Earth.
Photography by Celia Spenard-Ko
By choosing the sun as our emblem, we are paying reverence to the life force that binds us all together — our common source of light, energy, and hope for what each new day brings. The sun inspires us when we are looking for the light; it inspires us to attain a sense of pride in what we do and accomplish. Even on the gloomiest days, we are reminded that the sun will rise again in the morning and that we get a chance to start afresh.
The sun that proudly adorns our products has even deeper meaning for us at GOODEE: It is a way of celebrating and honoring our cultural heritage. It is an expression of who we are, and what we stand for.
The GOODEE Sun Face finds its roots in the multilayered history of Jamaica — the birthplace of our founders Byron and Dexter Peart’s parents. Inspired by ancient Taíno petroglyphs, its design pays homage to the first inhabitants of the island who, according to oral tradition, believed that the Sun and Moon emerged from a cave and took turns hiding as the other came out. Over five centuries after their fateful encounter with Christopher Columbus, the Taíno legacy remains a significant part of Jamaica’s rich, multifaceted cultural tapestry, extending beyond the island’s name. (The name Jamaica is derived from Xaymaca, the Taíno name for the island, which translates as ‘land of wood and water’.) Despite the dramatic collapse of the Indigenous society resulting from Spanish colonization, despite the silencing of indigenous identity, Taíno life has endured to the present day. It has survived not only in the genetic heritage of modern Jamaicans — and Caribbean people, generally — but also in the persistence of Taíno words such as canoe, barbecue, hammock, caiman, cay, guava, hurricane, just to name a few. It has survived in culinary practices, and in isolated communities where people have always known that Indigenous traditions were shaping the way they live from one generation to the next.
Young Byron and Dexter Peart
The GOODEE Sun Face is also here to shine a light on this story — a story of resilience and pride in our plural identities. We hope you find it inspires you as much as it inspires us. After all, the sun is what unites us all.
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“No matter the world around us, the two of us continue to find great comfort and resolve in returning to the same simple truth that, in the end (or should we say beginning) we are ALL created equal, that our fates are interconnected, and that it is only through embracing these undeniable facts that we will ever find peace and harmony in this world.
Thank you Mom and Dad for passing along your unparalleled love, hope and courage to excel and persevere, even when all that lies ahead seems impossible.” - Byron & Dexter Peart
