Luna’s Legacy = Julia Butterfly
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Julia Butterfly Hill has been a hero of mine for years and years. I am blessed to say she is a friend and hopefully we will have an interview from her soon, but until then here is a little Spirit about her:
For 738 days Julia Butterfly Hill lived in the canopy of an ancient redwood tree, called Luna, to help make the world aware of the plight of ancient forests. Her courageous act of civil disobedience gained international attention for the redwoods as well as other environmental and social justice issues and is chronicled in her book The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods.
Julia, with the great help of steelworkers and environmentalists, successfully negotiated to permanently protect the 1,000 year-old tree and a nearly three- acre buffer zone. Her two-year vigil informed the public that only 3% of the ancient redwood forests remain.
Today Julia works tirelessly spreading the message and educating people on how to save our Mother. You can learn more on her web site:
The Story: The Garden
I first met Julia at a woman’s conference in Woodstock over eight years ago. Her passion and charisma were so magnetic that the auditorium filled audience stood transfixed by her.
She spoke about how crucial it was to start finding social solutions for preserving our planet. A few years later I reconnected with Julia again when I was demonstrating against the shut down of the South Central Farm. She was camping out for weeks in one of the trees on the farm. I brought my children for a few of the sit ins, and they were able to appreciate the beauty and serenity of the farm before it was bull dozed down by developer Ralph Horowitz. The South Central farm was the largest urban community farm in the United States. The 14 acre oasis was a sanctuary to many of the urban dwellers in South Central. It was breathtaking to see an arial shot of the farm, for one really got to sense of how the flash of green gave life to an other wise dead, grey, concrete wasteland of warehouses. What is so tragic is that today the lot is still empty. It proves Horowitz was hell bent on erasing the oasis just to prove he could.
Recently I showed my older daughter Colette the documentary on the farm called The Garden. At the end of the film she was crying. Perhaps she was affected because she remembers being there. Perhaps she remembers one particular afternoon when we visited Julia in the tree, and we were given fresh squeezed watermelon juice and sweet corn on the cob grown by the Latin community there. I suppose we have to just march along and fight the good fight even when we lose a battle here and there. For every Ralph Horowitz out in the world, there is also a Julia Butterfly!
HD Thoreau lives on with Ms Julia Butterfly Hill. The redwoods, like all trees, are essential for our survival and the endurance of earth. While living in the Pacific Northwest I grew to understand and love the beauty of the rain forest: their majesty, their fragility, their might, their meekness. In nature we find our souls and can, even, hear it: it is in the breath of an eagle and the beauty of the dawn and the mist and that moment when they entwine and all around are trees of green and the sound of the eagle soaring. Thank you, Shiva Rose.