Suffering and Death

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Hi guys,

How do you personally come to terms with sickness, suffering and death (both of others and yourself)?

Some of you may be old, some middle-aged, some young. Yet, I am sure that most of you have seen or experienced some of these things in your lives. How do you come to terms with mortality?

For me, my rational mind understands the necessity of death. It understands that I am mortal and will someday leave this world. But my emotions can't agree with it. It cannot accept the reality of sicknesses and death.

What's your take on this?



Larxene Xenohart
Interested in Hellenistic astrology? Visit my blog.

The appearance changes, but the essence remains.

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hi larxene,

it is a good philosophical question which will come with an individual answer depending on the person.. everyone has to come to terms with this in their own terms..

it might be why some are drawn to the study of cycles. to most cycles there is a beginning and an ending.. at least that is how it looks to me when i look out on the physical world.. there might be other transcendental cycles that 'transcend' the earthly ones.. people speak of karma and the life of a soul that continues on after death.. some think of a return to the ocean and how we are like a drop of water that merges with this ocean..

when you are experiencing suffering or death of a loved one first hand it is very tough and sometimes it feels like life doesn't make sense.. perhaps there is something higher then our limited understanding at work. i do think astrology can be helpful in giving one an appreciation for the cyclic nature of life and how there is a season for everything. good luck figuring it out in your own terms.

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Born with the Moon conjunct Aldebaran in Gemini in the 8th...

Life and death are averse to each other. Death is easy, but the transition may not be. It's the living that is difficult and full of suffering. When you're dead or close to death, you won't want to come back into the realm of the living. The same when you are alive, that nature won't want to go into the realm of the dead. The Moon in you wants to live so don't force it to face death. It knows the present, but doesn't feel the future or have any use for it. To think about it too long is to create unnecessary suffering and like trying to find the exact surface between air and resting water is an exercise in futility.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

Re: Suffering and Death

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Larxene wrote:Hi guys,

How do you personally come to terms with sickness, suffering and death (both of others and yourself)?

Some of you may be old, some middle-aged, some young. Yet, I am sure that most of you have seen or experienced some of these things in your lives. How do you come to terms with mortality?

For me, my rational mind understands the necessity of death. It understands that I am mortal and will someday leave this world. But my emotions can't agree with it. It cannot accept the reality of sicknesses and death.

What's your take on this?



Larxene Xenohart
The phases of reconciling a loss or death are the same, professionally or personally.

http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-5-stage ... and-grief/

PD

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zoidsoft wrote:The Moon in you wants to live so don't force it to face death. It knows the present, but doesn't feel the future or have any use for it. To think about it too long is to create unnecessary suffering and like trying to find the exact surface between air and resting water is an exercise in futility.
There are spiritual belief systems and philosophies that encourage one to practice his/her own death meditatively, but Curtis' counsel resonates with me. Assuming that consciousness survives the transition, I think it would be very surprising if our mental patterns were to change drastically at the moment of death - so by living our lives in the best ways we know how in the present moment, the after-death state will probably not come as a harsh jolt or difficult hurdle. I don't know, but that's how I approach the issue.

I've heard it said that birth and death are opposite expressions of the unity that is Life, which makes a great deal of sense to me philosophically, especially now that I'm in my mid-60s and I am aware of the circle closing; but I'm also prone to fearfulness, so - while I have explored and respect other approaches - I personally find it more conducive to internal equilibrium if I don't force my psyche into places that might preoccupy it in unproductive ways.

Probably nowhere more than in the realm of our mortality do we find ourselves so pointedly engaged with matters of authentic living. You've asked an important question, Larxene, and I appreciate the opportunity to hear what my colleagues have to say on the subject.

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The Moon in you wants to live so don't force it to face death. It knows the present, but doesn't feel the future or have any use for it.


This is very nicely put.

A few years ago I had a dream about a friend I hadn't seen in a few years. We were outdoors, at night, at a place called the "Moonlight Center". It seemed to be primarily a transit center with lots of trucks and buses coming and going. My friend looked wonderful and I told her so.

Literally a day later this friend emailed me out of the blue with the news she was pregnant, and, over the moon with joy.

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Thank you everyone for your responses.

Personally, I believe that our lives become meaningful only if we consider the certainty of our eventual death. Briefly, it is because our time in life is limited that there is a need for us to choose how to live it. If humans were immortal, the choices one makes at any given time would probably have less significance, because of the likelihood of being able to revisit the road not taken.

