shapeshifting

Our very nice, conservation-minded Landlord has it in his head that there are too many jackdaws around this year and they're killing the songbirds. They're not. Anyway, he wants to make a pre-emptive strike and shoot the jackdaws.

my work station

We have jackdaws living in our chimney stack or, as Evie calls it, our jimley. They are The Jimley Jackdaws (and if I ever change my name by deed poll again I'm going to be Jo Jimley-Jackdaw because we all know that would be awesome). I love our jackdaws and do not want their death or the deaths of their subsequently starving chicks literally hanging over our heads.

I quite like it.

(Young jackdaws have pale blue eyes.)

Born in a farm shop's packing box, nestled into polystyrene 'wotsits', Casey was the son of the local chocolate-box, tabby beauty and a devilishly smooth, feral cat from the neighbouring woods. He was less than 48 hours from birth when I first saw him - charcoal fluff, teeny triangular ears and eyes not yet open. A few weeks later, still under the care of his mother, he and his six chocolate-box, tabby siblings were living in a stable full of fresh straw. Invited in to see him - "Do you still want the black one?" - as I knelt down and reached out a hand the tabbies beat a retreat to the corners while Casey stepped forward and hi-5ed me with a swipe. And so the deal was set. I'd already known it would be.

When I last saw him, he was less than 48 hours from an exhausting, horrible death. Already in acute respiratory distress, he was drowning from the inside due to the fluid in his lungs. His big beautiful heart was worn out after almost 100 cat years of being awesome.

I hadn't wanted him to pass in a vet's surgery after a traumatic car journey but that was how it had to be. It was strangely in tune with the clean, chemical surroundings of his birth.

As Casey left his body, we were staring into each others eyes as I gently held his face and rubbed his ear. And then...there was simply absence. A fine old cat's body lay on the exam table but there was no one inside. His physical form was a beautifully tailored suit left behind by a dapper old gentleman.

It's hard to be sad for a life lived - bar a few hours - in its entirety. Free, happy, healthy, strong and loved beyond words, then helped to peace when the alternative was unconscionable. We should all have such a life. But I am sad. I miss him. I'm sitting at my kitchen table and I should be nudging him off the keyboard and writing with my head tipped to one side so that we can hold our faces together, me inhaling that glorious CaseyCat smell while he purrs and purrs and purrs. The part of my heart that is his will never be the same. It is broken.

That said, I am proud to wear the scars - matched by the more visible one on my nose, gained from foolishly trying to pick up a cat who was running from a big dog and hadn't realised it was me lifting him to safety.

Today I am overwhelmed by the honour given me. The honour of witnessing an entire life, virtually from start to finish. Who gets to do that? My perspective is changed. A whole LIFE. And I was able to love him through all of it. I can't quite comprehend the enormity of that.

Right now, CaseyCat is out of reach. He is held in love and light and he is resting, learning about his new surroundings. But I know for certain that he'll come and see me when he's ready.

We have a deal.

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Chicka meets Idgie and Ninny at their front door.

See the beautiful blue/greens? Chicka likes to perch. They're perchers, this family.

MeiMei - always moving. Little Brown Hen. Sweetie.

The Flag of Chicken Nation from an original design by Evie.

Sweet MeiMei lays blue eggs. This was her first one for us.

Late afternoon. Horses in the field = Nell on a lead. #herder

I look at this and a sob explodes in my heart. Is he not perfect and wild and beautiful still?

Together we've lived in five homes and seen many other four-legged loved ones come and go*.

He loves Nellie Bean - theirs is a 14 year friendship - and attempts to be nice to Jackson but neither of them are really feeling it. Jackson was half Casey's size when they first met and still gets his bum swatted as he walks past the cat, but he has good 'cat manners' and they live happily together.

In 1998 Casey was attuned to Reiki and has wonderfully healing paws. I also think it has something to do with his fine age.

He will only eat Whiskas sodding supermeat - chicken flavour - despite my attempts to tempt him with better food.

