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Speaker 1: Hey, when it comes to podcasts listening, are you like me?

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I mean, it's like television surfing. You're like all over

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the place looking for that one thing that you can

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add to your moment of now. Be it forest stories,

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be it rockstar stories, talking with a chef, whatever you're

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looking for. That's what ero dot net is all about.

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Arrooe dot net. The searching is over. It's all in

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one place. Enjoy the exploration. Hey, thanks for being a

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part of the conversation. Welcome to Forest Stories, a series

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of short winded adventures within a collection of skyscraping trees,

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stuck feet first and Georgia Clay right here in Carolina.

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It's been a huge part of my daily journey for

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over thirty three years. I Am the Poet in the Forest,

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a children's series written and recorded in the nineteen nineties.

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It's grown into multiple podcasts that now reach around the world,

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and none of it would be possible without this forest

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right here in South Charlotte, North Carolina, at the base

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of Heartbreak Hills. It's a sign that reads Rainbow Forest. Well,

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it's time you get to meet what's inspired several generations

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long before the paved paths decorated with colorful homes colonized

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around this beautiful lake, slow moving stream, flatland swamps and

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array of natural animals. There were families and business owners

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who are said to have raced into this area for

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the beauty of the land, wild roses, migratory birds, and

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wild grapevines. Those before me.

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Speaker 2: Either forgot to ride about it or it's buried somewhere

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inside their family tree. Hey, thanks for being a part

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of the conversation. Welcome back to the forest. Pretty chilly

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inside this forest today, so much so you can see

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a very very thin layer of ice on the nearby lake,

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the creek. Not much water going in that. We haven't

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had water in a while when it comes to the

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beautiful liquid that falls from the sky.

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Speaker 3: But I'm reminded this morning with this chilly temperature mid

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forties and a sky that is so gray that it

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really wants to tell me, hey, I think there's snow

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on the way. I've had thoughts of years past when

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it comes to the wintertime months, and the one that

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sticks out the most is the crystal forest. The crystal forest.

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I was writing in my normal daily place, looked out

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the writing window and the entire forest was covered in ice. Yeah,

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a freeze rain, an ice storm. Everything was covered in ice.

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And I stood there for the longest time in the forest,

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and I kept thinking to myself, there is nothing that

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I could do as a human being to create this. Sure,

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I can still go to Low's home depot, get some

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stuff on a can sprayed all over the trees, and

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probably do damage to the bugs that we need in

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the world. But I didn't do that. I sat there

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in that natural wilderness of exploration, staring at the gleams,

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the glistens, while listening to the wind as it really

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moved through those trees, trees, creating somewhat of a musical instrument.

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Because with all that ice on the limbs and the

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leafless branches, and on the homes that belonged to the

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squirrels that sat so nice and warm up on top,

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I could hear music. I could hear something that I

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had never ever experienced before. And here we were in

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the crystal forest, which in my thirty three years, I've

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only seen one time, and it was on that particular day,

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during that particular winter storm. And the thing that really

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kind of gets inside my soul is the fact that

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it does remain not only in my daily writing, but

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on a canvas. Being an artist, you can't just let

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something like this happen and not rush into your art

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room and start using your brushes on a gigantic canvas

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to try to capture it. Because I know that my

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smartphone wasn't capturing it. It was just showing a bunch

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of trees that were covered in ice. But what about

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the beauty of the music? Really that sound that you

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can't explain and it's never been duplicated. How am I

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going to put it on a canvas? And as I,

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as the artist, did everything I could to try to

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put that music on that canvas, making sure that I

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was very choosy with the colors that were laid out

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on this canvas. And I'm a finger painter. Sure I'll

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use a brush, but I'm a finger painter because I

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believe it softens things up. Because even though this was

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a crystallized forest from a freeze, rain and or ice storm,

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never once did I feel silence. Never once did I

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put myself in a situation of, oh man, this is

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the worst day of my life because nothing's moving. Oh

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it was moving. It was the wind through that ice

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on those tree limbs. It was so incredibly natural and

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it will never ever happen again, unless unless I am

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present in a moment of all things right now. Hey,

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thanks for being a part of the conversation.