Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott.
I am actually hunkered in my garage looking out on a wild wet June day.
This is day two of the pilgrimage.
I'm walking a pilgrimage called the Archangel Way along the route in Dartmoor which follows different churches and sites from a place called Brentor to a place called Chagford.
This was supposed to be day two of walking.
We had walked yesterday from Brentor Church to a place called Widgery Cross on Dartmoor.
And today we had a long conversation,
My sister and I,
And realised that the forecast,
The weather,
We were wanting to walk across the high moorland itself.
We just realised that this wasn't the day to do a pilgrimage walk.
And it's been interesting because I'm going to use today as a form of pilgrimage anyway.
And one of the quotes that I read yesterday,
I didn't share with you,
But it really was important for me on the pilgrimage itself.
The quote was around this idea that there is no wrong path except a path taken with regret.
So there's no wrong path in life except a path taken with regret.
And the way that I see that for me is that there is no wrong path in life if you take the path you're on with love.
That's another way of me explaining it to myself.
So whilst today I am not walking a pilgrimage out in the open air,
My intention is to walk the path today with love.
It's not the path I intended.
I thought I was going to be out in nature.
I thought I was going to be striding out across Dartmoor.
I thought I was going to be in the company of my sister.
All of that could lead to a path of regret.
So the pilgrimage,
Even though I'm not walking,
Is teaching me today to be on a path of love and to walk it for me mindfully,
To walk it with stillness in my heart,
To not rush through life.
I see that I'm being given an opportunity.
To have a regular day in life where my temptation is to fill it with busyness.
But to have a regular day in life that has stillness,
That has presence,
That has a feeling of peace at the heart of it.
So I'm seeing this as a day of walking a pilgrimage in regular life and seeing whether I can imbue the spirit of the pilgrimage day to day.
What do you make of that for yourself,
About walking a path in life?
There is no wrong path except the path that we walk with regret.
Does that make sense to you?
Can you see that whatever path you find yourself on is the right path,
It's the path you're on,
And when that path is walked in the presence of love,
Then it is the only path it can be.
And can you also see that whilst you might not be yourself on a walking pilgrimage,
That there is an opportunity to bring the spirit of a pilgrimage into your daily life and to walk in life with a sense of stillness rather than hurrying through life with a sense of busyness and things that you need to do.
That's what I'm doing in my life today.
Walking with stillness,
Walking with love,
Noticing those feelings of regret and disappointment as they arrive,
But not engaging with them,
Allowing them to rise and to fall.
And my hope is that tomorrow I'll be able to resume the actual walking pilgrimage as we walk across Dartmoor on our way towards a place called Bellstone and maybe slightly beyond if the weather is good.
Let me know your reflections on today's theme of walking with love and always being on the right path if you are walking it without regret.
Let me know your reflections on that.
And of course,
Join me again tomorrow where I hope I will be resuming my actual walking pilgrimage.
