From a traumatized street cat who ran and hid from just about everything to the most chill wise purr-ball housecat lounging in the sunbeams and taking up half the bed,

Through heartbreaks and grief, cross-country moves, deep healing, choosing joy, adding a dog sibling, falling in love, moving in with Patrick (her new fave), losing her brother-bestie cat, gaining a human brother then 2 human sisters, 14 years of living and loving big,

To dying peacefully in my arms, our eyes locked, her purrs loud, until her soul left her body.

She was one of my greatest teachers this lifetime. Her death has been wringing me out… and is teaching me so much more. Crystalizing and clarifying her impact, pausing and reviewing the ways I’ve been living and Being and where there’s an invitation for evolution.

Nothing pattern interrupts like death.

Nothing awakens like death.

Nothing shatters ego and clears the lens of perception and drops you into heArt like death.

Nothing brings you closer to life or reminds you what Life really is than death.

That’s duality. Without death, there is no life. Without life, there is no death.

Without love, there is no loss.

I am a Being who has devoted my all to living as the embodiment of Choice; to living a life I feel ALIVE in and am proud of and in love with, prioritizing what matters and fully fkn sending it towards my dreams knowing I won’t be left with the taste of regret at the end.

In large part because I’m a Being who has been well-acquainted with death. Through personal loss and through years spent volunteering at hospice care, reading about death, meditating on death, letting myself think about and look death in the eye. Given that death is the only guarantee in life, this doesn’t seem such a strange thing to do. But the “norm” of Western society is to sterilize and separate from death; from the pain that keeps your finger on the true pulse of Life. That reminds you… this is It. Your only life as this avatar of you, in this body of yours, with this heArt that loves and mind that dreams and body that moves.

I thank the teacher of death again. Humbled. Grateful to be Alive. 💎

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