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By
Julia Scott
Julia
Butterfly Hill talks about a life of activism
Julia
Butterfly Hill first heard that nearly all of California's majestic
redwood trees had been cut down while on a cross country car trip, in
1997. The clearcut logging that claimed them was especially devastating
in Humboldt County, home to the oldest, most beautiful trees. Julia
headed for the scene of the crime, and hooked up with a group called
Earth
First!, whose members stage tree-sits. She climbed into Luna, a
1,000 year-old redwood, thinking she'd be there for one week. She stayed
in Luna's branches for 738 days without touching ground once.
Meanwhile, the Maxxam-controlled Pacific Lumber Company was cutting
down ancient redwoods left and right. Julia Butterfly vowed to tell
the world about their plight. She held on through vicious winter storms
and violent harassment from lumber workers--and she won, saving Luna
and many of the trees around her. She descended to the ground an international
activist celebrity.
Growing up in Pennsylvania and Arkansas, Julia's father was a preacher
whose family didn't always have enough to eat or money to buy new clothes.
Seeking to ensure a different lifestyle for herself, Julia studied business
in college and opened her own restaurant at the age of 20. In 1996 she
nearly died in a car crash, and the aftermath launched her on a spiritual
journey that took her all the way to the West Coast.
Nowadays she oversees her own environmental group, Circle
of Life. In 2003 she organized the first-ever We
the Planet tour, combining celebrity/musician speakers and activists
in an informal, living-room style dialogue with youth across the country.
She traveled on a veggie-oil and bio-diesel powered bus, and is buying
a bus of her own to do it again next year.
To read more about Julia Butterfly's adventures in Luna, her autobiography
The Legacy of Luna is available from Circle
of Life.
What
was your worldview like growing up?
My worldview was large and small at the same time because it was as
big as, and as small as, religion is.
I tell people that my consciousness was in my subconscious. It didn't
really move to the forefront of my consciousness until finding out about
the redwoods in '97. But I always had an intuitive, subconscious understanding
of what was good and what wasn't. My worldview, due to my father who
was a preacher, was shaped within the context of God, religion and Christianity.
In addition, intuitive messaging was happening within me and it was
doing its own internal sculpting. And that's why I say my consciousness
was in my subconscious.
Were you a really serious kid?
I've always been dual-natured. I have such intense opposite parts of
my personality partly because my parents are such opposites too, and
I have pieces of both of them in me. I have an extremely serious side
and a totally goofy side. I have this really intuitive emotional side
and then this extremely analytical, logical side. My life's work has
been about finding the balance in the duality.
When did you become a vegetarian?
I became a vegetarian when I was fourteen. I didn't become a vegetarian
because of all the incredible benefits vegetarianism has for the earth
and for our bodies and for animals. I didn't know about that. Instead,
one day it hit me that a cow is not different from a cat; why is it
okay to eat one and not the other?
How old were you when you started having revelations
like that?
Ever since I can remember. That's what I mean by that intuitive consciousness.
It wasn't so much a teacher with graphs and charts--it was just knowing.
So
you can't really pinpoint your first encounter with activism?
What we label "activism" is a certain genre, but one of the things I've
come to talk to people about is that every choice, whether it's to choose
to do something or not do something, has an impact on the world. So
really we are all activists. What we have to decide is, do we want to
be conscious, healing activists, or unconscious, destructive activists?
We always say "activism" as if it's a certain type of thing, but we
don't realize that every action is a form of activism.
And to me, it's so crucial to really get real: enough of the lies and
manipulation. The reality is, every time you do something, say something
or think something, you're shaping your world. And choosing not to do
something shapes your world. We are all activists, and we better get
over our belief that activism fits in box 'A', and preppies fit in box
'B', and be-boppers fit in box 'C,' and hip- hoppers fit in box 'D'.
That's a myth. The reality is, we're all activists, and do we want to
get conscious and real about the way we're expressing it, or do we continue
to be numbed out, consuming, destructive activists.
Were you ever a destructive activist?
Yes! I went through my whole stage of rebellion and feeling of not having
any self-worth.
When was that?
My most destructive years were from ages15 to 20. I was drinking and
smoking, and over time it just got worse and worse. I also went through
the whole anorexia/bulimia thing. You name it, and if it was self-destructive,
I tried it. I'm lucky to be alive today.
Was
it luck, or did you make a choice?
Both. I did stuff that killed friends of mine. I lived. I'm the lucky
one. I made a conscious decision. One day I woke up and told myself,
"I don't want to be an alcoholic anymore and I don't want to be an addict
anymore."
Do you think you could explain why you felt
a need to go down that path?
