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Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation. This

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is for stories. I am the Poet in the Forest,

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a children's series that I pinned out in the nineteen nineties. Now,

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none of it would be possible if it wasn't for

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this forest right here in South Charlotte, North Carolina. I

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talk about it so much that I thought maybe it's

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time that you get to know what has inspired me

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for thirty years. Thanks for being a part of the conversation. Hey,

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thanks for coming back to the forest. The prayer stick.

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It's been with me since nineteen ninety three. Articles from

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this forest, particles from the universe, the spiritual feeling, as

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well as learning from everything that these trees have shared

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with me these many, many decades. The prayer stick. What

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happened was I was walking through the forest and I

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saw this stick. Most people would walk by and think, Ah,

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that's just a fallen branch. No, I felt something. It

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spoke to me, and it not only invited me to

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pick it up, but it invited me to listen to it.

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So I kept walking through the forest and one by

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one I would pick up these little particles and articles

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of items, and I would say, this is going to

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be part of the prayer stick, and so I found

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very creative ways to connect them to the stick, which

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still sits with me every single day inside the podcast studio.

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So what was it used for, right, Well, my sacred circle,

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which is next to or was next to the slow

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moving stream. We had that big storm last year and

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it totally wiped out the area where I would go

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in and meditate and I would pray, and I would

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take the prayer stick with me to open up the

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four different gates north, south, east, and west. Now, sit

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down and just listen, to feel, to be guided by,

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to become part of That's what the prayer stick was

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all about. Now, why did I walk away from using

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the prayer stick inside the sacred circle? Well, a number one.

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The area doesn't exist anymore because the water washed it

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all away. But I stopped going out into the force

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long before that, because, like anything else that's aging, things

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begin to thin out. Every time that I would step

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into the sacred circle and raise my arms with the

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prayer stick, people saw me and they started asking a

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lot of questions and I would share with them my

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spirituality that connected to Native American spirituality, the great mystery,

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the sky, the universe, and then they would question me

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as in judging me. Well, that's not a normal way

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to live, that's not a great way to do different things.

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You know, why don't you just get into a real

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religious group and study the one word. You know, it

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doesn't work that way, right. We all are very spiritual

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in our own walk and way. But the prayer stick

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is still with me. It's in the studio every single day.

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Everything that has created it and that I picked up

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that day inside the forest is still making it one

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single set of energy. I trust it, I have faith,

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I have a hope. Sure thou shalt not have false idols.

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It's not an idol. It's a prayer stick. Hey, thanks

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for being a part of the conversation.