My opponent lays out his or her case, and my reaction is not to fire back with why they’re wrong. My reaction is to think: “Hmmm, you have a point.” I can’t see things in black and white, win and lose.

That is not to say, however, that I do not have passionate stances on issues. I am, for instance, a dyed-in-the-wool, knee-jerk liberal. And I have thought deeply about my positions, and care deeply about them. It’s just that, if I start to argue with you about them, and you present a valid point, I will stop to think about your point rather than ramming back with my own, making it appear you have won the argument.

So I tend to avoid arguments whenever I can. But I do think there is a useful purpose to arguing, even when it appears that one has lost, so I try to overcome my natural tendency when the opportunity for a good, creative argument comes along. Because I have learned that, even if the other person presents more brilliant points, in a more forceful or brilliant manner, and even if I weaken my position by stopping to think about the other person’s position, the things I say, if they are valid, might still plant seeds in the other person’s mind. And I don’t have to win the argument for those seeds to be planted. (How many times have I wanted to say: Just because you argue better than I do doesn’t mean you’re right and I’m wrong!!)

The points I am trying to make, if I can articulate them at all clearly, will settle in your brain, and even if you don’t want to think about them now, they will become seeds that might, someday, begin to grow.

Just like real seeds, seeds of thought have a variety of fates. Sometimes they start growing right away, sometimes they lie dormant for awhile and then begin to grow, sometimes they need water, or fertilizer, or warmth before they can grow. The seeds I give you to plant in your brain may grow immediately, or after a while. You may begin to think about the issue in a new way (that doesn’t mean you will agree with me, but you might gain a different perspective).  Or they may lie dormant until some bit of fertilizer, some additional new idea, or some life experience, wakes them up and they find life and begin to grow.

So, much as I don’t enjoy arguing, and much as I hate losing arguments, I try to be open to arguing. Because when you and I argue an issue, we are planting seeds in each other’s brains, and that is good.

The story is about a battle royal, literally. Told very briefly, the mother of all, the goddess Tiamat, became embroiled in a battle with her offspring and was killed by the god Marduk. Ironically, the battle began because her husband, disturbed from his sleeping by the noise of the young deities, had determined to kill them all so he could have some peace and quiet. The word got out, and the youngsters went on the offensive. Tiamat, who would have been satisfied, apparently, to just let things be, allowing life to flow around her, undisturbed and imperturbable, was finally roused to action, and fell victim to the warrior Marduk, who sliced open her body, forming earth and sky from the pieces. Marduk, then, emerged as creator of the world.

Marduk had followers, however. In fact, he was general of the entire rebel army. And he had named his price for leading his siblings to victory. He was to be made king, and all the other deities were to become his servants, building him a royal city and bowing to his rule. Eventually, tired of waiting on Marduk themselves, the gods finally created humanity to be their slaves.

The city created in this myth was the real, human city of Babylon, in ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). The story of Marduk was the official religious myth of its rulers. What it describes is a takeover. The previous way of life, laissez-faire and pacifistic, is replaced by order, rule, hierarchy. Tiamat, it has often been suggested, represents the waters of the Persian Gulf, the chaotic forces of the days before hierarchical government and kingship. Marduk represents order, imposed with force, making sense out of chaos, making the rules and laws on which civilization can thrive.

Marduk was the chief god of the city of Babylon, and as Babylon was the ruler of the other cities roundabout, he was also the ruler of the gods and goddesses of those cities. It is the perfect myth for a conquering government. My god rules your god; my city rules your city.

The myth is symbolic of the style of human organization that has been known as “civilization” since the days of Babylon, and that is hierarchy. There is one ultimate holder of power, and everyone else is ranged in varying spots on the pyramid. Even though, several thousand years later, much of the world lives in democracy, we are still, in reality, under such a hierarchy. There are those with more power and those with less, and those with almost none. We are still under the rule of Marduk.

