Monday morning, the fourth week of September, and my youngest cat toddles from his breakfast bowl to the living room, suddenly joggled by the convulsions of a hairball.
I dash in and whisk him across the dining room's carpeted sea to the vinyl shores of the kitchen. Almost there, I trip over the lace edge of my nightgown and land on my hip, the cat still in my hands, suspended above me like a football plucked from midair as I roll to the goal line, and the hairball plops out on the vinyl floor.
My husband slumps in his reclining chair, reading the paper, and then leaps toward the kitchen when he sees me fall with the cat. But I laugh, unharmed and happy to deliver the carpet from the hairball's messy threat.
When we had been married for six months, my husband found a feral kitten behind the trashcan at our apartment building and brought it to me. I adopted it and have rescued feral cats ever since. Sometimes only one cat appears. Other times I care for colonies of feral cats, doctoring their wounds and illnesses, practicing the catch/fix/release method until I can find good homes for them.
My latest feral colony lives in the forest behind my house and peaked at twenty-one cats and kittens last year. After spending four months catching, fixing, and releasing them, I began seeking good homes for them, and at the moment only nine are left, basking on my back porch in the sun and frolicking in the forest at night.
After twenty-seven years of cat rescue I've developed a few tricks for taming and socializing feral strays. Or maybe it's just that my unconventional methods work particularly well. While most allow a feral cat plenty of space the first few weeks, I stalk a stray persistently, drawing it closer and closer, using soft words and food to calm the cat's fears. Because I'm also a Wiccan Witch, I often use a Goddess chant, invoking the forest faeries to help me in this quest as I sing to the stray I'm stalking:
Great Lady Bast, Ancient Goddess of Cats,
grace my voice with your sacred dance.
Faeries of the air, stream, flame, and tree,
lead this precious cat-child of yours to me."
For a day or so I back away from the food I leave, allowing the starving cat to eat in peace. But after that, I stand a few feet from the food bowl, inching closer each time, forcing the cat to tolerate my presence. This gentle but aggressive strategy maintains my edge, slowly pushing the cat beyond its comfort zone, using food as my primary tool. Soon I stand next to the bowl, singing or talking softly to the cat so it might associate my voice with safety and tasty food. That's when I touch the cat for the first time, its back turned while eating. Often this is a feral cat's first experience with human touch, and it will bolt, running away in terror. But it always returns for food the next day, and I continue to touch, my hand remaining on its coat a little longer each time, building trust, until my fingers travel up and down the cat's back, its tail shoots up, and soon it runs to me when I call, as anxious to be petted as fed.
Now, seated before the sliding glass door, I laugh as each of my indoor cats competes for my lap. It's hard to believe these four were once skittish ferals I claimed from the wild with soft words and faerie spells.
* * * * *
During book signings at bookstores and cat shows, someone will always ask what I think about the ups and downs in a feral cat's life. I tell them I believe cats to be faeries who have taken animal form to bless us with opportunities to love and give.
Lately I've been thinking about Petunia, one of my feral cats a little over a year old, who died in June from heart failure. A sweet, shy cat adored by all because she loved to groom the others in the colony. A unique spirit, who truly blessed my life with enormous amounts of love, then shed her feline body and flew to Summerland for a time before returning to the faerie mound. Witches believe Summerland to be the place all human and animal spirits go when they pass over to the other side. Christians call this place Heaven.
I miss her terribly, but cherish each day blessed by her presence, which began hours after Petunia's birth, when I found her nestled in pine straw with her sister beside the storage shed in the back yard, a discovery heralding another year bewitched with the magick of feral cats and kittens.
* * * * *
When readers of my cat poetry books and novels learn of my devotion to feral cat rescue, they often inquire how I manage to feed so many cats economically. I tell them I not only feed my colonies dry cat food but also make an inexpensive meat gruel packed with herbs and vitamins, which strengthens their immune systems and encourages shiny coats.
In a large vitamin bottle I drop one tablet of garlic and then five tablets of vitamin C, cat vitamins, and L-lysine. To this I add three squirts of colloidal silver, fill the bottle with water, and store it in the refrigerator. Within an hour the tablets melt, producing a handy liquid supplement.
I make my special gruel in a small mixing bowl, combining one cup of dry rice baby cereal flakes with one three-ounce can of cat food and half a carton of cat milk. To this mixture I empty two capsules of echinacea herb, a splash of my homemade liquid supplement, and a cup of dry cat food. I fill the bowl with three cups of water and mix thoroughly, creating a nutritious, meaty gruel, which will easily feed up to fourteen cats.
Anyone interested in caring for a feral colony can use this inexpensive, nutritious recipe to help their fur children grow into healthy felines. The grains in the gruel add an extra layer of fat to the cat's body, which boosts its resistance to upper respiratory infections during cold winter months. The garlic strengthens its immune system, builds a natural resistance to fleas, enhances the flavor of the food, and promotes a sleek coat.
* * * * *
Last Thursday, on a night torched with moonglow, Petunia appeared. Just like a cat she crept into the middle of a dream, which dissolved immediately, her large eyes verdant pools of compassion pulling me toward her.
Whether I remain conscious or asleep I often see the spirits of people and animals I have loved, who've left the Earth and passed over to Summerland, usually a few hours or days afterwards. My housecats and stray cats always come back to visit me, expressing the happiness they feel, dwelling now on the other side.
Petunia carried the same message, but in her case she also came to grant me a glimpse of the cats frolicking in Summerland, each healthy, some grooming one another or romping through fields flush with butterflies. A visual portrait of cat revelry that will surely remain with me for the rest of my life.
Sometimes I wonder how many of my feral cats shall inhabit Summerland when my spirit arrives. Even if only a few, oh, what a magickal cat party we'll have!
