Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott.
Oh it's a bit blowy and cool today.
I'm just looking across the moorland here.
I'm up on Dartmoor which is right on my doorstep.
I walk up to it from my home and just ahead of me I can see there's three ponies,
Dartmoor ponies.
So these are semi-wild horses that live up here on Dartmoor and they are just having a little bit of a nose and a prance around with each other.
It's really lovely to see and you know today is a reflection on slowing down.
It's something I come back to so much.
For me it feels really important in my world and life and I was talking to my friend today about this.
We were recording a podcast and we were reflecting on this whole idea of slowing down and when I walked my pilgrimage last year that was something that kept coming back to me.
Almost like if you hear a piece of music and you hear a chorus that keeps you keep coming back to the chorus in a piece of music well that's what it was like with me on my pilgrimage.
I kept coming back to this sense of wanting to,
Needing to,
Being reminded to slow down.
And something happens when we slow down or at least it happens for me.
When I slow down I feel myself more present to life,
To people and to the land.
That's probably what I would say in simple terms.
When I slow down I become more present and there are huge gifts with being present.
When I feel that sense of presence I feel nourished.
I feel a quiet joy bubble within me and even bubble sounds a little bit energetic.
It sort of just vibrates gently within me.
A contentment of being in life.
So today is a reminder to slow down and what that might look like for you in your life.
Just reflect on that for you.
What does slowing down mean for you?
Again when I was walking the pilgrimage slowing down for me was this delicious sense of going through life at the pace that I was designed to which was a walking pace.
That's what my legs are designed for and I remember going to these sacred places.
Sometimes they were stone circles or stone rows or rocks or holy wells or churches.
And as I made my way,
Let's just say I was making my way to a church,
I had this delicious sense in the miles and the time leading up to reaching the church of imagining and anticipating what it was going to be like.
And then more often than not I would catch sight of the church tower just before I reached it and I'd feel a sense of welling excitement.
Like I'm just about to go and meet a bit like when I'm about to meet a friend maybe or someone I haven't seen for a while.
That excitement of like oh I'm nearly there.
And then I went in and I spent time in the churches.
I sat in them.
I gave myself time to reflect and just to be present.
And then eventually I'd close the door behind me and walk away from the church and I would savour the memory of that experience with the church for the next hour and the miles that I walked on.
And there was something so wonderful about the slowness of coming to somewhere to reach it to greet it and then the goodbye and the letting go.
It felt so nourishing to be doing that at this particular pace.
So my request to you is to reflect on slowing down and what it means for you.
We often fill our lives with things that mean we can do more stuff whether it's things we do on the computer.
That's me.
I'm very guilty of that.
Of engaging with AI or sending out emails and in a flurry or whizzing through my tasks of cooking or not really being truly grateful for the food that I'm able to put on the table.
And when I do that when I'm not present then it feels as though I'm missing something.
I'm losing something.
I'm missing a connection with life.
Anyway I'd love to know your reflections on slowing down and what it might mean for you.
What happens when you slow down?
What does slowing down mean for you?
And I look forward to connecting again with you tomorrow for another Five Minutes in Nature.
