RIP: Elijah Rainbow Fisher's Short Life

Published on 3 Jul 2012 by McCarthyWood

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Update - More related links:

-Mental health court for murder accused (stuff.co.nz).

-Mother holds 'glorious day out' in memory of her son (stuff.co.nz).

-The man accused of murdering his six-month-old son in a South Brisbane river had links with a New Zealand religious cult (nzherald.co.nz).

-David Fisher's Youtube channel videos.


Update: The Sunday Mail has reported Friends and family gathered to remember the short life of baby Elijah Rainbow Fisher, who was laid to rest yesterday (Saturday, 7 July, 2012).


About 30 people met in a part at Beenleigh - a short drive from the river where Elijah lost his life at just six months of age - to celebrate his life in an event his mother described as an "unfuneral".


Lauren Fisher asked friends and family to wear red, one of her favourite colours.


"An unfuneral is the opposite of funeral or a memorial service. It is a simple coming together of people who would like to spend time together and want to encourage each other in love," Mrs Fisher wrote on her blog page of the gathering.


Related links:

-Heartbroken mother of baby Elijah Rainbow Fisher posts online tributes after his death in Logan River (Courier Mail).

-Elijah Rainbow Fisher 26/11/11 - 23/06/12 (Nesting In Skyscrapers).

-By now I’m sure that most people reading this post will have seen the news and realise that Lauren Fisher, a fellow blogger and unschooler, has lost her baby boy (Feather & Nest).

-Family in shock over death of baby allegedly killed by his father in Logan River bridge plunge (Herald Sun).

-Grandfather heartbroken over baby's drowning (thewest.com.au).

-Tragedy strikes a homschool family in Australia--they need our prayers (Home School Reviews).

-Sparkling Elijah Rainbow May You Be Free Forever (New Life on the Road).

Video transcript:

[Intro video]

Elijah Rainbow Fisher’s life was extinguished at just under seven months of age. His life was short and unconventional.

The start of his life was uploaded to Youtube without disguise or privacy for the world to see.

[cut to video]

Elijah’s mum, Lauren Fisher, has indicated a disdain for main-stream media saying on Twitter: 

“My 2012 new year's resolution was to eschew all media "news" reports.”

However, both Lauren and husband, David Fisher prolifically used main-stream social-media sites including Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and a blog to communicate their avant-garde lives.

The material they have posted online gives a detailed insight into their family as they went about their daily lives, for much of the time, travelling on road-trips in a converted truck with their four daughters.

These online accounts included the highs...

[cut to video]

The lows...

[cut to video]

Lauren wrote in one of her blog entries:

In my mind, I magnify David’s past wrongs and personality faults until I can’t see past the looming spectre of my own creation. I say and do things to push him away, and then hate him when he retreats. He can’t win against this black dog — he can only endure the marathon of emotional abuse.

She also wrote: How great is my love? Does my love stretch to cover David even if it’s not returned exclusively? I’ve been pondering this question as I watch my husband seek passion with someone else.

Recently, the Courier Mail reported: TINY Elijah Rainbow Fisher was the baby boy his parents had been waiting for.

But his short life ended on Saturday night 23 June when, police allege, his father David Fisher walked 1km from the family home at Eagleby, pushing his son in a pram, before falling from a pedestrian bridge at the Logan River Parklands with Elijah in his arms.

His father surfaced, but seven-month-old Elijah was lost in the swirling water.

Police will allege Fisher walked back to his home to tell the boy's mother, Lauren Fisher, and Elijah's four older sisters what had happened.

He allegedly told them: "Elijah's drowned. Elijah's gone.''

Mrs Fisher made frantic phone calls to her mother in Western Australia, to emergency services and then raced down to the Logan River to search for her lost little boy.

Family members told The Courier-Mail her husband had been "wailing and screaming'' in the background when the calls were made, around 6.47pm.

Just more than an hour later, Mrs Fisher posted a heart-wrenching online farewell: "I was so blessed to meet Elijah Rainbow. 26.11.11 - 23.06.12. I love you, little one. Go with God,'' she had tweeted.

David Fisher, 38, has been charged with murder and has been interviewed by detectives from Logan CIB.

Water police found Elijah's body on a scrubby bank of the Logan River, roughly 1.5km downstream of the bridge his father allegedly fell from.

Family, friends and neighbours were shocked, saying the free-living, bohemian life led by the family had been shattered.

Elijah's grandfather, Victor Bissett, said the boy was "the precious son that they'd been waiting for so long''.

He said Mrs Fisher, just before running out to search frantically for her lost son, made a chilling phone call to her mother Stephanie, telling her: "Elijah has drowned. I need you to come up now.''

Both Elijah's parents had strong religious upbringings, but in their adult lives had sought to "unchurch''.

They had been together for about 13 years, and followed an alternative lifestyle where they home-schooled their children, calling it ‘unschooling’,

According to Mrs Fisher:

Christian unschooling is embracing the opportunity to keep your children at home so they can learn in a natural way through life experiences. It is trusting that God will direct their interests so they are well equipped for life and godliness. It is believing that God will enable you with wisdom to provide encouragement, time and resources. It is deliberately avoiding any attempts to measure or force your children’s learning according to others’ schedules and standards.

The family had a vegan diet and travelled across Australia and New Zealand on a truck they lived out of for weeks at a time.

Their nomadic lifestyle was funded by renting out their home and a carpet-laying business.

Mrs Fisher, a one-time website designer for the Crime and Misconduct Commission, blogged prolifically on parenthood, her marriage and her family's trials and tribulations via a website.

She wrote about seeing Elijah in a vision when she was 19, and being certain her fifth child would be a boy.

The family had returned to their home on Eagle Drive from a stay in New Zealand.

They returned periodically to live in the large shed at the rear of the property after leasing out the main house to another family.

Elijah was born without a doctor in attendance at a cult like "Rainbow Gathering'' on a property near Singleton, northern NSW, on November 26.

The Rainbow website says: Besides the work that goes on to help the gathering happen, there’s also lots of acoustical music, drumming, dancing, workshops, council circles, sister circles, brother circles, gender circles, people hanging out, people enjoying nature, people meditating, chanting, and praying, people talking politics, people talking spiritual and personal growth, people visioning the future, people doing bodywork and other healing work.

Aside from taking up collections with the “Magic Hat” in Rainbow parlance for essential items purchased from the local community, there is little or no exchange of currency internally at a Gathering.

Mrs Fisher repeatedly recognises her husband was the parent mostly looking after the daughters and positively interacting with them every waking hour.

One blog entry written by Mrs Fisher just yesterday says: Four-year-old Calista said to her grandfather: “My daddy’s not coming back until I’m a lady. Will you be my daddy?

Mrs Fisher has invited friends to wear red, her favourite colour, to Elijah Rainbow's "unfuneral'', a celebration of his life, next Saturday.

Mrs Fisher wrote of identifying her son's body that she felt blessed to find he had been dressed in red.

She also said online: "If I am to wear this mourning cloak, let it be made of the fabric of love, woven by the thread of fine memory.''