Zen and the Art of Being a Cat

She is vigilantly on guard

Ya know, they’re not rilly sleeping 16 hours a day. Nope. What they’re doing is contemplating the mysteries of life AND getting their chill on. Cats are meditating – deeply and admirably and shit too. As you can imagine, cats have brill blood pressure.

All the meditation shit enables them to laser focus on things we mere mortals miss. Like the beauty in a mote of dust as it floats through a patch of sun or the herky jerky motions of the starlings as they dine or LUNCH.

Mediation posture #1

Also too – that old maxim “cleanliness is next to godliness?” That began with worshippers of Bast, the Egyptian goddess of protection (yes, condoms as well as keeping one otherwise safe), the rising sun and catnip (OK, I made that last bit up but you can totes see it, right?). As I’m sure you’ve guessed, these acolytes were an especially tidy bunch. They witnessed Bast’s fastidious bathing rituals and, naturally, sought to emulate her. They wanted to be seen as godly (or Bastly as it’s more properly termed).

Bast’s descendents carry on. Take my fierce jungle warrior, Coco, fer instance.  I’ll be reading in bed with her sprawled across my lap, seemingly fast asleep. Now, remember I’m deaf – I won’t here anyone come in. Coco does though and immediately jumps to Intruder Alert, Intruder Alert status. She’ll begin to scale down her hyper on-guard status when Jen or Ten walks through the bedroom door and give her chin a skritch but only just. Soon-ish she goes back to the business of meditation.

My goal in life is to be more like my cat. I think I can do this!