I don't normally read memoirs, and I didn't particularly expect to enjoy this one, but I was reading Richard Powers' Overstory and could tell that one of his main characters was based on Julia Butterfly Hill, so I decided to skim her memoir.

This turns out to be a profoundly moving and inspiring story. Hill spent 738 days in a tree, educating herself about the logging industry and activism so that she could prevent the tree from being cut down. Dealing with life in the tree was actually the easiest of her hardships - she became a major figure in the media, and a lot of her days were spent talking on her solar-powered cellphone to the media, lawyers, and representatives of logging companies. Through all of this, she maintained a strong belief in a higher power, in the ultimate goodness of humanity, and in the power of love to solve all problems. It's hard to read this book and not be inspired to go fight for a cause. I wish more people had the moral strength and clear vision that Hill has.

I spend the last couple of days in the redwoods, and found this book on the bookshelf of the airbnb. I remember when this event was occurring but didn't know the whole story. It was a super quick read and made feel super protective of the redwoods. I was between a 3 or a 4 but since I felt a urge to stop using single use plastics....why do I still use those? I gave this book a 4 since it made me be reflective on the concrete next actions I can take to do better by the earth. Also now that I breezed through this book in 2 days maybe I can actually tackle Overstory now.

This one is hard for me to rate.

I think saving redwoods is a noble and worthy cause. And I really admire Julia Butterfly's passion, devotion and courage during her two year tree sit. I really enjoyed reading about the experience and emotion of living in and loving a tree for two years. She was so brave and devoted to Luna. It was amazing to read about that.

I did question her "facts" at times. She says she was unaware of the cause when she volunteered for the tree sit, which I think is great. She was in Luna because of something she felt inside for the redwoods, not because of some environmental cause. Because she knew so little, she "educated herself". Because the educational materials she had access to were provided by her support system, which was Earth First!, I can't help but believe that self education was somewhat one sided. I really started questioning her credibility when she called turkey vultures birds of prey. And the fact that the $50,000 raised during her tree sit was paid to Pacific Lumber was left out of the book made me wonder what else they didn't want to tell us. Just made me wonder how much of what she wrote was really true and factual.

Overall, I really liked the book when reading about the experience and emotions of Julia Butterfly. I didn't enjoy the political parts as much.

it’s so refreshing to read a book like this. I <3 Julia butterfly

Julia’s story is inspiring and is a testament to her character. This is a tale of a person willing to give it all up to save something she holds dear and to “do the right thing”. She’s the modern day Lorax. There are several great passages in here that detail her life in Luna. Unfortunately I think this book was written by Julia too close in time to her tree sit. It lacks the broad insights she might be able to bring to this experience later on, and the prose is at once extremely repetitive and occasionally immature. I think readers would do best to find other works about Julia and her tree sit, ones that bring a bit more depth and energy to her truly deep and energetic story!

A story that could have been quite inspiring marred by lack of cohesive voice and condescending manner. Try as I might, I did not find Hill a heroine who I could sympathize with.

This was a great follow-up to The Overstory (& part of his bibliography for the book) as there is a part of the story that happens in a Redwood - this is clearly where he got the specifics of trying to live in a giant tree.

The Redwoods are amazing, and this woman lived in the top of one for 2 years! The writing was fine, it's the story that stands out. We're going to visit these beauties over the summer and I can't wait.

A MARVELOUSLY SPIRITUAL RECOUNTING OF THE FAMOUS PROTEST

Julia Lorraine (‘Butterfly’) Hill is an American environmental activist, and co-founder of the Circle of Life Foundation. She has also written ‘Becoming: Pictures, Poems, and Stories.’

