Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott.
You join me in the semi-darkness on a hillside above my home looking out towards the sunrise.
The sun hasn't quite risen yet and when I started out this morning the sky was an inky black and the stars were punctuated,
Punched through that dark sky exquisitely clear but it was a dark sky,
No moon in it and I walked up the footpath that was taking me up onto the hillside.
I don't like to use a torch,
I love to be able to see with my own eyes even in the dark and it was clear that slowly and imperceptibly dawn was coming.
The darkness began to shade to a grey,
A grey light,
A neutral light.
It was still dark but I could see the pathway more clearly and slowly as I walked up onto the hillside and up to my point now where I'm sitting the sky continued to lighten and now as I look upwards it's a dark blue.
There's still the hint of night time but there is as my eye travels further towards the eastern sky it begins to become a beautiful blue illuminated and then as my eye rests down on the horizon and if you imagine it as I'm looking towards the east the horizon it's like an artist has taken a paintbrush and has painted a thick black line horizontally and then has abandoned the colour black,
Washed out her paintbrushes and picked the brightest and most vibrant of oranges to contrast against it as the sky and with that swirls of yellows and pinks showing that the the sun although not yet visible is promising to emerge soon.
And today I'm up listening to nature's wisdom and I'm watching the sun rise.
The sun hasn't risen yet but what I know in my bones is that the sun is going to rise and I also know that here in January this month where it's the darkest of months even though it's dark I know that light is returning.
Like the sun arising this morning I know that the lightness will return to our days.
At the moment the night seems so long and the day is so short but the days will lengthen and are lengthening but it's imperceptible.
A bit like the dawn this morning as I walked up from the inky blackness to seeing the grey light of dawn bleed through the air.
That imperceptible lightening of our days is also taking place now in January.
The days are becoming longer,
The nights are becoming shorter and I know even though sometimes it doesn't feel like that because the darkness is so much around us,
I know deeply,
Deeply in my soul that that is so.
And that knowing,
That knowing of the coming of light,
The coming of longer days,
That knowing is the same knowing I feel of being connected to the oneness of life.
That knowing within me is a reminder that even if it might not seem as though I am connected or even if it might seem as though life is hard or dark,
I know that lightness will return.
Isn't it good to be reminded of that today,
To be reminded of that knowing?
So let's thank nature for her wisdom and thank her for her insights today.
