Upcoming Live Teleseminar Interview on February 20th.

Dear Friends,

I am delighted to invite you to participate with me in the Sacred Awakening Series, a unique teleseminar event featuring 40 spiritual leaders from every major tradition over 40 days – all for free.

Never before have so many leaders from so many lineages gathered on the phone to offer their secrets to living a sacred life. It promises to be a journey of personal transformation, deep connection, and inspiring examples of service.

I will offer one of 40 teleseminars during the Series alongside deeply respected leaders such as Marianne Williamson, Robert Thurman, Sadhguru, Bishop John Shelby Spong, Luisah Teish, Rabbi Yehuda Berg, Barbara Marx Hubbard, and Grandmother Agnes Baker Pilgrim (full list below).

You can participate live on as many calls as you like and interact with both the leaders and other participants via a state-of-the-art MaestroConference platform. Or you can just listen to the recordings later.

The series begins February 17th and is completely free.

Please do share this invitation with friends and allies – all are warmly welcomed to participate. I hope to connect with you on my call!

Register at http://sacredawakeningseries.com

Love,
Julia Butterfly Hill

P.S. The Sacred Awakening Series gives you personal access to the following inspiring spiritual leaders:

Abdul Aziz-Said, Andrew Harvey, Angeles Arrien, Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne, Ariel Spilsbury, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Bhikku Bodhi, Bishop John Shelby Spong, Chunyi Lin, Dattatreya Shiva Baba, Gangaji, Genpo Roshi, Grandmother Agnes Baker Pilgrim, Grandmother Flordemayo, Isha Judd, James O’Dea, Jean Houston, Julia Butterfly Hill, Jyoti, Kali Ma, Kyriacos Markides, Leslie Temple Thurston, Luisah Teish, Marianne Williamson, Matthew Fox, Michael Tamura, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, Rabbi Yehuda Berg, Rev. James Trapp, Rev. Michael Dowd, Sadhguru, Saniel Bonder & Linda Groves Bonder, Sequoia Trueblood, Sheikha Ayshegul Ashki, Shiva Rea, Sobunfu Some, Stanislav Grof, Stephen Dinan & Devaa Haley Mitchell, Swamiji Chidananda Saraswati, Tenzin Robert Thurman

Back To The Bay

Hello Friends,

I am back in the San Francisco Bay Area after a wonderful trip to the Bahamas. I had such a great time in the Bahamas and it made it even more clear to me that I need to be based in the tropics–preferablly the Carribean. My body and my spirit feel so much more alive after that trip that I know that is a place I can thrive. My next two trips to figure out where my new home will be are going to be Jamaica and Costa Rica. I am feeling Jamaica calling pretty strongly, and I have for many years. I actually had planned on going to Jamaica before I ended up cilmbing Luna. I still have my Lonely Planet Guide to Jamaica in my storage that I purchased all those years ago, planning on going. I never made it until now.

I am travelling checking out places and opportunities because I want to make sure that when I move this time, it will be for a long time. I am so tired of being homeless. I am ready for roots that sink down deep, and I want to make sure that I choose the best possible place for that to happen.

I am now back in the Bay to visit friends and framily, have meetings, and do benefits. My birthday is February 18th and it is also 10 years since I returned to Terra Firma from Luna’s branches, so we are doing events to celebrate and raise green energy (my name for money) to support the work of What’s Your Tree and the Sanctuary Forest which is the ongoing stewards of the Luna Preservation Grove.

For more information on two of the upcoming events, go to: http://www.whatsyourtree.org/events/

Hope to see some of you there!

Love,
julia

Homes For The Homeless

I am off on another journey to the warmth. Oh, my body is so ready for it. I am excited to be closing in on a new home for myself. I feel it getting closer, and I am one happy girl. The thought of having a home and not just a storage unit is making my little inner girl so very, very happy. She is not doing the dance of joy yet, mind you– she has had way too many disappointments in her life for that. But her foot is definitely tapping and her hips are beginning to wiggle. Insert snaggle-toothed grin here.

