Season of Creation 5 by Sue Hall Pyke

Anchors of Hope – Two
My feathers of hope are falling out so I’ve been asking others what gives them hope.
My daughter-in-law pointed me to Colombia’s renewables policy. The World Bank loves
their goals, the Climate Action Tracker ranks them as acceptable. So-called Australia is
ranked poor. I concur, having worked in the environmental public service for a decade. I
left as the world passed the point of no return, 400ppm, with a personal goal of planting
trees.
The love of my life says hope is another day, waking up and getting into it. His truth
resounds with Anna Killigrew’s thoughts on first light, offered in the first week of Season
of Creation, at Sophia’s Spring. Both are right. It’s hard to give up when the morning light
is pink against fluffy white plum blossoms. I think jam, sauce, and take a photo as the
day brightens.
Recently I walked, again, with a friend along Swanston Street, with other anti-genocide
protestors. My friend said the people surrounding us gave her hope. She has been
attending almost every Sunday since the rallies began. More than 60,000 people killed
over that time. Still she walks.
The Anti-Misogynist Club didn’t need to be asked. Today’s newsletter cited Ta-Nehisi
Coates’ response to a question about how he holds onto hope in hard times. He
disdains hope, believes only in people who fight for change. As he puts it elsewhere,
these are ‘the preferences of the universe itself: verbs over nouns, actions over states,
struggle over hope’.
Chat GPT tells me ‘what gives me hope is the potential for connection and
understanding between people,’ leading to ‘growth, empathy, and collaboration’ that
moves the world ‘in a positive direction’. Hard to argue with AI vanilla. I’d better keep
planting, marching and making preserves for the people I love.

Sue Hall Pyke, Season of Creation 2025