Animal speak

It seems I have a new regular visitor. They are mostly early morning visits and this visitor is without a name at the moment; a nameless, partial feral cat let’s say; black with white boots and a white spot on his/her right back leg, which looks like it backed into fresh paint at some point. Maybe that’s why the boots thing? As a matter of interest, ‘cat’ just arrived at my window while I write this as if it wants to fact check whatever I may be saying. In that case I’ll bluff my way through and cat can wait to read it when published; in other words no cat can get my tongue. Reluctant to offer the cat an obvious, clichéd name; let’s just refer to the wanderer as Kat being more or less the cat’s meow. Kat knows where to find the Times’ drop box out there in bird land.

I believe that there are messages to be had when animals or birds come across our paths and make themselves obvious with their presence. I personally think there is much to be said about animal spirit and I never take it as coincidence when encounters happen. So far, I read where the cat message is about balance, knowing when to stop, reflect, and listen to your instincts. The cat’s spiritual meaning is of being aware of when to act and when to relax. There is not a better domesticated animal to study if you want to learn an act like when and what to be fed, how and when to be cuddled as long as it’s on your terms, and most certainly, when it comes to chilling out, cats taught us the art of the cat nap.

So far, I’ve come to recognize when Kat is around, because the blue jays sound the alarm and every creature nearby heads for cover. Blue jay is not exclusive to delivering messages to its own kind when it comes to shrieking a warning. Everyone gets it, so I guess you can say it’s a non-bias, generic alarm and also non-discriminate to humans. A person may want to be alerted just in case you happen to be walking a ferret, or have a parrot on your shoulder or something like that. But as nonchalant as it may want to appear, there is no such thing as a casual stroll for Kat, because potential prey is always wary and anxious to heed cat sightings and maybe why curiosity really did do the cat in. I vaguely recall the encounters of Sylvester the cat and Tweety bird somewhere back when.

Chicken out, crazy as a hoot owl, bird brain, snake in the grass, memory like an elephant: the language of humans has evolved through our relationships with animals. Our species was born into nature and throughout the millennia, despite our gradual alienation from the hand that feeds us, the evolution of language has maintained the phraseology, the idioms that connect us to our lineage with nature, most often with animals. Ancient cave drawings tell visual stories of that relationship. They tell of food sources and the hunt, they message us about myth and spiritual guidance, reverence and dialoguing with the animals that were considered as coexisting family members within earth’s creation.

While the invention of the machine steered us to urbanization and furthered our remoteness from natural surrounds, the metaphors remain derived from our experiences with sentient beings. As far as I can tell there are few other associations with major subjects that continue to influence our conversations. We blow off steam, or are considered merely as a cog in the capitalist wheel and we know when it’s time to hit the road, but bringing consensus to the key origins of expression in a terabyte world is like herding cats.

We relate to our country by way of the beaver or Canada geese, meanwhile our neighbours to the south envision the eagle as their token. Mourning dove, cuckoo bird, hornet, honey bee, ravens today hold meaning more or less as tokenism without consideration of origins. The mascot or emblem traditionally incorporates a bird or animal that signifies image above meaning—penguin, blue jay, panther and lion. We demean when mechanical inventions appropriate names to become four-wheeled mustangs, sting rays, broncos and even thunderbirds whereas the Thunderbird continues to be a revered and sacred entity in many ancient cultures.

So Kat has come around once more. Recently, a kitten, found on a neighbouring farm owned by chef Jamie Kennedy whose kitchen produces offerings of fresh cut French fries these days, was found apparently abandoned and in need. I drove Dakota, the ten-yearold overseer of all things lost in our surrounds to deliver the kitten to the non-profit Loyalist Humane Society in Picton. As the information sheet was being filled out and Dakota was asked whether the kitten had a name, let’s put it his way. The talk of the hamlet is that Kat had an offspring and how that offspring’s name will work its way into idioms in the English language of the future…well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if the kitten now named ‘French Fry’ wasn’t the pick of the litter?