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October 3rd, 2008

           He was holding Keisha in his arms for the last time as he spoke to me on the phone about the importance of being totally present with her now.  This was the blessed parting day for beautiful Keisha.  

           James and I had found ourselves in distant parts of the world performing passing away ceremonies for this wise spirited cat. In Ohio, James had waited for the right time to help release her to true freedom away from the pain body. In Niger, I was contemplating his courage to face this profound encounter with the ideas of life, death and immortality.  Keisha was seventeen years old this year.  I had first met her only two and a half years ago. A year ago she was found to have breast cancer.  She often left blood stains behind as little trail reminders of how precious and fragile life is indeed. A week ago, James pulled out a maggot out her breast wound.  The flies were drawn to her chest.  He knew the time was near.  He told me the exact date for the veterinarian appointment.  As the day felt like rushing in, I watched life / this pure consciousness move our two worlds together in a dance of mixed awe, sadness, joy and indescribable synchronicity.  I knew the sadness within me was springing right from a past memory of being the witness of the sudden death of my beloved cat named Trumpy who had passed away not long before I met Keisha. 

            Even within the last hour of her death, Keisha was completing yet another beautiful healing role in my mortal heart.  It was as if, holding a tiny charcoal piece in her small paws, she was marking the end in an invisible circle of all my past emotional attachment to the animal kingdom represented for me now as a reflection of pure unconditional love offering to humanity.  

          It was the last hour and a half before the moment of her release into Oneness, into the Divine Source of Love whence she came.  Time seemed to flow in a different pattern for me all day long, as if life itself was simply waiting for this one thing. I was to carry her through the last portal of life and death, to hold her from afar in the arms of this One Presence while James was physically there with her in a loving embrace. They played together in the Fall leaves, he said.  He watched her grab unto them with gentleness and then stare at him with the knowing and wise acceptance of what was coming.  

          Right after my phone conversation with James, I started preparing dinner, getting ready for a guest who was arriving to my Nigerien house shortly after Keisha’s pre-planned farewell in Ohio. I knew I was not only making dinner for my housemate and my other friend, but I was also preparing a wedding feast for Keisha as well.  James was going to see to the wedding ceremony, to walk her down the aisle where her Beloved was waiting.  She was on her way home.  I smiled while tears watered my eyes.

            I took my time and infused each cooking moment with love and unspoken farewell wishes for my beautiful teacher and friend. As my knife cut through each grapefruit and the pink juice spilled over my fingers, I offered its fresh citrus fragrance to the inner altar of joy and gratitude… my cup was running over.  When sacredness springs out of the seeming mundane activities of life, there is nothing else to behold but divine wonder and joy.  I found myself dancing like this in the kitchen.  I saw my hands grab unto all the subtle ingredients needed for this divine feast.  These hands helped things appear out of nowhere: a tropical fruit salad infused with joy, a big bowl of pasta and homemade tomato sauce, a fresh cucumber and mushroom salad topped with basil growing by the side of the swimming pool in the front yard.

            As my bare feet touched the ground on my way to the basil bush, I felt the cool breeze through my hair and I heard the stillness in my breath.  I stood still.  I realized how much love it took in me being here… no matter where on this earth I found my Self, it was all home.  As my feet continued their sprinting journey towards the fragrant basil bush, my inner gratitude for all life intoxicated my heart with joy. I went back into the kitchen.  The chanting from the mosque near by suddenly filled my heart with music.  This time all the music was coming out from inside me, the musical notes were simply pouring out of my being over the bubbling pot of delicious food.  Ten minutes to 7:00 PM my time… it was almost 2 PM her time. Within ten minutes she was on her way to freedom.  

            I went into my bedroom, lit three candles and placed them around her picture on the floor. I had gathered four small things for Keisha to pack in her imaginary suitcase for her journey: a white seashell I found here after my return from America this summer, a small green pipe cleaner, fuzzy and spiral-shaped to symbolize her evolutionary journey that was unfolding so beautifully, a small triangular piece that came out of a calabash during a traditional Songhai concert I witnessed the other evening here, in Niamey, and a fresh basil leaf from the same handful of herbs I was using to prepare her wedding feast. The candles and the four love offerings were placed in a circle around her picture.  I sat down and heard my Self sing in a language I do not understand, but I knew Keisha loved.  I used to sing her songs like this last summer before I left Ohio to move to Niger.  She used to come, sit on my lap and purr.  She loved seeing me meditate after the songs were over.  Now it was time to meditate again.  It was almost 2 PM.

            In silence, my heart filled with so much love that one of the candles before me spilled out hot melting wax around her face on the tile floor. I bowed before this loving one, another divine expression of my Beloved.  She had come my way to show me the power of the all-knowing silent Presence of Truth… She stood here to heal another gap in that separation my mind had created in the past.  Once exposed to the Light within, my soul saw no separation any longer.  How beautiful we all are, BEING part of this One Love shifting its forms in myriad of ways along the earthly journey!  

            Keisha’s exit through the portal of this mortal existence reminded me of the beauty of both life and death.  I died with her again this one moment and, as I was resurrected from my own ashes once again, I smiled. This was a life well lived.  What a beautiful loving role for a cat.  There was no more sadness to feel, but joy.  I saw her through this, although I was at the other end of the world.  She saw me through this, now she is part of my Self forever. 

            When James shared with me later the details of  Keisha’s burial ceremony, I was overjoyed to hear that dry lavender blossoms were scattered all over her body… her burial place found itself in the womb of the Glen Forest, in Yellow Springs, Ohio; this was a sacred forest dear to my heart.  I saw this image of lavender flowers bursting out of the ground into a symphony of indigo colors that complimented the green moss of the perennial forest wisdom.  

            Keisha had finally joined the circle of forest elders assisting life in its sacred silent remembering.  OM, Shanti Shanti Shanti...