He loves teeny bits of ice cream and cheese and dog food and was once seen to indulge in some chicken tikka masala (not mine).

He loves flowers and sunshine.

He's scared of the chickens.

He is retired but went out to 'work' for many years, leaving at 8.45, coming home for lunch and then disappearing again until 5.

His miaow never really worked and when he's lonely he howls.

He is my Familiar.

This photo was taken a couple of years ago and now he has freckles of white fur all over his face along with the occasional white whisker - très distingué.

He was once a force to be reckoned with and filled the hearts of neighbouring cats with fear (he was a serious badass who would *chase other cats under moving cars) but age and arthritis took him out of the ring a few years back. Thank goodness.

He is a people-lover who likes nothing better than to rub heads again, again and again.

He had lived eight lives by the time he was about three and of course now he is immortal.

Just looking at this photo makes my heart fair burst with love for him.

If you look in the dictionary under 'awesome' you will find his name.

Happy birthday my CaseyCat. Many, many happy returns. I love you.

So this was the tiny white ball of feathers that I climbed into a bramble hedge to rescue. If I hadn't, he'd have been fox dinner within 24 hours. He was tiny, he sat on my shoulder and he trilled away to himself, and me, endlessly.

That was the first week in August so very nearly six months ago. Xanthe is now easily three times as big as he was and dashingly handsome. He still likes to chat, he'll still sit on my shoulder (he just about fits) but mostly he likes to hang with his women.

That's Idgie Threadgoode on the left. They're going steady.

Here I am. On my feet.

Those of you who read my (long since removed) post about things here at home will have been aware of the recent troubles we've had. The huge stresses we've been under.

As we reached literal breaking point I was shocked into some kind of out-of-body moment and given a new perspective. Every bone in my body was telling me, 'Run, run!' but thankfully I was able to see that my bones speak an ancient language learnt in different times. Times when yes, I was better off on my own. Always.

But now? Now is different. And the shock of the pain that was experienced by both of us was enough to crack me open. To reveal other ways of thinking.

I saw there was one thing I hadn't done. I hadn't turned breathed into the pull I was feeling in two directions. I was bracing against it and simply wanting to escape and find peace. What if, like a muscle stretches, I stretched my self? Stopped struggling, breathed and relaxed. How to do that? Well how about by finding more love? By breathing as much love into the situation as possible.

I breathed, I let the love in, I relaxed and the stretch and the peace came naturally. It was wonderful.

So we're good. Things feel good and I am reminded of many things that I had forgotten.

Then last night I heard that I'd got a job I really wanted. Not only is it a perfect fit for me but if I do a good job with it, I can replace the income we've been missing or at least return us to solvency. Being in that position makes me feel strong. It makes me realise that I had handed responsibility for my feelings of security to Charlie and although that was a mutually-agreed deal it wasn't a good one. Partly because circumstances had to change and partly because I need to be responsible for those feelings. Me. My independence is a central part of my personality but now I see that it doesn't need to come at the cost of partnership, friendship, love.

So a little job to earn some extra cash has already given me freedom and as it turns out, I think this will not be A Little Job after all.

Strength is not about opposition and defence. Power is not something that inevitably leads to abuse. I am strong when I have love in my life and my power is a force for good.

As for my lifelong dilemma...I think it may be possible to be both domesticated and wild. I'm going to give it my best shot.

It's been a bird-y week. I've been at home with a disgusting cough lurgy, feeling like rubbish but - between bouts of collapsing into my bed - enjoying getting to know Xanthe Little-Bird. You may have noticed.

Inspired by her I started on Corvus, a book I'd picked up in a second hand shop some months ago and added to my pile of To Reads. It's a fabulous book; part memoir, part natural history lesson, all wonderful.

On migration, author Esther Woolfson wrote a paragraph that is still circling around my mind:

Birds may be aware too of 'infra sound', those ultra-low-frequency sounds too low for the human ear, the sounds of the movements of the earth, the deep whisperings, the groanings, creakings, crackings of the fabric of universe, the sounds of the sea and wind, of oceans and volcanoes, the explosion of meteors, the gathering of hurricanes far away.

