astrology matters

Or rather matters of astrology. I am no astrologer. But I think I am a natural researcher. You may be doubtful, but let me explain. I like knowing stuff, and I am rather good at connecting the dots. Now, there have been times when I am way off the mark, and that has landed me in hot water a few times. yikes!
 However, there have also been many times when I've got it uncannily right. I may have that sixth sense! :)

Anyway -- what I am trying to say here is that down the years I have found and settled on a few astrologers online. At first I just used to read the horoscopes and promptly forget them. Soon I wanted to know more about it, and I started going behind the scene so to speak. Now I can cast a basic chart, more or less use an Ephemeris, and am more knowledgeable about the characteristics of the planets and the zodiac signs, and the houses.  I am not a fanatic believer, as moderation in anything is the ideal that I always try to follow (again, I fail miserably at times in that too). I would like to believe that there are more things out there that we do not know about completely - just so that we can entertain some hope in our day to day living. I do not think I am going to make a career out of this, but then we never know, do we? - mostly because my interests are too varied and I am more like a Jill of all trades and master of none.  Someone like that can never amount to much, materially, but still can be happy. :)

So I have  read what astrologers have to say, (Somewhere along the line, I decided not to spend time looking at the positions of the stars when it is already being done by these wonderful experts - I use that knowledge and build on that - always the easy way ) and do the observation bit on myself and others, and have kind of got an understanding as to how it all works. Still no expert, but like I said, I can connect the dots, bridge the gap, as my ultimate goal is very simple -  to make people, including myself,  believe in themselves, and just be happy in their own skin, as much as possible for each of us. To just use my commonsense and try to maintain my faith in human nature, and give people the benefit of the doubt. Walk a mile in their shoes... hopefully. Or just be.

 And so, I am not focused on predictions and prophesies - but more of a self-help kind of thing.  I believe that there are always things that are beyond our control, and others that are within our control. If we stopped and thought about it, we ourselves can realize that - sooner or later. The choices we make are influenced by the genes that were handed down, the upbringing we had, the society we lived in, the times we lived in, and the family we lived with - to sum up, our heredity, and our environment. And then the collective unconscious of a whole tribe, a region, a nation. Add to that our own free will. Our not inconsiderable ability to rise above the occasion at times, and to shoot ourselves in the foot, at other times. They tell us to learn from our mistakes, from our past, from other famous people, but there is one thing that sometimes defeat us - the march of time, that inevitable process of ageing. That inability to turn back the clock, go back in time, and fix everything. And with great age, comes great wisdom, and great foolishness and great helplessness. :) In the midst of all these, if the stars can give us a little insight, a little respite, I will take it. When they can help us prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Or vice versa. Because I do not think of them as all-powerful beings that are supposed to care about what happens to me.

Nevertheless, there is this germ of an idea that has taken root in my mind. It is about  the planet Jupiter. Every time that planet transits a sun sign, I read about the wonderful benefits that he bestows on the person. He is the great Benefic, they say. Looking back when Jupiter was in my sign ,over the years, that is in my First House of Self, I find that it may be true. I did enjoy some great blessings, including the birth of my son, when Jupiter was in Aquarius. But then the last time Jupiter entered my sign, I lost my father. Another coincidence - both my father and my son are Leos! During one Jupiter transit, a Leo came into my life, and in another, a Leo was taken away! By the way, Leo and Aquarius are opposite signs. Suddenly I remembered that one of my friends who had Jupiter in her sign the previous year, lost her father that same year. Soon I started looking at the charts of a few people I know, and there was a pattern. Of course it depends on the position of other planets in their signs  , like Saturn for instance, but there is some connection between Jupiter and death, which I am sure the real astrologers know. Astrologers say that we lose people and things that we do not need anymore. And that only when there is an empty space, that the universe can fill that space with something new, and better. May be true in a way. But it still hurts, when you lose something or someone precious, then I remember that pain is part of our human existence. Sometimes with great blessings, great hurts happen, and at other times, with great hurts, other great hurts happen. And to some, it looks like it's always sunshine. But then again, it all depends on our perspectives, and on how we choose to take it, doesn't it ? :)

To Die with Dignity

The Rest

The fact is that we all die. Sooner or later, for one reason or another, we die. Also, there are two kinds of death, mainly - the sudden and the long-drawn out, dragging on kind.The other fact is no doctor, whatever his credentials are, can grant us immortality. Now most everyone hopes for a sudden, painless death, but not many meet their ends that way.