The Prologue to this 2000 book explains that on December 31, 1996, a huge mudslide including trees, rocks and debris devastated homes on a hillside in Stafford, California. She notes, “Stafford residents blamed the slide on the fact that the steep slope above them had been clear-cut by the Pacific Lumber Company… Still, people were reluctant to sue Pacific Lumber. It had been pretty much the only business in the area for a hundred fifty years. Almost everyone had an intricate family tie to the company… Challenging the hand that fed them was difficult at best… the California Department of Forestry approved a plan to clear-cut the slope directly next to the slide where a tree---soon to be named Luna---and a woman named Julia Butterfly Hill would change the environmental movement forever.” (Pg. xiii-xv)

She wrote in the first chapter, “As I write this at the age of twenty-five, I’ve been living for more than two years in a two-hundred-foot-tall ancient redwood located on Pacific Lumber property. I have survived storms, harassment, loneliness, and doubt. I have seen the magnificence and the devastation of a forest older than almost any on Earth. I live in a tree called Luna. I am trying to save her life. Believe me, this is not what I intended to do with my own.” (Pg. 2)

At age 22, her car was read-ended: “having survived such a horrible accident, I resolved to change my life, and I wanted to follow a more spiritual path. If I was again to become whole… I was going to have to find out where I was meant to be and what I needed to do… I decided that when I was well enough I would go on a journey… I would visit the places that had deep spiritual roots. In those roots… I would find my sense of purpose. The insurance settlement would provide the funds…” (Pg. 4-5)

She entered Grizzly Creek State Park to see the California redwood giants: “For the first time, I really felt what it was like to be alive, to feel the connection of all life and its inherent truth… that exists within Creation… These majestic ancient places… housing more spirituality than any church, were being turned into clear-cuts and mud slides. I had to do something…. I knew I couldn’t turn my back and walk away.” (Pg. 8-9) She returned home to settle the lawsuit, bought provisions, and returned to California: “I knew I was meant to do something… a deep and compelling sense told me that I had to walk the path I’d chosen… There was a calling, and I would not be at peace until I fulfilled it.” (Pg. 10-11)

Although the “traditional activist season [was] winding down” due to the approach of winter, some activists trained her to climb, and suggested she could go up and do a tree-sit. “A tree-sit, I discovered, is a tactic used in the struggle to protect the forest. Installing human beings around the clock on a platform high in a tree hopefully prevents that tree, as well as those around it, from being cut down… This kind of civil disobedience is one of the few peaceful methods available to the forest movement.” (Pg.14) Asked to pick a ‘forest name,’ she chose “Butterfly.” (Pg. 15)

She notes, “Tree-sitting is a last resort. When you see someone in a tree trying to protect it, you know that every level of our society has failed. The consumers have failed, the companies have failed, and the government has failed… Everything has failed, so people go into the trees.” (Pg. 23)

She explains, “From the very start, sitting in Luna gave me a sense of purpose. Here was something I could do to make a difference. Of course, I had no idea that this would mean abandoning the ground for two years. And I had no idea of what the forces of nature---and a company called pacific Lumber/Maxxam---would soon unleash upon my head.” (Pg. 24-25)

She recounts, “I began to pray. I knew that if they didn’t find a way to deal with my anger and hate, they would overwhelm me… You see that a lot in activists. The intense negative forces that are oppressing and destroying the Earth wind up overcoming many of them. They get so absorbed by the hate and the anger that they become hollow. I knew I didn’t want to go there. Instead, my hate had to turn to love---unconditional agape, love.” (Pg. 66-67)

She acknowledges that “many of the Earth First!ers decided that I should leave Luna. They’d never had a tree-sitter go through the winter, and they were afraid that I might get injured, which would make the movement look bad. They also didn’t feel like they had the resources to keep the tree-sit going. Then there were those who didn’t like the fact that Luna had become this kind of rogue tree-sit that was defying all the rules and regulations… Ironically their opposition only encouraged me to continue on.” (Pg. 84)

After her tree-sit was featured in both ‘Newsweek’ and ‘People,’ she realized, “‘Oh, m God, I’m becoming a public spokesperson!’ … It’s not easy to become a public person when you’ve spent your whole life being private. But in trying to draw attention to Luna and the redwoods, my life was about to become an open book. Everything was fair game, from how I took a shower to how I went to the bathroom.” (Pg. 125) With the publicity, came the stars: including Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead (Pg. 144-145), Woody Harrelson (Pg. 146-147), plus Bonnie Raitt and Joan Baez (Pg. 222-223).

