Man, the tear sniffling and snuffy nose writing and preparing this “public love letter” was crazy. A mess? Yes, I felt like tree about to be logged and losing all sense of rationality and reason… a tree can’t run away when the loggers arrive. Maybe you have too actually go there in this process meaning, you have to lose it to gain it. The biggest make up I entertained was “I was alone”. Well, I was and found myself stretched way out of my comfort zone. As hard as it was, it was also such an sacred honor and alone was the only way. Jim always said he loved how I could pull things together.
Today, I am glad I did it and glad it is over.
There were bloopers and blunders the days leading up to celebration. Some left me collapsing in upon myself. The preparation was hard and I felt I, myself and I where the threesome team. Creating the slide show was crazy sad There was gettting supplies, setting of the scene, moving furniture, planning the space, creating the altar, considering other people’s feelings, putting dots here and crosses there. And, there was the building of my public address. Yep, I was at the far limits and it was way, way to much. Then, in the morning, the person assigned to lead the sacred ceremony wasn’t able to attend due to illness. F**K!!!! Collapse, crumble, crash!
It felt too hard. I wanted to quit, cancel, go hide. I didn’t want to be here. I just got in the shower and let hot, hot, hot water flow. Then an interior voice…something or someone… started nudging me forward, up and straight. “You got this” was the silent sentiment. Somehow courage came up and kicked my ass. I just do it. It will be imperfect. But, this imperfection I can call my own, 100%.
I realize that no matter how freaked out you are, diving into the dark deep end can be cathartic. We actually don’t expand, grow or become stronger by curling up in blanket of fear and saying “go away”. The “you got this” pushed in me a willingness to act in “spite of” and “especially because”. I can’t say I am proud…pride is the icky stiffler of artfulness. I can say I was selfless…just doing it when the doing was hard and no one was helping me carry it. I can say I surmounted those constraining inner dialogues that has me committing to a different way.
Before I share my dedication to Jimi, I want to share a very special moment that happened. When you read the address below, this takes on more meaning. After all was almost said and done, Jim clapped and cheered at THE most perfect time in a perfect way. It was after the ceremony. Everyone was invited to scatter ashes over the land. Minutes later the skies opened wide and the blots of rain hit hard. Everyone retreated, fast, to the covered porch and it was intense. We huddled like a football team and I got a little overwhelmed. I had to go to the garage and take a breath and chill out Then, CRASH a light zapped through the cracks followed by a powerful crash-bang-boom. It made me jump. I heard the people “out there” bellow a collective “wow” and then silence. Jimi? Was that you? Woohoo Jimi, you did it!
I know we can’t know for certain, but Jimi liked to do things big, bold. And, in my sharing speech I talk about his electricity (being part of the elect) ALOT. Was he responding? I imagine this crack and boom was him crashing over a boundary or bursting through or, I don’t know, saying woohoo. I imagined him saying, “yep, you got that right.. I am electricity”.
Some ancient cultures feel our grief and tears hold the Spirit of the loved one’s here on this plane. I think that is looney…they must be free of this emotional-physical-mind body and be in a pure state. They must be excited to now get it! Yes? How can my tears hold a loved one here and keep them stuck in limbo? I think that notion needs to be limbo-ed out.
I don’t like the word “eulogy” for some reason. So, here I present my dedication to jimi. Imagine we sharing it was a trembling voice, scared shit-less but focussed…
Before I start I want to give my gratitude and deep thanks to Ricard and his family…our local friends
Ricard, Joanna and Yandri I thank God for you. Thank you for being there for to Jim and I when things were hard. Thank you being here for me when Jimi left. You are family. You were when in the most need. You took care of us, me and the land. I will be there for you. I am here for you. We can’t talk too much because we only know spanlish but your friendship and dedication is seen and known Jim loved you I love you. Thank you Ricard, Joanna and Yandri
Okay, so, I hold out my hand…to jim…and hold this margarita..his favourite flower. I will pass it around…and ask everyone to to smell it…the essence that Jimi loved
I want what I am going to share to be perfect….and I know it will not be….Today should honestly be our land ceremony… and celebrating what Jimi and I did together. It should be our public commitment to this land and each other. Maybe it is! I ask you all to take this on…see this as a celebration of all that.