Those facts are inevitable, and out of our hands, but there is one fact that we can control – to a certain extent. Here is where scientific advances should help us deal with it in a better manner, when the time comes. Doctors could help improve the quality of our lives, hopefully.The pain, if there is any, for instance, while nearing the end, and the way it all ends, can be controlled to a great extent. And then there is the other emotionally charged issue of taking care of the older generation, once they are totally bedridden, in the right manner.  For me, how these matters are dealt with, is a sign of the amount of  progress in healthcare in a given society. While most western societies have made great strides in some of these areas, societies like India are still enmeshed in the old taboos and fears and guilt, and shame. We Indians pride ourselves in that we take care of our old. Maybe it is true in some ways. However let us take a close look at the reality here.

 The grandparents are still important parts of the family. Many sons and daughters take care of their parents in their old age. But old age does not preclude just a sage wise person sitting in his or her arm chair handing out wisdom and memories, and smiling at the antics of the grandchildren, telling stories of old times.  Things could change in the blink of an eye, for as time goes by, that machine that is our body will go haywire. And the older person is struck down all on a sudden. What now? Many children and/or the spouse of the invalid still try to do their duty to the best of their abilities. After the initial burst of overwhelming help and support by everyone around, if he or she bounces back, things go back to normal. But if the condition deteriorates and the elderly individual succumbs to “real” old age, there will not be that many around – just the immediate family.  Most often, especially in my part of the old country, it is the sons’ wives who get that responsibility. Daughters, if there are any, visit once in a while, and depending on the situation, and their personal nature, find fault with the way things are done, or not. And they are supposed to take care of their own in laws. Needless to say the now grumbling daughter in law carries on the thankless job. Anyway nobody is happy. By the time the older person is totally immobile, completely bedridden, with or without his mental faculties, his condition has drastically changed from what was before. Soon he or she is relegated to a room away from the main activities. The toll of taking care of a completely immobile person with no end in sight hits everyone –  economically, time-wise, emotionally. In many households hygiene of the older person becomes practically impossible to keep up. Infected bed sores, the stench of bodily excretions, and above all, the agony, frustration, loneliness, and helplessness of the once able human being, and that of the care giver. I have seen many an old person who is emaciated, curled up in a fetal position, with eyes staring vacantly, sometimes howling in pain, and visitors looking at him or her with pity and wonder. That person has become an exhibit to look at, and to the pious, an example for what human vanity and pride comes down to in the end. The person is bereft of whatever dignity he had, reduced to a shadow of what he had been. No one thinks of the care giver, who most of the time, would be a woman, by the way. Sending them off to hospices, or homes, however comfortable and well equipped these are, is still considered cruel and selfish. It is as if we are throwing away our older people once we have no use of them. But we need to rethink these ideas. At least with our generation, when we have come so far, we need a better plan.

Let us take, again, some characters from my part of the world. Now I can understand that the doctors and the hospitals need to make money. But when we know that many of the doctors there became doctors because their parents paid the colleges hundreds of thousands, even when  the son or the daughter has no aptitude, and when some are really dumb, money becomes really significant. The parent has the money, so the children shall be doctors. And have to try to get back that investment and more, by going into arranged marriages. Again. money from the girls’ parents. But most of the time, this money from the girls’ family ends up going back to the girls’ family within a year. The daughter sees to that if she is smart. So what now? Squeeze the patients. What else? Ply them with tests, treatments, drugs – sometimes useful, at other times, not. Since there is no accountability in these areas, doctors and hospitals get away with mistakes of many kinds. But that is for the living. What about the dying?

Suppose I have been diagnosed with a terminal illness like cancer. The doctors themselves say it is incurable, as it is stage 4, spread to all areas. But then comes the double talk. In one breath they talk to you about “palliative” care and “aggressive” treatment, say, chemotherapy and radiation! Totally misleading, and contradictory. The patient’s loved ones are at that point grasping at straws. Hoping against hope, and unable to think clearly, they go along with whatever the doctor says. Like car salesmen trying to sell varieties of useful and useless warranties to the unsuspecting, vulnerable customer, doctors shove down futile treatments onto terminally ill patients. This is not limited to India – happens in the West too. Money may not be the only reason behind it. Adherence to traditional, supposedly more ethical thinking and a whole lot of complex layers of reasons could be acting here. But money is one big factor, like death. The only useful and possible warranties that the patient could get are to be free of pain, and to die relatively comfortably.

