CNJ+ June 2024

Caretakers routinely climb the tree to check its condition and to maintain the steel wires. Luna is under the stewardship of Sanctuary Forest, a non profit organization. Since her tree sit, Hill has become a motivational speaker (holding some 250 events a year), a best-selling author, and the co-founder of the Circle of Life Foundation (which helped organize We The Planet, an eco-friendly music tour) and the Engage Network, a nonprofit that trains small groups of civic leaders to work toward social change. On July 16, 2002, Hill was jailed in Quito, Ecuador, outside the offices of Occidental Petroleum, for protesting a proposed oil pipeline that would penetrate a virgin Andean cloud forest that teems with rare birds. “The cloud forest is stunning,” she said. “It’s this deep, lush green, spangled with explosions of red, yellow, and purple from the flowers, birds and insects. The environmental destruction they saw along the pipelines that had already been built was horrendous.” Hill was later deported from Ec uador. In 2003, Hill became a proponent of tax redirection, resisting payment of about $150,000 in federal taxes, donating the money to after-school pro grams, arts and cultural programs, community gardens, programs for Na tive Americans, alternatives to incarceration, and environmental protection programs. She stated that she takes the money that the IRS says goes to them and she gives it to the places where her taxes should be going. In 2006, Hill protested the sale of the South Central Farm in an attempt to save the 14-acre farm from developers. Julia Butterfly Hill’s time with Luna had far surpassed the record for the world’s longest tree sit at more than eight times the previous 90-day record. The experience had affected her so deeply, she said, that she now thinks of her life in terms of “before tree” and “after tree.” “The person I’d been when I’d gone up and the person I was when I came

• On December 10, 1998, a benefit concert was played at the Mateel Com munity Center in Redway, California during Julia’s “tree sit”. Artists per forming were Bob Weir and Mark Karan as an acoustic duet, the Steve Kimock Band, and the Mickey Hart Band. Hill took part in the event, reading her poem “Luna” via telephone while the Mickey Hart Band was performing “The Dancing Sorcerer”. • The character Sierra Tierwater in the 2000 novel A Friend of the Earth by T. Coraghessan Boyle was partially inspired by Hill. • Hill was the subject of the documentary Butterfly (2000) broadcast on PBS POV. She is also featured in the documentary film Tree-Sit: The Art of Re sistance . Both films document her time in the redwood tree. • The 2000 twelfth-season episode of The Simpsons called “Lisa the Tree Hugger” was conceived when writer Matt Selman heard a news story about Hill. • In Penn & Teller’s 2003 first season of their documentary television show, Bullshit , Hill appeared as a Special Guest Expert on the episode “Environ mental Hysteria”. • Hill and her events were featured in the 2010 Michael P. Henning docu mentary film Hempsters: Plant the Seed . • The main character of the 2017 Swedish children’s book Julia räddar sk ogen (Julia saves the forest) by Niklas Hill and Anna Palmqvist is named after Hill. The book is about a child who occupies a tree in order to hinder the construction of a new highway. • In The Overstory, by Richard Powers, the character Olivia Vandergriff, is loosely based on Hill. • Trey Anastasio and Tom Marshall wrote a song called “Kissed by Mist” about Hill.[41] • In 2002 Los Suaves made a song in honor of Hill called “Julia Hill” on the Un paso atrás album in which the singer is “Luna”. • The Red Hot Chili Peppers 2003 song “Can’t Stop” contains the line “J. Butterfly is in the treetop”. • Neil Young made a reference to Hill in the

down were so profoundly different that I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to live in the world again,” Hill told The Sun in 2012. “When I set foot on the earth, there was a lot of emotion. There was extreme joy because we’d protected the tree and the grove around it, which a lot of people had said was impossible. But there was also sadness. I had be come so much a part of that tree, and it had become so much a part of me, that I wasn’t sure I would fit in with other people.” Hill started the “What’s Your Tree” project to im press on people that even if they can’t sit in a tree for two years, they can still have a cause that drives them. “What’s Your Tree helps people clarify their pur pose and passion, then take action,” Hill told The Sun . “We all have our own version of a tree sit that’s out there waiting for us. It’s our life’s calling. There is a ‘tree’ for every one of us, and this tree can call us to be bigger than we believe ourselves to be and to create a life that is more amazing than we can imagine.” Even today, Hill’s legacy lives on. She has been the subject of several documentaries, interviews, and books, including her own 2000 memoir, The Legacy of Luna , and has influenced numerous musicians:

2003 song “Sun Green” on the Greendale album in which the title character: “Still wants to meet Julia Butterfly”. • Casey Desmond wrote a song called “Julia Butterfly Hill” which appeared on her 2006 album No Disguise • In 2009 Idina Menzel wrote a song called Butterfly referring to Hill. Julia is still fighting for many causes but more be hind the scenes due to injuries sustained from be ing rear-ended, not just the first time, but from two more car accidents after that. None of them were her fault. She also has severe asthma that got worse after all the inhaling of all the smoke when she was up in Luna from the clearcut burning. She had 2 hip replacements and learned that she had late-stage Lyme disease that severely damaged her, gave her a heart attack, and made her brain foggy and messed up for quite some time, but she still strives on fight ing for her causes.

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