And we have generally thought of this as the way it should be. Marduk is praised for bringing the necessary order to chaos, for creating organization, hierarchy, civilization. Humanity, it is argued, could not survive, could not grow, could not develop, under the laissez-faire mothering rule of Tiamat. No one would know their proper place. There would be no winners, no losers, we would just live without striving. Life would be confusing, chaotic. Civilization would be impossible.

In the Sumerian language (which by the time of Babylon had been replaced for daily use by Akkadian, but remained the language of literature and religion), the word for freedom, amargi, meant “return to the mother.” This is a very puzzling thing. What can that have meant? One thing we do know is that, reading the literature of Mesopotamia from about six thousand years ago to the time of Babylon two thousand years later, and beyond, we can trace an increase in “civilization,” that is, in rule by kingship, which replaced local democracies; warfare; control of one city by another and one people by another; slavery; and the domination of whole classes of people, including women. Could this nostalgic term, amargi, return to the mother, freedom, express a longing to return to a simpler way of life, to the way of Mother Tiamat?

There appears to have been a time in Mesopotamia, and in other places such as Catal Huyuk in Turkey, Minoan Crete, some Native American communities, and no doubt elsewhere, in which culture was not centered in hierarchy, in which people lived more peacefully, without city walls (or our modern equivalent, nuclear stockpiles), without a class system and a system of gender dominance, without economic imbalances.

Would that be possible again? It is said that the system of Marduk, of hierarchy, domination, control, and order, is the only way for human civilization to progress, to operate sensibly, that it is human nature for some to oppress others. Is this true? Or is the system of Marduk going to be the ultimate destruction, not only of the human race, but of the planet on which we live?

In our system of domination, in our desire for power and control, we are destroying not only the humans crushed on the bottom of the pile, but also animals, and the rest of the natural world. And this, as we are beginning to learn, is slow suicide, as our technology becomes ever more powerful and destructive, as our ability to control others extends not just to the neighboring cities as in Babylon’s day, but to the whole world and beyond, as our ability to materially enrich ourselves grows so we are gobbling up resources that are irreplaceable.

Perhaps it is time for a return to Tiamat (or, in modern parlance,  to our mother Earth). Perhaps it is time to mend our relationship with our mother, with the bounteous mother who wants only to live and let live. Of course it would be impossible in a world so used to the ways of Marduk, but perhaps we can at least think about, and begin to incorporate in our value systems, the beauty of amargi, freedom, return to the mother.

Mayday. Holy day in my thinking, the beginning of high spring. I am in the woods, on a trail around Rice Lake. Winter finally ended last week, days we were just grateful if the gray cold skies didn’t rain. Yesterday was an insane jump to hot, humid, windy summer. But today it is spring. The trees, locked dormant for so long, are finally and very quickly budding out. So if there is not yet shade, there is green. Yellow flowers like short versions of the tall roadside buttercups I remember as a child (where have they gone, or don’t they have them in the Midwest?). Fish leaping out of the water, and turtles sliding in from their sunning logs. At home tulips are out, just today. The daffodils never did make it. I think they got, literally, nipped in the bud. I saw a Canada goose standing stock still while I was eating lunch, then I saw why. He was standing sentry so his mate could relax and eat.

Not any bugs to speak of yet. In fact, later in the season I would probably not want to walk here, so close to the lake. There would be more shade, but too many bugs and mosquitoes. I wish it were always May or October. Which is why my spirit required me to drop everything today and come out here to the woods. How many early Mays do I have left? Not as many as I’ve already had.

Many trees, as I look across the lake, are still bare. With just of hint of green on many. And the underbrush leafing out. The oaks will be the last, but that’s ok because their bare gnarly twisted branches are so beautiful.

I’m sitting at a wildlife viewing platform. I just sat on the bottom step to rest. But then I climbed the few steps to the platform and discovered there is a bench here, looking out over the water. There is a turtle sunning log, but I think they know I’m here. All along the trail, as I got near they slid off into the water, and they did here too as I climbed the platform.

