Dennis> You went through quite a few experiences yourself, when you first got up into the tree. Do you want to talk about any of those?
Julia> Well, I think this has been one long intense experience (reflecting back with amazement - laugh) The first three months were definitely, definitely difficult. The first three months broke me mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. There were fierce winter storms from the el nine winter. The company cut down all around me beginning Dec. 11, the first morning I was here. They cut two trees growing right out of Luna's trunk Her family, her children they cut right off her base in an effort to scare us and divert our attention while they sending up deputized climber up another tree next to try and get us and bring us down. They were obviously unsuccessful. The company placed me under a 10 day seize in effort to cut off my supplies and starve me down. When they listen to me I think I was telling them I might starve to death, but there no way they'll starve me down. That there was no way I was going to come out of this tree because I was hungry. That if they wanted my death on there hands then so be it. That if they wanted me to come down they better fined another tactic. So, then they began blowing air horns all night in an effort to cause sleep depredation, which worked (laugh). And that was really intense.
Julia Butterfly Hill
Photo Courtesy: Shaun Walker, Otter Media
At the same time there was the winter storms and these men shouting obscene things at me and threatening my life. Running out of battery power for my phone so I didn't have a way to communicate to the world and a lot of things happening, since a complete on slot at every level. The company also hovered twin propelled helicopter above my head in an effort to dislodge me rip my tarp and I'm not sure what they were thinking or if they were thinking at all, but they hovered it very close to my head. And once again lied to the public saying that I was ling when I told the world what they had done. Once again we had a video camera so I showed the world who was telling the truth and who was telling the lie. And Pacific Lumber was once again shown to be a company that has a hard time telling the truth.
The hardest part for me was watching the forest disappear around me. Because I feel a connection to the forest as I feel towards human beings. The loss I felt when I heard what happen to David Gypsy Chains died, felt like I had the inside of myself ripped out. And every time a tree smashed into the ground around me I had that same feeling, hour after hour and day after day. That was probably the hardest response for me to overcome. Because the animalistic response we have as human or instinctual responses is to act like a wounded animal or animal that is afraid and strike out. And much inside of me wanted to strike out. To stop the pain to stop the violence. To stop the destruction and devastation. But I knew that to strike would be a perpetuation of the violence that I was trying to stop.
And so out of one of the hardest struggles I ever had in my life of witnessing a forest dieing around me, also came a lesson in a strength that I never experience before in life, and that was a lesson of love. Of going to my higher self and finding love as a source for strength and commitment, and clarity. Finding a way to send that love to these loggers even as they were destroying this hill side destroying this forest, trying to destroy me and to destroying the lives of the families down in Stadford below. Because I learned that all life comes from the same source through this experience. And that source of life is perfect love and light.
So that even in the darkest of beings they still come from that same source of love and light, but they've just lost their way. And I cannot show others back to that source of life, which is the only way they will stop destroying it. I can show them the way back using violence because violence only leads us to the darkness. I can only show them the way back through love. So I that suffering that I went through, in that broken on every level. I was able to be rebuilt with the hands of love. That have given me strength to now continue for all this time.
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