Time, Breath and Death

I was feeling a little smug (never a good idea) about being unaffected by the litany of power/weather/traffic crises that seemed to be besetting the rest of New Zealand this week (is Mercury retrograde or something?). But then I arrived home to find the stove clock blinking 0:00, a sure sign of a power cut while I was in town. I was glad that I'd had the laptop with me and not plugged in anywhere, but sorry that I have no idea how to reset the stove clock as there is a shortage of easily viewed and reliable timepieces around here.

Anyway, I bounced out of bed this morning, inspired by the sunshine and wispy memories of dreaming about weaving (a job I really enjoyed for a while back in the nineties) to do some much needed housework. To finish off I vacuumed the whole house. Then sat down to meditate in a patch of warm sun in front of the open ranch sliders. When I say meditating, of course I mean trying to sit still for an allotted time period while lassooing my wandering mind back to the breath whenever I remember why I am allowing my legs to fall asleep and my shoulder blades to seize up. And trying to be compassionate rather than irritated with myself for being distracted more than not.

As I approached the end of the meditation session ('it must be soon, my legs are in agony') Bonnie, walked in the door making muffled little mrrw sounds. When she didn't try to climb into my lap or meow loudly in my face I was simply relieved to be able to keep on meditating rather than suspicious of this unusual behaviour. I even ignored the chasing noises, assuming that she was playing with her mouse toy. But when I eventually and slowly straightened out my numb legs and hauled myself more or less upright I saw a scene of devastation behind me! Poor little fantail! My clean floor covered in feathers and a headless little corpse in Bonnie's paws.