Gaia Passed On for Samhain

My oldest cat, Gaia, whose picture you can see here, died over the weekend while I was away at a conference in San Diego. She was one witchy cat, and it is fully appropriate that she passed on during this season when the veil is thin, when the life and harvest of the season come to a close (at least where I live) and the fallow time of winter approaches.

This is my first long-term pet's death, and it is somewhat unsettling to have been absent for her passage, although B and K tell me they are glad I wasn't here to see her rapid decline at the end. It's also interesting to recognize how I've slowly detached from her emotionally, probably subconsciously realizing that she was on her way out of here.

This afternoon I'm going to the vet, where she is being kept in a freezer before her cremation. I'll take her collar off and say goodbye to her body because I've been saying goodbye to her spirit ever since I heard the news early Saturday morning.

It is Samhain / Halloween. Day of the Dead is almost here. Blessings and honor to the ancestors, to those who have gone before, and the innate transience of Life through Death.