Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott.
I'm walking up a damp lane on a beautiful spring day.
It's damp because there's a stream that runs beside it and ever so often the water breaks from the bank and then dribbles down the lane in small little streamlets that I'm paddling through.
But this is a gorgeous beautiful warm spring day and on either side of the lane there are bluebells that are giving a purpley blue haze against the dark green of their leaves.
There are fresh ferns that have unfolded and unfurled.
There's bright yellow celandines that are still holding out contrasting against their deep dark green leaves.
You can probably hear the birds.
The moss on the trees is a wonderful green and the birds are up in the canopy of fresh green leaves just feeding and singing and doing what birds do.
And today I'm taking inspiration from the stream because this stream is ever constant.
This is a lane I walk up so often.
I love it so much.
It's got a dampness about it that really encourages different plants to grow and in the springtime it is awash with colour and greenery.
And the stream helps keep this atmosphere damp and waters the flowers.
And the stream is one of those strange things.
The stream is both ever-changing and constant.
It's constant because it is always there.
The stream is always flowing down.
It's always coming over the moss strewn rocks.
It comes and rises up on Dartmoor and then comes down the hillside and finds its way down towards the rivers and then ultimately the sea.
The stream is constant.
The stream is ever-present.
And yet it also is always changing.
The stream is both ever-present but equally it is never the same.
The intensity of the water will be different depending on the amount of rain and the depth of the stream and the amount of water that's coming off the moors.
The pace of the stream is different on every day.
Its route will slightly change every day.
The stream is one of those strange reminders in life of something being ever-present and eternal and never changing and yet never the same.
Always changing.
Always different.
And for me the message here is to hold lightly that dichotomy,
That contrast that feels as though both cannot be true at the same time and yet both are true.
For me this is about holding the sense of settledness and unsettledness,
Of happiness and sadness,
Of warmth and cold,
Of dry and wet.
Both can be true at the same time and that is what the stream shows me.
And there is something about being human where it is good to be reminded that life is ever-changing.
There is the constant energy of life and creation.
Life is constantly in motion,
Being created and spring is such a great time to witness this with the flowers that grow.
Life is constant.
It is constantly taking shape in the world and equally everything is different.
It takes different forms.
It rises into life and then falls back into death and decay.
Both can be true and for me there is a great freedom in recognising this and the stream is my teacher today that you can have both the changing and unchanging living side by side and existing together.
