Dear Earth, it’s started.

It’s 5.30am and I’ve been awake for hours. My brain is fizzing like sherbet. After a crazy-busy week and with a full day ahead of me, I can’t find the soft blanket of sleep.

Rebellion is coming. In six weeks we will be out on the streets again – grandfathers, scientists, ex-policemen, pilots, people of faith, new mothers – all of us screaming on your behalf, dear Earth.

Where are these chemicals coming from, lacing my blood with vigilance?

There’s grief. The deep ache in my heart when I see what we’re doing to you, sweet Earth.

There’s fear. The facts we keep hiding from, the terrible times that are coming.

There’s anxiety. A surging of the thousands of small tasks that go into planning a rebellion.

There’s dread. How will it be to be arrested this time? Who will hate us for what we’re doing? How will I hold it all?

More than any of that, there’s excitement. Excitement at soon being able to DO something that I believe will make a difference. A coming together with old comrades and new, a fresh blossoming of the kindest and fiercest society I’ve known, a place where I learnt in October that we have way more power than we think we do. That we can change everything.

As a human being I am full of the usual holes. I am not a great auntie. I offer this sleeplessness to my nieces, who marched with me in October. I offer them my hope, as the sun flings light across the valley. I offer them my joy as I imagine their possible golden future.

As we move through this pandemic, we have an opportunity. We can go back to heating you as quickly as before, dear Earth, or we can stop. We could just stop.

I am awake. I am ready.

With much love, Satya <3