And, of course, at the same time, I am very present to all the people in Haiti right now who have lost their homes and many of their loved ones in the Earthquake. This is the dance of duality it is to be alive in the world today it seems. So as I begin to feel the joy of having my own home, I am also saying prayers for all the people in Haiti (and around the world) who do not have shelter, food, water, or other basic necessities.

May we all do everything we can to help those in need. Please. Thank You.

Love,

julia

Blessings Come From All Directions

Ah, I am back in the cold, gray, fog land of Northern California. A world of difference from Maui, Hawaii. Being in the warmth and deliciousness that was Maui for me was so healing and rejuvenating on so many levels. I come alive in warm, tropical places. I hibernate in the cold. But here I am. Still living out of a suitcase and a storage unit. Went by the storage unit, dropped off my barely there clothes and picked up my layers of winter clothes. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr………….

I am looking for things to appreciate, and I am finding it everywhere. And, I have to say, that I am really excited to manifest home, home, home on a specific part of this home (namely a tropical part) called Planet Earth spinning in the home known as the Cosmos. I am so ready to live somewhere where the trees on the land I am stewarding produce avocados, bananas, mangos, papayas, coconuts, and other tropical fruits!

The doors to the place I thought I was moving to in Mexico seem to be closing. But I know that when one door closes, another one opens. So, I am looking forward to seeing what door opens up next!

Until then, I will just pile on the layers and think warm, happy, sunshiny thoughts!

Love,
julia

PS i did an interview while on Maui with a wonderful activist and journalist. Some of the facts are wrong, but i think the essence is captured. If you would like to check out not only my interview, but his work at large go to: http://legacyprojectshawaii.com/2010/2010-01-07.php

“Almost” 2009, Ringing in 2010

It’s a new year. 2009 has passed. It is now early, wee hours of 2010. I rang in the New Year with a walk on the beach with a friend, many texts to and from friends and framily, laughter, fireworks, a potent full, blue moon, and rain (very rare for this part of the Island.)

For me, 2009 feels mostly like the year of “almost.” Almost manifested a home. Almost manifested a partner (although to be honest, I only very recently realized I wanted one–that is a very new experience for me.) Almost manifested clarity around how and what to do with my life now. Almost got a president we could have been proud of. Almost got an agreement around climate change that could have redirected our human family from our self-made destruction. It is very hard for me to be in “almost” for this long.

I have had many wonderful experiences this last year, and I am very grateful for each and every one of them. And at the same time, as I look back, the feeling I am left with about 2009 is… almost. It is the year that passed with almost nothing more than a sigh.

And, it is also, the year that ended with beautiful relationships and partnerships all around me (even as I write this, a couple in the condo above me are abviously fully enjoying the gifts of physical connection– also known as sex.)

I met a whole “pod” (the name given to ‘family’ here) on this trip to Maui. And almost all in the pod are beautiful, amazing examples of incredible relationships made possible through intentionality, love, purposefull-ness, and that spark that seems to be magic.

I recognize and acknowledge that I am both hopeless romantic and hopeless cynic. I dance between believing in magic and believing in nothing other than our collective stupidity. I am the dance of duality, and it feels like I could possibly be on the cusp of something more than that… something new… well, almost.

May 2010 be the year of moving beyond almost into the realm of actuality and groundedness. May this grounded reality also have tons of magic. I know it is asking for a lot… but what do I have to lose?

Happy New Year!

love,

julia b

If It Is All Truly One

I swam with dolphins… and I got stung by a jellyfish. If I move past my rational mind of Ouch! one hurt and therfore, it’s wrong, then both equally are magical and Divine. Funny, how powerful our minds are at shaping our reality. We hear, “Swim with dolphins…” and most of us are, “Ooohhhh, ohhhhh, ahhhhh…” We hear, “Stung by jellyfish…” and most of are, “Ouch! That sucks!” (Insert, “Bad, wrong, not good” here.)

