Je découvris que le tree-sitting était une tactique utilisée dans la lutte pour la protection des forêts : poster des personnes jour et nuit sur une plateforme juchée en haut d’un arbre permet, normalement, d’empêcher que l’arbre ainsi que ceux des alentours soient abattus et de dénoncer la marchandisation de la forêt. Ce type de désobéissance civique est l’une des rares méthodes pacifiques faciles à mettre en oeuvre. Les activistes se relaient donc en permanence dans les arbres pour tenter de les sauver, et j’étais bien disposée à rejoindre leurs rangs.
Pour les médias, je devenais une marchandise – j’étais leur proie. Ils se nourrissaient de moi. La presse s’intéressait à moi juste parce que je pouvais lui rapporter de l’argent. J’avais fait de mon mieux pour changer les choses et utiliser les médias pour faire passer un message, mais le vol des vautours au-dessus de moi me rappelait sans cesse de rester sur le qui-vive.
One - Fighting fear with a fork
Fierce winds ripped huge branches off the thousand-year-old redwood, sending them crashing to the ground 200 feet below. The upper platform, where I lived, rested in branches about 180 feet in the air, 20 feet below the very top of the tree, and it was completely exposed to the storm. There was no ridge to shelter it, no trees to protect it. There was nothing.
As the tree branches whipped around, they shredded the tarp that served my shelter. Sleet and hail sliced through the tattered pieces of what used to be my roof and walls. Every new gust flipped the platform up into the air, threatening to hurl me over the edge.
I was scared. I take that back. I was terrified. As a child, I experienced a tornado. That time I was scared. But that was a walk in the park on a Sunday afternoon compared to this. The awesome power of Mother Nature had reduced me to a groveling half-wit fighting fear with a paper fork.
Rigid with terror, I couldn't imagine how clinging to a tiny wooden platform for dear life could possibly be part of the answer to the prayer I had sent to Creation that day on the Lost Coast. I had asked for the guidance on what to do with my life. I had asked for purpose. I had asked to be of service. But I certainly not figured that the revelation I sought would involve taking up residence in a tree that was being torn apart by nature's fury.
Strangely enough, though, that's how it turned out. As I write this as the age of 25, I've been living for more than 2 years in a 200 foot tall ancient redwood located on Pacific Lumber property. I have surived 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.
Beaucoup d'activistes se laissent envahir par la puissance des forces négatives qui oppriment et détruisent la Terre. Ils débordent de tant de haine et de colère qu'ils finissent par devenir des coquilles vides. Je ne voulais pas suivre cette voie. Il fallait que je transforme ma haine en amour, en amour inconditionnel, en agapé.