Mac looking for a home West Cork Animal Welfare

Who really are the cats we love and who really are we for that matter?  Here follow some true stories that have happened to me and people I know.  Birds feature highly in these stories too and I got thinking about this subject yet this again, when I watched the film ‘The Curious Tale Of Benjamin Button’ starring Brad Pitt.  In the last scene, as the woman in the film dies thinking about the love of her life, a bird flutters at the window.

Apparently, in folk tradition there are many stories of birds coming into the house to herald someones passing.  A friend of mine relates that at the very moment her son Andrew died, after a long illness, a Robin flew into the room and then flew out again.  As though the bird was taking or accompanying the soul on its journey to wherever the soul goes next….a Soul Carrier

A year exactly to the day, on the Anniversary of Andrew’s passing, a very bedraggled stray kitten appeared at the bottom of my friend’s drive, so she took him in to care for him and he lived a good long life with her. 

 I have a strange tale to relate concerning a ginger and white cat and a bird, this happened a few weeks ago in the very cold snap, unusual for these temparate climes:.

One icy evening two weeks ago, my neighbour drove round to my house on her way back from work to ask if I had seen the stray cat, because there was a dead cat on the main road. I said no and fearing the worst we drove down to check if it was him.  It only took us two minutes to get down there and when we arrived there was no cat, nothing at all, only a bit of old rag further up the road.  It was a relief not to have to identify a mangled body.

We didn’t know what to think and couldn’t do anything more as it was pitch black and icy, so we returned home.  Later next day, I became concerned as the ginger and white cat still hadn’t come for his food, so I thought I’d better re-check at the roadside, to make absolutely certain he wasn’t there.

As I went down to the spot where my neighbour thought she had seen him, I found what appeared to be a dead Thrush on the road. I picked it up in order to put the bird into the hedgerow, when I felt a slight movement and the Thrush opened its eyes, which were full of blood.  I didn’t know what on earth to do, so cradled it in my hands while I hunted for the cat and then carried it back home.  I really was at a loss as to know what to do for the best and as I opened my hands slightly, to find a box to put the bird in, it flew up into the darkness of the shed. The next day with the advent of dawn, the Thrush flew away into freedom.

Such a small thing to happen, but it touched my heart in a wonderful way and a few days later I was overjoyed when the cat came back for another meal.

I’m partial to the Native American way of seeing things; that we are all part of a Great Spirit and all of us aminals, humans, birds, stones, insects etc intimately connected to one another.  I think that our cat friends are a whole lot more tuned in to this reality than we are.

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cats we love you, Great Spirit, soul carriers, stories about cats, stray kitten, Thrush and Robin