Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott.
It's a glorious morning.
Here I am up at a place on Dartmoor which has a cross.
It's called Spurrell's Cross and I'm just leaning up against the cross now looking at the view around me.
The sun has risen and in the valleys below there are ribbons of mist and the hills are peeping out from behind the ribbons of mist so it looks like the mist is a sea and there are little islands popping out of the mist.
It's truly breathtaking and humbling to see this view and I don't know why I was drawn to Spurrell's Cross but my feet took me here today.
It's a bit further than I normally walk.
There's something about seeing the cross as you come across the moorland.
The cross is quite prominent on the moorland itself.
You see it in the direction I travelled.
You see it probably about five or ten minutes before you actually come across it so there's a lot of walking and trusting you're on the right path and then suddenly you see the cross and you know you're in the right direction and you're nearly there.
This cross served as a way marker.
It was a bit of a reassurance to help people,
Walkers,
Travellers across Dartmoor in years gone by just to help them know that they were going in the right direction and my understanding is these crosses were put across the moorland so that if you were a walker you would walk from one cross to the other and just be able to find your way slowly.
There aren't many of them left and many of these crosses have either fallen down or been repurposed or used in building work over the centuries so it's really lovely to see and to be able to lean against this particular cross and I suppose my reflection today is prompted by the cross.
It's prompted by the cross being a way marker,
Being something on the landscape that helps people know that they're moving in the right direction and in essence as I was walking towards the cross I was thinking I think I'm a little bit like that.
In my work as a teacher I want to be a way marker.
I want to show people something that has been so profoundly transformational in my life,
Something that has shifted my life.
Everything has changed and yet nothing has changed.
Inwardly I feel as though I walk on solid ground although my external world might be perceived as exactly the same or even worse than it used to be but I know I am on solid ground and that's what I want to point people towards within themselves.
You see when I find myself lost in my thinking and in my mind that gets over wrought on occasions I seek the way marker within me,
That place of solidness within me and I bring myself to that.
It's the next cross on the landscape that's going to lead me,
The weary walker in the right direction.
I only need to make my way to the next landmark and to me that's bringing myself within.
So for me I have this way marker within me and also I want to be a way marker for others.
There are so many different ways you might get caught up in life and in trying to be a better person or doing things differently or finding courses and books and reading different ideas on how you can have a more easeful or a more successful life.
I've done a lot of that in my past and what I want to point you towards and this is where I am your way marker is to remind you to look within.
You see when you start to look within and to feel and get in touch with the divine spirit,
The essence,
The soul,
The life force energy,
God,
Whatever you call it for yourself,
Whatever language works for you,
The intelligent energy behind the whole universe.
When you get in touch with that and realize that that is who you truly are,
Well that becomes your way marker for the rest of your life.
So I really hope that you see me as a reminder,
A reminder for you to look within and to find your way through life even though you might not know the end point.
All you need to do is find the next way marker and find the next step in the journey of your life.
You
