At the request of one of the CE family members, I’d like to pull Jerry out from the long celebrity interview queue. I know it’s breaking the “no cuts” rule, but Mama Elisa does have special powers, right? I think you’re really going to enjoy this. If so, enter your 2013 Bloggies vote. If you don’t do it, feel free to feel guilty.
Me: How about getting Jerry Garcia for us, Erik?
Jamie: Poof, he left.
(Pause)
Jamie: He is back. We have Jerry Garcia!
Me: Well, good! How are you doing, Jerry?
Jerry (with boisterous enthusiasm): Hello, hello, hello everyone!
Jamie (giggling): He’s acting like he’s talking on the radio or something!
Me: I’m so sorry we had to ask you back! I had a brain fart and erased the recording of first interview!
Jerry (chuckling): Were you smoking herbs? Because that tends to happens when—
Me (chuckling): No, I don’t do that stuff! Maybe I should have, though! Okay, we’ll rehash through some of this, so bear with me.
I just realized that “rehash” was probably a poor choice of words.
Me: First, can you tell us what you thought happens to people when they die? In other words, what beliefs did you have before you crossed over?
Jamie listens for several seconds.
Jamie: He’s talking about his belief of Mother Earth.
Me: Oh, okay!
Jerry: We’re all one; we all serve for a higher good whether people think that’s a good or bad thing. Whatever we did went to a higher purpose. I had beliefs in God; I wasn’t an atheist, but I never felt right going into a church.
Me: Ah.
Jamie: He’s telling me kind of as an aside that he’s surprised that some people go into a church and DO feel like they fit 100%.
Jerry: Yeah, that surprises me more than someone who feels they don’t fit.
Me: Oh yeah. I agree. Now, did your beliefs change after you died?
Jerry: Well, they were more solidified. When you’re alive, you use a lot of your imaginiation to enhance what you want to believe. That’s faith. Faith has imagination with intuition built into it. And once you die, this imagination is no longer needed.
Me: Ah!
Jerry: Not for the understanding of the structure of God and energy—but it’s definitely needed to create what you need or want in the afterlife.
Me: Can you tell us a bit about what death was like for you?
Jamie (laughing): He’s comparing it to a Bluegrass song!
Me: Oh, okay! Never heard that comparison before!
Jamie: I keep hearing a banjo, but it’s really intense picking. (Jamie mimics this in song.) I guess that’s what Bluegrass is?
Me: Yeah, I think so. Can you elaborate, Jerry?
Jamie: Yeah, describe it—
Erik (to Jerry): You don’t have to describe it in terms of music; just tell them what happened.
Jamie listens for a while.
Jamie: He’s talking about switches going off and on.
Jerry: I was having a hard time breathing. I felt like I had surges or electrical malfunctions in my body. That’s how it felt. It was a little electrical feeling, and it was hard to breathe through it. Sometimes it went up my neck; sometimes it was over my chest and shot down an arm—like it was firing off in wrong places.
Me: Sounds like you had a heart attack.
Jerry: I remember thinking, ‘This IS going to be the end of my days.”
Me: Wow.
Jerry (laughing): I thought for sure I’d die of a drug overdose!
Jamie: So, this wasn’t a drug overdose?
Me: Yeah, I always thought he died of like a heroin overdose, but it sounds like a cardiac event of some sort. (To Jerry) Did you have drugs in your body, though?
Jerry: When did I not?
Jamie giggles.
Me: Oh, boy.
Jerry: That was just a part of daily life for me and not to the extent of severe abuse. I was more in control of my drug use in the last years of my life.
Jamie: He’s showing me a blood clot or something.
Jerry: So I remember the pain, and then it ceased. It stopped. And when the pain stopped, I thought I was getting better, but actually that was the moment of death. You know, when the misfiring and pain was going on, I could hear that Bluegrass music.
Me: Ah! That’s where that comes in!
Jerry: I translated a lot of what happened in my life into terms of music.
Jamie: That sounds very Beethoven!
Me: Yes!
Jerry: I could match anything in my life to a sound. Everything has a sound for it. And when I passed, I saw my father. I saw the people I loved and immediately got to make peace with them.
Me: Aw, good!
Jerry: There was so much left undone with me and death, you know, with my family and life. You know, that’s probably the way it is for many people on Earth.
Me: Oh, yeah. I’m sure.
Jerry: But it was so nice to all of a sudden have that gone from my life, and I didn’t realize how much weight I was carrying. When it was gone, I realized, ‘ Why was I carrying that?’ I couldn’t remember why.
Me: Yeah.
Jerry: It felt so good just to be present with the people I loved. I didn’t have some God experience.
Erik: Did little bears come dancing by?
Jamie and I burst out laughing.
Jamie: They’re laughing at each other. Apparently, there were no dancing bears.
Me: Hm. How disappointing. That just completely destroys my entire understanding of what to expect in the afterlife.
Jamie giggles.
Jerry: It was Technicolor, though. There was every color in the rainbow plus more.
Me: Wow!
Jerry: And I was surprised to see the metallic colors in nature here.
Me: Interesting.
Jerry: There’s a breeze here that—
Jamie (to Jerry): What do you mean? Tell me again, in a different way.
Jerry: There’s a breeze that goes through the skin and touches the soul.
Me: Oh! Very nice. Do you think it was your destiny to die when and how you did?
Jerry (chuckling): I hope so, because it happened that way!
Me: Okay!
Jamie: He’s laughing!
Me: Why do you think that was the case?
Jerry: Me being as old as I was, I think I was just being helped out. Maybe I was being gently told, “Old man, go home and rest,” because I wouldn’t have done it myself.
Me: Aw. I didn’t think you were all that old! Can you describe your current surroundings?
Jerry: Oh, beautiful! Colors and buildings and communities—a lot like life on Earth but different in a thousand ways. We don’t have the same struggles that you have in your own communities. You don’t have problems with miscommunication either. It’s like being in a constant song where you find that joy and that dance and connection to other people.
Jamie (to Jerry): Okay, I love the way you just described that!
Me: Beautiful. Your words are like music, Jerry!
Jerry: What I do here is help others become inspired on Earth. I feel very passionate about that. I feel a lot of people enjoy overwhelming themselves, and they just kind of take the joy out of life. We’re trained that if we’re not under pressure, then we’re not succeeding.
Me: That’s so true, particularly in Western culture.
Jerry: I agree.
Enjoy Jerry’s last interview (well, on Earth, anyway.)