Birds make their mating calls. Here’s one on a branch right next to me. It looks like the female goldfinches in my yard. Do they also live in the woods? My mother would know. She loved birds. I never much noticed them till the summer after she died, just sitting so many hours on my balcony, which I guess was part of my grieving.

There, a turtle has climbed out on the log, and here comes another. Man, I think I move slowly! And there’s a periodic splash of fish leaping out of the water. I could sit here all day.

The little turtle keeps crawling closer to the bigger one, like a child trying to get close enough to whisper a secret to its mother, or stand in her shelter.

This is a holy day, this first day of May.

Do the fish leap out of the water like that just for the pure joy of it? Like we jump into the water, even though we can’t breathe in it?

The sound of mowing in the background. An annoyance, but part of being in a park that also has grass. Also even a bit reassuring, as I feel very much alone in the woods. I like being here alone though. Later in the year there would be others going by or even sitting here watching the wildlife. This suits my need for solitude, now, in early May.

I’m lucky to be so near the Kettle Moraine. I think I will begin to take more advantage of it. It reminds, me, just a little, of the hills of the East.

There’s another big turtle on the log now. “Phoe-be,” “Phoe-be.” The chickadees are calling to their mates.

As I got up to leave the big turtles slid into the water again, but the little one stayed. It understood that I was not going to harm them. It probably hadn’t yet experienced exuberant little boys throwing stones at it. And on the path out I heard a splish-splash and a very large turtle was trying to hide in the downed logs and reeds. I tried to send it Reiki but it was afraid, and I walked on.

Drove down the narrow spit of land into Whitewater lake. Completely taken over by humans, houses and cottages perched on the bluffs on each side, stairs down to the water. Reminded me of the old Amico cottage on Alton Bay, though the stairs here don’t end in the glorious waters of Winnepesauke.

Then drove down to the Whitewater Lake beach. The first place we ever took Jesse for a day at the beach. Monday after Conference, he nearly 4 months old, happy going into the water in Mommy’s arms. We lay on a blanket in the shade then, and despite the shade of the tree, he with his Italian skin tanned, and I burned. The beach area seemed bigger then. It’s very small. A few college students here, taking a late-semester time-out, in bathing suits, two even wading in the water. More like summer than spring, here.

Time to head for home, but, having restored my spirit in the woods, I will carry this Mayday hike with me into my daily life.

I wrote these stories for my children because, when I went looking for a Bible story book for them, all I could find was what I call “little moral tales,” and I wanted to give them some sense, even at their young ages, of the great sweep of the biblical story, and more importantly, I wanted the stories to be informed by the results of critical biblical study, which I have myself pursued all my life as a biblical studies scholar.

So while the title is Stories of the Bible, the subtitle is A Bible Story Book for Children of Progressive Christians. Yes, it has a slant, and that is intentional. It is stories, from the Bible, told as someone (me) who understands the Bible from a scholarly perspective, would tell them to children. When a friend asked what I meant by “Progressive,” my example was that, for the story of Noah, I began it, not “There once was a man named Noah,” but “The story is told about a man named Noah.” This acknowledges that in all likelihood this was a treasured story told by the Hebrew people, not a  historical document. But readers can draw their own conclusions.

And, as I reread and prepared these stories for publication, I realized that, at least as they are told here, the over-riding theme is that God loves all his creation, the world God created and everyone in it, no matter who they are. And as I think about it, I think that is true.

So if you are interested, please go to http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Bible-Children-Progressive-Christians/dp/1482763168/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365024543&sr=8-1&keywords=eleanor+wilson+bible and order a copy. They are $20 each and with another purchase to bring the total to at least $25, shipping is free.

Folks have asked about a Kindle edition, but with the format of this book, as a picture book, I was unable to do that and have it come out well. In addition I had technical issues with uploading so I’ve given up on that idea.

http://heartwellproductions.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/door-county/ 

First Poem in a Long Time

The house is neat now.

Afghans straightened, fireplace–well…

Ashes litter the fireplace.

