Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott.
And every day in January I'm taking you outside on a walk and I just see what wisdom I can hear from nature.
And today I'm in Exeter,
I'm still looking after my mum and every morning I go for a walk and because I'm in a city centre I walk along the river and up by the cathedral and that's where I am now,
By the cathedral.
Exeter Cathedral is hundreds of years old,
I would guess about 800 years old at least and it's a very substantial,
It's like a huge church with white yellowy stonework,
A very substantial building.
There are two distinct towers and it stands on what's called the cathedral green so there's a little bit of grass which is where I am at the moment and the grass and trees are then surrounded by a ring of houses and businesses and shops and some of these houses I've got to say are super old,
I mean they must be hundreds of years old themselves but the city centre,
This is when I come to Exeter,
If I come on a shopping trip I always come to this place here in the city centre to the cathedral green because there is a little bit of a sense of peace and calm about it even though it will get very busy very soon with people.
And I'm here because I want to reflect on the core of who people truly are and that's what came to me as I was walking here today.
And let me explain,
The cathedral,
It's hundreds of years old and it no doubt was built on something that was there before and so when you look around here at this city centre it's it's actually just built on layers and layers of history.
I'm just trying to imagine what this would have been like before any buildings,
Before any man-made marks were made here.
Just what would this landscape have been like?
I can't really imagine it in my mind's eye,
I don't have that capacity but what I do is I kind of go into my soul,
My heart centre and I just reflect and feel,
Feel the land,
Feel the land that was here and I'm assuming because these places were not built haphazardly and this would have been built as a as a place of worship that there would be a place of worship here before.
This where I'm standing would have been a sacred holy space for hundreds,
Thousands of years and as I settle into that I feel it,
I just feel that within me and I'm drawn to reflect and my request is that you do this too,
Is that there is the difference between seeing what's in front of us when we come to other people and actually seeing beyond that.
So here I am standing in front of the cathedral and seeing this very grand piece of architecture but I'm looking beyond that,
Looking within to feel the sacredness of the land and I'm feeling as I'm speaking to you now,
I'm just allowing that connection and communication with the land and that's really what I endeavour to do with people,
Is to see beyond whatever personality or characteristics they show and just be present to a space beyond that,
That's deeper than that,
To who they truly,
Truly are.
So my request to you today is with the people that you come across,
See beyond what they're showing you,
See if you can feel the call that's deep within them.
And the same when you go to places on the land,
If you go to somewhere that feels sacred or holy or maybe it's got a sacred or holy building on it,
Just be present to the land and feel the space and feel what would have called that building to have been put there,
See beyond what you can see,
That's what nature is calling me to do today.
