iv_ever_dumbening_julia_butterfly frAnk julia butterfly hill is the young woman who spent 738 days on a tiny platform in the branches of a thousand-year-old redwood tree at an altitude that makes me dizzy to even think about. she climbed the tree, which she named luna, to prevent it from being logged, and she is, in my opinion, a genuine heroine for our times. initially, she, like most of us, rationalized that her lack of technical knowledge and limited experience disqualified her from active engadgement on issues she cared about. but when she realized that her silence made her complicit in the ruin of our ancient forests, she felt no choice but to start working on this issue, which eventually led her to her odyessy atop luna. i recently read that she suggests all of us have our own personal tree. and if each of us begins by taking a few small steps toward something we believe in, moment by moment, breath by breath, there is no telling where the journey will lead. she writes, "for me this means committing to waking up every morning and asking, 'what can i do to make the world a better place?' and then doing the best we can to live our beliefs. as we are human, some days our best will be better than others. we will make mistakes and then we can give thanks for the lessons they teach us. one breath at a time, one step at a time, we wll find we have crossed our own perceived boundaries and limitations into a whole new divine way of living and being. life is a circle in which all energy flows. every positive choice, no matter how big or small, touches all other life with healing and beauty... begin today. today is the day in which every moment counts. one makes the difference. you are the one." (www.circleoflifefoundation.org) that is very cool that you were able to hear her speak, meet her face to face, shake her hand, and converse with her. you said, "she is a presence. be a presence and vibrate." please expound. 020322 ... ever dumbening I love raptors--hawks, eagles, falcons. All the time that I spend driving around Northern California, for both work and play, affords me the opportunity to see them everywhere. You would think that I'd see them more frequently outside the city limits, but they're everywhere. They perch on light poles, or on the solid cement feet of earthquake-ready overpasses, or they drift along and across the roads slicing through the delta. They sit quietly or float lazily around not concerned with me yet powerfully affecting my spirit. The day that I met Julia_Butterfly I saw two raptors. Symbolism is really only what you make of it, but I usually see these birds of prey along the road when I most need to. In the many years when my depression was deepest, friends and family would offer support and advice. Now that I'm not quite so bogged down in it, now with the benefit of hindsight, I can see that the best help came from those that simply resonated the positive from within their lives. In San Francisco there is a great hands-on science museum called the Exploratorium. There's a small piece there that displays harmonic motion. It's a transverse axle from which hang two freely swinging pendula. If you push one pendulum, in a moment the other starts to move. Another example of this is if you hold a tuning fork near an instrument playing the same frequency the fork will begin to vibrate. Of course this physical property can have both harmful and beneficial results. Look up the Tacoma Narrows Bridge to see what they teach in physics classes. In a slightly more mystical way this is what happens between humans. Spend time around people who feel shitty, and you will begin to feel shitty. Spend time around people with a positive (though also patient) disposition and _eventually_ you will start to feel the same. I remember my friend Thom's graduation ceremony at Occidental College in Southern California. Maya Angelou was the keynote speaker. I can't remember a single word she said, but to this day I remember clearly that she too was a presence. Telling someone what to do, how to live their life, what's wrong or right about them: these have their time and place. To me though, they are more like Christianity--do this OR ELSE! Have you ever had a Buddhist or Taoist cram their rhetoric down your throat? It's quite rare, I'd imagine. Simply being who you are, aware of your flaws but not dwelling in them, will, however slowly, begin to vibrate outward, silently affecting change in others. Since everyone is imperfect, we will always be learning from and healed by flawed people. The key is that they have overcome something that you might be currently struggling with. Listen to them, observe their patience, be enveloped by their warm vibrating kindness. The more you steel yourself against healing the more slowly the vibrations will enter you. The more you open to it, you will notice it coming in waves, faster and faster, from all sources. Even from Red Tailed Hawks, and women who sit in trees. 020515 ... frAnk bruthajames...what you wrote is so powerful. new skites should read it and learn. 021212 ... dxl i bet she was a vegan 030105 ... ever dumbening including sugar? 030105 ... yaxalot she says that she's vegan other than eating honey and wearing wool. i'm assuming that means that she doesn't eat sugar that was filtered by animal bones, but i can't find out for sure. she also says she's a raw foodist. 030105 what's it to you? who go blather from