How easily we go into judgment and kill off the magic in our lives. And I say, “We” on purpose. I include myself. How many places in my life do I make something wonderful and something evil with just my thoughts? Yet, if I move past my judgment, a jellyfish is a wild, magical, crazy phenomenon that astounds me and humbles me to my core. Well, that is until it stings me, right?

Why is the jellyfish, one moment, something that blows my mind and the next minute, something that I deem awful? The jellyfish has not changed one bit. Only my thoughts have. Oh, crap. Right. I am the maker of my reality.

Not that I want to go throw myself in the path of jellyfishes all the time, mind you. I am not looking for punishment, despite the fact that some of my actions might seem to point otherwise. I recognize that pain hurts, and I am not looking to sign up for that (well, at least most of the time.) But, anyway, you get what I am saying.

I am so often bored with how predictable I am. No matter how much I know, and how much work I have done and undone, I seem to still fall into the same traps every so often. Moments like swimming with dolphins while being stung by jellyfish are reminders of this.

For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with being born human. I have tried all different kinds of things, from various religions to suicide to being an alcoholic and drug addict to tools and practices from spiritual to science of the mind. I have done more in my almost 36 years on this planet, than I could have imagined doing in a lifetime. And yet, with all of it, I very rarely feel like I am able to transcend the experience of being ever-so-boringly and obnoxiously human. And then, there are all the ideas like, “I am not meant to ‘transcend’ the human experience, but embrace it,” and, “But the human experience is the opportunity to experience transformation,” and blah, blah, blah, blah… I know people rely and count on me to be ever-so-enlightened, but this is the reality of how I often feel and experience life. And those that know me best, know to expect whatever is coming through me to be what I talk about honestly.

One of the things I do in my life is life-coaching, which when reading this, seems laughable. The reality is that often times in a coaching session, I start laughing at times, that if the people I work with didn’t know better, they would take it personally. But what I tell everyone I work with is that I laugh because of how similar we all are. Our “stuff” is all so very similar–it wears different masks (often times in our very own lives) but at the end of the day it is just similar themes pretending to be otherwise. We like to think we are oh so unique, and at the end of the day, as individual as we all are, the saying, “We are all One,” applies to more than just the feel-good, enlightened, transformed things. If it is a truth that we accept, then it can not have an asterik after it– it applies to All Life, Everywhere, Everyone, and Everything. Damn! Not nearly as pretty that way.

So, I return to the dolphins and jellyfish of my mind and how I shape my reality. And at the same time, how often I feel like it is all pointless. So I look to create a meaning inspiring enough to keep me here… even as I know that I am 100% responsible for creating whatever meaning I create. Life does not happen for a reason. Life happens, and then the reason is what we make of it.

I have been spending time in Hawaii for the last week. One would think I would just be all blissed out–especially considering how much I LOVE being in the warmth and swimming in the warm ocean. And yet, for me, life doesn’t just pause and quit being intense just because I am in a beautiful place. I think maybe I am just not designed that way.

I have been longing for a home, and for the first time in my life, I have been longing for a relationship. I seem to have hit that point of wanting to root and nest and explore the areas of my heart that I have kept off limits for as long as I can remember. In some ways, being here in Hawaii, and some other things going on in my life, have been poignant reminders of how far I feel from fulfilling these longings.

And, trust me, I know, I know, longing for what isn’t versus being grateful for what is, is a perfect set-up for dissapointment. I don’t need that teaching. I have had it a thousand times over. I think, maybe, I am just tired of doing the work of being grateful for what is, even though it is not what I would like. I am tired of being “enlightened” and “transformed.” I am just in the space of being oh, so very human. And I am very present to how profoundly boring and obnoxious that experience can be.

And there is nothing to “fix” here. There is just the experience. I am both dolphin and jellyfish. I am both sand (stuck in my bathing suit) and gentle, calm ocean. I am both swimming with turtles and choking on salt water as the waves get rough. I am both sun and sunburn. I am everything and nothing. I am the space that exists beyond any of these definitions. I am the being, known as “Julia Butterfly Hill” who in one moment revels in the experience of lime covered papaya and in the next moment wishes I could disappear and leave this human plane of existance.

