Luna and her people, part I
Julia Butterfly Hill
Long long ago, a small seed sprouted.
Nourished by fertile, loamy soil and foggy air dripping with moisture, the sprout began to grow into a young tree.
The year was circa 1000 A.D. – the height of the Middle Ages in Europe. On the continent that would come to be known as the Americas, vast forests carpeted the land.
In one of those forests, on a steep hillside near an ocean, that young tree reached toward the sun year after year, surrounded by its relatives of all sizes. They were Sequoia sempervirens – coastal redwoods. With grace and majestic height that suggested sentience, they towered over other species.
By the time explorers landed on the continent a few centuries later, the tree was already several hundred years old. It was still a young redwood, in terms of longevity, but by then it rose more than 100 feet into the sky.
Throughout the early twentieth century – when the tree was around 900 years old – lumber hunger swept the rapidly growing nation. Loggers devastated most of the old-growth forests in the eastern part of the continent, then moved west.
By the late 1990s, the redwood that had sprouted a millennium earlier reached 200 feet in height -- a venerable elder of the forest. It watched as many of the trees growing below it, farther down the hillside, were cut. Eventually, so many trees had been removed that the soil became unstable and there was a landslide. Eight homes in the town below were buried in mud.
In the fall of 1997, environmental activists converged on northern California. They camped in the forests and staged protests. By the light of a full moon, they started tree sits in that redwood. They named her Luna. Taking turns climbing into Luna’s branches, each person stayed a day or two. It kept the loggers away, temporarily.
As Christmas approached, the activists were tired. Many wanted to go home for the holidays. They needed someone willing to continue the tree sit for a whole week, maybe two. Only one person volunteered.
She was a 23-year-old woman from Arkansas, daughter of an itinerant preacher searching for purpose in her life. She loved nature, and she wanted to help. Her name, complete with childhood nickname: Julia Butterfly Hill.
Near midnight on December tenth, Julia roped herself to a harness and began to climb Luna’s trunk. It was an exercise in fear and faith. She was terrified, but she kept going. Within a few minutes, she had reached the two plywood platforms wedged into Luna’s branches at the 180-foot mark, about 20 feet below the tree’s crown.
Julia’s feet would not touch solid ground again for two years, one week, and one day.
At this point in the story, I suggest that you pause. Close your eyes. Imagine a building about 18 stories high. In your mind’s eye, look up. See that height. Feel that height.
That, my friends, is where Julia lived for 738 days. Alone. Through every season, including winter. Enduring ice storms and hurricane-force winds. Assaulted by the fierce downdrafts and deafening roar of helicopters sent by the logging company to harass her. Her supplies hauled up to her via ropes from a ground crew of supporters. Her waste ferried back down in buckets.
Could you do it? I sure couldn’t.
Julia has been my (s)hero for 25 years. Her time in Luna brought worldwide attention to the loss of old-growth forests and ignited a generation of activism. By standing up to the mercenary power of a lumber company, she showed how one person can effect great change.
The photos of Julia in Luna tell the whole story: human and tree living together, in some mystical way becoming one.
Recently I had the chance to speak with Julia. (More on how that came about, below.) An interview with one of my icons! I was so nervous. But no way could I pass up such an opportunity.
Things I can report, from our conversation:
Julia is warm and real, with a great sense of humor and a throaty laugh.
She demands honesty and authenticity – in herself and others.
Julia has had a rough life, starting with the car accident when she was 20 that almost took her life and disabled her for more than a year. Since then, she has suffered three more serious accidents. The most recent wreck, in 2020, was a hit-and-run. She battles chronic pain.
Then there’s the bout with Lyme Disease and her recent diagnosis of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a disorder of connective tissue and joints. Julia can break a bone just stepping off a porch. What she says about her health: “I’m stuck with this body that’s composting at a more rapid rate than some other people’s. And it hurts a lot.”
Several years ago, Julia lost the love of her life to cancer.
Julia’s astrological sign is on the cusp of Aquarius and Pisces, which is a water sign. She does love trees, but she’s most at home around water. Last month she spent more than a week in silence by a river.
Julia worries about what she calls “The Disease of Disconnect” – our loss of connectedness with the natural world. “We’re not separate from nature,” she said. “And even talking about it as quote-unquote ‘nature’ perpetuates this idea that it’s something separate from us.”
The antidote, she said, is visiting our relatives – the tree relatives, the water relatives, the mountain relatives. We’re all related. We’re all connected.
Julia has a strong sense of service. That was instilled in her, she said, by her parents. “We were very, very poor. So they taught us that everything is precious. And that life is about service.” Julia’s service now is to offer a space – mainly on her Facebook page – where she can help people who are struggling with depression and other mental or physical health challenges to not feel alone.
And now … I know you probably want to know – as I did – about Julia’s memories of her two years living in the branches of a 200-foot-tall redwood.
“Remembering what it was like up there is becoming more and more faint,” she said, a trace of wistfulness in her voice.
“Remembering those feelings I would have when I wrapped myself around Luna’s branches, or when I was sipping tea with my legs dangling over a branch, my feet kicking back and forth like a little kid, we’re having morning tea in the fog, me and Luna having breakfast together. I have these bits of memories but they fade a little more as time goes on.”
I asked Julia if she still feels Luna’s presence with her, 20-plus years later.
Here’s a clip from our recorded conversation. I want you to hear her wonderful answer in her own voice.1
I’m so grateful for the conversation I had with Julia. And I promised her I would tell you about her friend Penny, who has cancer. Penny was one of Julia’s ground crew during her time in Luna. Penny took photos and video that were vital in telling Luna’s story to the world.
Here’s Penny’s photo of Julia moments after she finally came down from the tree, when the lumber company agreed to create a conservation easement that would protect Luna and the forest around her forever.
“I would have been only a voice in the wind without that team,” Julia said, “And Penny was an important part of that team. So it’s meaningful to me to circle back around and support her at such a difficult time in her life.”
Julia posted on her Facebook page that she would offer a 30-minute personal phone call to anyone who donated at least $75 to Penny's GoFundMe page, which is helping to pay her living expenses while she can’t work due to cancer treatments.
I saw Julia’s offer, and made the donation. Julia says she is extending the offer -- so if you want to talk to her … you can, too!
Dear Julia:
Thank you for your enormous heart.
Thank you for two years of your life.
Thank you for the indelible memory of a young woman doing something extraordinary, something astonishingly brave and big, for our Mother Earth.
May the love you gave to a single redwood tree return to you manyfold.
NEXT WEEK: How is Luna faring nowadays, more than two decades after Julia’s tree sit? I will introduce you to the special person who serves as Luna’s longterm guardian.
Transcript of audio clip, plus a bit extra: “Luna is woven into every fiber of my being. Luna and the lessons I learned are guiding the way that I speak, the way that I think, the choices that I make, the things that I post. (Laugh) To tease Luna apart from me is impossible. I got to live with an over 1,000-year-old spiritual living elder for two years and eight days, without once … without there once being a break. And I didn’t just live with, I lived on. There’s no way to describe it. I can use 10 hours worth of words and still not come close to describing it.”
What’s an incredible, inspiring story. Where people find the reserves of strength and bravery is truly astounding!
What an amazing story both of Luna and Julia! Thank you for sharing her bravery and sacrifice.