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The Legacy of Luna
by
Julia Butterfly Hill |
Fierce winds ripped huge branches off the thousand-year-old redwood,
sending them crashing to the ground two hundred feet below. The upper
platform, where I lived, rested in branches about one hundred eighty
feet in the air, twenty feet below the very top of the tree, and it
was completely exposed to the storm. There was no ridge to shelter it,
no trees to protect it. There was nothing.
As the tree branches whipped around, they shredded
the tarp that served as my shelter. Sleet and hail
sliced through the tattered pieces of what used to be my
roof and walls. Every new gust flipped the platform up
into the air, threatening to hurl me over the edge.
I was scared. I take that back. I was terrified. As a
child, I experienced a tornado. That time I was scared.
But that was a walk in the park on a sunny Sunday
afternoon compared to this. The awesome power of Mother
Nature had reduced me to a groveling half-wit fighting
fear with a paper fork.
Rigid with terror, I couldn't imagine how clinging to
a tiny wooden platform for dear life could possibly be
part of the answer to the prayer I had sent to Creation
that day on the Lost Coast. I had asked for guidance on
what to do with my life. I had asked for purpose. I had
asked to be of service. But I certainly never figured
that the revelation I sought would involve taking up
residence in a tree that was being torn apart by
nature's fury.
Photo by Shaun Walker/OtterMedia.com
Strangely enough, though, that's how it turned out.
As I write this at the age of twenty-five, I've been
living for more than two years in a
two-hundred-foot-tall ancient redwood located on Pacific
Lumber property. I have survived storms, harassment,
loneliness, and doubt. I have seen the magnificence and
the devastation of a forest older than almost any on
Earth. I live in a tree called Luna. I am trying to save
her life.
Believe me, this is not what I intended to do with my
own.
I suppose if I look back (or down, as the case may
be), my being here isn't all that accidental. I can see
now that the way I was raised and what I was raised to
believe probably prepared me for where I am now, high in
this tree, with few possessions and plenty of
convictions. I couldn't be here without some deep faith
that we all are called to do something with our lives--a
belief I know comes from directly from my parents, Dale
and Kathy--even if that path leads us in a different
direction from others.
Even when I was a child, we hardly lived what people
would call a normal life. Many of my early memories are
full of religion. My father was an itinerant preacher
who traveled the country's heartland preaching from town
to town and church to church. My parents, my two
brothers, Michael and Daniel, and I called a camping
trailer home (excellent preparation for living on a tiny
platform), and we went wherever my father preached. My
parents really lived what they believed; for them, lives
of true joy came from putting Jesus first, others
second, and your own concerns last.
Not surprisingly, we were very poor, and my parents
taught us how to save money and be thrifty. Growing up
this way also taught us to appreciate the simple things
in life. We paid our own way as much as possible; I got
my first job when I was about five years old, helping my
brothers with lawn work. We'd make only a buck or so,
but to us that was a lot. I had my share of fun, but I
definitely grew up knowing what responsible meant. My
folks taught me that it was not just taking care of
myself but helping others, too. At times, like right
now, I have lived hand to mouth. But I knew that
sometimes the work of conveying the power of the spirit,
the truth as I understood it, was as important as making
money. I've always felt that as long as I was able, I
was supposed to give all I've got to ensure a healthy
and loving legacy for those still to come, and
especially for those with no voice. That is what I've
done in this tree.
By the time I was in high school in Arkansas, life
settled down for us, and I lived the life of an average
teenager, working hard and playing hard. I knew how to
have fun, and I enjoyed myself and the time I spent with
my friends. I was a bit aimless, volunteering for a teen
hot line here, modeling a bit there, saving money to
move out on my own. I suppose I had the regular dreams
of a regular person.
All that changed forever, though, that night in
August 1996 when the Honda hatchback I was driving was
rear-ended by a Ford Bronco. The impact folded the
little car like an accordion, shoving the back end of
the car almost into the back of my seat. The force was
so great that the stereo burst out of its console and
bent the stick shift. Though I was wearing a seat belt,
which prevented me from being thrown through the
windshield, my head snapped back into the seat, then
slammed forward onto the steering wheel, jamming my
right eye into my skull. The next morning when I woke
up, everything hurt. "I feel like I've been hit by
a truck," I said out loud, and then I started to
laugh. "Wait a minute, I was hit by a truck!
"
Although the symptoms didn't surface immediately, it
turned out that I had suffered some brain damage. It
took almost a. . .
Read Julia's whole story: Legacy
of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle
to Save the Redwoods
From "Legacy of
Luna" by Julia Butterfly Hill. © 2001.
HarperCollins Publishers. Used by permission.
Julia Butterfly Hill,
twenty-six, is a writer, a poet, and an activist. She
helped found the Circle of Life Foundation to promote
the sustainability, restoration, and preservation of
life. The foundation is sponsored by the nonprofit
Trees Foundation, which works toward the conservation
and preservation of forest ecosystems. Hill has been
the recipient of many honors and awards, and is a
frequent speaker for environmental conferences around
the world.
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