Category: Flora & Fauna

Chapter I – A Feline Wanders In

The moon is rolling into the first quarter on her journey around our Earth. She is following a path without obvious deviation, yet with every revolution, the aspect is slightly different. This continuity of movement has been the foundation of so many myths and a few monsters as well. However, should she become inspired one evening to wander into the unknown, we would be in some difficulty below. The moon is constant and gives a rhythm to the day, months, years, and centuries. An instinctive connection to the lunar cycle can be felt in the quiet hours when it is calm, giving rise to a sensation to follow an ancient pathway. The energy acts as a way finder when the soul rises and leads.

Next week’s full moon will be of Trees in Deep Sleep. We are just past winter’s wheel and the air grows colder by the hour. As I begin this edition in the daily life of Myrrh, all is warm and well-tended. Myrrh is here, sitting like a sphynx next to me while I reflect on life. The mystic in me wants to reveal with confidence this cat is my familiar. However, I simply think she is curious and trying out a new perch for the month of January. After all, it is the new moon cycle, when better than now to explore an idea. This is the story of her days in my home. Things that seemed not of interest just yesterday are now part of daily life when a feline wanders in.

Every gardener knows that spring is never the same way twice. When I walk my often trodden path around the marsh and commune with the chilly rain gently falling, I am inspired to consider that it is truly musical as it descends to Earth. I watch the inky green water swirling through the reeds looking deeply cold in the creek. My limited awareness of my place in time and space diminishes the ability to grasp the unseen path around me. I can barely put words to the beauty as I walk over trails of oak and beech leaves the color of rusted copper. As I travel the familiar trail, I am different The view is the same yet daily it is different. Am I a part of some limited existence hiding in the security of the same thing always with slight deviations so as not to harshly jolt me out of this pattern of life? I sense somewhere in my awareness perhaps it is time to consider that as many years as I have been on my journey, I am not certain there is an end.

When I was a teenager, my heroes included the great writers Thoreau and Hawthorn of Concord, MA. They wrote in romantic, mystical, transcendent prose. Their habit of walking, observing and sharing reflections on life around us in their published works has had such an influence. It’s rather a meditation in motion. I am not going anywhere, just ambling along. My trails may be familiar treads, but my spirit loves the view. Contemplations come easily on the footpath. I wander, my thoughts wander and I am lost or not. If I only knew where I was going and could come to consider that perhaps I had passed the reason I wander.

I believe I need too much, that is the wicked trick of being human. When the spirit wants to burst and the will remains weak it is frustrating. I have become an expert at not deviating from the comfortable loop and today I know this. I am the moon.

The decision to become a writer is not taken lightly. As much as I want to tell the tale, the penning of it somehow falters in the attempt. It has taken an hour to compose a few short paragraphs. Another trail, endless pondering around with slight deviations into puerile adventures.

My cat and I share a common trait, an internal wake up from the body around four o’clock in the morning. This hour is the twilight time of day when I hear the night creatures calling outside. I am far enough into the countryside to hear coyotes circling prey from time to time. The season of the year does not affect this natural happening. I stir early. Nights when I cannot find rest, this is the hour I finally drift off. Myrrh knows it is the time to rise and breakfast. Kitty steps walk, romp and sometimes pounce me into full awakening. She does not like to have her tail touched at all. Do you think it per chance that it swishes back and forth across my nose every morning? Wake up! Myrrh is saying. The day rolls on.

The old bones in me still follow primitive instincts. I cling to an idea that my human ancestors used to wander at this hour to scavenge and forage. We moved in the shadow time. My cells are old, evolving through every faun and fauna upon Earth. Given a moment to reflect, my instincts recall what it takes to survive and the echo is in the early inner wake up. Now is the time to move, before the dawn with the shadows quickly fading into another day.

Humans seem such defenseless creatures. Wild animals fear us and run away. We manipulate the natural world to thrive, dominating the landscape, and only bowing to the harshest of elements. Our size and shape is not too swift for any sort of escape from hungry prey. Consider that even our teeth and nails are ordinary, nothing particularly sharp or threatening to see.

I am uncertain why some animals are referred to as domesticated. Most can still defend themselves with superb speed and intent. Most people think before reacting. This tendency is our hubris. We hesitate, but the cat when threatened, is far down the road toward safety. My cat can do a lot of damage with her claws without too much provocation. Before our brain developed into the thinking machine it is, we may have stumbled along with all the other smaller animals. We are strange looking beings. This shape is so vulnerable. Our bodies put us far above the ground. Without my well-tended home, I am frighteningly ill equipped to survive in the wilds. If life as I know it changed, I would be one sorry beast in the woods.