When we played OUr song, he would always hold my hand….
the words…
Oh, let us rise
Above the bones
Let us remember the memories
Filled with compassion
Not scarred by anger
No not blinded by the ashes of the past
Jimi’s past. He lost Ruchel when she was 58 to cancer. My past I lost Jimi at 58 to cancer. Somewhere in there is a gift…he gives to me. I have a sense Jimi never really healed from his loss…and passes it on to me so I can do the healing.
Jimi, you were the engine and I was the flowing fuel!
You were the practical and logical and I was the emotion and feeling.
The two ends of this same stick that was sometimes a challenge..but when we got it right, it was electric.
I thank you deeply for those tender and precious moments leading up to you crossing over. I loved you. I love you..
Talking to you today is not an easy task….not one I thought would be happening…….but here we are …..
I;ve been sitting in the silence of the land listing for you.
I didn’t want Jimi to go. I desired we could rise above this dis-ease and continue our work together. My job now is to remember you and create more goodness through your legacy.. I will do it.
You did leave a legacy for me…a big one.
And, in many ways that was the beauty about your Spirit…it wasn’t the individual consciousness…you gifted to the collective. I promise I will continue.
You were a teacher to me and many others. That “teacher” roles was touch sometimes . You played the “father” a lot. Probably because deep down, he grieved the loss of being and becoming a dad. I am very pleased to say my dad really liked Jim and after he came to Ecuador and met him, my father was at ease. He knew Jim would take care of me, his eldest daughter and protect me. My dad now is patting him on the back “good job mate”.
Jim always said “expect the best but prepare for the worst” But, Jimi, you were always telling me not to have expectations!!!!! I am left sitting with that…now……..expect the best…prepare for the worst?
Jim and I couldn’t stand still together for too long. His illness stopped us in the end…but under healthy conditions, we rocked and rolled. The only time Jim and I stopped was when we went to listen to Nate. Our dynamic was unique.
It was like we would stand together looking at the forest of life. We’d contemplate what needed to be done. We would see different areas that needed our individual hands He would go his way, I went mine. We did our thing separately and offered our magic…the repairs, upgrades, fix-its, the healings… and then we returned to stand together to look at the total forest once again. We knew it was good and we knew our dynamic was good in this regard. The doing of Jimi and the doing of me…it was perfect together.
Together we had a gift that proved his favourite formula 1+1=3.
He often talked about this formula and the magic it contained. It might of been the Q factor and the system that holds together the Purple Carrot Club
I truly believe Jimi was one of the elect…. electricity.
And, i am quiet certain everybody here is too.. we all came here to vilcabamba because we know there is something important happening in our world and it is time to get it right. Jimi knew this and was fierce in his intention to break free of the matrix. I think everyone here can agree that something BIG is going on around us si?.. Jimi felt it. I feel it and I think most here do too. There is a sorta rebellion happening. Jimi was a rebellious force..taking on the new and working towards something better.
Jimi felt “they” (the bad guys) had put us out to sea. I saw/see this deception too. And, in this knowledge I think we were both charged to make it right I am pretty sure he is free of the “bad guys” now and I am pretty sure he knows what is going on. He is smiling at us left behind and trying to figure it out. For me and my researcher friends who are asking “who are we?” where are we? what is going on? Let’s ask Jimi to now help us.
For Jimi his core intention was to reclaim and to rebuild our freedom and sovereignty from the ground up and get back to the land. That work is not easy with the the culture around us. It takes dedication, courage and resilience. That was Jim through and through.
Jimi came to Ecuador 11 years ago. He came with his late wife Ruchel. They had a dream. After she passed, I came into the picture. Jimi and I had a dream. Jimi, Ruchel and I, we all held that dream. I never met Ruchel but I feel like she is a sister.
I think Jimi chose me after she because I am a lot like her. He didn’t share much about his pain after she left…well, he started to at the end almost like he was preparing me. The medicine he was presented after she left is now my medicine. My job and purpose is to take this legacy gift from both of these two souls and continue….make it good, make it better and make it purposeful. I think maybe I will heal for all of us. Maybe this is another understanding of the 1+1 =3.
God has plans….and the medicine we need is sometimes tough to swallow. But, for those charged with a greater purpose, we are given that tough medicine…drink it down ….drink it so that purpose and goodness can be realized.
First time I saw Jimi, I was attracted. He was very handsome. I heard that the “goddess” girls (think they were called themselves the Vilcadamas) had voted him the most eligible bachelor (a couple of years in a row). Well, he was off limits to me. I was the crazy one, the misfit and actually not a goddess gal at all…more a tom boy in mocassins and mud on my face. But, when I saw him in town he always seem happy and smiling. He always had a beer was very chatty and he loved to talk about helicopters. Besides, he was Canadian.
