Lessons from Stella

In his book, Sit in the Sun: And Other Lessons in the Spiritual Wisdom of Cats, Jon Sweeney says the following about cats and their grooming and self-care practices.

When you watch cats cleaning themselves, you witness the meditative: They clean thoughtfully, deliberately, mindfully, at stressful moments and also as a regular practice. Their humans can learn from this example. If we could all pause and care for ourselves with regularity and thoughtfulness, the whole world might reverberate with purrs and love. Loving oneself can be the most difficult practice of all. The great Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn taught that love is an energy that transforms the world. (p. 26)

When Stella came into our lives twenty months ago, she was a wee little homeless kitten who weighted about 2.5 pounds. We aren’t sure how long she had been on her own but the vet who examined her told us that if she hadn’t found us, she would have died within a week or two. She quickly made her way into our hearts and our lives. Technically she is a rescue but we aren’t so sure who rescued whom… it could well be a matter of the three of us rescuing each other.

Yes, I believe that she rescued us as much as we rescued her. She fills our days with laughter and sometimes frustration (the Christmas tree never got decorated last Christmas) but most of all she fills our days with love, even when she wakes her Mommy up in the wee hours of the morning to either play pounce on Mommy or to snuggle with her Mommy.

Jon Sweeney, I believe that you are on to something here and that we have a lot to learn from our sweet Stella.