this blog post is in honor of a cat which may or may not be of this world, the cat i killed the other night.
on this ‘other night’, someone told me a story about their childhood cat being run over by a car. i giggled (inappropriately) because the context for this memory was that we’d been speeding down a road and come across speed bumps, and it occurred to me that we were no better than that speeding driver so many years ago..but thankfully these speed bumps would stop us from repeating those mistakes.
the moment was over as soon as it began and the evening went on.
the image stayed in my mind tho, and on the way home i kept conjuring up an image of an animal coming out of nowhere, and i kept pushing myself to be super alert.
about halfway home, out of the nowhere and dark nothing of the middle of the highway, a small animal apparently made of bright light dashed in front of the car. i swerved and screamed, suddenly overwhelmed by the cars behind me and this cat (or was it a fox?) in front…and there was no missing it. the sound of the cat’s last seconds were simple, loud, violent, fast.
i was in shock – a few months ago i was in a car that hit a squirrel (who turned out to be ok…we got out and sat with it til it ran off), but i had never been driving a car and hit something – as a general practice i brake for every living creature.
in that place of shock, a blankness came over me. the first thought i recall is – did i predict that? is that why it was on my mind over and over?
my passenger, the same person who had told me the story of that childhood cat, thought the reverse must have happened – by locking in on the idea and repeating it in my mind, i had manifested it. sort of a multi-verse theory in effect. if any and all possibilities can and do co-exist, then perhaps we can flip worlds, flip experiences, or call in an incident with intense focus.
these theories both seemed more likely than an actual cat trying to run across this highway, close to no exits or towns. the sad mystery of this cat, the trauma of it’s speedy death, and my inability to change or undo the situation – all of this has conspired to have me a bit melancholy since it happened.
i’m sure this sort of random devastation has it’s place in the universe too, and i should just go ask sterling.
i was very calm in moment, in my shock. it didn’t occur to me to drive back, or to cry, or any of the things i have since reflected could have happened. it just made me deeply curious – where had that cat come from, and why had this happened? what was the lesson?
what does it mean to hit a cat….cats symbolize “a high degree of sensuality with a deeply psychic and spiritual nature, teaches us that the physical and spiritual worlds are not separate, but one.” this is the center of my current thinking and work. it must be somehow relevant to hit this cat.
i can’t tell if this curiosity is more or less vulnerable than any other emotional response, but it’s just as constant and consuming.
it cycles around in my mind: it was a cat, not a person. but it was a living breathing being with a personality and surely someone loved it. but there are other living breathing beings who are suffering and can reason about it, maybe who aren’t loved. this is either road kill or destroying something sacred, either way you can’t reverse what happened, this cat moved from this world to another in a portion of a second.
as i go through the other parts of my life, working on agendas, sitting in meetings, mingling, baking bread, making soup, cleaning house – i think part of me is dumbfounded by this very obvious metaphor for my/humanity’s life story right now. we are on a road, manifesting or predicting a devastating future – can we change the story? and for the wreckages we have already created between the physical and spiritual world, where there is no relief, no easier story in this world, what does redemption look like?
and for my readers who might say my approach to this incident is dramatic, please understand that an easier existence just doesn’t satisfy me.