She observes, “the potential of labor and environmentalists to coming together seemed big… we shared a common goal: to fight the destructive power of giant corporations… The corporations have a pyramid structure, with the CEOs at the very top… the profit they make is what half the population of the entire world makes… they’re extracting the profit off the backs of hard workers and off the health of the land. The same forces that are destroying the environment are also destroying jobs and communities.” (Pg. 180-181)

Finally, “On December 18, 1999, a preservation agreement and deed of covenant to protect Luna and create a 20-foot buffer zone into perpetuity was documented and recorded… I think I was numb… I fell to the platform and cried. It was finally done. No more loopholes. No more stalls. Luna was protected. We did it.” (Pg. 243-244)

She concludes, “A few days later, as I prepared to descend Luna for the first time in 738 days… I began to sob. How would I be able to keep the focus, grounding, and truth that I had found in Luna?... Luna spoke to me… ‘Julia, all you have to do … is touch your heart. Because it is there that I truly am, and it is there I will always be.’” Pg. 246)

Ms. Hill’s book is a wonderfully (and to me, even surprisingly) engaging and inspiring read; it will be “must reading” for those concerned about the environment, and social protests.

Poorly written but inspiring memoir about a young woman who sat in a redwood pine for two years to protest and prevent clear-cutting

Julia showed resilience and did not just talk the talk but walked the walk (or rather sat the sitting). Would have loved to know what happened to Luna after she came down and it got cut. After all it is the title of the book. What is Luna's legacy after all these years ? What happened to Julia ? Did she continue with her activism ? Had to look her up, seems like she keeps on defending the forest and fighting for the causes dear to her! Although I had a hard time reading her (she repeats herself a lot, goes through excruciating details at times, and talks a lot about the Creation and praying *eye roll*), she gets her point across and for someone who was very young at the time I admire that she admitted to how uneducated at first she was about the issue she was defending, for actually getting educated about it, AND for talking with the enemy and succeeding to protect Luna through use of non-violent means. As well as for recognizing that she would have gotten nowhere without the help of countless other activists, public figures, and ordinary supporters who gave her food, warm gear, and legal and mental support over the years. It takes a village ! Or in this case, a forest !

To anyone who read The Overstory by Richard Powers, Julia Butterfly Hill's story will feel very familiar. That's because he fictionalized her story, lifting many scenes almost directly into his epic novel. But it feels different to hear the story directly from Hill, as it happened. How she found herself in Luna, how she first climbed its trunk in her desperate, determined attempt to get involved in a real action to save the redwoods from clear-cutting, how she found herself staying for a 738-day tree-sit in protest against Pacific Lumber and the exploitative Maxxam Corporation.

Hill wrote most of this memoir 18 stories off the ground. Through death threats, emotional turmoil, horrific storms, deadening cold, and more, Julia refused to leave Luna. She had never had media training. She technically wasn't even a member of the organization that had planned the tree-sit. She just knew that the destruction of the forests was wrong, and she was determined to protect it. She writes about the beauty of Luna, about her weakest moments and her darkest days in the tree—about lightning strikes, fever, frostbite, and helicopter blades. About her fierce stubbornness, that she gave her word to stay in Luna until she was saved, is what kept her in the tree, about the intersections of environmental and labor movements, about the dangers of clear-cutting and the toxicity of greedy, capitalist corporations being allowed free rein, punished with only slaps on the wrist.

I read the first third of The Legacy of Luna sitting in a beam of sunlight in the Cathedral Grove of Muir Woods. I listened to the swishing of the trees and the bird song and as I read Hill's words, the redwoods towered above me, majestic and stunning. Julia's story is fascinating and joyful, her experiences harrowing, her determination inspiring. She is one of my heroines, and reading her story among these incredible trees was a wonderful choice.

Content warnings for violence against protestors, unexpected death, use of the word 'rape.'

3.5

Reading this book felt like walking through a rich forest with a kindred spirit. Julia Butterfly Hill is everything I wished I could be as a child. Such a great piece of history for us all to know and learn from.