Mimi has a reputation. She has, in the past, been a bad cat. Her mama came from a good family, but her daddy was a vagabond. Mimi and her brother Salvador both inherited her daddy’s wildcat ways.
Salvador’s wild streak made him spend his time playing in the wooded swampland on our farm. We hardly ever saw him unless we went outside late at night.
Until recently. (More on that when I talk to Salvador next week.)
Mimi inherited her daddy’s trust-no-one mentality. She has several hidey holes in the house, and she has never been particularly friendly to anyone.
Until recently.
Everything seemed to change for Mimi when I took her to the vet to get a summer shave-down. She has always been a skittish cat, and whenever I come toward her with a hairbrush, she runs and hides. Exasperated and out of patience, I loaded her up in a crate and hauled her matted butt to the vet’s office. She needed a check-up anyway because I also suspected UTI problems, which tend to happen to skittish cats more than Zen ones.
Now that she’s been relieved of the ratty fur that she refused to take care of by herself, she has become less reclusive and more affectionate to the dogs and humans (if not the cats). I asked why the haircut made such a difference in her attitude. Here’s what she said:
“I’ve changed because you’ve changed. Your frustration about my messy fur made me anxious. Now, I know that when you come toward me, you’re going to pet me instead of trying to brush my fur—which I wouldn’t let you do because it hurts. My skin is very sensitive. I feel everything—even the emotions of everyone around me—very strongly. It’s what kept my ancestors alive, knowing when to run because someone or something was about to harm them. I know that level of sensitivity isn’t helpful now because I’m safe, but it’s not something I can turn off. It’s a matter of survival for wild cats. The haircut helped with that too though, and I’m not sure why. It just did.”
The reason Mimi’s haircut helped with her skin sensitivity is that the Wei Qi (an energetic protective barrier that penetrates and rides just above the skin) is also related to emotional and psychic sensitivity. Knowing that a lot of Mimi’s problems relating to others has to do with her extreme sensitivity, I’ve started doing energy healing for Mimi to strengthen her Wei Qi, and that is helping to tone-down her hyper-sensitivity. She’s getting better–but she’ll probably always be a strange little bird.
That’s okay, Mimi. We love you anyway, and this place is full of strange birds.
