Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me,
Liz Scott,
Up on Dartmoor with a wonderful freshness in the morning air after days and days of soporific heat.
I've come up to a place called Western Beacon.
It's right on the edge of Dartmoor and the view from here is looking west,
So I'm looking down towards Cornwall,
Down towards Plymouth,
Plymouth Sound,
And extensively seeing a different view than I normally see.
I don't normally climb up this particular hill and I'm just going to stand up.
I'm actually ducking down to try and keep out of the wind.
Hope it's not too blowy for you as you listen to me.
And today I am talking about something I experienced several days ago.
We had in the UK a partial solar eclipse and this meant that 90% of the sun was covered over by the moon and I came up here along with lots of other people from the village,
From Ivy Bridge,
To just be present to witness this happen.
And it was almost like a bit of a festival atmosphere there was almost a bit of laughing and joking and everybody was sitting looking in the same direction looking at the sun we all had these special glasses so that we could see the sun and the moon taking increasingly taking out more and more chunks of it there was this sense of darkness descending as though we were going into the evening the light got very soft and golden and a wind blew up i don't know if i had anything to do with what was going on with the sun and the moon,
But a wind blew up as well.
And we,
Just as a group,
Witnessed the solar eclipse.
It was a partial eclipse,
But it was,
For me,
It was quite moving.
What was really moving was just seeing all these people who had come up to this high point to witness something natural.
There was like a draw in us,
Something deeper had been stirred.
And we came together to see this.
And I'm bringing this up because yesterday I had a conversation with my friend who lives in Spain.
And she was telling me that they were blessed because they had the full solar eclipse.
And she was saying that it was almost a spiritual experience.
And she described everybody that had gathered on the beach,
All looking in the same direction towards the sun and the moon that was covering over the sun.
And she said as the darkness fell,
The moment of darkness when there was a total eclipse for them in Spain,
She said there was this extraordinary hush.
And what struck her was the power of focused attention from human beings at the same point.
Like that focused attention.
It was a powerful experience to be part of.
And then that got me reflecting as she said that.
Obviously,
I shared my experience with her,
But it really got me reflecting on,
Yes,
What is it when people gather together with a single focused attention?
And a quiet mind and a hush because they see something deeply and they are together witnessing that deeper experience.
So of course it was the sun with the solar eclipse but what would it be like?
For me I'm thinking if a group of people came together who deeply knew who they truly were,
Knew where to put their attention,
Knew not to get lost in the thoughts and the stories that crowd into our human minds,
Who knew to bring their attention back to that one focus.
What power might there be amongst a group of people who experience that together?
Wonderful to be back up here on Western Beacon.
I can see Plymouth Sound,
The blue of the water,
In the distance and feel the wonderful coolness of the breeze on my back and remember that time of people coming together for the partial solar eclipse here,
But also being completely struck and enthralled and entranced by that description from my friend in Spain of a group of people with focused tension and the power that seemed to exude from that moment.
Let me know your reflections and of course don't forget to join me again tomorrow for another five minutes in nature.
