That Little, Grey Cat

I loved the desert where I could be completely alone in the quiet of psychological-time meditations. Psy-time is an inner sense acting as a door to the nine inner senses always operating within the inner mind of men. Seth showed me the way, and I went through the door. The other side was incredible, expansive, responsive in undreamed of ways, and gave reason for the requirement of new consciousness, to love all things, for then you could receive all things. I sought the solitary, the absence of the bubbling creations of the rush-rush people, loved the silence of the night where dreams unfolded in a cleanliness of uninterrupted star light.

I was an apprentice dream artist, trained in the school called Earth to remember my nightly adventures. I would wake, record each dream on my phone, write it down later, then check against the physical world by watching for bits of that dream, and others too, to appear in events going on around me. Dreams were the most direct path to the new consciousness, and one night, I dreamed a dream no stranger than any other.

In the usual quiet of the dreaming world, the sudden appearance of any location was easily accepted, and I was in a used goods shop in Tucson, Arizona, where I looked at silver rings set with shiny gems. I realized the gems were glass, and said to the man behind the counter, “Oh, those are just glass, not real. I don't want those.” The man nodded, I wandered the store, marvelling at the collection, and the dream ended. I thought no more of it, other than to note in my journal that I was actually looking for silver jewellery to take home and sell in Canada. The jewellery in the dream had a connection to the so-called “real” world. Seth says dreams and physical reality are both real. He's right.

Well, I must allow these threads to form what they will, made from the dream, the shop, and a small grey cat who would suddenly appear. The cat possesses its own significance, and though its voice will always be foreign, it only needs empathy to effect translation.

∞

I'm small, furry, with four legs that carry me where I need to go, and places I don’t! It's sandy and rocky and cool under the house, and safe. I wish I'd stayed. I go where my nose leads. I was only hungry. I love life. I don't want to leave. I hurt.

∞

I drove my van to Walmart and bought a few things for the trip: fishing gear, beer, some steaks to stuff in the tiny freezer in my fridge, and headed towards the Desert Diamond Casino south of Tucson, where I would park for free for the night. At a light on Oracle Road where I should have gone straight, I suddenly decided to turn right. I'd seen a sign that said “Thrift Store – Turn Here,” and the thought occurred to me...I need books. All That Is loves spontaneity, and I often based my choices on that alone. Yet even as I rounded the corner, I also thought, I have books. I thrilled, for I'd chosen a new path! I could have gone straight, and that world would emerge. What would this world offer? I parked by an old house trailer occupied by the Sands Thrift Store.

Outside in intense heat from the scorching sun, a forty-something man wearing a large, tan cowboy hat leaned into the window of a shiny pickup and talked politics, if I correctly construed “Goddamn Democrats,” and, “That bastard Obama,” to an older couple. The speaker wore a purple, Navajo-print western shirt with creases sharp as the desert horizon at sundown, tight blue jeans, spit-shined, deep brown cowboy boots, and a gold handled six-shooter on his right hip. Well, look at that, a gun! I wouldn't have seen that if I'd gone straight! I wasn't used to open carry, or any carry, and nodded at the pistol-toting man. I opened the screen door to the junk shop.

The trailer was converted into a warren of narrow corridors jammed with stuff but not in a cluttered way like in some shops where a mess was a mess, and who gave a flying fediddle! This place had order. Old plastic and porcelain dolls, most with one eye, reclined on benches. Worn leather chaps, and wooden horse harnesses hung off grey wagon wheels with dry, rusted hubs. A weathered sign advertised a vanished business. The smell of dry dust and old, tinged the hot air. I stopped to examine a jewellery case. A tray of silver rings with glass jewels, under a scratched glass counter top, caught my eye. The dream! Ah, here you are, I thought. Dream, meet reality, reality, meet dream. I smiled. But why this? Significance shivered, objects came into greater focus, and my inner self whispered, pay attention. And, as in the dream, I didn't want the rings.

Books lined a back wall, and as usual, I wondered if I might find Seth Speaks or The Nature of Personal Reality; both old books to me by now, yet every time I read them I discovered something new. Ah that Seth, what a wily one, weaving fantastic stories of the inner realm of mankind's mind so the books, when read anew as understanding grew, revealed new knowledge in every paragraph, on second, third and even fourth readings.

