Speaker 1: Creativity is an addiction. We need it. We crave others
to make sure that they release their creativity. If they don't,
then it's like, oh my god, what's happened to us?
We once had? But what happens when people want our creativity?
Then it's more like, what do you want from me?
I'm doing the best I can, 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 into
that forest to do nothing but listen. What started at
the Billigraham Library in twenty fifteen, right here in Charlotte,
North Carolina, has evolved into a lifelong commitment and journey.
There's always something moving through each and every one of us.
It's our calling. These aren't my words. These are the
lyrics from Billy's Forest, chapter number three hundred twenty eight,
August thirteenth, twenty twenty two. In this very book that
which I plant thought, there are four different years featured,
So for the second week of August in two thousand, nineteen,
twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, and now twenty twenty two,
I read about the compassion of this forest during these
four separate years. It widens the heart in the way
of accepting and not thinking that all things shaped are
bent out of shape and or are weird. Four separate
years so far, and this journal is far from being full.
The forest is presently to my right, its leaves lit
up by the rising rays of a star. With no guarantee.
This has to be the summer of one hundred plus degrees.
There's so much climate change around us. I mean in
the UK right now, apples are frying while they're still
on the tree. As a writer who sits in this forest,
what would that sound like, the fruit as it's sizzling.
How does the rest of the animal kingdom react to
such sights and sounds? We're seeing so much change with
our everyday trees. By the time that this journal is complete, well,
the tree pase still be speaking with me. It was
a hot summer last year, and as we're presently in
this moment of now, which is twenty twenty three, it
could easily become a different kind of year. Because on
this day, this particular day, which is March fifteenth, twenty
twenty three, it's twenty seven degrees We're far, far far
away from that one hundred plus degrees. But the focus
here today is on the sizzling of the fruit on
the trees. Oh, we've heard the stories about the Forbidden
Garden and what happened after that, But let's put this
in modern day terms and lessons learned. Trees that really
feature sizzling apples in the UK? What must that sound like?
Taking the time to listen to the atmosphere around each
and every one of us is a valuable lesson that
we need to hold onto every day, to make it
a daily discipline to take to fifteen minutes a day
to do nothing but listen to hear the calling of
the atmosphere to be present in the universe. This has
nothing to do with religion. It has everything to do
with we're all on this planet together, and what do
the fruit here? In our hot times? Are we sizzling
as well? Look at the gleam of the sweat on
your arms, on your eyebrows. What does our body sound
like on one hundred degree day versus the twenty seven
degree day I've got right now? Can the other animals
inside the kingdom hear me shivering? They hear me complaining,
because oh boy, when you're out here in this forest
and it's that chili with a damn ground, it's like,
oh okay, just embrace it. Feel the moment. What am
I here to learn? Let me understand it, and then
let me go home and write about it. Give yourself
enough space five to fifteen minutes to just listen. It
will change your way of walking. I'm Merril. These aren't
my words. These are the lyrics from Billy's Forest