The only advantage here is for the doctors and the hospital in which they have shares. Here enter the tubes down all your orifices, the other main character, the ventilator. Recently I heard of an elderly woman whose husband was diagnosed of some illness and was under treatment at a reputable hospital in India. She had no idea what the illness was. One of those medical mysteries. Anyway the man slipped into a coma. The doctors had given up hope. They said there was no cure. Still, tubes were down his throat, soon he was on a ventilator. After two months of this, the man died. Meanwhile the woman had sold everything of value including her house to treat her husband. Now she goes to work in of our neighbor’s homes as a cleaning maid and lives in a room paying rent. So many questions arise, so much pain could have been avoided.

 Another case – A 75 year old nun fell. She couldn’t walk after that. Nothing wrong, the experts said. Soon she is bedridden. After a couple of weeks, she refused to eat. Clearly she was fed up of everything – the prayers, the mockery, the indignity, the great fall from who she was once, and most of all, the pain.  Reduced to skin and bones, and clearly depressed, she stopped talking or responding. Still they plied her with stuff for that complex, unknown reason. She was still in pain. Totally silent, except when she was screaming in pain, soon she lost what was left of her mind. She lay there curled up. Her refusal to get up and walk was seen as stubbornness, and an act of defiance against god. Her refusal to pray is seen as a sign of her inherently evil nature. In fact they shove prayers down her throat persistently, when obviously, all she wants is peace and quiet, and something to make the pain go away, and possibly, just to die. Pious songs broadcast all the time, Holy Mass droning on, on the TV set –what more could she want, her visitors marveled! Any sane person would go crazy in that atmosphere. Her pain is looked on as punishment for her sins, for her pride when she was young.  Her suffering is at once an exaltation, and an example of, the end of, the futility of  all vanities. And all this in a place where all the inhabitants are educated, where in fact they run a well equipped hospital with highly trained specialists. But since they believe in the sanctity of human life, she is still kept alive. Tube down the throat.  Must make them feel virtuous. It is also to show the nun’s relatives that they are doing everything to keep her alive , that they are not killing her off. Litigation is what they are afraid of.   This happens in many a layman’s home too. This is one way that religion  aids and abets that hope mongering business of the doctors. After all, we Christians exalt suffering, as if God is a sadist whose main entertainment is watching humans beg and crawl, and howl in pain.

 I know many including the above-mentioned doctors  wave the “positive thinking”, hope and will power flags. That is just it- waving. Not very different from the snake oil -charlatans who pretend to work miracles, exploiting the weakness of the common man. Once the body is ravaged by a terminal disease and when there are no cures in the offing, no amount of positive thinking is going to stave off death or pain. Feeding on the patient’s and his loved one’s misfortune and vulnerability  is not ethical. I know these “godly” doctors will tell you oh so humbly that they are not gods, that it’s all in god’s hands, (what's he doing here then?).And there will be his colleagues who promote the hype of a particular “godly” healer - so he could be god! or so we are made to think. So the godly person lets us go on suffering.  As if he can grant us immortality. They all share in the profits. All the while they do know when a person’s body is run down, when all his vital organs are shutting down, and that he is in intolerable pain, and that he is not  ever going to get up and walk around, fit and strong. If there is a little bit of humanity left in these healthcare professionals, they will treat that pain, and tell the truth as they know it. It’s up to the patient, the individual to decide when to go based on that knowledge. That is the scientific advance that I want. That is why we read of doctors who decide to put an end to their own lives when they know they cannot stand their own suffering, when they do not want to be a burden on their loved ones.

Money is in the prolonging of a life that struggles to escape. And now a days there is the waiting for the arrival of any children who live abroad. The patient is kept “alive” till these relatives can see him. It is as if no one cares about the suffering of the individual. For the past few months, I have been watching episodes from Herriot’s animal stories. That was the first time I had known about the TV series, even though I had known of the book.  I was touched by the kindness and love that those owners and vets shower on their patients. And when they know that an animal cannot live a useful life any longer, that it has to suffer pain unnecessarily that nothing can save it, they have it put to sleep, gently, as much as they can. Now I am not touting euthanasia here for all the sick people. Being human, I am talking about the individual’s right to choose his or her own end, and to be free of pain, when the time comes. By a sad coincidence I just read about the actress who played Herriot’s wife, Lynda Bellingham who stopped her aggressive treatments for the cancer that had spread to her liver. Just before her death she talked about the effects of chemotherapy that people are not aware of.