The floor could stand a vacuuming,

But if I can overlook those signs

That I didn’t get much housework done today,

Things look ok.

The house is sighing now.

All day it’s stood the test of children’s battering.

Toys strewn around, loud noises.

Laughter, crying, shouting, whining,

At the very least, question upon question directed–at me.

“When do we die?”

“Where are my crayons?”

“When will I be four?”

“What’s for supper?”

“Can we go to the candy store?”

“Where is God?”

This house gets its fill all day.

But they’re careful kids, they don’t abuse it.

But now it’s quiet. And the house sighs.

Relief. Little ones in bed. Toys put away.

All in order.

Someday, house, you’ll sigh again.

Not for relief.

You’ll sigh in loneliness.

Someday those little ones will grow up and be gone,

And there’ll be no more toys strewn around,

No more shrieking laughter, shouting, crying,

Just quiet adults sitting here.

And you’ll be lonely, house.

And so will I.

1977

In Ugarit in northern Canaan of the second millennium BCE, the storm and weather god was Baal, and his sister was Anat, a wild and self-directed goddess (discussed in another article). Scholars, seeing them paired in myth and seeing Anat’s fierce love for her brother, simply assumed that they were also husband and wife. There is no evidence whatever for this assumption.

The mother and father deities in the Canaanite pantheon are Asherah and El. All the other deities are their children. But in the Bible, the Canaanite gods most frequently mentioned are Baal and Asherah, perhaps because they were the most popular at that time in southern Canaan where Israel had settled. Baal was crucial: Baal brought the rain that allowed their crops to grow. Asherah was revered perhaps because, as the mother goddess, she inspired human fertility and the possibility of children, also crucial in that culture at that time. Anat is rarely mentioned in the Bible. El is mentioned, but as his name means simply “god,” he is often identified with the God of the Bible.

But—true to typical modern ideas—scholars often assume that, in the Bible and thus in the southern Canaan the people of the Bible inhabited, because they are both mentioned frequently and often mentioned together, Baal and Asherah must obviously be husband and wife.

In northern Canaan, however, they are mother and son, and there is no evidence in the Bible that they are anything else in southern Canaan. In fact, in Canaanite culture, the mother-son relationship was as important as, if not more important than, the husband-wife relationship, at least in the royal family.

The queen of Ugarit was the mother of the ruling king. Although many scholars call her “queen mother,” in Ugaritic texts she is simply called “queen.” It was not just an honorific title, such as with the modern queen mother of England. She played an important part in affairs of state, and there are many records of queens conferring with their sons on important state matters.

When she died, the role of queen passed to the mother of the next king, that is, of the heir apparent in most cases. And this new queen was, of course, also the wife of the current king. Then she ruled by his side and, after her son became king, by his side. What made her queen was not who she was married to, but whom she was mother of.

And it is this kind of pair bond, I believe, that we see in the Bible. Asherah is the mother of all the gods and goddesses, and one of them, Baal, who brings the rain, is her son. And as such they were worshipped together, for example, by Queen Jezebel during the reign of Ahab. Not every male-female pair bond in the ancient world is that of husband and wife. We need to stop projecting our own culture onto the ancient world, and to begin reading the ancient texts with a view to their own cultures.

Because we live in a culture where the male-female pair bond is considered the most important relationship and the backbone of family and social life, many scholars tend to superimpose those ideas on other cultures, including ancient ones. They see a god and a goddess and assume they are husband and wife. And also, because we live in a traditionally patriarchal culture, they assume the god is of primary interest and his wife is a sort of divine “helpmeet.” This has made for some odd distortions of, for example, the Canaanite deity systems.

In Ugarit in northern Canaan of the second millennium BCE, the storm and weather god was Baal, and his sister was Anat, a wild and self-directed goddess (discussed in another article). Scholars, seeing them paired in myth and seeing Anat’s fierce love for her brother, simply assumed that they were also husband and wife. There is no evidence whatever for this assumption.

