Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott up on Dartmoor and the sun is shining.
I'm just closing my eyes and raising my face to the sun and feeling its warmth on the skin.
What a contrast from the rain and the mist and the winds that we've experienced over the past few days.
It's such a joy coming up here.
I'm sheltering beneath some gorse bushes just out of the wind but it's such a joy knowing I'm not going to get a downpour today and it feels as though we've been thrown into autumn very quickly with the weather and today we're just getting a bit of respite from that grey long dark autumn that was threatening.
It feels as though this is the kind of autumn that really lightens my soul.
The hillside is a brownie orange,
The fern is turning,
It looks like an artist has got out the greens and the browns with her paintbrush and has smudged the hillside in a bronze copper and brown and green and contrasting the hillside with the blue and the white of the clouds is just special,
Very special to experience.
Down below from where I am at the moment I can see not too far away a mare,
She's munching the grass and I can't see her foal but just a second ago I saw her foal,
A little skewball,
The brown and white foal sort of skittering along,
Expending that additional energy that these young animals have.
Today's reflection is a question,
It's a question I was asked recently and I asked myself today actually and the answer I gave is what I'm doing right at the moment which is going on a walk and the question is what would you do right now,
What would you do right now to nourish yourself?
Like if you were to do one thing right now to nourish yourself what would that be?
Well as I asked that question of myself earlier in the house and I saw the sun I thought I've got to go out for a walk and it is that strong draw of the outdoors and nature for me when I feel drawn outside and breathe in deep lungfuls of air and stride up a hill and just feel myself settling in my mind and in my body in a rhythmic way as I walk,
For me that was exactly the right thing for me to do for myself right in that moment and I guess the question is what is the most nourishing choice you can make for yourself right now?
If you were to engage with something right this minute that was going to nourish you what would that be?
I mean you don't have to do it let's just be honest but it's really useful I think sometimes just to look within and see what your intuition and wisdom is calling for you to engage with and I think that question is worth reflecting on in a little bit more depth because sometimes it's not about taking a step into what might seem like a pleasurable leisure thing.
For example for me this morning I woke up ultra early it was still dark and I got up early because I wanted to get a little bit of fresh air before I went to the gym as you know if you've been listening the gym is something I'm starting to get a little bit more used to and into my routine and for me the gym means that I have less time to walk and I'm just experimenting this week with this idea of what if I got up earlier to go for a walk and then I went for the gym would I be able to engage with both of the things that feel nourishing for me.
So for me the question is when I ask myself what's the most nourishing thing for me to do well it's to get up in the dark to go for a walk and it's also to get up and go to the gym neither of which activities necessarily fill me with undiluted pleasure but actually I know that they are the most nourishing choices for me in the moment.
So when you ask that question of yourself the answer might be something that feels like a treat and equally it might be something that feels as though it's something you've been putting off or something that you know is important to nourish you but might not be at the top of your to-do list.
So the question to ask yourself a variation on this theme what is the most loving choice I could make for myself in this moment what is the most loving and nourishing choice I can make for myself in this moment.