A part of me longs to be an animal. I want my senses to be sharp, alert and supportive. I want feet that can move over the ground confidently without shoes. I want to be graceful, clever and awake. The shadowy hours of a new day awaken every lark. In many ways, Myrrh is my superior. She includes me in her twilight ambling. I can hear her scratching in the litter pan. The bedroom door is pushed open, a running step and leap onto the bed. Kitty uses little chirps, delicate pips to call me awake. She sniffs around and wanders. I like to sleep on my side. Testy cautious kitty steps up and onto my shoulder or hip. Sit, lie down, purr and get comfy on this bump. Purr, purr, purr, the little fuzzy friend is here.

This internal alarm started to tingle only within the past few years. My search for something more has manifested a closer affinity with Nature’s ways. The believer in me hopes that all these years of cultivating a closeness with Nature has refined my spirits; the old ways take command of my mortal being. Yes, I fancy myself something of a mystic; fascinated by the stillness of a field, enchanted by the trickling stream and searching for something within and without. I wish to make contact with the mystery. Today, I wish to be a wood elf, tomorrow, I will see Pomona along the path. The green man is my ultimate mate. The presence in the forest, or by the sea and even the mist in my cup of tea calls me in. The path I have followed has no name. It’s something akin to the Spirit of All Things. I love to be in the elements and feel the connection.

As the sun rises, I hear the cardinals calling in the day. They are the first to arrive and last to leave the bird feeders dwelling in the grey time between the rising and setting sun or moon. The body waking up and the actual getting up can linger for an hour or more, many thoughts ramble through the mind. Many are the times I thought to do something while I am awake. Get up? Walk to the pond? Hatha yoga? Or, just lie there and ramble. Mostly, I just lie there and later on, get annoyed with myself for not being the disciplined yogi. I am too lazy to be one. Last year I experimented with that urge to get up and did domestic chores in the predawn. There was a sense of satisfaction in having awoken, cleared my kitchen sink, taken out the trash or sorted a laundry load. I enjoyed coming home after work and finding nothing much to do except prepare a meal and put my feet up. This impulse was strong during the summer season. Now that it is the time to rest. I simply notice it is dark and I should lay low.

Myrrh has everything to teach me about the value of dreamtime. She sleeps about 16 hours a day. I wonder if cats retreat into a dream world? Perhaps the sleeping state is far more exciting than the waking. After all, the fortunate kitties have domesticated us to fulfill their needs for a warm dry corner to curl into. There must be something that makes it more attractive to be asleep than awake.

Myrrh came home in mid-April a year or so ago after I had been catless for about twenty years. My reason for living without a cat was due to circumstances I felt unwelcome for companionship. The first being I tend to have two jobs and am simply not home much. The other was completing a college degree at night compounding the not home syndrome. The degree took almost eight years to finish. The landlord also said no. I honestly felt I could not give kitty the contact necessary for its health and well-being. I have a strong belief in allowing cats some outdoor time when possible. I now live in a place that lends itself to cat kinship. After several years of a no cat policy, the proprietor changed his mind about this. I had started seeing fuzzy faces in windows and occasionally outside.

The other spur was the consistent dreaming I had around cats. Most of the dreams involved being inside an old apartment I had during the 90s. I particularly enjoyed this place as the rooms were spacious with tall windows. The moonlight would stream in the bedroom, waking me to being in lunar light. In the dream, the apartment was in disrepair. The cat would appear and be in a state of near starvation. Other dreams included an old cat I had nicknamed the mighty hunter. I found a journal entry dated from November of 2005. I was so impressed by a recent dream that I wrote to a dream message board seeking support, here is the exact entry…

“Cat Sitting on my Head – I had heard if you put a bowl of water next to your bed stand it formed a connection to Moon energy and often opened the door to the dream world. Well, I did this yesterday and had a proper message come through except I am too mortal to interpret the images. All I can recall is feeling my black cat crawl his way up my back and sit on my head. I was looking into a mirror and clearly saw him lying over my head quite relaxed and looking smashing. Another black cat was in the mirror toward my right side. Both were healthy, thick shiny coats, quite alert and looking at me in the mirror. “

Shushu and I shared a home when I worked on a large private farm. This place was cat heaven as he had wide fields to hunt in. He would regularly bring in live critters to share. Birds flying free in the living room were a spectacle to be sure. I had perfected a technique for getting them out alive by opening the top half of all the window sashes and use a broom to shoo the bird in that direction. This rarely failed.

When I tried to return back to urban life, he didn’t survive the outdoors. I found him dead one day. It was reckless to have brought him from country freedom to city tangles. This cat did come to me in dreams on a regular basis. I became so distressed at his shadow that I performed a forgiveness ritual. I apologized for changing his life and neglecting his well-being. I had thought only of my needs and not what was best for him. The dreams continued to the point I put out a bowl of water and cheese on my balcony in an attempt to feed its spirit and somehow appease the message of taking care of this cat. When I think about the drama occurring in the dream state it is a message from within. However, in all the curiosity over these dreams, I never took them literally. I assumed spirit was sending me a message about a mess inside my psyche. Perhaps Mighty Hunter was telling me I should care for cats that are in need. I take things often as having a cerebral meaning for me not that they might be something to put into action.