It was actually the “kids”, the young crew from the forest (that included my daughter) who decided it was time for me to have a partner. And, they knew it was Jimi..Georgie had already named him Pepe. I would come into town once a week to satisfy my need to know I wasn’t going nuts living so remote and natural. The kids would literally us sit us together. it was strange and very awkward to say the least. “Hi Jim” “Hi Leisha…ummmmmm.” But, honestly, we chuckled at the kids and just tried to act like two adults. We talked a lot. In fact, we would sit outside Pura Vida until 3-4 o’clock in the morning just talking. We had a lot to talk about.
Finally one night after Pura Vida shut down, I got the courage to ask “hey, do you like me or not”. In other words, tell me straight up so I don’t have play head games? He responded “ya, I sorta do ….but keep it simple and we can go forward. Simple, me? Simple Jim? Ha, we are both anything but simple. True to his way, the very next day, he gave me a ring. That complication totally freaked me out….I thought we’d just said yes to dating. Yep, he was a total “in our out” guy…never half way and I loved him for that.
We all know Jim and his fixing mode and he loved tinkering in his garage, his cave. He felt there was a great purpose to his life to remember something, a free energy, an invention and Q factor. He said his dream was to have the time and freedom to be in his cave and get down into his invention ideas. We were almost there.
His superpower rose when he was needed He always saw the broken things. ,And, he didn’t just do things half way…it had to be perfect. His mind work mechanically, engine like and forward thrust.
How can I help? was his most favourite saying. “how can I help you?”
Well, how did Jimi help me? He saw me like no other except maybe my dad and one sister. He desired that “me” to be free.. doing it. He gave me that gift. He has left me with that gift. He did the same for my daughter and little Miss Kaya . He wanted us all to be free and free of a system that confined us.
It would not be right for me to not talk to you all about this passion in Jimi a bit more. He was a studious man with a quick and photogenic mind. He stepped out of the mainstream narrative many, many years ago. He was angry at the mainstream. He knew about and deeply felt for the children being abused and the evil of this world He understood that the lies run so deep that most people couldn’t ever entertain going down that rabbit hole. He was a advocate of “freedom”. He studied his sovereignty like no one else I know. His goal was to claim his name and he also knew that “us” together could do it at a practical level He was a truther for sure.
In the end, I know the engine of his heart was full….very full. He knew how much he was loved and adored. Yes, there was pain…… lotsa pain…pain…pain he had to finally admit…which was hard for him. Look around! This house, this space. This is what Jimi did. His will always be alive here. He created this structure and foundation so that freedom could be realized. This is the land of the Purple Carrot.
If you followed our story of late, most of you know how the Purple Carrot Club was seeded. It was Jimi’s excitement and enthusiasm when he returned from surgery. I witnessed a man who had touched the divine and he was LIT UP and so full of electricity it was overwhelmingly beautiful to witness. “Grow Purple Carrots…we have to grow them again, Leisha” “we know the secret of the q factor” he said. He said we had a second chance. I believed him and although it is difficult, I still do. I will keep the club alive because we HAVE TOO. I plant purple carrots.
I have written a poem for Jim that I will share in closing…..
I am still here….in this world holding the notes of the purple song
It is time for it to be scattered and charged.
In the elect morning, clear our foggy minds
And rise the fog of our amnesia
Are we mad Jimi or is it a sane clarity?
We had much to do together
One plus one equals three in unity
I will sit listening, my friend
To the sounds of silence around me
And tuck your voice gently into the land
both community and loneliness into the folds.
Like an electric burst that exhausted and empowered.
You were the engine, I was the fuel.
Here I am Jimi listening to the electric whirls, talk to me
Can you hear? Are you here?
I imagine you see the clouds and cobwebs pulsing
I imagine you spinning the wheels
You hands now with the magic potion
You are now inside the senses around us
Help us become the elect…the electricity!
Help us to matter in this material
And fly like a helicopter you are
Jim, Jim bob, jimi boy, jimi.
I love you …
And I hear you respond…I love you more, Leisha
I can’t really say I know too much about where you are now…we have amnesia in that regard…but I know you are in the electricity and that is part of everything here on this plane. Zap away honey! You deserve it.
See ya later, my friend.
I love you more!
