He came to me so wild he could not be touched. His former owner fed him the best cat food money could buy but did not take the time to domesticate him. A few days before he died as he was lying on my bed, he rolled over on his back and let me pet his belly, purring loudly all the time. He had come to trust me and I think he loved me too.
With a lot of time and patience, I managed to make him into a ‘real boy’. Now he’s dead lying on this back again, but with his legs in the air. He is in a very narrow part of the highway and even though I tried to retrieve his body to bring it home for burial, I was nearly killed myself. So I had to let it go. I am devastated. My other cat Melody, the queen of the house, had achieved an understanding with him. He would sit a few feet from her in the yard all the time, as if watching over her. He led her on adventures and I feared they would both end up in the road. Now she is either glued to my body or listening and looking for him.
He was with us for a year, but made profound changes in our life. So here we are with the New Moon in Gemini. Ramadan will begin in a few days. People all over the world will start their month-long fast.
Most astrologers say the New Moon is a good time to launch some new projects. Right now I feel like turning off my PG&E, phone, and internet; loading my car with my most precious belongings, putting my cat Melody into a cat carrier and just leaving everything else behind. I feel defeated by this death. I feel like my life has fallen flat. I am empty and sad. I feel this New Moon to be an ending, not a beginning. It happens to be conjunct my natal Uranus and opposes my natal Jupiter within seconds. I guess that explains the shock and loss of meaning I feel. I know that the ebb and flow of life will shift this pattern of loneliness and emptiness I feel and I know enough to trust that process. I am willing to feel the grief intensely right now as a way of honoring the bond I made with Kohani.
New Moons are when the Sun and Moon are conjunct. They only exist in relationship to a third entity. In this case, the Earth. Only from our perspective is this a conjunction. This is true of many things in life. They only exist in relationship to each other or a third thing. It is said that God created humans so that he/she could know himself/herself reflected by them. Since we live in a world of duality, we do tend to see things that way. Dead or alive. What else is there?
Last night I heard Kohani calling to me to be let in. I jumped up and ran to the front door. He flew in. Just then I woke up from that dream to realize it was only a dream. Some friends have said that it was his spirit coming home and that he too, missed me. He was showing me his love and attachment to me through this dream. Part of me totally believes in these unseen dimensions. But another part of me longs for the corporeal reality of purr and fur – is not satisfied with spirit kitties, wants the weight of his giant cat body at the end of my bed.
I admit I wasn’t always kind to him. He was a challenge in lots of ways. He was so wild when I first brought him home he howled at me from the windowsill in the bathroom for months. My other cat could not even enter the bathroom where her cat box was. He ate constantly and stole food from her dish. At one point I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and threw him outside shouting “just go away and die” because he was so mean to my darling Melody and had her totally traumatized. But we got past all that and he got to be more of a pet to me and friend and companion to her. Both of us are missing him so bad right now. I take back all the mean names I shouted at him in frustration.
But another truth of life is that we can’t take it back. We can’t undo the past. We have to live with what we said and did no matter what excuse we had for it at the time. I felt somehow this cat’s karma was to bring wrath on himself including dying in a ditch. When he started to roam out of the yard towards the highway, I told him if he got hit, he better get killed because I didn’t have the money for veterinary bills. So that’s what he did. I feel I cursed him and I have to live with that too.
What’s the lesson? This New Moon in Gemini, which will start the blessed season of Ramadan, I vow that all my words will be blessings. I will ‘fast’ from negative talk. I will not gossip or cause any being harm with my words. Further, I will not harm myself with negative thoughts. If I can do this for a day, a week, a month…perhaps I can do it for the rest of my life. I will do this in memory of Kohani.
I hope I can get through one day.