The daughter of Love

Dear Journal,

The holiday season is now over, and what a joy it was this year! Being with family and enjoying these simple moments was exquisitely sweet. Perhaps distance makes reunions more precious. A priceless parenthesis is closing. I feel as though the whirlwind of society is starting up again with a vengeance, and that the race for performance has also ended its holidays.

But every decision taken with a view to greater wellbeing is worth taking. And I think it is wonderful to want to take back the reins of one’s life, to adjust the direction one is heading in.

A significant milestone was passed in 2022. There are now more than 8 billion of us living, at the same moment, the experience of life on this Earth… Dizzying, isn’t it?

Many say there are too many of us living on our planet. I would rather say there are too many of us surviving, living badly; few souls truly live. And whatever our number, it invites me to ever more humility. So I pray for true tolerance in the face of this growing diversity. All the objects that make up the universe — galaxies, clouds of dust, stars — are inexorably moving away from one another. Like us. Is conflict inevitable?

Humankind always dreams of expansion, which goes against nature. Nature shows us the way. In this winter, the season of returning to the Earth, to our inner selves. Withdrawal is an act that asks us for authenticity and clarity. Returning to our origins, to our roots. Daring to be ourselves.

Instead of cultivating its garden, humankind exploits it. Yet it is the ideal place to exercise one’s talent. And the gardener’s talent also sometimes consists in leaving the earth alone.

I then think of all the wisdom Albert Camus passed on to us with his pen: “In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” Perhaps through this discovery we will move from survival to life, and the conflict born of fear will give way to Peace, the daughter of Love. It is up to us to cultivate this alternative, to spread our wings. The future will tell.

✦