Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation. This
Speaker 1: is Forest Stories. I am the Poet in the Forest,
Speaker 1: a children's series that I pinned out in the nineteen nineties. Now,
Speaker 1: none of it would be possible if it wasn't for
Speaker 1: this forest right here in South Arlotte, North Carolina. I
Speaker 1: talk about it so much that I thought maybe it's
Speaker 1: time that you get to know what has inspired me
Speaker 1: for thirty years. Thanks for being a part of the conversation.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the forest. Strange day today inside the forest,
Speaker 1: as I looked up, I took note of the tree
Speaker 1: being sick, not just one, but many. And it seems
Speaker 1: like throughout this forest there's a lot of trees that
Speaker 1: are quite sick. It's not acid rain like I assume
Speaker 1: back in the nineteen nineties. There's just something changing inside
Speaker 1: the soil as well as the trees. For me, I
Speaker 1: go and I sit beside the tree. I don't talk,
Speaker 1: I just listen. I listened to find out if the
Speaker 1: trunk is squeaking on the inside. I look up at
Speaker 1: the leaves if I'm lucky they're there. But when we
Speaker 1: have a sick tree, you don't know what's really going
Speaker 1: to be up there, and today it's just one of
Speaker 1: those days where I've got two sick trees. And part
Speaker 1: of that relationship with the tree is is that I
Speaker 1: have to ask it, can I help free you from
Speaker 1: the soil? Can I help bring what you have back
Speaker 1: into the soil in a different way, a transition of
Speaker 1: energy for future trees. I've sat in the house a
Speaker 1: very long time today because spiritually it hurts me deeply
Speaker 1: to know that I'm going to go cut down two trees,
Speaker 1: two trees that have been with me for fifteen twenty years.
Speaker 1: But they don't look good. They look very unhealthy, and
Speaker 1: the way that they're basically losing all of their branches
Speaker 1: is also very unhealthy for us down below because during
Speaker 1: these southern windstorms, there's a lot of damage that's done.
Speaker 1: So when a tree is sick, especially one in this forest,
Speaker 1: you just don't go out there and cut it. It's
Speaker 1: a spiritual walk. It's asking that question, can I free
Speaker 1: you from the soil and give you back in a
Speaker 1: different form of energy. And both trees, they didn't argue,
Speaker 1: They served their time. They provided the shade and protection
Speaker 1: from the cold winters we had. Asking a tree if
Speaker 1: it's okay to set them free and thanks for being
Speaker 1: a part of the conversation