When we know that the end is here, we should be allowed to go a little gracefully, with a little bit of dignity. It is time to ask certain questions to ourselves, to the society as a whole.  And to answer and act accordingly without fearing what others would think :  Why aren’t we thinking of that time of our end here a little more?  We seem to be inordinately interested in life after death. Religions especially. But isn’t it time we thought about death? Its practical side?  Why do we exalt needless suffering? Why do we feel the need to prolong life that is insufferable? Can’t we show a little bit of kindness to ourselves? As it is now in India, one thing I am sure of is that I would not want to die there. Her fatalistic, cavalier attitude to pain is frightening. I will have to go live in a country where they provide assisted suicide to those who want it.

This is where “living wills” come in. The public has to be educated about the importance of having a plan for medical care when the end of life is near. A plan for dealing with death. while we are able to think for ourselves, we make that living will. Death could come at any time, to the young and to the old. Accidents happen. Illness, surgeries happen. We should be able to decide what should be done if things go wrong, when we still have our mental acuity. So prepare that living will today. Let us try to die in peace. To the religious, God would not want us to suffer. He or she would want you to take advantage of the scientific progress that human beings have achieved under said God’s guidance.

According to the Mayo clinic site,  “Living wills and other advance directives are written, legal instructions regarding your preferences for medical care if you are unable to make decisions for yourself. Advance directives guide choices for doctors and caregivers if you're terminally ill, seriously injured, in a coma, in the late stages of dementia or near the end of life.

By planning ahead, you can get the medical care you want, avoid unnecessary suffering and relieve caregivers of decision-making burdens during moments of crisis or grief. You also help reduce confusion or disagreement about the choices you would want people to make on your behalf.

Advance directives aren't just for older adults. Unexpected end-of-life situations can happen at any age, so it's important for all adults to prepare these documents.”

Besides that, our healthcare providers  should admit that we are nearing the end, when that is the case. The whole process, all the information has to be made available to the patient. Such transparency will make it easier for the individual to make an informed decision. Of course we should be free to seek second or third opinions, if we want to. But they have to give us the truth as it is, and we have to accept it. We all say that death is inevitable, but it is hard to look it in the eye when we are made aware of it. 

Related to the end is the treatment of pain. Everyone including the doctors must know the meaning of “palliative” care. At that time when we need relief from pain, we deserve total relief.  And that may lead to a quicker death. Let it be. The transition from life to death should be gentle, soothing like one is going to sleep. That would mean a lot more hospices, and care homes for the terminally ill, for the older members of our society. Humane, ethical institutions which are accountable to the society. And that would mean all the more responsibilities on the part of the society to make sure that they are run with the one intention of the well being of the patients. For making sure that they will be comfortable till the end. And we must realize that it is all right if we decide that we are not able to look after our loved ones satisfactorily. In fact we should be true to ourselves, ask ourselves if we are helping our loved one in the best possible manner. If we think that we are not, then we should seek help, without guilt or stigma. The State’s responsibility should not end with the death of a person, but it should include the process of dying. Each one of us should take responsibility for our ends when we can, and ease a little of the burden off our children., and try to help educate our still unaware countrymen.

 Please read the whole article about “living will” here:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/consumer-health/in-depth/living-wills/art-20046303

on death

Thursday, August 2, 2007


One of those days, weeks . . .

So it is going to be one of those days when old age and death make themselves pronounce certain inevitabilities. Today they call me, shake me by my shoulders and say, "hey, wake up! that's enough sleep. Blissfully ignorant sleep! we are waiting here for you. Can't you see? We are right here and we always win."

My first pair of reading glasses had almost done me in. Till then, my eyes had given me no trouble at all. But when they started to deceive me, and when I got this equipment to help me, I panicked. Parts of the machine that is my body, are wearing out. Repairs can help, only temporarily. Soon other aches and pains will enter. Weakness will set in. Diseases of the body, of the mind. No matter what I do, what they do, Time will run forward relentlessly. I will run with it, but ironically, I am being left behind. Lagging. Slowing down. Falling down. Dying.

The glasses were forgotten in a month, as I could read even without it. And the fear of the end was forgotten along with it. New friends, old ones, new smiles, new hellos. Life seemed to be alive once more. But again, along comes the next medical checkup. Sleepless nights -- nights filled with fear. Of pain, of death. Filled with regrets. For things left half done, never done, for dreams that will never be true ever again. For things that will never be the same again. Time. Something that I seem to have a lot of, but in fact, I have so little of.

Who do I say goodbye to? Should I say it? Why? Wish I could say goodbye to time. Meet death half way? Would that defeat Time? Is there someone around to remind me how great life is? Well, if life has been a long slumber, then death ought to be a dream too.