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Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation. This

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Speaker 1: is Forest Stories. I am the Poet in the Forest,

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Speaker 1: a children's series that I pinned out in the nineteen nineties. Now,

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Speaker 1: none of it would be possible if it wasn't for

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Speaker 1: this forest right here in South Arlotte, North Carolina. I

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Speaker 1: talk about it so much that I thought maybe it's

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Speaker 1: time that you get to know what has inspired me

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Speaker 1: for thirty years. Thanks for being a part of the conversation.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the forest. Strange day today inside the forest,

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Speaker 1: as I looked up, I took note of the tree

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Speaker 1: being sick, not just one, but many. And it seems

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Speaker 1: like throughout this forest there's a lot of trees that

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Speaker 1: are quite sick. It's not acid rain like I assume

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Speaker 1: back in the nineteen nineties. There's just something changing inside

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Speaker 1: the soil as well as the trees. For me, I

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Speaker 1: go and I sit beside the tree. I don't talk,

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Speaker 1: I just listen. I listened to find out if the

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Speaker 1: trunk is squeaking on the inside. I look up at

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Speaker 1: the leaves if I'm lucky they're there. But when we

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Speaker 1: have a sick tree, you don't know what's really going

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Speaker 1: to be up there, and today it's just one of

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Speaker 1: those days where I've got two sick trees. And part

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Speaker 1: of that relationship with the tree is is that I

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Speaker 1: have to ask it, can I help free you from

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Speaker 1: the soil? Can I help bring what you have back

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Speaker 1: into the soil in a different way, a transition of

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Speaker 1: energy for future trees. I've sat in the house a

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Speaker 1: very long time today because spiritually it hurts me deeply

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Speaker 1: to know that I'm going to go cut down two trees,

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Speaker 1: two trees that have been with me for fifteen twenty years.

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Speaker 1: But they don't look good. They look very unhealthy, and

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Speaker 1: the way that they're basically losing all of their branches

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Speaker 1: is also very unhealthy for us down below because during

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Speaker 1: these southern windstorms, there's a lot of damage that's done.

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Speaker 1: So when a tree is sick, especially one in this forest,

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Speaker 1: you just don't go out there and cut it. It's

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Speaker 1: a spiritual walk. It's asking that question, can I free

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Speaker 1: you from the soil and give you back in a

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Speaker 1: different form of energy. And both trees, they didn't argue,

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Speaker 1: They served their time. They provided the shade and protection

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Speaker 1: from the cold winters we had. Asking a tree if

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Speaker 1: it's okay to set them free and thanks for being

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Speaker 1: a part of the conversation