The mother and father deities in the Canaanite pantheon are Asherah and El. All the other deities are their children. But in the Bible, the Canaanite gods most frequently mentioned are Baal and Asherah, perhaps because they were the most popular at that time in southern Canaan where Israel had settled. Baal was crucial: Baal brought the rain that allowed their crops to grow. Asherah was revered perhaps because, as the mother goddess, she inspired human fertility and the possibility of children, also crucial in that culture at that time. Anat is rarely mentioned in the Bible. El is mentioned, but as his name means simply “god,” he is often identified with the God of the Bible.

But—true to typical modern ideas—scholars often assume that, in the Bible and thus in the southern Canaan the people of the Bible inhabited, because they are both mentioned frequently and often mentioned together, Baal and Asherah must obviously be husband and wife.

In northern Canaan, however, they are mother and son, and there is no evidence in the Bible that they are anything else in southern Canaan. In fact, in Canaanite culture, the mother-son relationship was as important as, if not more important than, the husband-wife relationship, at least in the royal family.

The queen of Ugarit was the mother of the ruling king. Although many scholars call her “queen mother,” in Ugaritic texts she is simply called “queen.” It was not just an honorific title, such as with the modern queen mother of England. She played an important part in affairs of state, and there are many records of queens conferring with their sons on important state matters.

When she died, the role of queen passed to the mother of the next king, that is, of the heir apparent in most cases. And this new queen was, of course, also the wife of the current king. Then she ruled by his side and, after her son became king, by his side. What made her queen was not who she was married to, but whom she was mother of.

And it is this kind of pair bond, I believe, that we see in the Bible. Asherah is the mother of all the gods and goddesses, and one of them, Baal, who brings the rain, is her son. And as such they were worshipped together, for example, by Queen Jezebel during the reign of Ahab. Not every male-female pair bond in the ancient world is that of husband and wife. We need to stop projecting our own culture onto the ancient world, and to begin reading the ancient texts with a view to their own cultures.

Today I am also posting another academic paper I wrote on the goddess Asherah, going more deeply into research about her. If you want to learn more about this goddess and what has been written about her, click on the item “Asherah” on the black bar at the top of this page, or click on http://heartwellproductions.wordpress.com/asherah.

My day begins early, before my mommy and daddy get up. I have a perch in the kitchen where I can watch the birds eat their breakfast. I don’t know why I make that funny “ack-ack-ack” noise when I watch them, but I can’t help it. Mommy seems to be ok with them eating all that stuff she puts out, and it is interesting to watch them flit around even if I can’t get at them. But boy, if I could!

When the people get up, I go into overdrive and race up and down the hall, making all the noise I can to celebrate the new day and my people being up with me. Mommy calls it the “kitty 500.” Being a cat, I can sneak along without anyone hearing me at all, or I can gallop and make all kinds of noise, or even thump around if I want to make a point.

Then it’s time for breakfast. I get dry food, and there’s always some in my bowl, but still the attention at breakfast time is nice. My water dish is refreshed, my food dish is filled, and my kitty snacks are shaken out for a little treat. Mommy calls it my toothbrush. Also, I get a special treat, just one time a day, a little smidge of milk out of a can in the refrigerator, yum!

Mommy eats her breakfast by her computer, so I usually join her and ack-ack at the birds outside the window in her office. And when she finishes her yogurt there’s another treat for me, licking the bowl clean (she still washes it though, sheesh!).

Then I might ask for a little cuddle (it’s only good if I ask for it, no picking me up randomly and expecting me to settle in). Then it’s time for my first nap. I vary the nap location rotation periodically, but right now I like taking first nap on the unmade bed, with blankets tousled around and the little bit of warmth still there.

