Speaker 1: Creativity is an addiction, unplugged because we will always say
yes to creativity, totally uncut because we all make mistakes.
So turn it into a tool. This is arrow unplugged.
I write in a forest. I go there to listen.
What started at the Billigram Library in twenty fifteen in Charlotte,
North Carolina has evolved into a lifelong commitment and journey.
Something is always moving through each and every one of us.
I say it's a calling. These aren't my words. These
are the lyrics from Billy's Forest, chapter number three hundred
thirty six. October two, twenty twenty two, the week of
Hurricane Ian. Although this tiny forest didn't take a full
head on punch, the tropical side of Ian did its
fair share of ripping leaves off the trees and dropping
the weak limbs to the anxious awaiting ground below, waiting
to devour each in every limb. The days after Ian,
I stood on the forest floor, looking upward at the
top of the trees, assessing all things connected. For in life,
the stories of past storms tend to unearth in future
times of struggle and change. I can't predict which tree
might be the next to fall to the earth after
a moment of nature taking its toll, I'm able to
study areas that may invite a different experience at a
later time. Our personal lives are no different. How we
act and react in public gatherings is no different than
trees in a forest. It doesn't have to be on
a mountain side, and you don't have to be at
a festival. The stories that made you can physically break you.
The stories that made you can physically break you. One
great example of that is how we like to grip
what we think we should have become and we never
let it go. And everything that we evolve into after
that dream falling apart was poisoned because the stories that
we carried with us broke us. We wouldn't officially turn
ourselves free into a newer field. You know. We've always
heard those stories where they take a horse or a bull,
or even a dog and they set them free in
an open field, a new field where they can just
kind of just take it easy in life. But we
don't want to be that generation of people where when
we get older, it's not that we want to take
it easy, we just want to be free. But the
strangest thing about being free as you get older, is
that it opens up your life? Yes, but then you
crowded up with little things and now you're back to
where you once were the stress of having to keep
up the stories that break us. That was just one example.
But what about other things in your life? What is
it that you are holding onto in your heart that
refuses to let you become who you need to evolve into.
I'm always reminded of Yoda in Star Wars, an ancient
man with so many wise lessons in life. It didn't
come to him being somebody who serves food at a restaurant.
He didn't become wise in his generations because he chose
to be Well, I'm going to be a fighter, and
I'm going to stay a fighter, and I'm always going
to be a fighter. It's like broadcasting. I always call
myself a broadcaster of forty four years. But broadcasting is
not podcasting yet my heart is telling me, yes it is,
Yes it is, you're still broadcasting. No, let it go,
Let it go. What are the labels that you're carrying
with you that are costing you time? It's breaking You
have the talk with yourself, ask the question, question the answers,
and then set yourself free, start living your life. Stop
living your past. I Maril, these are not my words.
These are the lyrics from Billy's Forest