Put Max down: December 27, 2007
December 27, 2007
Thursday
We just got back from putting Max down.* It was really sad. It’s weird because I’m not really that sad about not being able to see him again, it was more the fact that he wasn’t there at all. Like his body was there on the floor but his eyes had no light in them, and he just wasn’t there. Death is so mysterious. Like I wonder where he is now. Is he just gone? Or is he actually in a better place? It was sad because he was scared. He struggled against the doctor and tried to bite him. And it was so strange seeing his body go limp. His eyes stayed open as the muscles relaxed. I feel bad for bringing him there. I never thought this day would come.
[*Biwheel chart follows.]
What happens is that they shave a little patch of hair off the back leg of the animal, and then give them an overdose of anesthesia, which is what they use in surgeries to make them fall asleep. And it doesn’t hurt them at all. Then they listen for a heartbeat. And it’s never there.
Death is the next step.
I’ve been thinking about how slowly time goes by, but in movies or books they can summarize a person’s life or a long event, like a pregnancy, in 30 seconds. It just makes me feel really weird, like everyone is ignoring how long everything takes. When I read these summaries I try to pause after a statement like “three years later” and reflect on the past three years of my life, and realize how much I’ve changed and how much has happened to me in that period of time. It helps me remember and realize how long everything is.
I miss Maxwell…I figured it out! Why I’m sad: it’s not death in general, but the way it happened. If we had just found him dead in his bed one morning, I would have been fine with that. Death, in itself, is immaterial. It was just the fact that he didn’t know what was happening, and we took him there to die, and he was scared. And watching him go out was indescribable. But that’s why I wasn’t that sad when Pig died, because we just found him one day…but probably also because I wasn’t that attached to him, and we’ve had Max for my whole life.
I still feel really mystified by death. It’s like the soul is lying dormant for years in this stupid shell, and death opens the cage and sets it free into the open air. Karly is sleeping in my bed right now – actually I dunno if she’s really asleep –but that’s beside the point. She could be dead, other than the observation of her chest moving up and down from her breathing. It’s like her soul is just resting inside her body right now, and is awakened when she is awakened. Is released when she dies. What do souls look like without a bodily cast?
Death is scary because it opens the door to being alone – and humans naturally seek company and relationships. AND FAMILIARITY! When there is a dead body in your company, you are struck by confusion, because normally this figure would serve as a sense of protection in a way, feeding your soul with nourishment in the element of conversation, but now there is nothing there and you don’t know what to do or how to react. You are alone…but…not really. There is somebody there but there is nothing, nobody there. Leading to confusion and the sense of loneliness. This is unfamiliar and thus frightening.
God I’m so curious about the mind and the brain and subconsciously how they work together and how this involves death and the journey to the ?afterlife? [sic]
I wish I could die – technically speaking – and come back to life – technically speaking – so I could know what happens but still live the rest of my life. I want to die so bad, only because I’m curious, because I really love life. And I don’t want death to be like before birth – an abyss of nothingness – because life would seem so pointless. I want an answer. I want to know why things work the way they do and why humans act the way we do and if there is other intelligent life out there, and if we are even intelligent.
My brain is going to explode soon so I’ll go brush my teeth.
[I don’t know what to say about this chart. Maybe it’s just that recently turned retrograde Saturn in her 8th house of death, trine her Moon? Venus is closely opposing her Mars, thus sextile/trine the core axis of her chart. Retrograde Mars is still closely opposing her Mercury with Jupiter and Pluto right there too, and the Sun as well but the orb is a bit wider now. The Moon in Leo is applying to conjoin the SN. What am I missing here?* The Moon rules her 6th house of pets, so an application to the SN could signify a release and letting go of the pet? I dunno, because that happens once a month.
*Ok so this is the moment where I decide I need to start casting Ana’s secondary progressed chart here and there. See triwheel chart below.]
[Please make sure I cast the progressed chart correctly! The progressed chart is the middle wheel, with Ana’s chart inside and the transits outside. I believe you use the natal location in the progressed chart? I realized that the Moon-SN conjunction is right on Ana’s progressed Moon at the end of Leo, and everything is closely trine Pluto. This is the first conjunction that the transiting Moon has made to the SN after it entered Leo. Also, Ana’s progressed Moon moves into Virgo just a few days later on December 30. I find this to be particularly notable, and I feel like this is the deeper thing going on that describes the intensity of the moment more than the transits do. Or is this all confirmation bias?]