It started out as an ordinary average day, what became of that and how the day ended was something of the extra… ordinary.

It had been a warmer than usual summer and we could surely use the rain. The natural rainforest within the southern Blue Ridge Mountains are at their finest when they receive sufficient rainfall even though the unusual summer heat this year had often just sucked the moisture right back up into the atmosphere. The forest looked rather healthy yet the water levels were down a little. read on....

Long before any man ever set foot on the North American Continent, the Black Bear of Northeastern America could often be seen standing upright on its hind legs surveying its territory from horizon to horizon. Masters of their domain, the great Black Bear enjoyed the prosperity of all that the earth had to offer. When the first Native Americans began to appear, they found benefit in revering the Black Bear both as a source of prey and as a spiritual guide. As brothers often do, they disputed over territory. Even with the loss of a bear's life or the life of a native hunter, they chose to live in continual respect of one another, developing a close relationship both in the physical and spiritual world....read on...

Artists are spirit-driven creatures imitating life into art as an external expression of their internal impression.  It’s the nature of this creative spirit that longs to emerge and present itself in the form of natural magic, seeing that which isn’t as though it is, bringing that inspired vision into manifestation. There is an internal craving for creative souls to express themselves in whatever medium inspires them, to share with others a sense of who they are through their art.

Tears of Fairies ...Howdy! I'm Nathanael O. Smith. I've lived in these mountains all my days, wouldn't ever dream of leaving here, my ancestral roots are here to stay. I've been telling tales and hearing tales all my life, its what my family and neighbors have been doing in these parts for generations. Tales about pioneers and the folks that arrived here directly from the "Old World." Some of my fondest tales have been about the Cherokee people, they're really the first mountain people, and they lived here longer than time will tell.

On my twelfth birthday my wise old pappy gave me a special charm he carried everyday of his life. It was a stone of staurolite crystals, or should I say two, two inch long brownish crystals that had crossed through each other. Pappy told me, it was a magical charm, an amulet given to him by a medicine man who once saved his life.