As the autumn sunlight lit up the trees outside my window, my heart just soared and I rushed out to wander in the garden and marvel at the sheer beauty of it. After days of dismal fog, it was magical to see so many shades of copper, auburn and gold sparkling against the bluest of skies. I was filled with a sense of awe and gratitude!
I just have to share this beautiful animation and poem from filmmaker Andrea Dorfman and poet Tanya Davis. 'Lean into loneliness' in these Covid times - we are all connected. Thank you for this wonderfully inspiring short video - here's the link -
'I wish I could show you,
When you are lonely or in darkness,
The Astonishing Light
Of your own Being.’ Hafiz
‘God puts rainbows in the clouds so that each of us - in the dreariest and most dreaded moments - can see a possibility of hope.’ Maya Angelou
Sometimes hope eludes us and it’s hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel - we feel overwhelmed and the future stretches bleakly before us. We find ourselves questioning the whole basis of our lives and whether there is any meaning or purpose in them.
‘The thought manifests as the word
The word manifests as the deed
The deed develops into a habit
And the habit hardens into character.’ The Buddha
Everything in our universe vibrates, including us, and our emotions are also vibrations. When we choose to hope rather than despair, we automatically tune in to a higher vibrational level, freeing ourselves from the negative impact of the slower vibrations like fear, anxiety, and doubt.
We have no guarantee about the future, but we exist in the hope of something better.’ The Dalai Lama
Hope is both a choice and an action. If we give way to despair about the chaos of our world or our own personal circumstances, we are unable to do anything to change the situation. And although human history is a catalog of woes, it’s worth remembering that it is also rich with magnanimous acts of courage, sacrifice, and compassion.
The point about hope is that it is something that occurs in very dark moments. It is like a flame in the darkness.’ John Berger
In these dark days, when Covid 19 and its effects are added to all the other existing troubles in our world, hope is vital. Hope is always available to us - it’s born in darkness, just as the stars are visible only when the sky is black.
In January 2020 I gave a talk entitled ‘A Time of Crisis or a Time of Transformation?’, part of which is included as an article on this website. This was before Coronavirus became virtually the only news, before Lockdown, and before the resultant dire economic depression and mass redundancies that are happening now.
Nothing in recent decades has been quite like the wake-up call we’ve been hearing recently. Coronavirus brought the world to a virtual standstill and it’s effects are still ongoing.
Prior to the pandemic, around the world people have been dying in wars, from hunger and disease, from abuse, from people trafficking and modern forms of slavery. They have also been dying from depression, drug overdoses and suicide. In addition we have been losing species at an alarming rate and the planet itself is dying. And yet, we were not paying sufficient attention.