Everyone has a path of love available to them, if they listen and are courageous enough to follow it. This path will take them to higher and higher aspects of themselves, and allow them to be of service in the world to such a high degree. So many people in so many areas are walking this path. Sometimes they risk their lives for it. There is so much hatred, ignorance and greed in the world. I never want to ignore that, to turn a blind eye to it, to enable it. But I also don’t want to be caught up in the same cycle of hatred. It is so easy to do that. Then we are contributing further to it. Sometimes I can feel this on a very subtle level in myself. I want to critique something, to bring it to the light. And yet I can feel in myself there is a discomfort, because I am not holding a space of love in that moment. This is a question for so many of us. How do we hold a space of love while acknowledging the truth? How do we keep compassionate when there is so much to despair about in the world? And yet, when someone holds a space of love, even when they are deeply affected by atrocity, it is the most humbling thing. This is why I am so humbled by first nations peoples here in Australia, and around the world, who often continue to hold a deep space of patience and love, in the face of ignorance and atrocity.

Reflecting on Surat-Suratnya, the theatre work I am currently producing, which is in the middle of a sell out season in Melbourne. Although this work is about people fleeing from atrocity, in the form of political violence which has not been properly acknowledged, just by being a work of truth telling, to me this work is about love. It’s about the courage that love, in its broadest sense, can give us, if we choose to follow it, to see the humanity in others, even in the face of ignorance, misinformation and atrocity. Truth telling is our greatest ally to peace. It is the most powerful thing we can do. Truth telling, with love, and generosity. This process has been full of love and generosity too. Feeling very grateful to this team and to LaMama Theatre who as an arts institution hold space for truth also with much love.

Let’s keep telling stories, truthfully. And listening to each others stories. It is the way to peace.