Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me,
Liz Scott,
Where every day in February I take you out and about and together we listen to nature's wisdom.
And today the weather has changed.
It's been absolutely bone-chillingly cold for the last few days.
But today there's a change in the weather.
The rain has come in,
It's grey,
It's damp and I wouldn't say it's warm or even mild but certainly that real depth of coldness has gone and everything now is wet and damp.
I'm out with my waterproofs and as I look in the lanes,
As I walk in the lanes,
I can see very clearly now the new green of shoots and new plants coming through as spring continues to awaken.
And the lane I'm walking up at the moment has got quite high banks on either side and these banks are festooned with moss.
It's a lime green moss and it's literally oozing and dripping with water.
It's just everything feels as though it's wet,
Really wet.
And today my reflection is about the living nature of the earth.
It's about seeing the earth as a living entity and seeing us,
Seeing me not just as a person that walks on the earth but seeing myself and what I'm about as part of this living entity.
And yesterday I was with a group of friends and we were chatting and one of them expressed real sadness and fear and insecurity at what he was reading and watching in the news.
He was talking about the wars and the politics and sadness of people that have less than us and are suffering and his fears for his children and his grandchildren.
And he was wondering what he could do and felt helpless and saddened and paralysed by the lack of his ability to make any difference in the world.
I don't know if that resonates with you but for me,
Sure,
There are times when I watch the news and I just feel a real sense of helplessness and sadness at what's going on.
And one of my friends who was listening to him as he was expressing this just made the point about the earth being a living entity and it just struck me.
The truth of this struck me deeply.
You see,
If you see the earth as a living entity and you are part of this living entity then actually you do have a role to play.
It's just that your role might not be the saviour,
The one that goes out,
The hero that rescues the world.
And I think a lot of our popular culture has goodies and baddies and the goodies always win.
And I'm not talking about us being like that.
If you look at your body,
For example,
And you look at all the different aspects of your body,
You'll know that you have different organs.
You've got your liver,
You've got your heart,
Your lungs,
You've got the blood vessels,
You've got your skin,
You've got your intestines.
Everything in your body is made up of different elements.
And every cell in every organ in your body has a role and a function.
And when I see myself more as a cell in the body of this entity of the earth,
I feel much more able to respond from a place of creativity and positiveness.
If all I am is a cell in this body,
All I need to do is do my job as a cell.
And as I see it,
My role,
As I look within myself and listen to that wisdom within,
My role is to act from love and compassion.
My role is to be a listener in the world.
That's the gift I've been given.
I'm a listener.
I listen to people,
I listen to myself,
I listen beyond the words,
I listen.
And I allow people and act as a catalyst so that other people can listen.
So if you ever get that feeling of being a bit helpless,
Not knowing what to do,
Reflect on what it is that your gift is in the world.
What is it that you are being called to share or to offer?
It might be a skill or it might be just an act of kindness.
It doesn't matter what it is.
It doesn't matter how big or small it is.
Just look within and respond from your heart.