That may not bring chickens leaping into your mind but it does for me. More than that, it reminds me of what we can learn from the animals around us if we pay attention and let them show us. Who wouldn't want to be close to that? Learning to pick up the secondary waves?

Meantime, as we witnessed meteors with our own eyes, I've let the concept of life as art make its own flight through my mind, body and yes, spirit. It's released me from feeling I need to make a choice, an effort, to see which traditionally 'creative' activity fits me best. Which I need to learn/improve and somehow turn into something that will liberate me from my desk job. I hadn't realised I was doing that until I stopped. Stopped and remembered:

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Yes, the Mary Oliver quote that lives on my blog and yet somehow I've not fully understood until now.

My 'stepdaughter' Emily used to refer to girls on the Emo scene who piled on every single trend as Try-Hards, while she - of course - was effortlessly, side-sweepingly cool. Last night I realised I've like, totally been a Life Try-Hard??? Oh the shaaaaaaaame. Heh.

It was Xanthe that finally made me see this. A small chicken. Although I'm beginning to believe that there is no such thing as a small chicken. As I spent hours deep in brambles, scratched and stung, trying to get to her without frightening her or losing her. As I spent time just sitting with her perched on my shoulder, telling me her story and her name. As I spent the last of my energy sorting out chicken-housing so she, Idgie and Ninny could learn to live together. I saw that when I'm with animals...that's when I'm in the zone. My zone, my element. I have no anxiety, just creative thinking about how to be with them. I'm not thinking about what someone else would do or how well they'd do it, I'm peacefully focused on the dog/cat/horse/bird/amphibian alongside me. Effortlessly motivated. There is no resistance.

And suddenly the path ahead is clear.

I should be outside and I will be outside but before I go, some things I want to spill onto the page:

• The thing I demonstrated in the vlog is for scattered energies. When you're overwhelmed and can't get a straight thought out of your head. Do it 2-3 times a day and feel everything click back into order. Seriously. I have another for you too. Which means..uh oh...another vlog on the horizon. I might brush my hair this time.
• I fought a migraine for three days and won. Sleep, sleep and more sleep.
• I dug out an old sketch pad and drew. And didn't judge the results.
• I took my camera out at 10pm with my dogs and took some beautiful photographs.
• I picked up my hoop last night for the first time in a very long week. I needed to feel good and it never fails me. I side-stepped (or rather didn't, heh, hooping joke) the walking spin and tried something else. I span the hoop on my hand above my head (Wild West) and then I dropped it down over my shoulders onto my waist and kept it going (Float Down). I KNOW! I did the same from an overhead spin on both hands at once and it felt amazing. I also learned how to spin the hoop on my neck. This morning I ache like f*** and have bruises all over my hands and can't wait to get started again. Except this time I'll try not to bash myself on the nose with a 44" hoop.
• At some point yesterday I was thinking about wildness and how when I was younger my wild side was in her element when she was leaping about to very loud music. Namely the music that she felt in her bones. Namely the guitar sound of The Edge. And then overnight the Universe did something amazing and Tor tweeted about it and I cried happy tears and it was awesome.
• And Tracie mentioned she'd been listening to Black Prairie and I loved them too. Perfect summer night listening (apart from Edge and Muse, natch).
• Also, I read this:

Wolves never look more funny than when they have lost the scent and scrabble to find it again: they hop in the air; they run in circles; they plow up the ground with their noses; they scratch the ground, then run ahead, then back, then stand stock-still. They look as if they have lost their wits. But what they are really doing is picking up all the clues they can find. They're biting them down out of the air, they're filling up their lungs with the smells at ground level and at shoulder level, they are tasting the air to see who has passed through it recently, their ears rotating like satellite dishes, picking up transmissions from afar. Once they have all these clues in one place, they know what to do next.

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes

This has been my weekend. I hope yours is/was as fulfilling.