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Hey, thanks for being a part
of the conversation. This is Forest Stories.

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I'm the Poet in the Forest,
a children's series that I pinned out

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in the nineteen nineties. Now,
none of it would be possible if it

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wasn't for this forest right here in
South Charlotte, North Carolina. I talk

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about it so much that I thought
maybe it's time that you get to know

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what has inspired me for thirty years. Thanks for being a part of the

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conversation. Welcome back to the forest. It's fall time in Carolina. Inside

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this beautiful forest, the most amazing
things are happening during this time of season.

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It's more than just the leaves changing
their colors to bright reds and oranges

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and yellows, but it's the actual
falling of white pine needles. It spreads

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all over the place. It's like
a blanket of white pine that smells so

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incredibly fresh. There's a sharp edge
to the cool breeze that's on this fifty

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one degree day. It kind of
reminds you of Hey, look, this

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is not the end of a season
inside this beautiful four but rather it's a

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place of new birth. Because as
a human being, you see all of

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these changes taking place, and it
serves as an invitation to think a different

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way, to kind of drop things
out of your own personal life. That's

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how this force speaks to me and
has always spoken to me. So when

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I walk through these trees, and
I hope you can hear the wind in

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the background, because the birds are
silent right now, and I think it's

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because they too are listening. The
migrating birds have started to move in and

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with them will come a lot of
clutter. I mean, they like to

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make a lot of noises, and
sometimes I think the screaming crows they tend

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to want to holler back, but
they don't know the language of a crow.

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We in this forest do because we
live with them every day. But

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everything seems so bright and brand new
on a fall day, when so many

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people have always said, well everything
is dying, think of it differently.

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Inside this forest, fall is a
new beginning. Hey, thanks for being

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a part of the conversation.