I DID IT! What a blessing that our tiny teacher Scooter the feral cat has turned out to be! I have watched her ongoing wrestling match with her “survival” conditioning, silently cheering as she began to stop instinctively running out the door whenever I stepped onto the porch graduating to now merely pausing as she hangs her head through her cat door and takes a deep breath, reassuring herself that her freedom is still her own. But she was a cat in conflict. Her amorous rubbing on the kitchen door whenever she sees me approach demonstrates how she wants MORE, yet she is afraid of what “more” IS, having never experienced it and not quite sure what it actually was that she wanted. I see myself so clearly in Scooter. She is indeed a projection of myself, and perhaps you might see yourself in her too. Her survival instinct is preventing her from accepting the very thing she so obviously desires and is actually being offered to her without condition at all times. I look back and see times in my own life when I did the same damn thing, following conditioning that no longer served me but kept me cold, hungry, and isolated from what I really wanted. I thought I had to be wary, and that struggles are to be expected, as well as disappointments and a fair amount of strife and fear. I thought to live differently, if even possible, would certainly come at too large a cost for me to ever accept. And so, it *did*. ;-) But in the end (or should I say “The Beginning”) I found that it was all there and was ALWAYS there the moment I reached out my hand and accepted it. I didn’t have to work for it, or even go looking for it. The very moment I stopped applying all my conditioned rules that made sure it stayed far from me, it became mine. That’s all it took. So, the Scooter metaphor cannot be missed in my case! Here she is, acting in the same way we all do at first. All she has to do is accept what is being offered. But to do that, she must lay aside her rules that keep it at bay. Watching her progress has been like watching the sun peek from the clouds ray-by-ray. It’s glorious to watch her deliberately begin to override her instincts and begin to entertain the possibility that food is always coming, there IS a warm place to sleep if she will accept it, and even the warmth of companionship that she has never known. AND GUESS WHAT? Yesterday, Scooter allowed me to pet her! Okay, she will only permit me to do it with my arm hanging through the door, and she still instinctively “pops” me now and then, but I still can barely believe she is allowing it! She *revels* in it, amazed at this new concept of having her back stroked and head and chin scratched. And she is still learning, to be sure, but I can’t help but feel the excitement that perhaps Helen Keller’s teacher must have felt when Helen finally understood her first word. I feel like I’ve broken through a once impossible wall, where new blessings lay in store for both myself AND my furry little teacher. And all it took was for her to permit what was patiently trying to come to her (and she wanted!) TO come to her. She just had to allow it and make it welcome by making room for it in her world. Sound familiar? ;-) Thank you, Scooter, for your beautiful reminders
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 13:53:09 +0000
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