Speaker 1: Ernie is my Blue Crown conyer. For over thirty two
years he has overlooked this forest in South Charlotte, North Carolina.
I mean every day Ernie sits in his beautiful home,
overlooking the trees, the nearby lake, and every bit of
the wildlife strolling peacefully on the forest floor. Ernie and
I we share the same vision. It's this forest. We
both look into the trees and study the earth below.
There's something very spiritual here the lyrics to Ernie's Forest.
We both receive an amazing amount of energy. I put
all my trust and skills as a student into what
he is willing to share with me. These aren't my words,
these are the lyrics from Ernie's Forest, chapter number four
hundred and fifteen, February twenty fourth, twenty twenty four. During
my thirty two years with this very small collection of trees,
I've never experienced such a storm. We've had our share
of high winds and snow, but the out of controlled
downpour from several weeks ago has left a huge scar
in the forest, so much so the flow of the
stream has completely changed as it makes its way toward
the lake. Gone is the area that I was once
called to form my daily prayer and or meditation. I
called it my sacred circle. I can't tell you how
many times I was visited by turtles, squirrels, rabbits, hawks,
and even deer, And maybe its presence of not being
there is every reason for me to be there, to
know the land is still blessed with a universal image
that has changed, but it doesn't mean the end of
the story. So many scars inside this forest, trees that
have fallen, and a hillside that took the hit, but
it seems lost and almost afraid of the next approaching
spring storm. As a spiritualist, my calling is to go
into this forest and listen, just listen, And I challenge
you to do the same thing. There are areas in
your personal life that you know give you a story,
but are you documenting that story or preserving it in
your moment of now which will be forgotten? Because that's
what we do as human beings. We go through things
only to rewrite those things, and we rewrite them again
and again and again forgetting about Well, this is who
it was. I was just recently with Angelo eller b
and that's one of the subjects that we talked about.
I said, are you writing your stuff down? And he goes, well,
I'm forgetting a lot of it. And that's exactly what
we're talking about right here. You're forgetting a lot of it.
Taking the time each day ten or fifteen minutes just
to jot down a personal experience. Your mind, body, and
soul will love you ten years from now, fifteen years
from now. But here's even the bigger picture. Your loved
ones two three generations away. When they find your writing
and they see your experiences, they will love you in ways.
Because I've got nothing from my parents, I've got nothing
from my grandparents, but my grandchildren, with their grandchildren, will
have my daily writing. And that's what this is all
about the experiences. I did forget about this big storm
that happened on February twenty fourth, two thousand twenty four.
I forgot about it until we revisited it today. And
today I will go out into that forest and see
how the forest has embraced change. My marril, these are
not my words. These are the lyrics from Ernie's Forest