Like I mentioned before, I think part of my life's work is finding balance
by exploring the dualities. We go to extremes to find balance sometimes.
The other part was being raised within a fundamentalist Christian setting
which gave me self-image and self-worth problems around being a woman.
You know, it's women who are the downfall of humankind because of Eve
in the garden with the apple and it's our bodies that make men lust
after us and so therefore it's our fault that men lust after us. Also,
I looked out into society and what I saw happening was meaningless.
I saw a bunch of people wearing costumes and masks and not even admitting
it.
So how were you ultimately able to turn that into
a positive?
It was years in the making. The first steps were seeing my friends die.
Then seeing my friends, in a really sad way, wishing they were dead,
because what they were doing to each other and to themselves was so
terrible. When you live for a high, you'll do anything to anybody to
get it. The real kicker for me was watching what people who were supposed
to be friends would do to each other to get high. That really snapped
something in me. I had already started cleaning up my life; that's when
I started cleaning up the space around my life.
How
old were you when you had the car accident?
I was 22 years old. I had 10 months of physical and cognitive therapy
in Arkansas, in this town that I had only intended to stay in for a
little while. Then I entered the redwoods. So there was one point after
another where my consciousness continued to evolve. If we are willing
to be open and aware, we can learn and grow. And the importance of that
around activism is, if activism doesn't come from a place of being open,
it's always going to remain in the box. And our world needs us to get
out of the square mentality; we live on a round planet, not a square
planet.
Speaking of worldview, yours must have changed a lot in Luna. For
one thing, the world had to come to you.
One of the most interesting things about the tree was that openness
really means looking through other lenses and perspectives. When I climbed
into another, very literal, perspective and ended up staying there for
the next two years, it was a whole other way of viewing the world.
Seeing it from the tree's perspective.
Yes. And figuratively, it changed me. It gave me a way of being connected,
yet completely separate all at the same time. Especially once the action
started getting big, and the celebrities and the media and everybody
started coming. Then I was connected to more people than I wanted to
be connected to. When you're living in a tree, you're kind of connected
to whoever wants to come around. And the media creates this subculture
where everybody thinks you're somebody other than who you really are.
I
gave into choiceless choice because it was something higher than I was;
it wasn't just about me anymore. Trusting in others became a strength,
not a weakness. Instead of being sacrifices, the difficulties became
ways that I exercised my muscles. We forget how big a muscle the heart
is.
What's
the best part of the work you do today?
The most rewarding part of the work that I do today is when people come
up to me and say, "you have inspired me to take ACTION."
People also come up to me and say, "Thank you so much for inspiring
me," and I say, "To do what?" The 'inspiration alone' model is for people
who like pretending they don't need to do anything because someone else
is already doing it.
"Every choice, whether it's to choose to do something or not do something,
has an impact on the world. So we are all activists."
So when people connect inspiration
with action…
It becomes motivation. Inspiration is a very passive thing, although
I don't want to downplay it. I wouldn't be giving this interview if
I didn't have crucial things that inspired me. It's like a magical ingredient
that takes you from surviving to thriving. Anyone who's opening up Collage
is opening a Pandora's box. Having the courage to open that box up and
be ready for what it shows is a powerful statement to make. That takes
energy, and it needs something like inspiration to give it back. Collage
is inspiring in that it's doing what it can to close that loop, to keep
the energy flowing. It's a way to plug in and receive, and find ways
to give.
But there are people who know what's inside that box and don't want
to do what it takes to open that lid. They knowingly keep it shut. I
walked away from an ancient forest smack into the middle of a destroyed,
desecrated clear-cut. There was no more hiding. If I had chosen that
moment to turn around and walk away and say, "I'm not enough. I don't
have enough information, I'm too young, I'm only a girl," all those
excuses, whatever they may be, that would have been the same as holding
a chainsaw to the base of a tree.
So,
inspiration helps us deal with being brave enough to challenge the status
quo. It takes an incredible amount of courage just to be authentically
who we are instead of a byproduct.
"The reality is we all make a difference with every
choice we make."
Would you like to add anything else?
I
think the important thing, that's relevant for people who are going
to be checking out Collage, is oftentimes when people hear what I've
done, they stick me in a box and say, "Oh, she must have been an activist
for a long time," when in reality the treesit was the first action I
ever took.
We need to realize that each and every one of us has special gifts to
offer and an ability to do and accomplish what even we may not think
we are capable of. The reality is, we all make a difference with every
choice we make. The question is not, "Can you make a difference?", but
rather "What KIND of a difference do you want to make?"
For me the answer is clear-- what else would I rather be doing with
my life than getting out there and standing for what is truly important,
including connections, creativity, democracy, diversity, healing, inspiration,
and justice?
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