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