Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me,
Liz Scott,
This January as we just take five minutes to allow the wisdom of nature to speak to us.
And today I am in a woodland which is very close to my home,
Taking a stroll through the woods.
Very small woodland,
It's got lots of different trees in it,
There are hazel and there's oak trees and beech trees.
And I've come here in January,
In the midst of winter,
Where there are no leaves on the trees and it just feels like we're in a space of waiting,
Waiting for spring to emerge.
And I've come here today to learn about patience,
Patience in the woodland.
Because in this woodland,
In April and May,
There is a carpet,
A covering of bluebells that sweeps across the ground.
It's like a rippling blue pond of deliciousness,
A haze of blue.
And right at this minute,
There is nothing to see apart from the remnants of the brown decaying leaves that fell to the ground in the autumn.
But I know that the bluebells are underneath the ground,
Underneath the earth here,
Their bulbs are there waiting to sprout forth again.
And today we're looking at patience.
You see,
Nature is patient.
Things happen and occur at the right time.
There is no sense of urgency.
There is no sense that the bluebells should be here now.
The bluebells will emerge when it's time for them to be here.
And it just reminds me of how it can sometimes be in my life.
And I wonder if this is the case for you too.
Where there's a real sense of hurry up.
There's a real sense of wanting things to move on,
To be different.
There's a real sense that in this woodland,
For example,
In the spring when the birds are singing loudly and there's the hum and buzz of insects in the air.
And there's a real aliveness of the whole place.
There's a real sense in a way that nature is not hurrying up to be in that place.
Nature is happy with being where it is now.
And right now,
Nature is not rushing.
Nature isn't frustrated that the bluebells and the birds and the insects aren't here yet.
Nature is just allowing the space of winter's renewal.
And knowing that the bluebells will emerge when the time is right.
So my question to you is this.
Do you feel that somewhere in your life you feel a sense of impatience?
Maybe you wish that life was happening at a different pace.
Maybe you've got goals and aspirations that you really want to achieve.
Or you want to go on holiday.
Or you wish your children were a bit more grown up.
Or they were older.
Or they were at the next stage of life.
Or maybe you wish that you were at the next stage of life.
Maybe you've got a to-do list and you're wanting to get through that to-do list so you can then start living your life.
There's a sense that now is not quite right and you're just waiting for something new to happen in order for life to be okay.
Does that resonate for you?
Does that ring true for you?
That sense of impatience that life isn't quite right yet but at some point in the future it will be right.
Well let's learn and reflect from nature here in this woodland.
In this woodland that right at the moment feels quite lifeless.
And know that the bluebells will emerge in time.
That the birdsong will return in time.
That the insects will throng in the air in good time.
And just know that there is no need to rush.
And things will happen in the time that it takes for them to happen.
So let's thank nature today for her wisdom around patience.
Realising that things will happen in their own time.
There is no need to hurry up.
And we right now in this moment can realise that everything is happening at exactly the right pace it is supposed to happen at.
Let's thank nature for her wisdom today.
