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Jhai Foundation and Lee Thorn - next steps
Lee Thorn via LinkedIn member@linkedin.com
8:41 PM (2 hours ago)
to me, Lynn, Sherian, Olivier, Mark, Franck, Zara, Joseph, Kumar, Serena, Amanda
LinkedIn
Lee Thorn has sent you a message.
Date: 11/09/2011
Subject: Jhai Foundation and Lee Thorn - next steps
November 8, 2011
I hope this finds you and your family well. I have some Jhai news:
I have stepped down completely from the board of and from daily work with Jhai Foundation. I am a consultant again after 14 years with Jhai and this suits me. Under the leadership of Eli Neiburger, Jhai’s very competent new chair, Jhai continues work with Angolan and Indian collaborators. As usual, Jhai is in conversation with people from many other countries, too.
I urge you to give a generous donation to Jhai, now. Transitions are tough. Jhai really needs your help. It is easy to give through Jhai Foundation's website or through the mail at: Eli Neiburger, 301 W. Summit St., Ann Arbor, MI 48103 USA. Eli is a great tech person, businessperson, and leader. I trust him totally. Please give to Jhai today. With your help two people are coming on board to take my place. Please do help Jhai at any level you can afford.
Here’s my plan for my own next steps. Hopefully there is something here for you. After all I am 68, now. I must know something. ;D
Health
My physical health today is fine. In order to stay healthy I exercise daily, eat healthily, garden, and laugh a lot. I am taking up yoga. To control my PTSD I make sure I sleep, exercise, meditate and take my meds. I will also avoid stress rather than running towards it as has been my wont. I have a spiritual life that includes practice, study and ceremony.
Family
My wife, children and grandchild are the center of my life. I want to nurture and better befriend them and our extended family – both my wife’s and my own. I am becoming more conventional and am doing less travel. It suits me.
Friends
I am lucky to have quite a few friends. I am taking more time with my neighborhood friends. I want to take on new mentors and mentees who teach me things and whom I respect greatly – but not too many.
Community
I want to have a shot at new style, socially networked ‘friends’, but more than that I want to feel more comfortable in the neighborhood where I live.
Play and work
I will have lots of fun. I will write and consult. I will travel a little to see family and friends. I will collaborate on high impact projects in my (and your?) passion. I have taken mourning seriously for most my life. I lost four guys in front of me when I was 22.
Now, I want to take my life LESS seriously.
I am proud of the collaborative, participatory, financially sustainable and pioneering work of Jhai Foundation. I also am proud to have been associated with the people in all our spin-offs over the years, especially the Jhai Coffee Farmers Association, Jhai-Lao, and Inveneo. I am thankful and will always be thankful for your continuing support of Jhai.
I am not disappearing. In fact, I will continue these updates in next few days with notes to you on Jhai’s work in Angola, Jhai’s collaborators’ work in India and Laos, and Jhai’s plans for continuing success. Please do remember to give to Jhai today. It has been a pleasure and an honor to serve all the people Jhai has touched and especially to learn about ‘jhai’, those moments of harmony, from Lao people.
*Stay together, Friends*
Stay together, Friends.
Don’t scatter and sleep.
Our Friendship is made
of being awake.
The waterwheel accepts water
and turns and gives it away,
weeping.
That way it stays in the garden,
whereas another roundness rolls
through a dry riverbed looking
for what it thinks it wants.
Stay here, quivering with each moment
like a drop of mercury.
- Rumi
Yours, in Peace,
Lee Thorn
leethorn@sprintmail.com
+1 415 420 2870
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