Today Caturday: surrounded by temple cats and a sad story.

Things are moving too fast so I have to make more effort to be aware of this dynamic reality so that I could maintain my awareness and respond sensibly. During the last two weeks, my favourite stray cat, Sandy, was missing from the car park. I had been walking around the car park calling out for her while shaking the cat food bag. Usually she would turn up in less than ten minutes. She would recognise my voice and ran to find my car. But I had been waiting for her three times in one week and I started to have weird feeling.

Sandy began to allow me to get closer to her after a month of feeding her. She even returned my call twice with very soft tiny voice. I had never heard her meowing ever.

The last time I fed her, before I had a break in the countryside, I did noticed Sandy was reacting strangely. She was keeping a distance from me and refused to eat the food as soon as I put it out for her. Daddy actually walked away from me with a strange look as if she was leaving me. I did tell her to be careful about cars and to move from under the car as soon as the driver switched on the engine. I had a premonition that something wouldn’t be the same after my trip. But I dismissed my floating intuition and prayed for her protection. I just hoped things would continue along as a routine.

To my surprise, Sandy brought along her friend a few times! Tiger was very affectionate towards Sandy; I saw him licking Sandy’ s face!

But after ten days and my search for Sandy and her friend around the car park twice, I had to ask some local staff about missing cats. The lady told me that she saw Sandy once and tried to approach her but she just ran away. Sandy must have been waiting for me to turn up to feed her, but I was away for one week. Then, I met the head of security guards of the shopping mall. He told me that cat was killed by a car! He said the cat ran from underneath the car but she ran across the path of the front wheel. So that car crushed the cat instantly in the middle of the car park. It seemed Sandy was killed a few days after I last day I saw her.

(Now I don’t have to call Sandy’s name in the car park and I don’t have to worry about her any more. But the car park seems so empty and meaningless these days!)

I was quite shocked and sad knowing how she was killed, I thought she was slightly pregnant at that time. The security guard turned out to be a cats lover, he was very sympathetic and he did investigate the incident and said it was an unfortunate accident. During the last ten days, I krit seeing some grey entity appearing around the car park; I thought it was the wandering spirit from the nearby cemetery. But that would be in quite a different shape. I couldn’t make out what the grey round blob floating around in the air briefly was perhaps Sandy’ spirit trying to communicate with me. My strong psychic call for Sandy would have made her searching for me and my car as a habit. I came home to mourn her death and made my final farewell to her and wishing her a better reincarnation.

This sudden loss was unexpected as I was thinking about getting some help from animals rescue group to get Sandy out of the car park. Now I am more aware of my attachment to those stray cats at the temple. In a way, they have become my friends as we could communicate and these cats began to trust me much more. Life moves in mysterious ways; there are spontaneous meetings and sudden departure in relationships. I had lost four cats and kittens to attacks by stray dogs at various times but I could never do anything stop those incidents, though I had a subconscious warning of some unusual happenings. So, I no longer have to wait for Sandy at the car park; going there becomes very sad and nostalgic as I have become used to feeding her and watching her eating her wet food.

The stray cats at the temple seemed to know how to comfort me and my sadness. I think cats must have very good eyesight. They could spot me from a distance from their hiding place under the car. Once a cat spotted me from far away, he would gingery walk towards me. Once he was certain, he would start meowing and galloping to greet me. This actually alerted other cats from their hiding places; they all started running towards me. This small commotion has attracted the attention of families with small children. I had to tell these kids not to scream as that would frighten all cats away. They just watched me with meowing cats that demanded some food, especially the special wet food which I gave to the pregnant cat and skinny kitten.

Things are changing fast at the temple. More old buildings have been torn down, old hiding places for these stray cats have disappeared. Now they have to hide under parked cars. My favourite cat, Samsi, had lost both the old hiding place and the old shed by the toilet. So, it’s harder for me to find Samsi as he was a loner with no friends or gang. The pregnant cat and her brother were very good at spotting me very quickly. The grey kitten was also such a crying baby whenever he saw me; he would be complaining very loudly about being bullied by the gang of black mafia cats! Grey has grown up a lot from a tiny kitten three months ago; now he could fend for himself knowing how to hiss at other cats in return.

I would usually approach each set of cats separately so that they wouldn’t have to fight for food. Some cats are feeling disoriented at the moment as their usual hiding places have been demolished since the temple has began a new building project. I think they should stop spending money on new expensive buildings which glorify materialist success and achievement. Old temples used to be full of tall trees, nowadays they are full of new buildings. There would soon be more building commotions with hundreds of workmen with loud noises. These poor cats would be very disturbed and feeling unsettled for quite some time.

Meanwhile I just try to feed these stray cats at jest twice a week. The monk had made the wrong choice of cat food; these cats were in very interested in eating there tiny brown pellets. I just hope that the monk would realise that he needed to make some changes. Things are changing too fast and in a disturbing way for both people and cats in the temple. I don’t have the power to stop these changes or to mitigate the directions of these changes. But I would do what I could to make it easier on these poor cats who have given me a lot of trust and unconditional friendship. All these cats allow me to touch them and hold them without any resistance. I just hope that more people will start feeding these cats as they watched me being surrounded by cats. Some people showed sign of wanting to get closer to these cats. I pray that the land spirits in the temple would protect these cats from all harm and look after them too.

Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.

Stay strong and cheerful.