For several years, I was also haunted by dreams of starving horses in a filthy stable. When I was in my early twenties, I took a job as barn worker in New Jersey. I lived in Stockton on the Delaware River. There were about 500 acres of wide-open fields, a small area of forest and rolling hills in every direction. On my own, I managed a small barn of about five horses for a wealthy older woman called Miss Jane. In all I was there for four years. During this time, I had arrived with three cats and lost one of them to the wilds of night. In my dreams, I am back in that stable and it is beyond filthy with muck and manure. I always ended up with a monumental task in front of me.

I also had dreams of horses under the house where I grew up penned in the stables dying from lack of feed and neglect. The horses are kept inside out of daylight and confined. My task is to remember I have left them there and must rescue them. I begin the action and the dream fades out. From time to time, I also found myself back to riding horses. Sometimes the ride was bumpy but once or twice, it was the ride of my life, smooth, horse and I moving fluidly through a graceful canter. The dreams eventually faded out. In this writing, I forgot how much I was involved in living a quiet life with animals.

Sometimes in life, a dream can become a reality. The urge to establish a homeless shelter for horses that are in jeopardy has been strong. If there is such a thing as the Spirit of All Things, it has been roaring in my ears lately. So pushed have I been by this thought, I started to say it aloud to people. A link was sent to me about a volunteer opportunity at a local shelter for horses. The closest I have been to horses in the last twenty years has been my country lane walk past two ponies in the farmer’s field. One of them was near to the road and I couldn’t help but notice how he smelled. Deep down inside, I craved it. I managed to fit in at the rescue barn one afternoon each week committing myself to the late day chores feeding, grooming and fussing over horses that need care. The dormant skills I had working with horses surfaced quickly. I know how to move, bend and push in a barn. It’s a matter of fitting into an established group of caring people, that don’t like outsiders. This dream became a reality for a while.

I adopted Myrrh from the local cat shelter in April. There was some difficulty in connecting with the manager, Carol, at first. Ring no answer, no reply to my message. Something odd was happening and I prefer smooth moves. As it happened, Carol called the next afternoon and arranged for me to stop by. Well, an hour later Myrrh was in a cat crate on the front seat of my car. Carol was somewhat persuasive and accepted any amount as a donation. She thought nobody would want a ten-year-old cat. Myrrh had been a resident of the shelter since October when her owner died. Myrrh had been adopted out of this same shelter as a kitten to a woman named Wanda Hill.

When we got home, Myrrh wandered about the apartment. I remember thinking this was a strange thing to have done; what had I done? We were both rather tense and looking at each other in a wary way. She spent the first night sleeping and wandering in the front room. I believe she tried very hard to fit in behind the bookstand. I keep it catty corner and it has a dusty, spider webby spot for hiding. At around four in the morning, she started meowing loudly. I got up and gave her some cat food.

The first two weeks were sketchy. I do recall eating dinner that first evening as she sat near my feet mooching for a morsel. Whatever it was, I didn’t think it for a cat’s palate and she received nothing. Only dry cat food and water for a first meal. We stumbled around for a few weeks until things smoothed out. I experimented with different foods trying to find a good balance. I was concerned from the start about the ingredients in her meals. I thought commercial cat food was mostly factory processing waste, I mean what else could meat by products be. So, I explored cat message forums, read labels and generally sorted out what was healthful and what was not.

Myrrh was adopted with some vague thought that I wanted to share my life with someone but not a human. I have a few friends, I work every day and manage to socialize in my own way. However, above all else I seem to love my solitude. My life revolves around time spent in the safety of my home. Tending, caring and fussing over my foods, possessions and tendencies. My compulsion for Feng Shui is allowed to flourish. In the warm months, I plant a container garden making sure I have nasturtiums for salads and hummingbirds. In the cold months, I hang a bird feeder and think often about the life of these birds. I find them shockingly brave and capable beyond anything I can understand. I recall one experience of a chickadee hanging with one claw onto the suet cage. I thought that was awkward. The next day, I saw a chickadee sitting on the balcony railing tilted sideways. The next day, the same bird came again, this time I could see one of his claws hanging almost swinging away useless. I was shocked and disturbed for it. He must have broken his leg. Gosh, the poor thing, in the middle of winter coping with just the one claw. He did seem to manage and I was glad I had the feeder up and he could land eating safely. The competition at feeders tends to be bossy with birds literally knocking each other over for the seeds. Over time, I thought I saw the leg becoming useful again. I was cheered inside that I helped in my own small way one little creature survive. Birds are remarkably adept. Consider how strong the elements are and all the dangers. Yet, they go on; they do their best despite the odds, little fluffs that weigh less than clouds.

Myrrh has a spirit about her. How quietly she sits with her ears pointed up. The image is of settlement, beauty and place. She has become content in the home I can offer her. I have brought her comfort. This is a powerful thing. In my pursuit of happiness, it has involved bringing a feline home as a companion. All is well when a cat comes home.