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 either forgot to write about
it or it's buried somewhere inside their family tree. Hey,
thanks for being a part of the conversation.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the forest. The dead possum right here
in the center of the forest. I'm not shocked the
temperatures the way that they are. I'm not shocked by
the way that people act and react to the presence
of anything that is in the shape of another animal
besides human form. I can't even take an educated or
uneducated guess as to what has happened to this possum.
I just know that something very dramatic has happened to
a skull, and the blood is still pretty fresh. I
don't know if it was a coyote. I don't know
if it was a hawk or even an owl. I
just know that in the center of this force that
we walk every day, there is a dead possum, and
you know, so many people would go, oh my god,
it's just a dead, ugly animal. Yeah, that's not me,
that's not me at all. I'll go home and do
the research on this and find out, you know, the
importance of the possum in your animal kingdom and your
animal life. Ted Andrews is such a brilliant speaker when
it comes to animals speak and what the presence of
these animals moving through your life actually mean and how
you can enhance your life. It was a game changer
for me back in the nineteen nineties because going into
the studies of tote of animals and the power of
animals in your life is such a positive reflection of
learning how to love all living things. That includes spiders
as well, and mosquitos and pesty flies, those things that
drive us all insane. And yet here I am at
the sport today. It's barely forty degrees the low to
night fifteen degrees, and of course I'm sitting here looking
for every single animal in the sky as well as
the trees, trying to figure out what they're doing to
embrace what it's going to be a severely cold night
only only for a split second to look down at
my feet and there's a dead possum. Did I see
it twenty five or thirty feet away?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: I didn't, No, not until I got on the scene.
And then Jazzy, who takes this transition, walk with me
each and every time she looks at me, looks at
the possum and says, Dad, this is a true crime.
I want to find out who murdered this possum. I'm
with you, Jazzy. I want to find out who murdered
this possum. That is not normal blood, That is not
something that the possum fell out of the tree. You know,
I've never seen a possum in a tree. I've always
seen the possum run around, scamper around on the ground
and run between trees, but not to jump from trees
and or to hang out. But you know, history books
will tell you that that's exactly what possums do, and
that's what they do with they're young, as well as
they cling to them. So Jazzy is on a true
crime scene right now, trying to figure out what happened
to this possum. What were the moments before this possum
took such a blunt hit to the top of the head.
Where did the blood flow in which direction did the
blow come from? We need to get our computer rise
little digital devices out here and try to piece together like.
Speaker 3: They do on CSI and to be able to figure
out what is going on inside that forest. We've got
a murder on our hands, a possum murder.
Speaker 2: I'm back home in the studio and the reason why
I've decided to extend this was because I mentioned the research.
When it comes to animals, speak from Ted Andrews and
other people who believe in the power of the animals
that are around us and how they're in control. And
we're truly not all we are. We are part of
the journey of all living things. But the possum. And
by the way, a possum does not start with a P,
it's an O. And why we don't say a possum
opossum here in the States, I have no idea, but
it's true animal kingdom message for the human which has
no O in front of it, like the opossum. In
order to accomplish whatever you've been striving to achieve, it
will be necessary to stretch yourself a bit further than
what you think you can. The situation you find yourself
in will require that. It'll take a great actor in
that you'll have to exhibit behavior that's the opposite of
what you're actually feeling and thinking. Holy crap, how many
times have we been in a situation like this where
you have to sit there and fake your way, or
as I call it, the candy coated plastic bathroom mere smile.
Here's what they say, though, and this is the message
from the apossum, and that is do some planning and
develop an effective strategy for the object of your concern,
with backup plants in place just in case this doesn't
work out. So you see how that is a walk
through a forest on a very cold day with the
tempierastures dropping down to fifteen degrees above zero. Tonight we
happen to come across the murder victim.
Speaker 3: Done Done, Done, Dune.
Speaker 2: And in doing this true crime story, the goal is
to find out what is the spiritual message.
Speaker 3: Of the possum.
Speaker 2: I know it's O possum, and someone's gonna say that
I'm saying it wrong because the O is silent. Then
why waste all that ink to put it on there?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: What kind of ink Are we wasting on the font anyway?
It's just something to think about that when you come
across these living things around you, no matter where you walk,
at your own forest, learn from it all.
Speaker 3: And that's what this is about.
Speaker 2: Be a better actor, because the things that are changing
around you, they don't need how serious you are in
the heart. Sometimes you just got to be the actor.
Thanks for being a part of the conversation.