Hope is in every moment

Julia Chi Taylor

Anadi and I had booked tickets at the Natural History Museum to see the Wildlife photography exhibition

But we couldn’t find it!

We travelled down many corridors and into rooms with many wonderful treasures, mammals and reptiles and meteors 

And a whole hall of minerals rocks and gemstones

But no sign of the photographs…

We stood in the hall of minerals and gemstones feeling the energy pulsing

Through my heart

Anadi felt it in the palms of his hands

We could have stayed in that room and bathed in its energy for ever.

But…

The time came to ask for directions!

And at the end of a very long corridor we came to the exhibition

And were transported to other worlds

Snowy, watery, expansive lands – spiders, mushrooms, a lynx in a doorway, a lioness eating her prey – blood dripping from her mouth – flamingos pink. A humming bird hovering; a bear looking straight at the camera – beauty, raw and real.

 Emerging again into the main hall, looking upwards we saw the skeleton of the Blue whale. 

I remembered that she had been there fifty five years ago, when I last visited the Natural History museum – and there she is still, suspended high up above us all; in a different place to before – but still there.

Huge magnificent awe inspiring

Her name is Hope

She is called Hope as a symbol of humanities ability to create a sustainable future.

Any imagined future is the responsibility of each of us – individually

And paradoxically the promise of a bright future comes from this moment

In every moment we can heal the past and create a future that is expansive joyous loving

By staying in the present

Presence

It is as simple as being conscious now…

But as complex as the human mind that most humans identify with

Believe they are

The tangles and distresses and endless chatter that never ceases

The mind now the master rather than the amazing useful incredible creative and brilliant tool it truly is…

And so when we watch the mind – step back and witness it in all its pain and excitement, complex thought and repetitive stories

When we start to watch it instead of identify with it, we can be free

In watching we can ask ‘who is the watcher?’

And so we connect with the quiet, the spirit within

Us all

The silence.

And if we are to stand still – anywhere – and look upwards to Hope, the blue whale, who has now been there for 126years

And look upwards anywhere, to the trees, the tall buildings, the clouds and the skies

The statues

And be still amidst the movement all around

Stand and stare

While the activity and sounds and all that is going on on the outer realms continues

We know in that moment that we do not need to hope for a future

The future is here 

Now 

The message of Hope is in every moment, in the silence

Now

Forever