Julia Butterfly Hill: I’ll answer that question but I’m going to first share one other thing. I want to make sure that I start this conversation by letting people know that for me when I hear something like “spiritual leader” I wonder, what does that mean? So I want to make sure and reflect to everyone that for me, my commitment is that I’m doing my best to be a mirror. I’ve learned in my life that we cannot see in others what we don’t already have within ourselves. When I’m sharing, I’m really sharing from a heart-filled space. Hopefully something that I share will reflect something to someone that allows us all to see deeper into ourselves.
I also tell people that if I share something that folks don’t like, all they have to do is compost it. (laughs) Because then it can still serve us, right? I want to make sure that on the very front end of this conversation, just to reflect back, that I don’t claim to be an expert and I don’t claim to be a know-it-all. I don’t claim to be anything other than a person who cares very deeply about this planet and all the life that it sustains and I share from that place. I just want to make sure and start the conversation that way. When it comes to answering the question of how this form of sacred activism began for me in the Redwoods – it was really my first real action in my life. When I first entered the Redwoods I was just so profoundly and deeply moved by the energy of these forests. I was raised with a preacher for a father and I had never experienced anything remotely as sacred and as profound as the first time I entered the Redwood forest. It was like I finally breathed in what God must feel like. It was so beautiful for me and I literally began sobbing. It was such a deep and powerful experience. So when I entered my first clearcut and I learned that over 98% of the ancient Redwoods had already been cut down and that they were continuing to log them with such destructive practices. The industrial logging was so destructive to these areas that I was as deeply torn apart as I had been touched by the beauty. I was just as deeply devastated learning and seeing and witnessing the destruction of these sacred forests and that’s what launched me into what became an internationally-known action.
I really didn’t know what I was going to do but I knew that I had to do something and although I didn’t have experience being an activist I had experience climbing trees. (laughs) And so when I heard that I could climb a tree to make a difference, I volunteered and climbed Luna, an over one thousand year-old Redwood that had been marked to be cut down. I really didn’t see it as a spiritual practice at first. I was actually really hurt and angry at first. I could see for miles in every direction. I could see the then Pacific Lumber Maxxam Corporation mill that was taking these ancient forests and turning them into blasted-away hillsides and burnt desecrated ground. In the beginning I was filled with a lot of grief and rage but that grief and rage began to destroy me and I had to find a new way and a new purpose to act from. That’s what led me on a spiritual journey that emerged as how I live my life now as committed to having the sacred guide me every moment of every day.
Great stuff, read the rest here....
http://diydharma.org/sacred-awakenings-interview-julia-butterfly-hill-stephen-dinan
No comments:
Post a Comment