Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott up on Dartmoor.
I'm sheltering in a gully and I've walked quite a way up into this gully because the southwesterly wind is still ferocious.
We've had back-to-back storms over the last few days and there's been a lot of rain.
It looks like the rain has now passed but everything is very grey and damp and I'm sheltering and as I came further and deeper up into this gully,
Growing out of the bank is a hawthorn tree and I've never been this far up and it's leaning at a precarious angle and at the end of its twigs and branches are a few deep red berries still remaining but also a lichen it looks a little bit like hair floating in the wind as though someone has lost a beard or a wig and I've just looked it up it's called string of sausage lichen and I know that it only grows where the air is particularly clean and clear and we get quite a lot of this up here on Dartmoor and it made me think really because this hidden hawthorn with its hidden lichen I wouldn't have seen had I not walked up this steep side of Gully to shelter from the wind and there was a part of me that kind of feels as though this tree wants to be seen and I'm seeing it or be it very hidden.
And that's the topic I want to share with you today.
It's this dance between wanting to be seen but also wanting to hide.
And it came about when I read a blog from one of my friends.
And she talked about,
In many different ways,
Different aspects of herself.
But the bit that really landed for me was when she talked about this idea of both wanting to be seen seen,
But also wanting to stay hidden.
Wanting to be seen,
But also wanting to stay hidden.
And it just landed for me,
Because it just seemed to sum up me.
In the world very much,
Which is I do have this sense of wanting to be seen,
To being in relationship,
To going out in the world and meeting people and sharing ideas and thoughts and inspiration.
And there's another part of me that just wants to hunker down and hide and to be on my own and to light a fire and to read books and to not venture forth.
So there is this dance between being seen and being hidden.
And it turns up in different ways in different people's lives.
And I don't know if it resonates for you.
But one of the things that I also like about this phrase of being seen is that that when you are seen,
Like really deeply seen at the level of soul,
It does something.
And I love this ability of listening,
Deep listening,
Of listening to intuitive wisdom and from intuitive wisdom.
Listening from a deeper intelligence to the deeper intelligence in the other person.
Listening from the level of soul to the soul in the other person.
When you listen in that way,
Someone gets seen and I was seen today I was with a friend on a call and we were having a to and fro and I was feeling a little bit unsettled I've just got back from my mum and my mum was a little bit poorly and I just know it's a lot for my brother to take on he took over from me so I've been feeling a little bit unsettled concerned about my mum her health concerned about my brother that I know it's a lot for him to take on and just feeling a little bit at a loose end.
And I spoke to my friend and she saw me,
Deeply saw me and understood completely that in this conversation I wasn't fully present to her.
I was a little bit lost in a world of concern about my mum and my brother.
And in her seeing me,
I settled.
And as I settled,
I became present to the conversation.
I became present to that inner resilience,
Resourcefulness and strength within me.
It was like the cloud that I had hanging over me and that was raining on me,
Which was this cloud of concern about my mum and my brother.
It was still there,
But it had gone off.
I could see it.
It wasn't that I'd forgotten them,
But I was no longer being rained on with the anxiety and worry and stress that I had been feeling.
And that was due to being seen.
And today's reflection is all about this whole thing of being seen,
But also wanting to remain hidden.
What does it mean for you?
I'd love to know your reflections.
Do you understand the power of being seen?
Being seen and seeing others?
And do you also realise and recognise that sense of wanting to hide and to step back?
I'd love to know your reflections.
And of course,
Don't forget to join me again tomorrow for another five minutes in nature.
