Speaker 1: Hey, when it comes to podcasts listening, are you like me?
I mean, it's like television surfing. You're like all over
the place looking for that one thing that you can
add to your moment of now. Be it forest stories,
be it rockstar stories, talking with a chef, whatever you're
looking for. That's what ero dot net is all about.
Arrooe dot net. The searching is over. It's all in
one place. Enjoy the exploration. Hey, thanks for being a
part of the conversation. Welcome to Forest Stories, a series
of short winded adventures within a collection of skyscraping trees,
stuck feet first and Georgia Clay right here in Carolina.
It's been a huge part of my daily journey for
over thirty three years. I Am the Poet in the Forest,
a children's series written and recorded in the nineteen nineties.
It's grown into multiple podcasts that now reach around the world,
and none of it would be possible without this forest
right here in South Charlotte, North Carolina, at the base
of Heartbreak Hills. It's a sign that reads Rainbow Forest. Well,
it's time you get to meet what's inspired several generations
long before the paved paths decorated with colorful homes colonized
around this beautiful lake, slow moving stream, flatland swamps and
array of natural animals. There were families and business owners
who are said to have raced into this area for
the beauty of the land, wild roses, migratory birds, and
wild grapevines. Those before me.
Speaker 2: Either forgot to ride about it or it's buried somewhere
inside their family tree. Hey, thanks for being a part
of the conversation. Welcome back to the forest. Pretty chilly
inside this forest today, so much so you can see
a very very thin layer of ice on the nearby lake,
the creek. Not much water going in that. We haven't
had water in a while when it comes to the
beautiful liquid that falls from the sky.
Speaker 3: But I'm reminded this morning with this chilly temperature mid
forties and a sky that is so gray that it
really wants to tell me, hey, I think there's snow
on the way. I've had thoughts of years past when
it comes to the wintertime months, and the one that
sticks out the most is the crystal forest. The crystal forest.
I was writing in my normal daily place, looked out
the writing window and the entire forest was covered in ice. Yeah,
a freeze rain, an ice storm. Everything was covered in ice.
And I stood there for the longest time in the forest,
and I kept thinking to myself, there is nothing that
I could do as a human being to create this. Sure,
I can still go to Low's home depot, get some
stuff on a can sprayed all over the trees, and
probably do damage to the bugs that we need in
the world. But I didn't do that. I sat there
in that natural wilderness of exploration, staring at the gleams,
the glistens, while listening to the wind as it really
moved through those trees, trees, creating somewhat of a musical instrument.
Because with all that ice on the limbs and the
leafless branches, and on the homes that belonged to the
squirrels that sat so nice and warm up on top,
I could hear music. I could hear something that I
had never ever experienced before. And here we were in
the crystal forest, which in my thirty three years, I've
only seen one time, and it was on that particular day,
during that particular winter storm. And the thing that really
kind of gets inside my soul is the fact that
it does remain not only in my daily writing, but
on a canvas. Being an artist, you can't just let
something like this happen and not rush into your art
room and start using your brushes on a gigantic canvas
to try to capture it. Because I know that my
smartphone wasn't capturing it. It was just showing a bunch
of trees that were covered in ice. But what about
the beauty of the music? Really that sound that you
can't explain and it's never been duplicated. How am I
going to put it on a canvas? And as I,
as the artist, did everything I could to try to
put that music on that canvas, making sure that I
was very choosy with the colors that were laid out
on this canvas. And I'm a finger painter. Sure I'll
use a brush, but I'm a finger painter because I
believe it softens things up. Because even though this was
a crystallized forest from a freeze, rain and or ice storm,
never once did I feel silence. Never once did I
put myself in a situation of, oh man, this is
the worst day of my life because nothing's moving. Oh
it was moving. It was the wind through that ice
on those tree limbs. It was so incredibly natural and
it will never ever happen again, unless unless I am
present in a moment of all things right now. Hey,
thanks for being a part of the conversation.