We are celebrating with YOU! Yes, YOU! We have just completed our first season of Caravan of the Heart! WOW! What an amazingly inspiring mind and heart provoking and stirring season!
We could not have reached this milestone without your support. Thank you from our hearts and Caravan of the Heart for giving this vision wings and helping us to amplify love in all things.
Our 2nd season will start off with a spectacular special guest, Julia Butterfly Hill. She is an environmental activist and author best known for having lived in a 180-foot (55 m)-tall, roughly 1500-year-old California redwood tree for 738 days between December 10, 1997 and December 18, 1999. Hill lived in the tree, affectionately known as Luna, to prevent Pacific Lumber Company loggers from cutting it down. She is the author of the 2000 book The Legacy of Luna and co-author of One Makes the Difference.
LOOK forward to this conversation coming soon and the announcement of some more incredible guests made possible by YOU!
(Start the inspiration engine for this conversation by reading Julia's recent post about her 25 year Anniversary since she tree sitted to protect that Ancient Elder Redwood tree, LUNA!)
25 YEAR LUNA by Julia Butterfly Hill
Someone reminded me, today marks twenty five years that i climbed up Luna thinking it was going to be two weeks to a month i would be up there... it turned into two years and eight days.
Twenty five years ago today i stood at the base of that over one thousand year old ancient redwood tree, wet, shivering, cold, with a heart full of love and longing to help and make a difference. The air rich with pungent earthy, slightly sweet smell that the redwood forests have.
Pulling the climbing harness on up and over my damp and muddy rain pants. Paying close attention to remember the three steps necessary in securing the harness. Three crucial steps that literally make the difference between life and death when i am dangling eighty feet off the ground on a rope.
i don't now remember clearly all the thoughts racing through my head that morning. They were mixed in with the damp and cold fog that was still clinging to the trees, the hillside, and me.
What i do remember was this fierce determination that i was absolutely meant to be there to help in whatever way i could. It was beyond my comprehension that we as a human family were causing such rampant, horrifying, and heart breaking destruction in an area and to trees so profoundly beautiful and breathtaking.
i began to climb, not knowing what was coming my way. Thankfully or i never would have done it. i would not have believed myself capable of it all. i focused on the patterns of the bark of the tree, now known to the world as Luna. It was like watching the patterns and designs in the clouds in the sky. So many shapes and designs. More than once, grabbing onto the thick, soft bark and pulling myself up to the trunk, and putting my face as close in as i could to breathe deeply and feel myself merging with Luna and feel my energy go all the way down to her roots to help me feel more grounded and not so afraid.
Until i made it to the top of the rope where i had to unhook from the rope, and then use what are called "lobster claws" to climb the last 30 feet to the platform. These are flat webbing rope lines that are connected to metal locks and to the harness that are wrapped around a branch and locked off as i climbed so that in case i accidentally fell, i would fall three feet instead of over one hundred feet. Somehow even though i "knew" all of this would technically keep me safe, my nervous system did not believe it, did not care, and was having its own freak out over and over again off and on the entire way up. People ask me, "Weren't you afraid of heights?!?" i always reply, "i never in my life was until i was about seventy five feet off the ground and made the mistake of looking down!" After that i realized why they tell us over and over again... "Don't. Look. Down!"
i eventually made it to the platform at the top, one hundred and eighty feet up. That is eighteen stories up in a building for those of you who might need that to help imagine the height. The view was both breathtaking and heartbreaking all at the same time.
i could see for miles in every direction, so i could see both old growth and ancient forests... the lush emerald green with fog filtering through. And i could see the clear cuts. Burnt, desecrated swaths that look like bombs had been dropped in the middle of the forests.
i was viscerally reminded of all of the reasons why i had just gone through everything i had gone through to get to the top of that amazing ancient elder tree Luna.
It has been twenty five years since that day. Nine thousand, one hundred and twenty five days. Two hundred and nineteen thousand hours. Thirteen million, one hundred and fourty thousand minutes. Seven hundred and eighty eight million, four hundred thousand seconds. A lot has happened in all of that time... for all of us.
We think of life often in these BIG moments.
But life is also what is happening in all these little moments that we are so busy rushing on by. That second. That second that just happened. That was life. Right there. Right there. Life.
As most of you know, i have had a really hard time with living since 2014. Especially since 2018. That is a hell of a lot of seconds of my life that have gone by that i won't get back to do a do over. i have done my best to be of service and to make a difference even if it is just being present with people in all of that time. A lot of that time has been filled with a seemingly never ending well of grief and depression.
i am the girl who lived in a tree for 738 days. And i am the girl who some days can barely get out of bed and prays to whatever powers that exist that i will die so that i don't have to feel responsible to keep living anymore.
Either way and no matter what, life is still precious. Don't you dare waste it. That second. That one right there. That was life. That breathe you just took. That one right there. That one we both just took. That was pure magic.
We come into this life on an inhale. We leave this life on an exhale. What we choose to do with the gift of the breath of our life in between is up to us.
Through the good, the bad, and the indifferent. The ups and downs and in-betweens. Through the struggles and triumphs, the love and the heart break. At some point, for all of us, the final exhale will come... what do YOU want YOUR legacy to be??
With love and encouragement,
julia
HELP SUPPORT SEASON TWO!!
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