WHY DO CATS HEAL?


How many times have you heard someone telling a dog to "Heal"? Quite often I suspect. You are normal, aren't you?

And what do the dogs always do? They cower, they genuflect, they do anything but heal. At least not by any laying on of the hands. They may be doing some psychic mumbo-jumbo or something, but they are not being good physicians.

But a cat is different. You don't even have to tell them to heal. They will know your illness before you do, and they will massage that part of your body. At least my cats would. You may mistreat yours, or they may think you are a putz, or caninocentric.

Zarathustra was a Merlin, a Taliesin among Richmond's cat society. He had the free reign of the entire Monument Avenue estate, and came and went with an alacrity unknown to most domesticated animals. But boy, did he have the healing touch!

"Lou Harrison introduced John Cage to the I Ching...", came a voice across the radio, derailing me from my former thought of cats, and causing me to disconnect from the computer and call a few friends who might want to hear the interview on the recently deceased avant-garde legend. Not an entirely unrelated event in that I first heard of Mr. Harrison from my Richmond roommate, Mark, who was prodigious in his musicality. Zarathrustra liked, and healed, him as well, if not better. John Cage and the I Ching have been old friends for much longer, but old friends, new friends...they're all friends, and we all need healing, and thus, cats.