When I get up it’s usually time to ask for a cuddle. Mommy picks me up when I climb onto her lap if she’s sitting down, or if she’s walking around I swirl back and forth across her path, making sure she sees me. I used to like to sit in the rocking chair, but now I’d rather sit at Mommy’s desk. However, the best times to cuddle are when she is meditating or when she is making crafts. I like the energy that she emits then, it’s calm and comfy. When she’s beading I jump onto the table and pretend to be interested in shifting beads around or in looking out the window. That she does not want, the shifting I mean, so she picks me up and I settle in for a nice, creative-energy cuddle. Meditative energy is also good, as I said. After that, I might settle down for a  nap nearby. If I only had an opposable thumb I would like doing crafts myself, but since I don’t I just like to be in the room where it’s happening.

So here’s how the cuddle goes. First I lean over her right shoulder and she pets my back. Then we both sort of know it’s time to slide into her arms and onto my back. She says it looks silly, but it feels very good. She says she thinks I’m double-jointed. I guess most cats don’t behave like this, but I leave my front paws dangling in front of me, and Mommy holds my back paws in one hand and then rubs my tummy with her other hand. Man that is great!

I also like to watch the news of the yard. I watch on a few different channels. The big window in the living room gives me news of the front yard, where I keep up with the bunnies and other animals, and the cars going by. The dining room window is the backyard and deck channel, where I watch the birds and squirrels looking for food. On Mommy’s desk in the office is a different front yard channel, where I can ack-ack at the birds at the feeder outside. And when the bedroom shade is up I get the side yard channel.

Then it’s time to have a nibble to eat and select the spot for my next nap. Sometimes I like to sleep on the cable box. It’s not soft but it is warm. And I get to be in the room with Mommy when she’s working on the computer. After I wake up I stretch a bit, maybe cuddle a bit more, wander around the house, although I usually only get in mischief in the room where one of my people is at the moment.

I like to play with the cords to the blinds in the office, because they make such a pleasant clinking sound with those knobs at the end, but Mommy gets mad and makes me get down. I also like to try to get stuff out of her purse if she leaves it unzipped, but she doesn’t like that either. Sometimes I like to tiptoe around the cords behind the tv, but that she really doesn’t like because she can’t see what I’m doing and I might really mess something up. I have like a zillion toy rubber rabbits and balls and things to play with, but I like to hide them under furniture and then try to get them out, so they often get stuck under there and I can’t get to them until somebody moves the furniture. I usually have one or two things I am into playing with at a time. Mommy says I play soccer well, when I run a ball down the hall, juggling it between my two front paws. If only I knew what soccer was.

I actually play fetch, not to please my human like one of those stupid dogs would, but because once I catch something, duh, I’m done with it, so I bring it back to the human to throw again. Both Mommy and Daddy will play fetch with me, but Mommy just doesn’t do it right, so I like to wait till Daddy gets home to play with me. Sometimes I will chase some imaginary prey, running around in all directions at top speed, then stopping to stalk it and hide on it, and this always makes Mommy laugh.

But first—third nap time. Usually I sleep this time on the loft bed in the guest room. Then—then—Daddy comes home! I am so excited to see him, and I often try to show him how excited I am by rubbing around his legs, but also by climbing on the laundry hamper and scratching madly at it. I don’t understand why he doesn’t like this, I’m making such a fine artistic project of it.

The only scary times are when Dixie comes to cut my toenails. They have tried everything to sneak up on me with this, and now not only doesn’t Dixie ring the doorbell, she doesn’t knock, she just, now, walks in, and lately she doesn’t even call ahead, because I always know with my cat sense when it is her on the line and she will be coming over. But despite the fact that she no longer rings the bell or knocks, still, when anyone rings the doorbell I do immediate “flat cat,” making myself as low to the floor (and thus, yes, I’m sure, invisible) and head to the best hiding place. I have found one where they can’t get me (this also works when those children come to visit), squeezed in behind the loft bed.

I know Dixie likes me and wishes I would be more friendly with her. Mommy says it’s because of her that they adopted me. And I know I need my nails cut now and then, because I hate when I get them stuck in something. But—it’s just scary to be held tight and have her cut at my toenails with that clipper!