Books were double-stacked, and took some work to sort. I pulled out a batch of paperbacks, set them aside, and bent to look at books at floor level. My leg muscles creaked and stretched as I bent from the waist, resting my hands on the floor. No Seth, but I went to the counter with Anna Karenina, The Gulag Archipelago, and a copy of Sahara so well worn time had wiped the author’s name from the sandy cover. The man with the gun stood behind the counter.

Behind him, dead animals with glazed eyes hung precariously from the wall. A California Condor with a red head tight and cracked, glared from its final perch. A small mountain lion stalked along the wall, its tan fur dry and split. I stared back, seeing only a dead animal with eyes glassy, gleaming white and gold under a coating of dust. I glanced at the man.

He had a slim build, a waxed handlebar moustache, and his blue eyes were kind. The pistol nestled in a well-oiled holster hung from the man’s waist by a belt full of bullets. The brass shells shone the same gleam as the gun’s gold handle. I could see myself in the cartridges. The weapon sat comfortably on the man’s hip. As I sometimes did, I wondered, if this was a dream, what does the man signify? Death, popped into my mind. He would kill with that thing, could be a killer, and my intuition said, leave, now! I took offence, thinking, but I'm safe! I hesitated, not noticing the brilliance around me pulsed as the world took on the feeling of a dream. Every glance had meaning and led in new directions, the answer to every thought was imminent, otherworldly sounds lay behind dust drifting sparkling in the quiet, sun-filled air, yet, the man only said, “Just these?” and the magical feeling, disappeared. He smiled, and shifted the books on the glass counter.

“Yup.”

“That’ll be a buck.”

That was it, no life changing illumination, no diamonds under glass, nothing but a buck, the gleam of a bullet, and a feeling of urgency.

∞

The day starts like most. Quiet. The sun shines its glorious warmth on my grey fur, heating me nicely after the chill of the night. In my dreams I chase lizards who grow too big and swallow me whole. I'm wary today. A few of those great gleaming beasts that travel fast move on their hot, noisy path. It's good to be out. I breathe in the new day, alive and alert, my fur clean and bright as I look for movement, listen for small rustle, sniff the air, and I know a mouse is near. I hunt, but he flees. His black eyes see, or he knows without seeing. I know too. I sense. I close on him, but he's gone. I wait. A bird sings as it soars, too high. It lives in trees. I like trees.

Hunger.

I could handle a little snake, but few live near. The ones with two legs to the ground kill everything, without eating. They don't kill me, or dogs. They call to me. I never go. I don't know why they don't kill dogs. They could eat. I don’t like dogs. They kill without eating. Dogs always attack, but I'm fast. I was.

I can't move. I wanted to feed the hunger, only that, and now can't even turn over. A lizard could kill me. I wait. I hurt. I'll leave, if I must. I don't want to leave trees. My breathe comes hard. I lick dirt and grime and blood that clings. I like clean. I tire of cleaning the hurt. I don't want the end. I close my eyes, see the shiny. I hate.

∞

I really wanted to chat with the fellow, ask about the gun, and something hard I'd seen in the man's gentle eyes, wanted to know the beliefs that drove the gunman, understand what fear he harboured. They say when you have a gun, you have no fear. I didn’t think so. When you have a gun, you fear everything. It struck me again with the force of all intuitions; this man has killed and I was seized by the need to go, now! The gunman had turned away to deal with another customer. I positively tore out of there, gravel spitting from my tires as I bounced off the dirt shoulder, drove to the corner and turned towards Mexico even as I thought, that wasn't fear that was...urgency. Why? Well, the dream was done. I shrugged. What else could I do?

∞

I see the shiny, bright as the hot sky, and smell it too, and when I look in, I see food. I stick my head in the shiny, crunch a few bits, but feel something I don't like. I try to leave the shiny. I can't! The shiny won’t come off! Get off! Why won’t you come off? I can't see. Dogs will kill me! I hear them bark! I'm prey with the shiny on my head! Get off, oh please, get off.

Scared.

I breathe crazy in out, in out, in out, get me out! I run and bump and run and bump. I’m sorry, shiny, please, let me go. I can't run straight with the sucking shiny on my head and as I run, I hear an awful sound from one of those beasts that never chase; a rushing of wind and a great huge massive terrible crunch to my head and my side, and oh, I hurt so bad.

