Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott and every day in January I'm bringing you out as I go walking so we can spend five minutes together in nature listening into the wisdom of nature.
I live on the edge of Dartmoor it's a moorland in the southwest of England and today I've climbed up onto the moors and followed the stream the Ludbroke right to its head.
So the Ludbroke runs quite close beside our house and when it gushes down as a stream particularly at this time of year it's energized and quite full.
You can easily walk across it if you've got wellington boots on so it's not a big river but it is a lovely cold crystal clear Dartmoor stream and walking up to the head means that as you walk up beside the stream it gets smaller and smaller until where I am right at the moment it completely disappears and there's a bit of a dip in the ground and I can see the grasses pushing up through the snow there's still snow on the ground at the moment which indicate a very very boggy area and I know that probably if I was to walk down in that area with all the tufty grass despite it being quite cold underfoot and probably a bit icy underfoot it would be incredibly boggy there and this is the source of the Lud this is where the Ludbroke rises on Dartmoor about a mile and a half from my home so I've been walking for probably about 45 minutes to an hour I'm just taking it nice and slow.
What I'm reflecting on as I stand here overlooking what you wouldn't even know it was the head of anything unless you'd followed it up but overlooking this this boggy marshy area I know that this is the source of the stream where I'm standing just above it at the moment this is where the water rises and it rises and it becomes a trickle and then it becomes a stream that rushes down the hillside and eventually meets the River Urne and I love it here because there is nothing to see it's almost not very spectacular when you say to someone you're coming to see the source of a stream you might expect something a bit more dramatic than this and there isn't much to see but this is the source and one of the things I find most moving and touching and satisfying is when I bring my attention to the source in my life the the nub and essence of the energy behind life too often we get caught up in the thoughts and the perceptions and the circumstances and the stories the identities of who we are and who we're not too often we expend a lot of energy in our world and lives trying to look better be better be successful do the right thing and as we get ourselves lost in the gushing waters of the Ludbrook what we forget is that there is a source a beginning it's not even really a beginning because it's ever present it's there is no beginning there is no end and I find this really quite challenging to articulate because for me it is a deep deeply felt sensed feeling of coming back to source and when I talk to people clients or people or friends it's very rare that I talk about this because for me it feels very sacred it's a sacred place to contemplate to contemplate and be curious and to reflect on the source of me not the source of me Liz the self with all her personality and characteristics and and traits in the world I'm not talking about that and there's nothing wrong in focusing on that it's just that what is beyond that what is the power behind Liz what is the essence behind Liz what is the essence behind you the power the energy the life force the source in your life I find that when I place my attention on source I feel as though I am coming home coming to the deeper truth of who I am I don't know if I've really explained that very well but I just wanted to attempt to encourage you to come back to source bring your awareness back to that place within you seek it out and be present to that which is within you but is not you the little you it is the energy and connection behind everything so today's reflection is be curious about the source in your life and come back to who you truly are
