Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25125
"Luna told me to do what the trees do -to let go." from a discreet parking area off Highway 101 before catching sight of Luna and Julia Butterfly's platforms. At the very top, swaying on the uppermost branches, was Julia Butterfly, her long brown hair flowing wildly in the wind. When she saw us, she greeted us with the caw of a raven. "She saw us coming a mile away." Michael told us, cawing back. As Julia Butterfly scrambled from the upper branches to meet us on her platform, the tinkling of metal was distinctive. I assumed it was coming from carabiners on a climbing harness. But Michael informed us that Julia Butterfly no longer had need for ropes or climbing apparatus-or even shoes. The metallic tinkling came from small silver bells attached to her ankle bracelets above her bare feet. An hour of jumarring one at a time up Luna took its toll and we were tired, sweating and a little scared by the time we reached Julia Butterfly on her platform. She greeted us with a warm embrace. Forearms still shaking, I offered her an apple, which she took with such care and appreciation that Rachel started shooting her facial expressions with a zoom. Her cheeks glowed from being outdoors and she was surprisingly clean, except for smears of sap here and there on her thick green sweater and black .overall ski pants. Her uncombed hair reached well past her shoulders. At five feet 10 inches she seemed tall in her tiny tarped hovel, but so very small compared with the rough, red-barked branches of the tree she was in. Her upper body was strong, but her legs were weak, she said, from lack of use. Although she performed isometrics and climbed up and down several times a day to work out, she had to take long breaths to compensate for the lack of cardiovascular activity. But while some parts of her body grew weaker, her conviction grew stronger. Sitting there, high in the redwood, swaying and praying the branches of Luna could hold all three of us, we began to understand Julia Butterfly's connection to Luna. Julia Butterfly had endured EI Nino storms in Luna's branches: winter winds, snow and sleeting rain. One night her platform was ripped from beneath her. She was terrified she was going to die and hung onto Luna as tightly as she could for more than 18 hours. "I asked Luna for guidance. I was crying, my body ached. Luna told me to do what the trees do-to let go. She told me only the stiffest branch breaks. Those that bend withstand the storms. I stopped holding on so tightly. I couldn't have stood it another hour." Luna helped keep her alive, and julia Butterfly did the same for Luna. As Julia looked down at the leftover sediment from a mudslide, I THE J U L I A TIM ELI N E Earth First organizes the first Luna tree-sit . OCTOBER 7, 1997: DECEMBER 10. 1997 Julia cli~bs up Luna. She thinks the Sit Will last two weeks. caused by logging, that ripped through the small town of Stafford, destroying seven homes on New Year's Day in 1997, she told us, "We are responsible for the state of the world . We have allowed our power to be taken away, but we, the people of America, have the power to make the greatest change. We have' become captives of civilization. It is the next generations that are paying the price." But so was Julia Butterfly. Along with enduring the winter weather, she also endured the attempts of people trying to end her vigil. Pacific Lumber subcontractors buzzed Luna with helicopters on all-night vigils, and in a lO-day siege by company security guards last summer, they cut off access for her ground support crew. Once, they to ld her Luna was being cut to the ground, but instead sawed through every smaller redwood growing out of Luna's base. To endure such hardships and stay true to her beliefs is truly the marking of a saint. Julia's ground support crew clearly thought so. They hiked groceries, clothing, pencils and mail to her three times per week and packed out her trash , which she neatly organized into recyclable bundles of cardboard from Ramen cartons and envelopes. Trained in climbing, tree- sitting technology and equipment repairs, and with a wealth of knowledge on logging practices and their consequences to the environment from here to Cambodia, Julia's crew exemplifies the kind of support system it takes to maintain such an incredibly successful tree-sit. Michael seems as passionate about helping Julia, as he is about saving Luna. "This is what needs to be done to keep Julia healthy. I'd do anything for her and I'll be here until I'm not needed any longer." Michael seems to be in love with Julia Butterfly, but not in terms most of us are familiar with: Michael talks of his wider love, a love for what Julia Butterfly is doing for human beings and Mother Nature. Spruce and Thor, along with the entire network at the Circle of Life Foundation, all speak in terms of this love. Critics often dismiss this as New Age, but after a few days living amongst them and seeing what they have accomplished, you begin to appreciate that it takes a lot to maintain such conviction. In the international arena, Julia was becoming an icon. She'd spoken via cell phone as a panelist on the United Nations Commission on Human Settlements. Famed musicians, celebrities and environmentalists such as Joan Baez, Bonnie Raitt, Woody Harrelson and Mickey Hart (who calls her "Joan of Arc of the Redwoods"), had all visited her. She had read , live via cell phone, one of her poems at Woodstock '99 with Mickey Hart and Planet WINTER 1997/98: Julia survives extreme rain and 90-mile-an-hour Winds during EI Nino's storms.