Strangechord

It’s been quite a week! I started reading The Legacy of Luna on Wednesday. It’s by Julia Butterfly Hill, who, to call attention to the destruction of old growth forest, spent two years and ten days in an ancient redwood tree named Luna back in the late 90’s. I’d been meaning to get to her book for years, as she has been a hero of mine for a while. Her book is riveting, simple, and absolutely beautiful - a woman telling her story of taking an unshakable stand for the protection of life.

She writes of her reliance on prayer for guidance - prayer to the Universal Spirit - and the guidance she received through Luna. So inspired, I set the book down at one point and sent out a prayer for guidance for myself, to discover my path in making a difference, in realizing peace and purpose. I don’t often pray; for years I’ve had hangups around it being this Christian thing to a patriarchal god. But I was moved to pray to Universal Spirit. My prayer is being answered…

Last night, Jeremy and I went to hear Gangaji and Eli in a public meeting. Their words of wisdom strike a chord in me; I attended a small meeting with Gangaji last October and was very moved. Among other things, they talked of being willing to die; to surrender completely to discover the truth of who you really are. I’ve known for months that the two of them are leading a weekend intensive and as Jeremy and I left last night, I had sort of made up my mind not to go (money and time considerations). As we walked down the hill to the parking lot, I turned to Jeremy and told him I didn’t feel complete about not going to the intensive and that I didn’t know how to get complete with it. I told him about my prayer earlier in the week for guidance, and that maybe I was meant to go this weekend, but that I often couldn’t distinguish being mental noise and intuition. That’s all he needed to hear. He took me right back up the hill to the auditorium and I signed up.

Today at lunch I read the part in Legacy of Luna where Julia weathered two weeks of storms at the top of Luna with only her small platform underneath her. As the winds knocked her about and the rain shredded her tarps, she was convinced she was going to die. Clinging to a branch for dear life, she prayed desperately to Luna for strength. The tree told her to do as trees do in the storm - to bend with the winds, to go with the flow, to surrender. She did and that saved her life. She experienced the most powerful transformation that night, being ready to die and surrendering into it. She wrote that her fear of death vanished after that night and something new emerged like a chrysalis breaking out of the cocoon. It was wild to read this right after Gangaji’s and Eli’s talk last night - how corollary. Furthermore, when I visited Julia’s organization web site, Circle of Life, this afternoon, I was blown away to see on her most recent weblog entry that she had just done the Landmark Forum this past weekend in Oakland and loved it as much as I.

Then, to top it all off, I was listening to KBOO community radio today to a show where they were featuring Eli as guest. They interrupted the interview with him to announce the community calendar for this weekend and said there was a benefit tonight for Tre Arrow with Julia Butterfly Hill as guest speaker. So you can guess where we went after work tonight! I had the great honor of meeting Julia tonight at the benefit (over at Liberty Hall, an activist hangout in North Portland).

Jeremy and I approached her in the basement where people were filling up their plates with food while someone played acoustic guitar upstairs. I had her sign my copy of her book and she, Jeremy and I chatted for a few minutes. I told Julia how serendipitous these past few days have been for me and thanked her repeatedly for who she is and her work. She was incredible - eyes full of light and energy galore. Later, in her talk, she spoke of appreciation for activists, for all those who choose to commit courageous acts in the face of so much disagreement in the world. She spoke of this incredible love those of us in the room share for the earth and that despite all of the intense heartbreak that comes with activism, how precious and awesome it is simply to “show up.”

More tomorrow night after my first day of the intensive. I am so enthused; on the edge of something big. And I have to get some sleep!