Blessings Arrive on Little Cat Feet
Melody wrote the following KLog about my family and me one week after we became Townsend Cats on June 4, 2016! ~ Josie
My family grew last week. A pair of nine-week-old sisters and a young queen with one three-week-old princess moved into adjacent apartments in my home.
They are refugees of human politics. An amazing all-volunteer humane society with a thirteen-year no-kill record in a neighboring county is being replaced with a salaried staff who will implement a traditional animal control protocol that includes the routine, systematic killing of companion animals.
Three of my new housemates are too young to understand that their lives were soon to be in jeopardy, but all four constantly express their gratitude and joy for the love, affection, security, meals, and toys that are abundant here.
Love shared with animals and children neither divides nor diminishes. It multiplies and increases to overflow the heart and the home. Love is the foundation for the myriad outrageous blessings that have filled our lives with the arrival of Josie and Sierra, of Selene and her little Star. They teach by example, and the principles they demonstrate are beautiful reminders that ours really is an Extra-Ordinary World!
How To Live Like A Kitten !
Be Curious! Always. Never lose your sense of wonder, and wonder about everything. The whole world is brand new for Josie and Sierra. Nothing is common. These two little girls investigate inside every nook, under every piece of furniture, and behind every door with insatiable curiosity. They automatically know that Curiosity is their portal through which to discover, to learn, to find that which was lost, to remember what was forgotten.
Explore! It’s more than a game. It’s a lifestyle. It is a vital key to success. Exploration gifts her students with Experience and Education that eradicates ignorance from the minds of those who are unafraid to acknowledge it and grow through it.
Josie and Sierra were born too smart to make the mistake of thinking they already know everything there is to know about any thing, individual, place, or situation. They commit all their senses to the art of discovery, and they encourage their humans to follow their example.
Be Positive! Josie and Sierra constantly anticipate the absolutely fascinating blessings that simply have to be waiting just out of sight around every corner! Vacancies around the bend do not deter these kittens. They don’t regret the time and energy expended on a fruitless pounce. They aren’t disappointed about coming up empty-pawed. They don’t feel betrayed that their expectations were not rewarded. They are too busy anticipating what waits around the next corner, and the next, and the next. Life is new and exciting right now, and Josie and Sierra know that wonderful and exciting things are waiting just moments away, so they don’t compromise their present joy. The past isn’t failure; it’s preparation! And there is so much to prepare for! So keep your head held high and march forward with absolute anticipation of the amazing life that greets you with every step!
Be Determined! On her first evening in her new home, little 1.5-pound Sierra gazed up at the impossible height of the lowest carpeted shelf mounted to the cat room wall. During the next three nights of supervised play time, she made countless efforts to reach that shelf. It was too high for her to touch, even standing on her hind paws. She couldn’t jump from a standstill and grab hold of it. The wall beside it was too smooth to climb. But Sierra kept trying. She studied that shelf and her surroundings on the floor. She figured out that if she started from the other side of the room and ran as fast as she could, then leaped as hard as she could, momentum would carry her high enough to grab onto the edge of that shelf. She would dangle for a few seconds before dropping to the floor. Encouraged by this progress, Sierra continued to leap and grab and hold onto the shelf until she was able to pull herself up onto it. Success never felt so good!
Sierra practiced her leap-grab-pull onto the shelf until it now appears effortless. She discovered that leaping onto consecutively higher shelves was easier once she had conquered the first and most difficult step. Her accomplishment not only grew her own self-confidence, but also inspired her sister Josie to keep trying until she, too, stood tall atop that carpeted shelf!
Your goals won’t easy, but they’re worth achieving, so don’t ever stop trying! You may never know who is receiving encouragement from witnessing your determination as they attempt to surmount their personal and professional challenges.
Be Flexible! Sometimes the answer really is ‘No.’ Sometimes the door won’t open, the obstacle won’t move, and at least for the moment, you will have to accept life the way it is instead of the way you want it to be. This acceptance does not equate resignation to circumstances or death to our dreams except in our own minds.
Josie and Sierra choose to look at disappointment and see reappointment! This door is closed? We’ll just go see what’s behind that one over there! Lost my jingle ball under the cabinet? That won’t stop me from playing with my other toys! The obstacle I’m facing is right here, but it’s not everywhere, and life is loaded with options! That barrier is blocking this particular path, but there are so many other directions we can go!
