Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott.
And I'm standing over a pedestrian bridge that takes me across the River X.
I'm back in Exeter again helping out with my mum.
And down below me there are two swans gracefully gliding by.
And then a little bit further along I can see a family of what looks like mallard ducks making little ripples in the water as they paddle through the river.
It's quite still at this point.
And I've paused on the bridge because I came this way actually a few days ago and this particular point at the bridge just stopped me in my tracks.
This bridge has got blue metal railings going across it and halfway along the bridge there have been tied dozens and dozens of pink and blue ribbons.
And I paused because the ribbons have each got a little bit of writing on them and I was curious.
What I saw is that there's a notice saying that this is Baby Loss Awareness Week.
And these ribbons each represent a child that died as a baby.
And I looked at some of these ribbons and I'll just look at some.
This is a little blue one.
Lorenzo and Skye Partington.
That's one little ribbon.
And this is another little ribbon here.
It looks like this is a child's writing so maybe this was a sibling.
I love this magical world with a heart on it.
This ribbon has just got the name of Paul on it.
And this one is Archie John Teddy Jeffreys.
And I just spent so long just looking at these ribbons and have been doing so again today.
There's something about it.
Do you ever have those times where you fall out of your thinking into this well of compassion and love,
Sadness and grief?
Just this sense that there are people who are walking in the world that have a hole in their heart because of something that's happened to them.
And losing a baby I can imagine is something that absolutely rocks your world.
An earthquake that might feel like it's impossible to overcome.
And these little ribbons represent parents that imagine themselves as parents wondering what that would be like.
They represent broken dreams,
Things that never happened.
And it just reminded me as I was looking at these ribbons and as I look at them now is that we walk around and here I am.
It's early morning walk.
I'm just going to turn around.
I can see a couple of people in yellow reflective jackets cleaning.
There's a few walkers,
There's runners,
There's cyclists.
I've seen dog walkers.
All of these people are in their own little world.
And the truth is we don't know what they're carrying,
What they're experiencing,
What their life is showing up for them.
We don't know whether they are trying to find firm ground having experienced a recent emotional earthquake.
But what I do know is that when I get in touch with this space in me,
This space of compassion,
Of love,
Of just wanting to metaphorically reach out and hug people to let them know they are not alone.
I know that when I am in this place,
I feel so rock solid in the world.
And I also know that I see people beyond the fronts that they put up.
And I see that despite whatever they've been through or are going through,
That they too are rock solid.
And I can look at that place in them and remind them of that in themselves.
That resilience is part of who they are,
Regardless of what's happening in their lives.
And today my request is that as you go through life,
Just be kind.
Be kind to those people that you pass and just realize that none of us know what's going on in anybody else's life.
So come from a place of kindness and compassion and acceptance and love.
And let's see people through those eyes today.
