Unsolved Mysteries and the Unexpected in Everyday Ramblings

The poppies continue to add a burst of color to the morning mist and gloom. And I have been practicing shots with this local batch.

There is a famous American yoga teacher named Ana (Tiger) Forrest who I have been hearing about for a long time and she has a memoir/self-help book that has been out about three years called Fierce Medicine: Breakthrough Practices to Heal the Body and Ignite the Spirit. As I need to keep up on the trends in yoga I was looking into reading it a few years ago and found out she reads the audiobook version herself.

I tried listening to it a couple of years ago and had a very strong negative reaction so I put it aside. Over the last month I listened to the whole book. I have found that since I lost weight and have been able to keep it off that I am finally able to listen (or read) books about Anorexia and Bulimia and not go into some strange dark place in my head. I also listened to Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain by the Australian Portia de Rossi.

Both stories have magical tales of the healing power of horses. Both are brutally at (times almost unbearably) honest and clearly the journey to healing for both women is not over. I was never bulimic (thank the gods, conscious choice on my part by the way) but I was a serious anorexic as a teenager and still have some of that thinking built into my brain. I am not sure if you hadn’t encountered an eating disorder or an addiction in your own life that you could comprehend these stories. They are so painful and raw.

So I hated both books, while admiring the perceived truths and I grudgingly admit that I learned many things from both. (including working with fear by practicing handstand.) Not to mention the fact that listening to them while mostly walking the track, my anger and annoyance and frustration and, well... opinions, fueled my modest healthy daily workouts.

One of the things I agree with Ana about is that the Great Spirits, or the Gods, or the whatever out there that is greater than us, random chaos if you like, or at least the tools that we use to communicate with that which is greater than us, like ritual or prayer or supplication or the Tarot cards in my case, have a sense of humor!

And she says you need to be very specific in asking them for what you need and want.

I could swear I have been asking for living human healthy(ish) age appropriate male companionship. :)

This morning when I went out to take out my bird feeders I had this impulse to change the birdbath water first. My patio well wall is shoulder height on me. I was pouring clear fresh water into my recently scrubbed birdbath and I hear someone talking. At me.

There nestled on the other side of the wall right smack under and next to where I put my seed feeder and millet tray is a green-eyed grayish brownish tabby cat with a white bib and paws. Sammy was in his fort in the closet during all of this. She has a wild look in her eye and a nick out of her right ear, which means she is or has been feral and has been fixed.

But she does not have the feral gene. She is socialized. She has been talking to me all morning. She even came down into the patio well and sat primly at the patio door and um, talked some more through the glass. She has a cough that sounds a bit like kennel cough. But her coat is clear and so are her eyes.

I can’t feed my birds with her there. The house finches are annoyed and I just saw a blue jay buzz her. She is out there now in a patch of sun watching my every move.

Life sure is full of mysteries and the unexpected. Truly it is.