This is what I am experiencing, feeling, and thinking of in these moments. And it feels so pathetically uninteresting and blah, blah, blah, that I hesitate to post it. And yet, at the end of the day, “We are ALL One…”

So I post it anyway.

Here is to the jellyfish and dolphin in us all!

Love,

julia

60 Years

My Grandmother passed from the physical realm into the Spirit realm this morning. She had a long and full life. What I can’t help thinking about is my Grandfather. He and my Grandmother were married over 60 years. When I was visiting them a few weeks ago, at one point, my Grandfather leaned over to me, looked at my Grandmother and said, “I am ready to go when the Good Lord will have me, but I gotta stay here to take care of her as long as she is here.”

She’s gone now. They will be putting her body in it’s final resting place tomorrow. I am praying for my Grandpa. I think he is going to feel pretty lost without her. May Angels watch over them and steward them both on this new journey for each of them. Take good care Grandpa. Rest in Peace Grandma.

Love,

julia

All Things Pass

Blessed Solstice.

Tonight, I did my annual ritual of writing down what I want to let go of in my life–that which no longer serves me, and then, writing down what I want to invite into my life. I went out to the beach with my friend where we read what we wrote and then lit our pieces of scrap paper on fire. I called into my awareness my Mendocino family whom I have spent this time of year with and done this ritual with for many, many years since returning to Terra Firma from Luna’s branches. Although, we were not together in person, they were definitely with me in heart and spirit.

I invoked Berk and Moese, two of my Mendocino family whom I love very much, who are no longer with the living. And at the same time, I was praying for my Paternal Grandmother and that part of my family. I got a message today from my Dad, that my Grandmother is on the last of the journey of transitioning from physical form to the spiritual form. I was told she probably has one to two days left.

Interesting, how my last post is about the challenges I face with my family of origin vs. how close I feel to my family of choice, and now, just a couple weeks later, I am writing about them both again in this context. I grieved deeply when Moese passed. He was a beautiful, amazing person–the kind we need more of, not less. I grieved even deeper when Berk passed. I grieved more for him than I have ever grieved the passing of anyone in my life, other than my “adopted” brother, Anthony. I still carry a picture of Berk with me in my wallet. When I open it up, Berk’s face is the first thing i see. He was an angel in my life when he was alive, and he still is.

And now, my Grandmother is in her time of transition. I am sad for members of my family who I know will grieve and feel all kinds of mixed emotions. And at the same time, I feel almost no sense of personal loss. I feel like I “should,” but it’s just not there. I love my Grandmother. She is family of origin. And she was there for me in the ways she knew how. She knitted me an afghan, so I could be covered in her care. She bought my brothers and me, colorful monkey puppets that had arms and legs that strapped around our waist and neck because she knew we were very into puppeteering. She encouraged me to cook and loved sharing her recipes with me–her roasted pecans and potato salad were one of a kind. She hand-wrote letters all the way up until the last couple years when her health was failing. And, she was a rigid person in her sense of right and wrong. She was often caustic and negative. And nothing ever seemed to be good enough for her. Bless her heart. I love my Grandma. And I know she loved me very much. And I feel almost no sense of deep personal loss. And that’s just the way life is.

It’s hard to write about these things, but something inside me feels it is more respectful to tell what is true for me than to make everything seem perfect and pretty because life is so rarely that way.

When my time comes to pass from the physical to the spiritual realm, I pray that I pass in anonymity and silence. I would like to be the person who time and people forgot. If that wish does not come true, I pray that people at least tell the truth and be honest about their feelings and experiences of me– all of them, without editing. I will be dead. I won’t notice one way or the other. Why waste the opportuntiy for authenticity?

Here’s to life and death. Because there really is no separation.

As I see Solstice as the New Year, Happy New Year!

Love,

julia

Family We Are Born With and Family We Choose

I am in Florida visiting the family I was born into. It is such a different world from what I do my best to live in. They are well-meaning people… and I have so little in common with them.

Our family reunions are toxic food served on disposables with many conversations about babies, marriage (of course only between a man and a woman) and church.

