Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott and you join me up here on Dartmoor above my home.
I'm a bit out of breath,
I've just walked up the hill to get here along a gravel path with moss strewn stone walls and little white stitch worts peppering along the green of the hedgerow and there were some wild strawberry flowers as well,
These very delicate white flowers with a beautiful warm sunny yellow centre.
As I was walking I heard the cuckoo and I'm hoping it might pipe up again,
It was in the distance so it might be hard to hear but I love hearing the cuckoo at this time of year,
It really reminds me that spring really is here.
And today is all about nourishment.
For me this is such an important area,
It's one of these lessons that keeps being repeated.
Do you have those,
Those little lessons that you keep getting reminded of because you just keep tripping up with them in life?
And when I talk about nourishment,
In this context I'm not just talking about physical nourishment and that actually is so important.
I had a coffee morning this morning and there was a lady there telling me about a diabetic episode that she had and she's completely switched her diet,
Cut out sugars and she was telling me the things that she,
You know,
She realised she couldn't eat any more carbohydrates and she was listing them to me.
And it just made me realise as she was speaking the importance of what we've put into our bodies,
The food we put into our bodies,
For me anyway,
Just reminding myself that it's so important to think about nourishment at a physical level.
However I'm not here to talk about physical nourishment today,
I'm here to talk about mental nourishment.
Yesterday in particular it was brought home to me.
I was on my computer most of the day,
As you know I've been away on long pilgrimage and the result is I come back and there's a lot of admin to do,
A lot of computer work,
A lot of emails to answer.
It's the opposite of the life I've been experiencing for week after week after week.
And my drive yesterday was just to sit at the computer and get things done and I just found myself getting a bit stuck in my head.
It all felt a bit like treacle but I felt I needed to push through and carry on and do what I needed to do.
And what I realised when I did eventually get up and go for a little walk is I should have done that hours ago.
I should have gone out hours ago.
It was like taking a gulp of oxygen when you're starved of oxygen.
It's that deep breath of just getting outside and really being present to nature which for me is always a catalyst to help me get back in touch with who I truly am.
I'm just going to cross over a tiny little bridge over a stream so you might hear it gurgling in the background.
And it's a beautiful clear Dartmoor stream.
You can see the rocks and stones on the bottom of the stream bed.
It looks so clean,
Crisp and clear.
And it reminds me of this whole sense of nourishment,
That sense of clarity,
That sense of clear-headedness.
So today as I walk I realise how important it is to nourish myself.
When I was walking I would eat a good breakfast,
I would take lunch with me,
I would have a good meal.
I was walking,
I slept so well.
My body had a good balance to it.
Now that's the life of a pilgrim.
In some ways it's easy,
All you have to do is walk.
And I realise as I come back into this regular life that it's going to be really important for me to balance my life and to find that pilgrimage mindset,
That sense of getting out,
Walking and settling my mind,
When actually the tasks of the day encourage me to sit at my computer writing emails or writing.
So today is all about nourishment,
Mental nourishment.
And the question for you to ask yourself today is,
How might I mentally nourish myself today?
