Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me,
Liz Scott.
Oh,
This is beautiful.
I'm up on Dartmoor,
Which is in the southwest of England,
And I can feel the warmth of this sun,
Which despite the coolness of the breeze,
I'm sheltered a little bit at the moment,
So I can feel the intensity of the warmth of the sun.
But when I'm in the breeze,
It cools things down so much.
And I'm actually just admiring the sky.
It's beautiful with white clouds,
Scattered across the blueness of the sky itself.
I feel really,
Really content and happy at this wonderful place that I'm exploring and being in.
Today's reflection is about rituals and bringing ritual back into life.
It's something I've been reflecting on and feel the deep sense of exploration as I continue my exploration being a wise woman,
An elder woman.
And for me,
Ritual feels as though it has something that offers me excitement,
A spark of energy.
And it can be in different ways.
I know during the autumn and winter,
As it gets darker,
I love lighting candles.
It feels lighting a candle is a wonderful way to remind myself of what it takes.
The small wick of a candle can take the darkness away,
Can illuminate.
Can share and radiate warmth.
It doesn't take much to take the darkness away,
And I love that as a symbol.
More recently,
My sister and I,
We were walking on Dartmoor,
And Dartmoor is well-known,
Renowned,
In fact,
For the archaeological remains of a people that lived thousands of years ago,
And they left in the landscape stone circles and stone rows and places that they would have lived these little hut circles,
The sort of remnants of the hut circles of the Bronze Age that these people would have lived up here on Dartmoor.
And we went to a stone circle and as we came up to it I knew deeply that I was being called to take off my shoes and socks and to walk the circumference of the circle and as I did I touched each of the rocks.
There were probably 20 maybe more rocks forming a circle and the exquisiteness of feeling the dampness of the grass on my toes and the energy of the rocks and this sacred place that must have been built using labour of hundreds of people.
I just felt the magic.
Of honouring this space,
Of being in this space.
So for me there's something about allowing that exploration of ritual,
Of connection,
Of being with the earth,
Of being with the landscape that I live in,
That feels so resonant for me at the moment.
One of the things I love to do is to go walking in the mornings,
And now of course the mornings are dark,
So I'm walking with a sky that's deep inky black and a little yellow pinprick of light of the stars that accompany me out.
I recently was out and it was the end of the cycle of the moon and the old moon,
This tiny crescent,
Was still hanging in the morning sky and it looked like a cupped hand holding,
You could see the ghost image of the rest of the moon,
It looked like it was holding it in its hand.
These morning moments are sacred.
When I was in Weymouth recently,
I went walking in the morning and I was walking on the beach in Weymouth and there was a rider and a horse that were walking through the ocean waves.
And that moment was captivating.
So beautiful.
So resonant for me,
Bringing me back to a place of gratitude and love and joy.
So for me ritual is something that feels as though it's got life as I move into the autumn and the winter months.
It feels as though this is something for me to explore and be present to as an older woman.
Something awakening within me wants to be expressed through ritual and I'd be ever so curious about the rituals that you have in your life and I know some of you have morning rituals or particular rituals that you explore and bring you back to a place of connection and love.
Let me know what they are.
And of course,
Don't forget to join me again tomorrow for another five minutes in nature.