∞

I approached a stop sign in a residential neighbourhood. Tall Saguaro cactus thrust from the dry land like giant, green-armed aliens patiently waiting to enter people’s sand coloured homes. As I slowed, I heard a loud hollow thump. I looked left. What hell? A grey cat spinning wildly in the middle of the road, with a bright blue foil bag on its head? What dream is this? A car had hit the cat, hard. The drumbeat of contact, thump, echoed in my head even after the driver grooved away with earphones on, completely unaware of the horror he’d committed on a small creature that wandered into his unseeing path with some stupid person's carelessly discarded garbage on its head.

∞

Fear.

I stop then, shaking, not knowing where I am. The whoosh of the great beasts goes on and on. I'll die. I stop, crouch, shiver, and wait for death. The sun burns hot, but casts no light through the blackness of the shiny. Where am I? My head, not clear, anymore.

Footsteps.

∞

I saw the bag puffing in and out as the cat breathed hard where it crouched in the exact centre of the road, the bag tight to its stupid head. Fearing the cat might claw me, I cautiously reached for a corner of the foil, and quickly jerked it off the beast’s head. The grey cat glanced my way, then tore away like a bolt of lightning, it's back legs running out to the side as if they wanted to be in front.

∞

It's reaching! For me!

I sense it, towering, and I shake, wanting to come out of my grey, like in dreams. My fur is wet, from tears in my sides. My back! It hurts bad.

Suddenly with a slip so quick it scares, the shiny comes off. I look, frantic to know. Where am I? One eye can't see; blind and still blind. I see from the other and whip my head so fast it hurts. A two-legged one towers above. It holds the shiny in the paw that never touches the ground. It looks at me, its eyes moist. I sense it hurts. I hurt. We hurt! I spring away and tear for the fence. My dark burrow lies under a two legged's home. I run wrong. My back legs run to the side. I don’t care about the pain, I run, and I do. Over the fence!

∞

I stood stupidly in the middle of the road and looked at a blue Doritos chip bag in my hand.

“Oh the poor thing,” a lady called as she ran-waddled towards me. The woman stared at the broken spot in the chain link fence where the cat had catapulted in its weird, sideways run. “Did you see any injuries? Oh dear me!” She put her hand to her mouth.

“Oh yeah,” I said. Traffic waited with the patience of accidental compassion while we stood in the middle of the road. It started up again as we moved to the shoulder. “I’d say it had some injuries. Its back, or hips, looked bad.” I didn’t mention the crushed eye. I gave my head a shake, and gathered myself.

“Oh my God. Such a small cat. I feel so sorry,” the woman said as tears glittered where sunlight fell on her brown, tired cheeks. She hurt.

“Not your fault, eh,” I said. “Anyways, it’s gone now. We can’t do a thing.” The woman gnawed on a cracked knuckle, stroked her worn print dress, looked around, and breathed in quick gasps. “Was it yours?” I asked.

“No.” She motioned around her. “It's a stray.”

We watched dusty cars motor by. The occupants stared back.

“Poor thing indeed,” I said. “We better get on with it, eh?”

“Yes, I guess so. Thank you for helping. So many wouldn’t…”

“It's nothing.” I shook my head, and then the bag. A few sour cream and onion bits fell out, to side slip, leaf-like, to the ground. I raised the bag. “This was stuck on its head.”

“Oh, how cruel.”

“Yeah. Well, bye.”

She stared at me, muted in her horror.

I threw the bag into the garbage in the van, drove away and yelled, “Damn, damn, damn,” as I punched the steering wheel. The freaking cat had run sideways! “Damn!” Within thirty yards the bag caught a gust of wind and flew out the open window, to tumble along the road, settle by the dry, brown gravel edge, scrunched up, yet even as I drove away I could see it in my mirror, unfolding; alive as only a bag would know. The wind of a passing car picked it up, and moved it towards its next act.

