Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me,
Liz Scott.
Oh it's lovely to be out here on Dartmoor and it's not misty and it's not rainy and I can actually see for miles which makes a change.
This is this is the life and I tell you what when you don't have the view or you have the weather that's really inclement and then you have a a little window of opportunity of getting out in the dry.
Oh I really appreciate it so much,
I really really do and I'm just walking up just above the Ludbrook.
There's a little crossing I'm going to go across if the water isn't too high and then wind my way back home hopefully to meet up with a neighbour who we,
Well a few weeks ago,
We decided that we'd just spend a bit of time together writing.
Now the thing is my neighbour just got hold of me on whatsapp just before I came out and she said oh I'm really busy and I've got to walk the dogs and I'm up to my eyes and this project and what do you think we need to do and when and how and blah blah blah and obviously she's got a lot on her plate at the moment and I read the message and first of all I felt real compassion for her because I absolutely know that feeling when I feel that sense of overwhelm it's for me quite an uncomfortable feeling in the same way that I've been out today and I've been so grateful not to be walking in the mist and the rain and the greyness.
I also read the message and felt the real relief that I don't have the same sense of pressure or overwhelm today,
My day has a sense of spaciousness.
So I don't know whether I will be meeting her or whether she's going to cancel it doesn't really matter but it did remind me actually of something that's so important which is around this sense of spaciousness and I guess there's a couple of things that I feel drawn to say today one is it's fine when life gets busy it happens sometimes it's just that that's not how we're designed to operate day in day out there's something about having space spaciousness in our lives spaciousness for inspiration and creativity to be expressed that for me is so important getting out in nature being in nature feeling the wind on my face looking at the sky feeling the delight at not being wet or wrapped up in all my waterproofs and knowing that this is a real gem of a November day having space to feel that breathe in the air having space in my life for creativity all of this is so important and it's easy to get lost in busyness,
Busyness of thinking,
Busyness of doing,
Busyness of getting chores done,
Busyness of life and that's okay it happens I guess though the question is what nourishes you most about the life that you are currently living is it the busyness and the sense of adrenaline and being quick and fast and intellectual and planning and organizing and all of those things that can easily crowd in on a day is it that or is it when you give yourself space when you allow the mind to relax when you have little to do in a day and you might fill it with walking or reading or being creative maybe art or writing pottery whatever lights you up it's so easy to follow other people down a rabbit hole where we feel that everybody else is busy everybody else is doing lots of things and that's what I need to do as well but I'm just here today to remind you that that's not how we're designed we're not designed to live at that pace we can do it occasionally it's fine but it's a run up a flight of stairs and feel out of breath and her heart is going quickly and the wisest thing to do after we've run up a flight of stairs is to give ourselves time to relax and give ourselves time to rest most people though they just want to go up another set of stairs and then another set of stairs and then they ask on how they can be better at just running upstairs all the time and that's not what life is about I feel really drawn today to say go out into nature we are nature and for me nature reminds us of this space of slowing down of taking time of breathing in and being part of and belonging to something that is way beyond the smallness of our separate lives so today is just a reflection on slowing down connecting finding space and allowing creativity to come through you you don't need to run at a million miles an hour each and every day
