Untitled as yet
an excerpt

Every spring, Mother said, the female cats got the Urge inside them, and they would know from the Urge that it was time to summon the Goddess. Every night the queens would cry in chorus, begging the Goddess to return to the world and bring fertility and joy. And the toms would join them, and the cats would perform their own dances and rituals – slowly circling, approaching and then darting away, and quickly circling again – until, at a time known only to the queens, they allowed the toms to grab them by the neck and bring the goddess into them. And the dance culminated with a scream of ecstasy as an overwhelming energy ran up and down through the queens’ bodies.

After the Spring Dance, back in those days, the queens would find a quiet and secluded spot to meditate and pray, sometimes for as much as an entire day, as waiting souls made their way to the tiny balls of life that grew within them.

“Mother, do cats still do the Spring Dance?” I asked her.

“Yes, honey, they do,” she told me. “But not all cats get to do the Spring Dance. The Spring Dance is for fertility and abundance. Some cats’ job is to do the Autumn Dance, the dance of wisdom and compassion and kindness.”

“Did you do the Spring Dance?” I asked.

“Yes, dear, I did. That’s how you and your brothers and sisters came to be.”

“Will I get to do the Spring Dance or the Autumn Dance?” I asked.

“What do you feel in your heart?” Mother replied. “Are you a Spring Dancer or an Autumn Dancer?”

I took some time to think about this. I pondered what lived inside my soul and I thought about the words that were whispered on my purrs. I imagined the kind of person I’d like to live with, and the kind of life I’d want to have with that person. I remembered how happy I felt comforting my brother White Face and guiding him back to our cuddling place that time he crawled away from the rest of us and got cold and scared and started crying, and Mother was away hunting. “I think I’m an Autumn Dancer,” I said.