Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott where I'm out and about in February listening to the wisdom of nature and today you find me up on the moorland of Dartmoor a national park in the southwest of England in the cold it's been cold for a few days now with my lovely dog who's having a great sniff and just reflecting as I walk with you in nature.
Yesterday we were talking about listening listening and discerning the songs of the birds and listening and discerning or seeing and discerning the different trees and plants and animals and today I want to take you beyond our senses to a deeper spiritual sense because I read something which really inspired me really touched me and it feels like it takes on this theme of listening to another level and I was reading a story which was about the writer and philosopher Lorenz van der Post I think that's how you pronounce his name and he was someone that lived in the 20th century and I think wrote quite prolifically but he was telling a story in an instance of him with some Kalahari Bushmen and how the Kalahari Bushmen expressed incredible sadness for him because he couldn't hear the stars singing let me repeat that he couldn't hear the stars singing there was something so beautifully poetic in the story and in the sense that you can hear the stars or it's possible to hear the stars singing that I felt just so incredibly touched and it got me thinking like what is it that I don't hear singing certainly I don't hear the stars singing do the trees sing do the clouds sing does the moon sing does the sky sing does the sun sing what am I missing in the world it's as though the world sings a song and I am unable to hear that song and I feel the real sadness inside that I'm missing out on the richness of that connection and interaction with the wider world is there an orchestra in this world that is playing and yet I am unable to hear it because I am not tuned into it and what would it be like and I'm thinking of those old-fashioned radios where you had to turn the dial and tune in in and out between stations and you'd go through static and then nothingness and then suddenly you would hear the strains of music and I wonder if it's a bit like that where you would go through static and you'd go through nothingness and then suddenly you tune in and you too are able to hear the strains of the music the melody of the world singing and what would it be like if we could hear that what difference would it make in our lives my hunch is that for me if I could hear the music of the world I would feel a sense of belonging I would lose my restlessness and I would find a sense of contentment and nourishment in the world around me that feels so compelling to me to feel that deeper sense of belonging that I too am part of the song and part of the music that is singing and I am both listening and participating in that beautiful sound what would it be like what would how different would our world be if we were all able to tune in spiritually to the song of the stars for me it leaves me feeling both hopeful and sad hopeful that there is a song for me to hear and sad that I cannot hear it the world seems too fast and too busy and my mind is too loud but I do hold out that one day I too will be able to hear the stars singing