Maybe the original path they wanted to take will one day be opened to them. Those two sisters will trot over to check from time to time. They will apply their minds and all their kitten muscle to their objective of breaking through the obstruction. If it remains unsurmountable, they won’t linger and wish and regret and express anger and sadness at not getting their way. They will continue to expand their lives in every other direction and to explore and discover, learn and grow.
Be Playful! Josie is a play time professional! Alone or with her sister, in the presence or absence of toys, she throws all of her energy and creativity into playing and having fun. While Sierra enjoys exploring the perimeters of her world, Josie focuses her attention on the details between here and there. She knows that play is not an organized, premeditated event bound by rules and time constraints. Play is a spontaneous outlook on a life that has everything to offer. Sometimes you focus on one aspect until you’ve figured it out. Sometimes you pounce on several objects in rapid succession!
Josie is an excellent jingle ball player. She wrestles with Sierra. She catches toy mice and proudly carries them by their tails. She arches her back and puffs her tail and minces sideways at her sister, her toys, her own shadow. No inhibitions hold her back from being herself and having fun!
Josie demonstrates that most every element of our lives holds the potential for play. Meal times and socializing, learning and working, encountering new situations and enjoying existing routines; things we have to do, things we want to do, things we do to make life better for others. If we enter every day with positive expectations and the genuine joy of a grateful heart, we can light up our lives and lighten our loads and learn again the sheer happiness of innocent play.
Be Intrepid! Josie and Sierra are fearless! They try anything and everything, sometimes vertically, and usually at very high rates of speed. The most beautiful aspect of their innocence is its purity. They trust completely. They truly believe they can do anything. And they aren’t afraid to try. The heart of bravery, however, is most evident in their youngest foster sibling.
Tiny little Star just celebrated her four-week birthday. She is her mother’s only kitten, and she is learning to view Josie and Sierra as older cousins. During supervised play time, Star attempts to follow their erratic racing, leaping, and pouncing in much the same way a human three-year-old would do her best to keep up with a pair of energetic ten-year-olds who acknowledge her presence but don’t include her in their games because she is too young to play with them. But toddler kitten Star exhibits bravery that outshines the reckless confidence of her foster sisters. When they approach with too much exuberance, she arches her four-inch-long back and puffs her tiny tail. When they sit still for a rare moment, Star pounces on them. When they take off in pursuit of each other, Star entertains herself. She is learning the sport of jingle ball. She swats and carries a toy mouse that is half as big as her little self. She climbs into the center of the large ring toy, rakes the cardboard scratcher with her dainty claws, and walks in the circular track behind the ball, pushing it around the ring.
Star is unafraid to try new things! She is learning to run, learning to pounce, learning to communicate with older cats who are not her mom. Star epitomizes bravery. With head and tiny tail held high, she toddles and runs and observes and explores. In the apartment with her mom, she investigates every corner, mauls her mother’s tail (the perfect kitten toy), enjoys nursing and being groomed by her mom, and is beginning to take interest in cat food and the litter box.
Star knows that we must be intrepid – brave and daring! – if we are to learn and grow and become all that we were created to be.
Be Thankful! Beautiful Selene is a year and a half old, hardly more than a kitten herself. No one knows her story or even how she came to be at the shelter wearing a red nylon collar and caring for her one baby. But that doesn’t matter, because Selene isn’t interested in recalling her past. She demonstrates gratitude for her life here and now with her sweet, gentle spirit, with long, slow blinks of her gorgeous emerald eyes, and by gracefully extending her head to meet the hand that reaches out to caress her pretty face.
Selene is a wonderful mother. She takes beautiful care of her little one. She speaks to Star in trills and soft murmurs and keeps a constant eye on her baby. Selene is perhaps the only one of the four newcomers who recognizes that she and her daughter have been removed from a shelter just in time to escape its impending transition to a high-kill facility. She never ceases to express her appreciation for the love, security, care, and reassurance of her forever home.
Kittens remind us that nothing is commonplace. They draw our attention to the miracles we take for granted as ordinary and open our eyes to the sacred truth of how incredibly amazing life really is. Every moment. Every day.
Welcome home, Josie and Sierra, Selene and baby Star. Thank you for introducing us to your Extra-Ordinary World!
