I’d been waiting to send you my reaction to the film until I felt like it had processed and I could put it more coherently into words…and then the events of this week threw me back down into that oh-so-familiar whirlpool of grief, and offered up the words I needed.

For me, it was the invitation to grieve that made the biggest impact: to witness a collective grief and its different manifestations, and then to be in a space to share that raw grief with others, in circle, while it had just been acknowledged and brought to the surface. And to recognise that this is necessary and important work, and to look forward to it becoming something to strengthen us and help us to navigate our future actions.

This understanding has unlocked me, embodied me, and empowered me. So this week, when I heard the news, I knew exactly how to process it thanks to WTU; rather than sitting in my shock and floundering about in confused anger and despair, I took myself outside, and I allowed myself to grieve. I let myself feel, rather than numbing myself.

The opposite of love is fear. You have brought light to our collective fear about the Earth, which is manifesting in anxiety and depression. Fear also manifests as anger, which we can see clearly in the soon-to-be most powerful man in the world. So my hope is that if we all allow ourselves to do the work of grieving for the Earth and for the situation we have found ourselves in this week, we will then rise up and act in love rather than REact in fear, to bring the change we need most into the world.