Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me,
Liz Scott,
Out and about on a bright day up on Dartmoor.
Still a little bit muddy underfoot,
You might be able to hear my feet squelching through the mud,
But this is a very pleasant day.
I can hear the birds singing all around me.
Spring is really in the air,
Wanting to burst forth.
It feels as though it's going to erupt at any moment.
And today I'm reflecting on how we navigate our way through life and how it's so important to reflect on the journey rather than the destination.
Earlier in the week,
As you probably know,
I was out doing some filming with a reporter and a camera woman and she was filming the pilgrimage that I walked last year.
We were retracing some of the steps and she was asking me questions about what I'd seen about being an older woman and what I noticed about being an older woman in the world and how the pilgrimage was a metaphor for this.
And we had two days of filming and I got to know her and the camera woman really well and it was such a nourishing exercise of being with two human beings,
Watching them in admiration as they were so professional with the way they conducted themselves doing the job,
But also just realising what a gift it was to be hanging out with two rock-solid women like this.
And at the end of the filming and having worked in the media myself,
I know that these sorts of pieces,
These lovely warm-hearted pieces,
Are ones that often kick around a while.
They might not get aired for days,
Maybe weeks,
And so I realised that that might be the case.
And she was a little bit apologetic,
Just saying,
Oh I thought we were going to put it out this Friday but it looks like it's been delayed until next week.
And it just occurred to me as she was speaking,
I just realised that,
You know,
I'd really like the piece to get broadcast and I'd love to see what she makes of what we've said and the places we visited,
But the truth is the journey of being with her and the camerawoman felt so special in its own right.
Like if the piece gets aired that will be the icing on the cake,
But there was something nourishing just being in this space of working with these women and feeling very present,
As I was allowed to because she was so skilled in the way that she conducted her questioning,
For me to get present back to the pilgrimage and to share what felt absolutely authentic and right for me to share.
And I said to her,
Do you know what,
It really doesn't matter if this piece gets aired or not,
If this goes out on the television or not,
It doesn't really matter.
What really matters is this time I've spent with you,
This feels like it's been so important.
And that reminded me of my pilgrimage.
The pilgrimage,
It was a journey that I thought as I set out that I was going to walk 630 miles from Cornwall all the way to Norfolk and as it turned out that happened,
But equally I knew that every day was a journey in its own right and at any time I might know that the pilgrimage had ended and I would just turn around and go home without having completed the whole route.
It was without doubt a realisation that the journey,
The pilgrimage journey was what was important.
And this translates so easily into the rest of my life.
It looks like I'm going to go in one direction and it seems like the universe is lining up things for me to go in a particular direction,
But I don't know if the outcome or the destination or the goal is the one I'm envisaging in my mind.
It might be someone I meet along the way,
A conversation I have along the way.
It might be that is what the journey is all about.
And it's the same with the book that I'm writing up about the pilgrimage.
I'm moving closer and closer to self-publishing it and I realised that,
You know,
Most people are interested in how many books I might sell and how much money I might make from the book and I'm really clear that it's just not going to be a great seller.
It's for me,
It's been a journey for myself in writing and processing what I experienced and I'm really hopeful that along this journey,
Along the way,
It might just touch one or two people and that might be the whole reason I was nudged by wisdom to write the book.
So this is just a realisation that we're always on a journey and actually it looks like we get to a destination but the truth is we don't really.
It's just a journey and the journey itself is the destination and we don't know who we're meant to meet or who we're meant to touch or what conversations we're meant to have along the way.
All we need to do is turn up and trust and this is about really enjoying the journey of life.
I do hope you're enjoying your journey in life and let's connect tomorrow for another Five Minutes in Nature.
I look forward to speaking to you then.
