Monday, January 26, 2009

Empty, Rather than Full

I just had to put my cat 'to sleep'. The second one to go within a year's time. It definitely makes me think about life though, and mortality, and time. So many things to think about, related to death. But the thing I come back to, my most powerful impression of death (within the several I have bore witness to) is that there is a moment when I KNOW, you know? I know because things are empty rather than full, and it's a feeling rather than a set of hard and fast rules. It's a feeling, that comes from watching something so dramatic in its transition. It's a complete upheaval of everything I know to be truth....my feeling of 'knowing'.

Because death is an unknown process....those who have gone, have traveled/journeyed somewhere that I have never been. I look at the whole process with a deep amount of respect, knowing that they are traveling in completely unchartered territory. And I cannot help them with that, I cannot tell them what the journey will be like in order to ease their fears, and conversely, they cannot tell me in order to ease mine.

That is something that I still cannot imagine, even though I have witnessed it several times. It is unfathomable to me still, 'death'. I have so many questions that will always remain unanswered...until my own time, my own adventure into the unknown.

But, all I'm left with today is...'empty, rather than full'...where did it all go?

A thought that is simple and child-like, but still, no one will ever be able to answer that for me, and so I still have to wonder. I'm somewhat stuck at that point....where did all of the 'full' go?

(I only bring this up because it is related to loss, and that is what I base many of my artistic endeavors upon...the idea of loss: to be empty rather than full.)

2 comments:

yolanda said...

i'm sorry shana....

hope you're ok.

i think death is simply a transition...

'what the catterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly'.

i watched an old 80's cartoon last night - 'the last unicorn' (it's amazing!), and there was a great moment in it: 'there are no happy endings, because nothing ends.'

much love to you sister.

xxx

shana goetsch said...

thank you. i appreciate it....i am trying to think that way, i really am. but it was a tough death for him, i feel bad. he fought it.