Conversation With a Cat
Contributed by Author/Artist Carl Franz

Outside in the garden, the February wind was playing a wild Atlantic game of rough and tumble among the cowering shrubs. I retreated from the window back to my cosy fireside armchair, and Scarab, seeing this, took his cue and hopped up onto my lap to join me for the evening. This was, I quietly agreed, no weather for a cat to be out in. Especially not for a thin-furred, fickle-natured Egyptian Mau of a cat! I nestled back into the soft cushions, grateful for the luxuries life afforded me. A warm fire, a comfortable place to rest and the welcome company of my friend Scarab.

I gently tickled him between his old soldier's ragged ears, just the way he liked it, and in response he began to purr. Of course we didn't always see eye to cat's-eye on things, such as his treatment of the sofa, which he had taken an instant liking to as soon as he arrived as my newly adopted four year old feline. My feisty little leopard had mellowed a tad over the last eight years, though if you cared to ask it, the sofa would probably disagree.

Another thing Scarab liked (besides wrecking my furniture) was Reiki, and this I was always more than willing to share with him.

When I first began treating him, it became quickly apparent that both hands were too much for him. Using my giving hand alone was more than enough if I was careful to keep the energy low and steady. Cats being cats (and Scarab being Scarab) he would not hesitate in letting me know if he became the slightest bit uncomfortable. He communicated this dissatisfaction by suddenly jumping up and away without warning.  Which is fair enough, only did he really have to dig his needle-sharp claws into my thigh like that!

Remembering my painful past lessons, I rested my hand very lightly on his haunch. In answer, his distinctive honey-brown purr sounded out from deep inside the soft cave of his body, and began to resonate with the harmonics of my own vibration. The energy of the universe flowed willingly through me and through my hands into him. I felt her vast and gentle ocean flowing into Scarab's body and I followed it towards the old injury in his leg. The previous sessions had already healed and soothed him, and so the energy lingered only a short while there.

Satisfied that everything was in order, I closed my two eyes and opened my third, to join him on his evening's adventures.  This was something I had become slowly and carefully accustomed to over our time together. But for Scarab it was nothing new. For him astral travel was as natural as Reiki. I reached tentatively out towards him until my astral self was level with his whiskered cheek. There I paused for permission. Words (those sluggish lead-booted grunts) were redundant here, along with my slow blundering flesh and bone. Scarab could refuse my request and I would naturally respect that, but having sensed his pleasure and acceptance, I slipped sideways as softly as the downy white fur on his belly, and mingled with him.

As his guest, I swept along with him into the black night outside the window, which was no longer dark through his knowing green eyes. Instead it was illuminated by the smoky blue light he borrowed from the faint cloud-veiled stars. In this light everything familiar to me was drawn and coloured from the palette of a fresh new artist. The pencil-etched paper cut blades of the grass waved in the voiceless wind and the bushes wore thin sharp carved leaves, blue-washed free of their evergreen for the night. Then Scarab granted me my hesitant wish and took me up with him, away from his earthy domain, and let the ground fall down away from us.

The regiments of houses below me formed into ever shrinking fingerprints made of roof tiles hemmed in with grey swirling roads, and when at last I had the presence of mind to look ahead, I saw the horizon curving down under the velvet cloak of night, held high above the bruised clouds and dripping with her infinite flashing jewels.

We felt no wind or rain and we were impervious to the cold. We were fast too! The town under us slipped back, drawn away like a cluttered tablecloth, releasing the wriggling star-shivered River Ouse to flow fancy-free over the land. She swayed with glorious happy decadence around the white frosted hills of the Wolds and swept on down the ancient shallow valleys towards her distant salty home.

We left her to her journey and circled around over the tiny cottage belonging to a healer friend. It had windows made of warm welcome butter and at its door lay a walled garden, bright with healing herbs and a barefoot beckoning path of much loved walks running to a nonsense map through it all. Nearby the waiting fields lay face up, open and bare-earthed to the frost. They nudged up to the edge of Mishka Woods, who was sleeping with all her huddled seeds and shoots kept secret for the spring.

Sensing it was time for my heavy earthbound spirit, Scarab turned and brought us back again to our own warm winter hollow and our fireside chair. The astral world faded back again into the weight pressed dreams of reality and I thanked my wonderful friend Scarab: he in turn washed himself, and without looking back hopped daintily down to inspect his food bowl.
About the Author:
Author and artist Carl Franz lives in Yorkshire, UK.
He regularly contributes to his local magazine 'Howden Matters' and also features in various websites and magazines.