Mewsette’s Dancing Lights

I had a wonderful experience yesterday morning and I finally have my focus together enough to be able to share it in writing and in a video.

One of my favorite moments in nearly every day, one that goes back to my beginning in this house, is stepping outdoors on my deck, and later in my garden, each morning, sometimes just a few minutes, sometimes hours. I love to feel the fresh air and work off some of the energy I have being rested from sleep, and eventually I start to visualize and awaken my creative self, often taking photos and even a few sketches, if I’m not digging in my garden too. And nearly always one or more of my felines has accompanied me. These past two months with Mewsette have gone beyond our daily sojourn to be important health and wellness sessions for her.

I was happy for the rainy morning on Monday so that I wouldn’t be reminded of losing not only Mewsette, but also the familiar comfort of our daily activity, on the first morning after her death.

Tuesday morning was forecast to be rainy again but instead it was sunny and beautiful. I laid in bed with her brothers and a few other felines, trying to get in touch with what was in the air, and I did not sense Mewsette there as I had the day before. I didn’t want to face the day, but I got up and fed the fosters in the studio and went downstairs and got coffee trying to avoid the beautiful morning, literally keeping my back to the door.

But it was calling me, something was urging me to just go outside on the deck. I decided to just take my coffee and step outside, just me, not Mimi. And take my phone, I got a clear message to take my phone with me, which I didn’t want to do for having to keep track of it and its interference with my thoughts, but slipped it in my bathrobe pocket. I prepared myself for more tears and some pain because we have to do that and maybe that’s why I was being sent out there.

But when I got to the top of the steps and looked around the yard I could feel some tears welling but felt no sadness. There in front of me were all the places Mewsette and Mimi and I had shared for the past several months, years, and where Mewsette had been just two days ago at that time, before everything happened. I definitely felt her spirit out there on the breeze and in the sun dapples on the grass.

Then I saw dancing lights moving around in the grass, back and forth and dancing around from the garden to the green wicker loveseat. When I focused I realized the lights were a reflection from the aluminum disk at the bottom of my old aluminum tube wind chimes, moving with the breeze. I watched it for several minutes, then realized that was why I had the phone with me. I took several videos of it and stayed there for a few more minutes. Then came the heavy clouds and the morning rain was on its way again.

The significance of the dancing lights

Those chimes were a housewarming gift from my co-workers when I bought my house in 1990. They’ve hung on the corner of my deck all these years and while I love to hear them and I see the disk spinning and reflecting from my window, I have never seen the reflected light move around in the yard, not in all the years I’ve lived here, and all the mornings I’ve stood in that same spot and spent hours in the back yard letting my senses fill and looking for the sparkles and color and light. That convinced me this was a message, a little visit.

But there is a definite connection with dancing lights. Losing our little housepanther Lucy at 15 months, one of Mimi’s kittens from the previous summer who was not adopted after her siblings were, was what brought Mimi and the kittens here. Little dancing rainbows followed Lucy everywhere. Here are three photos of her with rainbows.

Lucy died July 10, 2007, and that day my four seniors and I saw Mimi at the water bowl in the garden, stuffed with another litter of kittens. I asked the neighbor for the mother cat instead of waiting for the kittens, and they all arrived here on July 29, 2007, the little beans three days old. I had a crate set up on my worktable in the studio, and when I opened the box they were in I found Mimi seemed to know what was happening, stepped out and was immediately relaxed and calm and she began exploring the room. I picked up each bean and set them on the fleecy bed in the crate and turned to Mimi.

I sensed Lucy around and had the strongest visual of sunlight streaming in the studio door, though it was closed completely, I even turned around to check. I had the mini blind nearly down to the windowsill, but on that hot and still July afternoon the faceted crystal that hangs on the bottom of the blind began spinning slowly and reflecting just enough sun to throw rainbow dots all over the room and Mimi and the kittens. I never sensed Lucy again, and I’m sure her spirit joined with the four tiny beans.