I love them and yet I feel so sad whenever I come visit. I am not quite sure why my Karma had me born into this family.

I show up with my reusable container, utensils, and mug every year. Every year I bring salad which almost noone eats and some other veggie dish which this year they liked and ate a majority of (roasted root vegetables.) Every year, I do my very best to model the solutions, and I am pretty sure I have never once made an impact on them and the way they live their lives. And it breaks my heart and pretty much makes me feel hopeless about the state of our world.

This time, I was blown away when a relative asked, “Are you dating anybody? Guy or Girl?” WOW!!! I think they are pretty much the only one in my family who is totally cool with whatever my answer to that would be. Most of the rest of my family, if they read this blog, and know that I have dated both men and women and am in favor of all people being supported in loving relationships regardless of gender, would have a problem. And I would never be allowed to bring a girl I was dating home to meet them. That is a sin and although “they love the sinners, they despise the sin.” Which translates to a huge portion of my life is not acceptable to them.

A long time ago, I let go of the belief that I “should” do anything for or with my family of origin. I have nothing to prove there. This isn’t my “work” as many people say families are often about.

I have been so incrediblly blessed and humbled to my core by my family of choice that I have met and deeply connected with over the years. My “aunties” in Northern California and my Mendocino family and my “Framily” in the Bay Area. These are the family I go to to be renewed, supported, and loved in the way I so deeply long for.

My family of origin, I love and they, for the most part, love me. Only thing is, that love is held together by a tenous string of inauthenticity. And that makes it hard for me to be here.

My immediate family of parents and siblings– we too are very different. Somehow, we make it work– probably because we almost never see each other and only speak on rare occasions. We have almost nothing in common other than blood.

I do love them all. But I feel like an alien in my family who walks around covered in a shield in order to deal with the experience.

I wish them all the very best blessings that the Universe has to offer. I wish them joy, love, peace, and health. And I am extremely grateful for when I can be back with my family of choice. They show me what family can truly feel like.

Here’s to famlies everywhere– every description, every gender relationship, every shape, form, and possibility. May we all be connected to families that renew our spirits– whether they be families of origin or families of choice.

Sometimes…

Up LATE!!! I write on my blog because it’s been more than a minute since my last post. Tonight, I was reminded how much I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the other-than-human part of our Nature! I try so hard to relate to the human animals, but I so often feel like I just don’t get it. Tonight, while hiking with a friend, I saw a Bobcat, 3 Great Horned Owls, and Quail, a Rabbit, and myriad other Birds along with watching the Ocean turn wild, magical hues of aqua-blue, silver, and gold as the sun disappeared below the horizon line. In moments like these, i think maybe I wasn’t dropped on the wrong planet after all.

I just don’t get people much. I mean I do, in some sense. But, mostly, no, not so much. I walk through this world being pulled between being inspired and disgusted. In many ways, living in a tree for over two years, surviving all that I did, was easier than living in this disconnected, crazy, violent world.

The amount of times, I have to watch and listen to people who know better make great excuses for their violent and destructive behaviors, makes me want to throw my middle fingers up in the air and walk off into the sunset over the ocean. It seems like such a beautiful and peaceful way to create completion in my life. And yet, in the face of this, I get so completely blown away by the beauty of this mind-blowing Planet Earth, that I find myself sticking around for another round.

I dance in this duality on pretty much a daily basis. I am not saying, by ANY stretch of the imagination, that I am perfect. It’s just that I get so disheartened by all the ways we sell out on the Sacred Earth, and ALL Her Species. We “want” something, so we do it– regardless of the consequences. It just turns my stomach and breaks my heart. And sometimes, I just feel overwhelmed by it all. And all I want to do, is throw my middle fingers up in the air as I walk off into the sunset.

But that is for movie sets. So instead, I write about it. Honestly. Because somehow that keeps me here. And keeps me accountable. No matter what people think.

I love you owls, bobcats, birds, and ocean.

Thank You for another mind-blowing, magical moment.

love,

julia butterfly hill