Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me,
Liz Scott.
I'm walking along a dry,
Cracked footpath of hard mud.
It's so dry here at the moment.
We're actually in the Malverns.
We've travelled down from Scotland,
We're part way home,
And we've stayed here for a couple of days because we just want to have a bit of a break on the long journey back home.
That's taking me beside a field of golden barley.
It's achingly yellow to the eye,
This sea of barley,
And the whole area around me and where we are at the moment is parched dry.
We've had some really long,
Dry spells of no rain,
Of hot baking sunshine,
And this whole area feels like it's been baked in the oven.
Scotland was slightly cooler,
So I didn't get that same feeling as I do here where everything is crying out for water and rain.
And today's reflection is a reminder for you about what happens when our true nature is able to flow freely within us.
And when I talk about true nature,
I'm talking about that innate wisdom,
That compassion,
That love,
That sense of who we truly are.
When that is freely allowed to course through us,
To flow through us,
We settle instinctively,
Intuitively.
We don't have to make ourselves settle.
It's the core of who we are.
So I want to talk about that today.
Because I had an experience of it.
So this morning,
When I woke up and we were getting ready,
I just felt a little bit twitchy and touchy.
I could give you a raft of reasons,
A raft of stories.
We're on our way home.
We've had a lovely holiday.
I know that it's going to be my turn to look after my mum,
Who's not doing very well at the moment.
There's lots going on in my world that feels as though it's the break that I've had has been so relaxing and now I'm bracing myself for diving back into life.
I mean I could explain all of that and you'd probably nod and go yes I can understand.
But the truth is that the only thing that's going on,
And this is why I love the simplicity of the inside-out understanding,
The only thing that's going on is that I'm getting lost in my thinking.
And when I get lost in my thinking,
I get distracted and I lose touch,
I lose that awareness of that loving life force energy that is at the core and essence of who I truly am.
So this morning I was getting a little bit tetchy and my husband said to me,
You seem a little bit quiet,
You don't seem yourself,
Is everything all right?
And I just paused and I said to him,
You know,
You're right,
I'm not myself at the moment.
I am feeling a little bit uptight.
And you know,
This is what's lovely about us both having the inside out understanding and he didn't try and fix me and I didn't try and blame anything,
We just understood that I was just in a little bit of unsettled thinking.
And we decided we're going to go out on a bike ride.
So we got our bikes ready and we thought we'd cycle up to some towns and communities near the Malvern Hills themselves.
And so that's what we did.
We set out.
And as we climbed up to these communities,
Because it's a bit of an uphill climb,
We thought it would be really nice if we were to actually go up into the hills themselves.
And we thought we would just take a track that would take us closer to the hills.
And it turned out that this was a cycle track that took us right over the hills themselves.
It was a bumpy,
Stony path,
And we went up,
Up,
Up,
Up,
A thousand feet,
Overlooking Hereford and Worcester.
It was an extraordinary experience.
The views were stunning,
Albeit that it was a hazy day,
So we couldn't see far-reaching views.
And we had to concentrate and be very present as we were cycling to the bumpiness and the gravel on the stony path and it meant that all I could do was keep my attention focused on staying upright.
And here's what happens when my attention is taken away from my thinking and my stories.
I fall into a place of clarity and I do that because that is my natural state and I am not doing it to me.
I am not doing any techniques or doing anything that makes me feel like that.
That it naturally arises when I am distracted from my thinking.
And when I'm distracted from my thinking,
I fall back into that place.
So today's reflection is a request for you to notice that for yourself.
Notice when you fall into that place of peace and settledness.
And it's not an activity and it's not a doing.
It's what naturally arises when we no longer feel fuel our thoughts and thinking.
I'd love to know your reflections on that.
Let me know.
And of course,
Don't forget to join me again tomorrow for another five minutes in nature.