Below is the very first photo I took of Mimi, in that moment, with just a few rainbow dots as they moved over her and the rest of the room.

As soon as I saw the dancing lights I thought of Lucy and visualized Mewsette.

Here’s the video, “Mewsette’s Dancing Lights”

When the closeup video begins, you’ll see the dancing lights move in from the left edge, right about the center. They move around in the grass and on the brush behind it.

Sending me outdoors

It was all intentional, coercing me to go outdoors and take my phone so that I would see this visit from Mewsette, dancing around as she did just a couple of months ago, and for years back to 2017 when she first joined Mimi and me outdoors. I had the feeling that she was just as shocked as I was at what happened on Sunday and my pain would be nothing compared to hers.

Some of the heavy weight was lifted from my chest.  Part of me healed from this.

Little Visits

When I lost Kublai in 1996, these visits made me unreasonably sad. I felt it was so unfair that he was there and I couldn’t touch him. It was a reminder that I’d never touch him again, and I tried to ignore them. We have to grow into this and it took me a while to be a big girl and love the visits. He opened me to them, and with each loss they’ve come to me at some point. I wrote about them in Little Visits.  They are still a reminder of the loss of physical presence, but I am healed by each experience.

I think Mewsette was unprepared for her death on Sunday too, and she had the biggest task of accepting. When I lost Fawn in 1999 in somewhat the same way it was almost a week before she seemed to accept her death and return. That’s the story titled, “The Balloon.” I’m sure Mewsette still wants to be with us, and I may expect to see her again.

Mr. Sunshine is resting

I have been concerned about Mr. Sunshine a couple of times in this, plus he and Mewsette were closer than she was with her other siblings. He cuddled and spooned and purred with Mewsette when she needed his support, but a couple of times he avoided it for a few days, and once he vomited. He has hypertension, and he’s 15 years old too. Caregiving and energy work take a toll, and I’m glad he’s a wise cat and knew what he needed. I asked Ingrid for a reiki session for him on Tuesday when he still seemed a little subdued and she said he pulled quite a bit of energy.

Everyone was present for the whole of Mewsette’s experience, including her death and the period just after, before I took her to be cremated. They all seem to have accepted it and aside from Mr. Sunshine’s slight reserve, everyone is eating well and acting as they normally do. Mimi and I went outside today. I am giving us all Rescue Remedy.

Somethings still aren’t easy, mostly foods

Mewsette had some interesting food choices, and I find I can’t partake of them right now. I have one more chocolate chip cookie, and I’d been giving her bits of the cookie part, not the chips, and a bit of milk. I just can’t eat that last one. She also liked little square baked cheese crackers, even the store brand, and I have a box at my desk just to crunch on. She woke up on my desk and wanted some just the other day when she heard me crunching, but now I put the box away. I’m a real fan of waffles, the real homemade ones, and I’d give her a couple of corners and some whipped cream. I finally gave in today and made some waffles, and it was okay. She also liked lettuce and spinach, broccoli, soda crackers and graham crackers and really any cracker would do, cornbread, and my coffee, she always had her face in my coffee if I put it anywhere she could get it. I think she learned that from Cookie.

All that I’ve written about Mewsette so far has been about Mewsette alone. She was also, along with her siblings, one of The Four Housecats of the Apocalypse, and that long history of the four of them as a group through the years they’ve been here. I had a closer relationship with her as an individual cat than I did with any of her brothers for whatever reason makes those things happen. But I have so many photos and sketches with her in that group, and now that daily reality is over. I still can’t face that, because they were so amazing together, and I’m not ready to let that go. I still have plenty of photos of them in the kitchen especially, so I’ll keep that on for a while. But the big greeting of all four, or five if Mimi was of a mood, is over.

Mewsette’s Journey

Here is a list of the articles I’ve written about Mewsette in the past few months. I also have smaller mentions in my daily photo posts from the back yard, from veterinary visits and visiting the pet food store.

Cruising With Mewsette

Mewsette in June

Updates and Things

Cats and Flowers

I Would Not Have Missed a Moment