Holding hands in active hope

a heart-aching future and wtf we can do about it

Drawing by Laura Benson

There are quite a few new readers here after my feature in The Weekender. (Hello, thank you, welcome). I write these Morning Pages weekly and had planned to write something inspiring and poetic. I had tendrils forming in my notebook, crisp with the start of the year, yet my heart aches with ecological grief and overwhelm.

I imagine your radio and social media feeds have been as full of panic as mine this week — broadcasts of Californian wildfires, ongoing injustice and conflict, and the somewhat dystopian suggestion of Trump wanting to purchase Greenland.

My writing often touches on the natural rhythms and cycles of life, leaning on the beauty and solace that can be found outdoors. Stories within rocks and rivers, whispers from oak trees and ocean currents that soothe.

It seems then both insignificant and important for me to not over-romanticise or brush over the heaviness many of us are holding; often folded away in the quiet pocket where we place all the worldly…