I also use this hiding spot when Mommy runs the vacuum cleaner. That is so scary, that horrible loud noise, and I see what it can do to stuff on the floor! It even picks up my bits of fuzzy fur I leave around. It’s horrible! So I head for my hiding place when I see that monster come out.

When Mommy is cooking supper, especially if she’s cutting things up on the counter, I like to hang around and pretend I’d like it if she’d drop something on the floor for me, but I really don’t like most people food. I just do it for the effect. But when I hear my dish being set on the floor, or hear the particular cupboard where my food and treats are kept, I come running from wherever I am, because Mommy will usually give me another “toothbrush” treat. When my people eat supper I sometimes have a bite to eat too from my dish. What they aren’t supposed to know, though they sometimes catch me at it, is that I am working on eating with my paws, like they do. Because my wrists are so flexible I can pick up a piece of food in my paw, even if I have to put it in my mouth first and then transfer it to my paw, and then eat it. Also, I like to take the last bite of my meal or snack into the living room to eat on the rug. Don’t ask me why. I guess “dessert in the living room” just sounds appealing.

Then it is evening. If I can get Daddy to play with me, throwing a toy for me to play with, that is the best thing. When I run around fast after a toy, then stop so fast my rear end bunches up behind me, Mommy always laughs. Then after a while I will creep into her lap in her chair and crawl up to her right shoulder and give her a nice massage for a few minutes. This is accompanied by a concert of nice purr music, which she always appreciates. Then I go over and look for a place to plop down on top of Daddy lying on the couch. He isn’t quite as patient with me, he calls my music funny noise, and he won’t let me get right up by his face, but I still just absolutely love to be as close to him as I can get.

Then I might settle down for my evening nap, either in my hide-away crinkly tunnel or in the rocking chair, or if Mommy has gone to bed, I will curl up in her soft chair which she has warmed up for me.

I used to have the run of the bedroom at night, but for some reason Mommy doesn’t like it when I wake her up by squeaking at her (I don’t speak cat very well, something about my meower doesn’t work, so I communicate with squeaks) or playing with the window shade or rustling around in the closet, so she has started closing the bedroom door at night. But—once—or maybe twice—in every night when she gets up to stretch out her legs and go to the bathroom, she leaves the door open and lets me in and we cuddle for a while. We have developed a very specific method. I climb into her arms and she pets me, and I always (cats love habits, you know) hook my foot over her arm. This is now tradition, but it also serves to keep her from smushing me if she falls asleep before I leave. Usually I just cuddle for a few minutes then take the liberty of exploring the bedroom (I have learned never to bother Daddy when he’s sleeping!), which is fine until I get noisy, then I get ushered out with a total lack of dignity. But sometimes, not having gotten enough sleep in my 4 daily naps, I fall asleep in Mommy’s arms for a while.

And that is my day. While they’re asleep I wander around in my nocturnal feline bliss, exploring the house and looking out at the nighttime world. Then they get up and it’s a new day!

And the cycles of our bodies as we travel these natural cycles through a lifetime: birth, infancy, toddlerhood, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, sometimes parenting, middle age, younger old age, older old age, dying. And the daily cycles—working, hunger, rest.

But human cycles are important to us too. My first child turned 40 last week; my first grandchild turns 7 this week; my former mother-in-law turns 101 this week! Can this be possible? How much we have all learned together in this lifetime!

I have lived through the life cycles of several cat companions. There were the ones when I was very young—Peppermint, Tommy the semi-stray, Musty and Rusty. Then Bibs and Babs, brothers we got as kittens who lived through Burlington, Burdett, Wellsburg, and into Pine City when I had grown up and left home. Especially Babby, my special companion. Then Cleo for 20 years, then precious Softie for 15, now sweet Bridget, who at 6 1/2 is still very  much a kitten in spirit.

Winter now, soon followed by spring and new growth, summer, then fall, then winter again, round and round, full moon after full moon, sunrise and sunset after sunrise and sunset, and our bodies grow older and, hopefully, our spirits wiser as we live these cycles.