Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me,
Liz Scott,
Out and about in my mum's garden in Exeter.
And it's a really lovely time of year.
She's got love-in-the-mist coming out,
She's got ox-eye daisies coming out,
The bees are buzzing around.
She's not able to really look after the garden as she once did,
So a lot of it is just grass now.
But it's always so good just to get out and to enjoy a little bit of greenery in the middle of Exeter.
Thank you.
And today's reflection is on something I saw earlier,
And it's all about what you miss when you go quickly,
What you miss,
What passes you by when you don't make time.
Maybe another way of putting it is,
When you speed up,
What gems do you miss in your life and I've just started laughing because as I said that there was a fox in mum's garden that just ran across the garden and through the hedge and I'm like well if that isn't exactly what I'm talking about now is when you slow down you see things and today as I was walking back to my mum's house there was a little wild patch which had a mixture of these wonderful daisies long grasses and poppies.
And I just paused to have a look at the poppy.
And when I paused to look at the poppy,
I could see there was this wonderful fat bee buzzing around,
Picking up nectar.
And just as I slowed down,
I realized,
Ah,
I saw the bee.
And even now,
You don't know if you can hear in the background the chattering of the magpies.
That's their alarm call.
And because I'm here,
Down talking to you I've realized that Their alarm call is because there's a fox around.
Again,
Because I'm here,
I've slowed down,
I've listened,
I've noticed the bee in the poppy today.
Because I slowed down,
I paused,
I noticed this bee in the poppy.
And this is what happens when we speed up in life.
We miss the magic.
That's what happens,
We miss the magic.
I'm just hearing now,
I don't know if you can hear it,
The chatter of the magpies is reducing.
I think the fox has moved away now.
Things that I just didn't realize were happening around me.
I tune in,
I hear,
And I spot.
It's the same with people.
I tune in and I see things with people that I might miss if I don't just spend a bit of time being with them.
So today is all about that.
Whether you're walking through life,
It's like what is around you that maybe you miss?
When you slow down,
What do you see?
When you're present with people,
What do you experience?
Experience.
There is so much that we rush through life wanting to collect experiences and in doing so we miss that which is already around us.
So today's five minutes in nature is all about that.
It's like being curious,
Being slow.
If you pass a flower,
Pause,
Look at it.
Just see the beauty in that flower.
If you're outside and you listen to the birds birds,
The call of the birds,
Or you take time to be present to somebody that you're with,
That you're listening to.
Allow your mind to slow down and just be with them.
Be with that which exists around you and just see what shows up.
What do you notice that you wouldn't have noticed had you not slowed down and listened or slowed down and looked?
Let me know your reflections.
I really look forward to hearing from you today.
And don't forget to join me again tomorrow for another five minutes in nature.
