I love this piece, Thom. That moment with Jagger is the kind of quiet revelation most people scroll right past without noticing. The slow blink feels like the soul’s version of a handshake, a recognition that awareness is not confined to the human brain but shared through being itself.
The mystics would call that moment “communion,” though I suspect Jagger just calls it “Tuesday.” Still, what you describe captures the same current that runs through both quantum physics and prayer, the simple truth that when attention meets attention, the universe remembers itself.
We always had a cat pet but it wasn’t until my wife of 70 years died and Gato entered my life four years ago. He was a gift from the family, full grown and a natural therapist for my grief. His first touch with an extended paw to my hand was a light expression of “I’m here. I sense your pain.”
He shares my life now as it must go on without my lifelong partner. And we talk, we depend on one another, my last book was “The Love of a Cat”: A Psychiatrist and His Sagacious Cat”.
Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe, Ernst Hemingway and many others wrote and wondered about the nature of cats and humans. Dickens said it well, “What greater gift than the love of a cat?”
My super smart orange tabby “Sunshine “ died at age seven from poisonous vet meds. I never cried so much, and not at all at my parent’s death. I made a large sign with his photo over my desk, that remains there still, (after 11 years with his shelter cat twin). I had prayed that reincarnation is so. The sign reads “Sunshine Too :) , if, out of love, you’re coming. Get your fur coat ready, to purr, play and spoon—soon, + doo-doo”
I love this piece, Thom. That moment with Jagger is the kind of quiet revelation most people scroll right past without noticing. The slow blink feels like the soul’s version of a handshake, a recognition that awareness is not confined to the human brain but shared through being itself.
The mystics would call that moment “communion,” though I suspect Jagger just calls it “Tuesday.” Still, what you describe captures the same current that runs through both quantum physics and prayer, the simple truth that when attention meets attention, the universe remembers itself.
We always had a cat pet but it wasn’t until my wife of 70 years died and Gato entered my life four years ago. He was a gift from the family, full grown and a natural therapist for my grief. His first touch with an extended paw to my hand was a light expression of “I’m here. I sense your pain.”
He shares my life now as it must go on without my lifelong partner. And we talk, we depend on one another, my last book was “The Love of a Cat”: A Psychiatrist and His Sagacious Cat”.
Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe, Ernst Hemingway and many others wrote and wondered about the nature of cats and humans. Dickens said it well, “What greater gift than the love of a cat?”
Peter Whitis, M.D.
Another good reason why we shouldn't eat animals. They are here with us and not for us.
My super smart orange tabby “Sunshine “ died at age seven from poisonous vet meds. I never cried so much, and not at all at my parent’s death. I made a large sign with his photo over my desk, that remains there still, (after 11 years with his shelter cat twin). I had prayed that reincarnation is so. The sign reads “Sunshine Too :) , if, out of love, you’re coming. Get your fur coat ready, to purr, play and spoon—soon, + doo-doo”