1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:03,399
Hey, thanks for being a part
of the conversation. This is Forest Stories.

2
00:00:04,120 --> 00:00:07,080
I am the Poet in the Forest, a children's series that I pinned

3
00:00:07,120 --> 00:00:10,119
out in the nineteen nineties. Now, none of it would be possible if

4
00:00:10,119 --> 00:00:13,480
it wasn't for this forest right here
in South Charlotte, North Carolina. I

5
00:00:13,519 --> 00:00:17,480
talk about it so much that I
thought, maybe it's time that you get

6
00:00:17,480 --> 00:00:23,079
to know what has inspired me for
thirty years. Thanks for being a part

7
00:00:23,480 --> 00:00:27,039
of the conversation. Welcome back to
the forest. I just wrapped up a

8
00:00:27,239 --> 00:00:32,799
lengthy walk through all of the trees
with its multiple colors of fall. I

9
00:00:32,880 --> 00:00:37,520
take a transition walk because things from
this forest move through me. I've allowed

10
00:00:37,520 --> 00:00:41,799
that to be my peace filled walk, my intention to allow this forest in

11
00:00:41,799 --> 00:00:45,200
South Charlotte, North Carolina to have
a voice. In fact, while on

12
00:00:45,240 --> 00:00:49,479
this transition walk, it occurred to
me as the leaves were falling from the

13
00:00:49,520 --> 00:00:54,079
trees onto the ground, I reminded
myself that so many of us think of

14
00:00:54,119 --> 00:00:58,520
that as being a negative, when
in fact it's not a negative. Especially

15
00:00:58,600 --> 00:01:03,759
when space X today sent up their
second biggest rocket of all time, and

16
00:01:03,880 --> 00:01:07,799
although it did get off its path
and they had to destroy it, nobody

17
00:01:07,840 --> 00:01:10,920
at SpaceX saw that as a failure. They said that, hey, look

18
00:01:10,959 --> 00:01:14,840
we're going to take the data and
we're going to create a better ship.

19
00:01:15,359 --> 00:01:18,799
But that's what I love about this
force is that as you're walking through it,

20
00:01:19,120 --> 00:01:22,719
allowing the rays of the sun to
speak directly into your mind, body,

21
00:01:22,760 --> 00:01:26,799
and soul, you receive things such
as looking at your life as being

22
00:01:26,879 --> 00:01:32,640
a failure, look at it as
being collecting information to make yourself stronger and

23
00:01:32,760 --> 00:01:37,879
better than before. Upon my arrival
home, I'm sitting on the porch overlooking

24
00:01:37,920 --> 00:01:42,400
the front part of the forest.
This is the very area that for nearly

25
00:01:42,519 --> 00:01:46,959
three years, my wife and I
sat out here almost every single day,

26
00:01:47,680 --> 00:01:53,159
sharing breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and playing endless games on Zoom with

27
00:01:53,239 --> 00:01:57,319
people around the world. The time
period I'm talking about is during the COVID

28
00:01:57,439 --> 00:02:01,280
nineteen lockdown. This was our play
of escape. We couldn't run about the

29
00:02:01,280 --> 00:02:07,079
world, but in this forest,
the world spoke to us. So sitting

30
00:02:07,159 --> 00:02:10,719
at this table after a transition walk, I'm reminded of those moments where my

31
00:02:10,759 --> 00:02:15,080
wife and I saw the world falling
apart, but we never reacted in a

32
00:02:15,120 --> 00:02:22,080
way that it was falling apart.
We created an atmosphere of peace, and

33
00:02:22,159 --> 00:02:27,360
it's due one hundred percent to this
beautiful forest. Sitting at this table is

34
00:02:27,560 --> 00:02:31,280
just as important as any other story
on forest stories, and the reason why

35
00:02:31,479 --> 00:02:36,960
is because we allow these trees to
have a voice. In fact, I

36
00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:40,599
spoke about that in my daily writing
today. Do trees come with words?

37
00:02:42,080 --> 00:02:45,960
I searched high and low for an
answer on that on Google, couldn't find

38
00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:50,800
anything. But instead of looking at
myself as being a failure falling from the

39
00:02:50,879 --> 00:02:54,520
tree to the ground below, I
took a different kind of growth and that

40
00:02:54,800 --> 00:03:00,319
was the words that I placed on
a page came from a g tree.

41
00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:06,719
So when I said that words come
from trees, I feel witnessed to it

42
00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:12,719
on the page before me. It
all grows from this beautiful forest. Hey,

43
00:03:12,719 --> 00:03:14,360
thanks for being a part of the
conversation.