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Speaker 1: Creativity is an addiction. We need it. We crave others

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to make sure that they release their creativity. If they don't,

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then it's like, oh my god, what's happened to us?

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We once had? But what happens when people want our creativity?

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Then it's more like, what do you want from me?

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I'm doing the best I can, unplugged because we will

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always say yes to creativity, totally uncut, because we all

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make mistakes. So turn it into a tool. This is

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arrow unplugged. I write in a forest. I go into

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that forest to do nothing but listen. What started at

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the Billigraham Library in twenty fifteen, right here in Charlotte,

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North Carolina, has evolved into a lifelong commitment and journey.

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There's always something moving through each and every one of us.

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It's our calling. These aren't my words. These are the

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lyrics from Billy's Forest, chapter number three hundred twenty eight,

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August thirteenth, twenty twenty two. In this very book that

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which I plant thought, there are four different years featured,

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So for the second week of August in two thousand, nineteen,

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twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, and now twenty twenty two,

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I read about the compassion of this forest during these

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four separate years. It widens the heart in the way

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of accepting and not thinking that all things shaped are

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bent out of shape and or are weird. Four separate

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years so far, and this journal is far from being full.

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The forest is presently to my right, its leaves lit

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up by the rising rays of a star. With no guarantee.

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This has to be the summer of one hundred plus degrees.

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There's so much climate change around us. I mean in

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the UK right now, apples are frying while they're still

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on the tree. As a writer who sits in this forest,

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what would that sound like, the fruit as it's sizzling.

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How does the rest of the animal kingdom react to

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such sights and sounds? We're seeing so much change with

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our everyday trees. By the time that this journal is complete, well,

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the tree pase still be speaking with me. It was

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a hot summer last year, and as we're presently in

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this moment of now, which is twenty twenty three, it

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could easily become a different kind of year. Because on

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this day, this particular day, which is March fifteenth, twenty

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twenty three, it's twenty seven degrees We're far, far far

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away from that one hundred plus degrees. But the focus

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here today is on the sizzling of the fruit on

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the trees. Oh, we've heard the stories about the Forbidden

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Garden and what happened after that, But let's put this

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in modern day terms and lessons learned. Trees that really

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feature sizzling apples in the UK? What must that sound like?

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Taking the time to listen to the atmosphere around each

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and every one of us is a valuable lesson that

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we need to hold onto every day, to make it

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a daily discipline to take to fifteen minutes a day

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to do nothing but listen to hear the calling of

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the atmosphere to be present in the universe. This has

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nothing to do with religion. It has everything to do

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with we're all on this planet together, and what do

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the fruit here? In our hot times? Are we sizzling

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as well? Look at the gleam of the sweat on

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your arms, on your eyebrows. What does our body sound

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like on one hundred degree day versus the twenty seven

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degree day I've got right now? Can the other animals

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inside the kingdom hear me shivering? They hear me complaining,

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because oh boy, when you're out here in this forest

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and it's that chili with a damn ground, it's like,

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oh okay, just embrace it. Feel the moment. What am

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I here to learn? Let me understand it, and then

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let me go home and write about it. Give yourself

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enough space five to fifteen minutes to just listen. It

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will change your way of walking. I'm Merril. These aren't

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my words. These are the lyrics from Billy's Forest