What was that stupid fear I had of the cat? Where's my trust in the safe universe? I examined my beliefs to answer such an important question. Yes, I still believed in the safe universe, where, pertinent to the event, every creature chose its time to die. That's a huge belief, completely required of the new consciousness, and needing constant attention to the details of those who die and those who live, to understand why they choose life, and death. But I had no details. My whole self would know, and easily too, seeing the whole self of the cat, know its motivations, and make instant and compassionate sense of the senseless. I wished to know that. But I was only a part of the whole self, didn't have access to the vast knowing of many lives happening at once, and that wisdom. I was as ignorant as any in the face of such colossal senselessness. Yet, nothing within All That Is, is ever senseless. The cat creates its own reality, but...? Every being decides its time of death, but...? Why the cat? Why me? What's the lesson!?

I glanced around and felt the immense pull of the unsafe universe. I'd been taught to believe in that place, but all that belief brought was...the unsafe universe. Belief in the safe universe brought the safe universe. It was so simple! I chose my beliefs! I chose my universe, and it was safe! What safety?

After death the cat would be reborn to another life and another and another, its identity saved within its own inner mind, its opportunities as endless as any others, its journey continuing, only changed, and all were then, safe. I'd pushed the unsafe away long ago, indeed, it marked the beginning of my journey to the new consciousness, where death had no bite. Still, I breathed hard.

The deep bass thump of flesh, bone, and bumper wouldn’t leave my ears. I cursed the ways of geometrical, mechanical, garbage-spewing, old consciousness man, and I cried as I pointed my van towards Mexico. The tears dropped for a few miles, and nobody saw, nobody ever saw, men cry.

I cried to express myself, and let the tears be. Emotions were the power behind everything. The incredible beauty of the oddest place made me cry for the beautiful world in tears drawn from joy! This time, the incredible, aching pain of a small creature’s hurt brought buried feelings to the surface. I'd been hurt too! I cried for injustice, uncaring, unknowing and just for, and just because.

It's not weak. Weakness is suppressing emotion, is indeed cowardice in the face of power. Civilizations fell when one group of people lost their emotions, and another group finds theirs. I'd learned to work with emotion, and it hurt.

I drove slowly. Others whizzed by at eighty miles per hour, and more. Where do they go in such a hurry? I lightly caressed the steering wheel, as I whispered, “Let it be!”

∞

Quiet lies the night. The roof above my head creaks from the two-legged ones, unaware I lie twisted below. They don't feel me. I don't hear much, now. I don't smell, though I sniff. I'm sorry shiny, so sorry. I needed to feed the hunger. My head no longer hurts, my eyes no longer see. One went dark, then the other. Quiet, so, quiet. I cannot hear. I try to stretch, to feel with feelings alone. Even this is dim. I thank the ones that give me life, the mouse, the birds, the bugs, and even the two-legged who sometimes feed me. I don't thank the dogs.

It's done! I slip from my fur and it all becomes clear. So different, so free. I see again! I'm fine! I've always been fine! It’s good. I see a new, and I know, and I understand and I'm a...oh! It's so happy!

∞

The hurt was the link to the dream. Tears bind all, to All That Is. Tears are love denied, and love applied. All That Is, is love before all else; giving everything its chance to be. All are safe and all rise, learning, to be.

Those jewels of glass, the unreal masquerading as the real, represented camouflage worlds of matter laid over vast truths All That Is used to know itself in all its forms. The dream used the Spacious Present to see into one of my probable futures; the one I chose, and there, I saw the future, walked a path before the path was real, and then, I made it real. Was the cat's death my fault?

I wouldn't make the mistake of guilt, but, could I have, by being a minute earlier, changed the flow of traffic, stopped the car that struck the cat? Intuition had urged me to hurry, not from the gunman, but towards the cat! Was All That Is trying to save the cat? Was the lesson; listen to the inner self? Yes! Yet the cost! Was there no other way on Earth than to learn through death? No! And yes.

I would continue to work with dreams, to understand consciousness. Indeed, dreams are the gateway to the new consciousness that awaits as we rise to our intended state. Freedom, compassion, empathy, health, equality, durable physical constructions, psychologically just and stable institutions, a firmer intellect, widespread lucidity in the dream and physical world, and more! The path would never be easy. The old resisted the new, yet this thing rising on Earth was required by those striving to become more, to slip the bonds of man's worst, and learn the wisdom to cry for the least. I'd opened the doorway to the inner mind. I wouldn't, I couldn't, go back.