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Speaker 1: Creativity is an addiction unplugged because we will always say

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yes to creativity, totally uncut because we all make mistakes.

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So let's turn it into a tool. This is arrow unplugged.

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I am a poet, one that just happens to write

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in a forest. My forest is the rainbow forest right

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here in South Charlotte, North Carolina. When I enter this

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forest or trade agan, I am a poet, one that

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just happens to write in a forest. My forest is

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the rainbow forest right here in South Charlotte, North Carolina.

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When I enter this forest or any other collection of trees,

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I never know what I'm going to write about. These

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aren't my words. These are the lyrics from Rainbow Forest,

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chapter number three hundred sixty six, April twenty nine, twenty

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twenty three. A tree never stops shedding its leaves and branches.

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Oh yeah, the experts say it's the tree's way of

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conserving water. Hormones inside the trees are constantly sending out

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signals to cells. Now I bring this up because my

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forest floor has several fallen branches. To humanize this forest

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floor looks like I'm stealing from the process. I need

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to understand that these fallen leaves and branches during these

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spring months and summer months helps me understand how the

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trees are actually offering energy to the soil holding onto

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their roots. The deer lay inside the large branches, bugs

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eat away getting their nutrients. There's so much nature going

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on that the human's choice should be that of being

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a student. If it looks like a fire danger, of

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course I'm gonna get in there. I'm going to clean

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that out with the right equipment. But now it's a

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garden of sorts, a place of interesting new challenges and

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great stories to be written as well as witnessed. It's

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moving at the pace of nature with a forest that

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has been my partner for thirty two years. We do

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live in this age where everything is just going so quickly.

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I mean, I can't believe that this was written on

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April twenty ninth, twenty twenty three, and the physical date

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where I am right now is March fifteenth toenty twenty four.

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I don't know where you're going to be when you

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pick up on this podcast, but time is moving quickly.

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But to these trees in this forest, I'm not so

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sure that's true, because they love to take their own

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moments and create ways to strengthen up the forest floor,

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because once again, that's where their roots are. That's where

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they get a lot of energy from the soil as

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well as from the rain when it falls from the sky.

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But the journey of a tree is so so at

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its own pace. When we planted seventeen hundred trees in

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this forest in nineteen ninety seven, remember it's now twenty

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twenty four, but when we did it in nineteen ninety seven,

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they were just little six inch seedlings, and today they're

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not skyscraping, but they're beautiful. They provide so much for

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other natural things, such as over here to the left

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side of the forest, we have a hawk's nest this year.

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It is absolutely fantastic to see how they built that

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nest and how they're going to raise another hawk. There's

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nothing wrong with getting your hands off the clock. Learning

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how to embrace a day by its own speed and

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measure gives your heart a little place of rest. Someone

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asked me yesterday at the essential job, do you love

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it when you get really super busy and time flies,

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and I go, you know, I look at it differently.

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I look at it as it's really super busy. I'm

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going to be aware of how busy it is and

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how long the lines are, and I'm not going to say, oh,

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hurry up, let's get this stay over with. I'm going

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to embrace the long distance between starting and finishing, because

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once again, I started writing this on April twenty ninth,

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twenty twenty three. In today's physical date is March fifteenth,

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twenty twenty four. Time flew by that fast. Maybe it's

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time we start looking at life like a tree. Find

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your pace and take your time, and during those times

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drop some leaves and branches and fertilize the soil beneath

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so that your roots have a solid walk. I'm Marilyn.

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These are not my words. These are the lyrics from

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Rainbow Forest.