simon chronicles: a powerful meditation

Monday, November 23, 2009

Katie Sherrod’s terrific posting of

The Simon Chronicles

My name is Simon.

I am The Cat.

I have asked my staff to help record this chronicle, because I feel I have been much misunderstood.

I am a very spiritual being.

I do Yoga.

I meditate.

I enhance the beauty of the space around me.

And yet, the calumny persists that I spend all my time sleeping.

It is a perfidy of dogs.

These dogs among them. Do you see the injustice of the accusation?

Each night I do my best to instruct my dogs in the ways of wisdom.

 

It is a waste of my time.

So I repair to one of the many retreats my staff has thoughtfully provided for me,

where I muse on the ways of humans and dogs.

My Chief of Staff has provided many venues designed to enhance my natural catly beauty.

I am awaiting my Chief of Staff. It’s time to go work in my garden.

She works.

I supervise.

I helpfully point out a weed she has overlooked.

I check the place for evidence of lizards.

I visit the fat toad who lives among these pots.

There are many squirrels to chase. I oblige them.

I work out to keep in shape.

I put up with a blue jay scolding me. Idiot bird.

Molly waits for me to move so she can go past.

It gives me hope that she is finally learning the natural order of things

– cats, then staff, then dogs.

Mike and I head out for our respective patrols each day.

Mike is the least lazy of the dogs.
A high compliment, don’t you think?

I often allow my staff to dine with me.

I show them how to keep up with current events.

I sit next to them as they read to encourage their efforts at improving themselves.

I rearrange the cushions for them.

I spread beauty all around me.

Wait! Is she calling me?

Yes, she is.

Yawn.

My Chief of Staff’s assistant advises me to do what she tells me to do.

Have you been drinking?

After all, I keep her computer warm for her.

I inspect the kitchen.

And the cupboards.

And the bathroom.

 I stand guard.

I am amazingly kind to those human kittens she adores.

I share my room with them when they are here. I even allow them to think it is their room.

I allow them to commit all sorts of indignities upon my person.

I attempt to instruct them in catly strategies on their game thingy.

It is futile.

So when they go home, I rest,

and offer my Chief of Staff a chance to rub my belly.

Am I not fabulous?

They just keep looking for my Chief of Staff to appear with treats.

letting go

I have to admit the fact.  He is gone.  Forever in this life.  Gone from my touch, my hearing, all my senses.  It is a particular loneliness to face that change.  For when you are intimately connected and married to someone your senses intermingle and all of the ways the body goes about connecting the other become fixed:  routines get established at a very visceral and I am sure cellular and sub-cellular level.  Phermones are just a hint of how lovers hook up their senses to one another.

So I am adrift from all that now, but some part of me is still waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the sameness, the routines, the regularity, the indivisibility of our accumulated oneness to reassert itself and demand that I conform and get back into the routine.

No matter, though, it won’t and can’t work.  I am but a fragment now of what that oneness had become, a solitary interloper on a strange new planet.

I am making a few new connections, feeling my boundaries and oneness now as an individual in ways that surprise me.  I can see that I can go on, even alone, the rest of my days.  My mother did that when she lost my father.  I can feel a deep commonality with her now.  My empathy for her grows as I have assumed a taste of some of the shoes she has walked in. 

I understand now, even more, her fierce independence and irascibility that sometimes threw me for a loop.  I would think we would be doing fine, that she was comfortable with some aspect of her life with me, and then she suddenly would take a right turn just when I was expecting her to go straight ahead.  No wonder.  Muscles need to be stretched, heart muscles and head muscles are no exception.

The truth is, of course, that I would like to find a nice replacement for Lewis.  Someone who loves me much as he did, who has many of his qualities, who is a great companion, and who is a stimulating person with unique strengths to bear in a relationship.  I don’t mind quirkiness, and I don’t expect a saint.  Largeness of heart is my most important criterion. 

Let us hope that I am able to put out the kind of positive energy and attentiveness that will encourage such a relationship to grow. 

If it doesn’t, I won’t be any worse for the wear. 
And I am sure I’ll be OK and find my way no matter the way this goes.

Life is like a box of chocolates.   You never know….

Just ask Forrest. 

tell yo’ mamma

having lived in the Arkansas mountains (in a tar paper dwelling) for a few years of my early childhood…I claim some rights to it…

the call: five mystical songs

The Call

COme, my Way, my Truth, my Life:
Such a Way, as gives us breath:
Such a Truth, as ends all strife:
Such a Life, as killeth death.

Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength:
Such a Light, as shows a feast:
Such a Feast, as mends in length:
Such a Strength, as makes his guest.

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
Such a Joy, as none can move:
Such a Love, as none can part:
Such a Heart, as joyes in love.

Peace 

(Not a part of Vaughn’s mystical songs, but one one Herbert’s most beautiful poems)

SWeet Peace, where dost thou dwell?  I humbly crave,
             Let me once know.
             I sought thee in a secret cave,
             And ask’d, if Peace were there.
A hollow winde did seem to answer, No:
             Go seek elsewhere.
I did; and going did a rainbow note:
             Surely, thought I,
             This is the lace of Peaces coat:
             I will search out the matter.
But while I lookt, the clouds immediately
             Did break and scatter.

Then went I to a garden, and did spy
             A gallant flower,
             The Crown Imperiall:1 sure, said I,
             Peace at the root must dwell.
But when I digg’d, I saw a worm devoure
             What show’d so well.
At length I met a rev’rend good old man,
             Whom when of Peace
             I did demand, he thus began:
             There was a Prince of old
At Salem dwelt, who liv’d with good increase
             Of flock and fold.

He sweetly liv’d; yet sweetnesse did not save
             His life from foes.
             But after death out of his grave
             There sprang twelve stalks of wheat:
Which many wondring at, got some of those
             To plant and set.
It prosper’d strangely, and did soon disperse
             Through all the earth:
For they that taste it do rehearse,
             That vertue lies therein,
A secret vertue bringing peace and mirth
             By flight of sinne.

Take of this grain, which in my garden grows,
             And grows for you;
             Make bread of it: and that repose
             And peace, which ev’ry where
With so much earnestnesse you do pursue,
             Is onely there.

Love Bade Me Welcome

LOve bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
            Guiltie of dust and sinne.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
            From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
            If I lack’d any thing.

A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here:
            Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkinde, ungratefull?  Ah my deare,
            I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
            Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame
            Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, sayes Love, who bore the blame?
            My deare, then I will serve.
You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:
            So I did sit and eat.

Easter: I Got Me Flowers

RIse heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
           Without delayes,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
           With him mayst rise:
That, as his death calcined1 thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more, just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
          With all thy art.
The crosse taught all wood to resound his name,
          Who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.

Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song
          Pleasant and long:
Or, since all musick is but three parts2 vied
          And multiplied,
O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,
And make up our defects with his sweet art.

The Sunne arising in the East,
Though he give light, & th’ East perfume;
If they should offer to contest
With thy arising, they presume.
Can there be any day but this,
Though many sunnes to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we misse:
There is but one, and that one ever.

 George Herbert