Imagine you are playing a video game. You make certain choices, avoiding and rejecting others. Gradually you felt that some of the choices were not as desirable as you had initially thought. It's not a big deal. You can either revisit the area/chapter, or you can restart the game.

This is not the case with the human condition. Putting aside the possibility of reincarnation, there is no 'restarting' in many sections in our lives. We can only move forward and eventually 'poof'. Uninstalled from existence.

Therefore, I feel that it is important to put some thought into it, and to consider your own stand in relation to it.



So what I did was, I imagined what I would feel and think about if I were to die tomorrow. For myself, what it comes down to is that there are things I wish to do and accomplish before I die. If I were to shut down before I finish these things, I would be full of regrets. That gives me a sense of urgency to complete these things. To me, this is a good thing, since I am usually lazy and uninspired.

The thing I am most disgusted about in life is seeing what I perceive to be 'pre-mature' deaths. As Heidegger noted, death is certain but 'indefinite', in the sense that we don't know for sure when we'll die, just that it will surely come to pass. When I read about six graders dying in a natural disaster, I wonder what was the point of them being born to this place if they lived only 12 years...

But I digress.


@james_m:

Unfortunately, my studies of the cycles in Astrology did not advance my appreciation of life and death. In my view, Astrology only tells us the 'what' and the 'how', but it never really reveal the 'why'. Why do we exist? That is a question that, it seems, is beyond the realm of Astrology itself.



Larxene Xenohart
Interested in Hellenistic astrology? Visit my blog.

The appearance changes, but the essence remains.

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Hello Larxene,

I believe that life is not random. When someone dies, it is because it is meant to happen at this time. It would be illogical to lament the unalterable.

It is not a matter of not caring, it is a matter of having faith that everything is still "on course" regardless of what ultimately happens.

This helpfully carries over into other areas as well. Didn't get that job you were trying for? It wasn't the job for you at this time. ie. Having that particular job might have kept one from some particular growth/development/experience that is necessary.

"There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be... it's EASY." ~ John Lennon

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Atlantean wrote:Hello Larxene,

I believe that life is not random. When someone dies, it is because it is meant to happen at this time. It would be illogical to lament the unalterable.

It is not a matter of not caring, it is a matter of having faith that everything is still "on course" regardless of what ultimately happens.

This helpfully carries over into other areas as well. Didn't get that job you were trying for? It wasn't the job for you at this time. ie. Having that particular job might have kept one from some particular growth/development/experience that is necessary.

"There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be... it's EASY." ~ John Lennon
I much prefer this philosophy to the poisonous "you can make your life anything you want" that new agists sell. I listened to a long explanation and reading of the diaries of a young campus shooter Elliott Rodger who was obsessed with "the Secret", and upset because he never won the lottery in spite of even driving to other towns so he could buy more tickets than he could in one place, and because he felt a failure because he couldn't "make his life what he wanted it to be". That philosophy has bullied and dominated the mass psyche for decades now and is only just beginning to be challenged.

What I wonder is how you are supposed to make the best and most out of a long term difficult transit, or what to say to somebody who is going through one? Transiting Neptune conjunct, square or opposition your Moons Nodes, or transiting Pluto crossing your IC and negatively affecting many natal planets on the MC/IC axis. Transiting Pluto conjunct natal Saturn can be a tough one too. And just before some new agist pipes up that they had one of these transits and it was a bunch of flowers, these are just examples and everyone's chart is different, some people's natal Saturn works the other way round to most people's, and it is complicated and you can't say any particular transit will be the same for one person as another, and quirks of coincident Solar Arcs of chart angles with outer planet transits will sometimes twist the usual effect of that outer planet transit. I suspect that psychopathic natal charts respond to transits by hurting other people rather than suffering themselves. And transits come in combinations and sequences, which last for years. This does not mean that the powerful transit somebody is experiencing can be negated by somebody who has read "the Secret".

And the idea of Fate is inextricably connected to Time. We all die, while we are being indoctrinated with remorse and guilt over what we do or fail to do with our time, whether we have succeeded or failed at something that will be forgotten quickly. How do people deal with "the Secret" resistant outer planet transits that are viewed as negative, while they are going through them? What is the purpose of, for instance, somebody being caught up in a historical force like the first world war, and being killed on the battlefield?