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Speaker 1: Ernie is my Blue Crown conyer. For over thirty two

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years he has overlooked this forest in South Charlotte, North Carolina.

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I mean every day Ernie sits in his beautiful home,

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overlooking the trees, the nearby lake, and every bit of

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the wildlife strolling peacefully on the forest floor. Ernie and

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I we share the same vision. It's this forest. We

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both look into the trees and study the earth below.

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There's something very spiritual here the lyrics to Ernie's Forest.

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We both receive an amazing amount of energy. I put

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all my trust and skills as a student into what

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he is willing to share with me. These aren't my words,

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these are the lyrics from Ernie's Forest, chapter number four

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hundred and fifteen, February twenty fourth, twenty twenty four. During

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my thirty two years with this very small collection of trees,

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I've never experienced such a storm. We've had our share

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of high winds and snow, but the out of controlled

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downpour from several weeks ago has left a huge scar

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in the forest, so much so the flow of the

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stream has completely changed as it makes its way toward

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the lake. Gone is the area that I was once

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called to form my daily prayer and or meditation. I

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called it my sacred circle. I can't tell you how

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many times I was visited by turtles, squirrels, rabbits, hawks,

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and even deer, And maybe its presence of not being

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there is every reason for me to be there, to

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know the land is still blessed with a universal image

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that has changed, but it doesn't mean the end of

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the story. So many scars inside this forest, trees that

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have fallen, and a hillside that took the hit, but

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it seems lost and almost afraid of the next approaching

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spring storm. As a spiritualist, my calling is to go

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into this forest and listen, just listen, And I challenge

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you to do the same thing. There are areas in

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your personal life that you know give you a story,

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but are you documenting that story or preserving it in

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your moment of now which will be forgotten? Because that's

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what we do as human beings. We go through things

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only to rewrite those things, and we rewrite them again

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and again and again forgetting about Well, this is who

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it was. I was just recently with Angelo eller b

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and that's one of the subjects that we talked about.

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I said, are you writing your stuff down? And he goes, well,

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I'm forgetting a lot of it. And that's exactly what

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we're talking about right here. You're forgetting a lot of it.

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Taking the time each day ten or fifteen minutes just

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to jot down a personal experience. Your mind, body, and

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soul will love you ten years from now, fifteen years

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from now. But here's even the bigger picture. Your loved

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ones two three generations away. When they find your writing

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and they see your experiences, they will love you in ways.

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Because I've got nothing from my parents, I've got nothing

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from my grandparents, but my grandchildren, with their grandchildren, will

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have my daily writing. And that's what this is all

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about the experiences. I did forget about this big storm

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that happened on February twenty fourth, two thousand twenty four.

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I forgot about it until we revisited it today. And

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today I will go out into that forest and see

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how the forest has embraced change. My marril, these are

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not my words. These are the lyrics from Ernie's Forest