Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott up here on Dartmoor just beside a wonderful old Devon wall.
It's covered in a thick green moss and beside me coming from the wall growing out of the top are different types of trees.
I'm actually just beside a hawthorn tree with its leaves coming out and I can see that the blossom is starting to emerge as well.
Now the hawthorn is also called the Mayflower and there is a saying which we have in the UK which is don't cast a clout before May is out and there are two schools of thought which is clout is clothing.
Don't take off your winter clothing before the month of May is out and another interpretation of that old saying is don't take off your winter clothing until the May Blossom is out.
So the May Blossom refers to this blossom which is just coming out beside me on the hawthorn.
It's very very beautiful.
It'll be a wonderful white colour very soon.
And today is a reflection on female energy and I've been reflecting on this for a little while.
I'm going to be talking to my friend.
We record a podcast and we want to talk about the feminine energy.
At least that's something she's very passionate about and I've just been reflecting on it myself to see what I might say or what resonates for me around the feminine energy.
And I thought I'd share my initial reflections with you as I formulate ideas on what I might like to say.
I guess first of all I find the language or the terminology of feminine energy and male energy,
I find that quite tricky because for me it has the capacity to pigeonhole or put into boxes things which don't feel like they exist in a box at all.
And there are so many connotations about male and female in our world it can be really hard to separate out or separate away from those definitions,
The world society's definitions of male and female.
So I guess that's one of the things I would like to say.
But moving beyond that if I were to find language that didn't refer to male or female or masculine or feminine energy,
I guess what I would like to say is that there is a creative loving energy that is the basis and formation of love.
It is that which creates,
That which nurtures.
There is an energy that seeks to support community,
Loved ones,
Friends,
Family,
Bring people together to find that which connects us all.
And so for me this,
Let's call it heart energy,
This heart energy feels as though it's being trampled down for probably hundreds,
Maybe thousands of years.
So much so that it's like hard earth,
It's compacted,
It's hard to work.
And yet for me it feels that this is the very energy,
This loving,
Gentle,
Peaceful,
Compassionate energy,
This is the very energy that is out of kilter in our world.
And it's hard to explain and it's hard to articulate,
Which is why I'm a bit fumbly as I'm trying to explain it to you now.
The energy that I'm talking about is heart-based,
It's beyond language.
Language is the domain of the intellect,
Of that other energy which we've put so much emphasis on in our culture,
That intellectual energy and ability to analyze,
To plan,
To work things out,
That thinking energy,
That ability to form thoughts,
To project what might happen in the future,
To bring into the what's happened in the past,
That is what I would call a head energy.
Your head energy is the planning,
Analytical energy.
And the truth is that we all have a mixture of both of these energies that are present within us,
Which is kind of why I don't like to refer to them as masculine or feminine.
But what I feel is true in our world is that the intuitive,
Wise,
Life-giving,
Nurturing energy has been put down to second place,
Has been trampled down in our society.
It's not valued.
If we can engage with this heart energy,
We will be able to bring back the world into balance.
So those are my reflections on what I'm calling heart energy and head energy.
And I'd just love to know your reflections on what I've been saying.
What turns up for you as you reflect on this?
