After much sadness and grief this past month a most wonderful surprise greeted me several days before the New Year. My dear brother and his fiance took me to the local Animal Shelter to help me find a companion cat as I wait for the rebirth of my familiar.

First let me explain about the rebirth of my familiar: my cat Mick who recently passed away was my familiar for almost 19 years. He was a most extraordinary cat and a superb familiar. This was his second incarnation with me. The first time I was a little girl and he came to my as my cat Guy (named actually for Guy Williams of Lost in Space fame, my favorite re-run as a little girl), a white and black polydactyl kitty that was born at my old babysitters who happened to live across the street.

At first I didn’t know which kitten to take but Guy picked me! I didn’t know at the time what a familiar was; I had heard the term but was still too young to understand what it meant. Unfortunately Guy was a barn kitty and though I often snuck him into the house, he still had to go back outside to our barn. Heartbreakingly he was bitten by a poisonous snake and died rather young. I was so devastated that it would be another decade before I would have a cat again.

I adopted Mick from an animal shelter when he was four months old. I was 20 and had my own college apartment where after a couple of roomie experiments I decided it was best to live alone. I got Mick for my birthday and named him after Mick Jagger.

Mick had also picked me. I didn’t realize until many years later that Mick had found me again when the time was right. I realized also that he truly was my familiar and I would need to educate myself in order to make sure that I could find him again when the time came for him to pass on.

A familiar means different things to different witches. In my belief system a familiar is a part of the soul. Mick had his own feline soul but also a part of my human soul that links us forever through incarnations and lifetimes. A part of your soul fused with the soul of an animal will always return to you, if you so desire.

At the local Animal Shelter my soon to be sister in law picked out two fluff-ball grey striped kittens (2 months old) for her new family with my brother (twin sisters!) and I made the rounds of the lovely facility. The kitties were all beautiful and loving and if I could have I would have taken them all! In fact it was getting extremely difficult to consider actually picking one!

And then I walked up to a cage where a one year old young cat mewed at me, calling me to her. I knew I wanted a female because my Mom already has a neutered 11 year old male in our house (a wonderful kitty, too); I felt guided toward a female. I dearly loved my only girl kitty, Jerry. She had been my best little girlfriend.

So this mewling tuxedo kitty (who was almost picture perfect of my Mom’s previous companion cat Blackie) little girl put her paw out and tapped the cage so I would pay attention to her. I took her out and she immediately began grooming my face with sweet little kisses and licks and nuzzled her shiny black head into the crook of my arm as if to say - ok I am ready to go home.

I turned to the gentle volunteer caretaker and smiled and said words I had said once almost 19 years ago when I had found my familiar: “I’ll take this one.” But the truth is she had me at mew-llo.

She is named Lucy Brown (after a character in the song “Mack the Knife”) and is a Sagittarian just like my brother. She is still very much a kitten and likes to play so much that I am heading out to Petsmart tomorrow for more toys. She keeps me going - night and day but the joy I feel after so much sadness makes my heart soar.

I will give you updates and let you see more photos as she grows up.

A couple of posts regarding the death of my husband Sandy have been removed - unfortunately they were causing some very odd comments to appear. I’ve decided to take a short break on the blog through the rest of the year (which is not really that long - can you believe it?).  See you in 2008.

I celebrated my birthday yesterday. What does a witch do on her birthday? Same thing that everyone else does: moans about getting older and that her youth has slipped away, eats cake (vanilla with lemon curd & buttercream), enjoys gifts both witchy (new lamps for the Temple Room) and practical (500 GB external hard drive from my brother) and trundles off to bed with her familiar who gives the best gift to her this year: he is still here!

The update on my familiar is that he is doing much better. It is more about the quality of his remaining time with me now than the quantity. I just want him to enjoy his life and have all the things he likes as well as all the love I can give him every single day. I am much more in tune with his needs right now than I had been. I am making time for him and being aware. He is with me so often that sometimes I would forget he was there. Now I am taking time to notice.

The Goddess has been good to me this month and it was an extra trying month. Sometimes when things are going too well you need to be slapped back into reality and reminded - not everything just falls into place. Fortunately after some workings to help my family and dealing with issues that was like riding a roller-coaster without brakes; the Goddess has watched over me. Once again being aware is what I need sometimes - to remind myself why I offer chants and prayers to Her, why I light my candles and incense and prostrate myself spiritually to Her lovingkindness.

I have a Libra friend whose birthday is next in our Libra party-line. We get on famously. Libran’s are like that. We dig our own company. My brother is his best friend and he will be home to celebrate his birthday (though he was not home for mine - drat!) which will be tremendously fun. Libran’s are the life of the party.

My Libra friend is one of those truer than true friends whose heart is bigger than his brain sometimes. This of course makes him even more charming and endearing! He did a super nice turn for my brother this past week and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy about my birth-sign. We can be trying certainly with our waffling (the scales - what can I say? We see both sides.) but our hearts are constant and wide-open.

This Autumn will be a time of great change and I welcome it. I’ve been stuck for a while and I look to the Witches New Year (Samhain/Halloween) to usher in a new beginning for me. I’ve already begun the planning stages for our big night and will write more on that plus the new spells and rituals I will be conducting all month.

All witches have a familiar, even if they don’t realize it. Some are physically manifested like my own; others are on the astral plane. My familiar has been with me since the beginning of my life (in another form) coming to me at an agreed upon time then returning to me again at the next agreed upon time. Now he is old and will leave me once more to return again for the next part of my life.

Knowing this does not change how he affects this witch’s heart. He has been my most faithful friend and companion for nearly 20 years. Since I was a young woman he has watched every step I have taken in my life, borne witness to every tear and transformation, every wobble on the path, my despair and my joy.

He was a great hunter. We called him “The Lizard King”. He loved to chase down lizards in Key West. He’d catch them and bring them upstair to the apartment and drop them out of his mouth onto the floor in the living room. This was when I allowed him to roam freely, when I thought an island full of cats would be a safe place for a cat to be a cat.

I was wrong. Precious small creatures belong in a safe environment where they can be protected. Although my husband differed in this opinion my vet did not so I brought my familiar and our other two cats indoors and kept them there safely for the rest of their lives.

Unfortunately, my familiars adopted brother, a big glorious Maine Coon mix, was the first to pass on the rainbow bridge when he was 7 years old. He had been with us only 6 years. He died from complications due to diabetes. Diabetes is very difficult to treat in humans but in pets it is nearly impossible. My husband tried valiantly, learning to give him insulin shots and monitoring his blood sugar daily but there was so much we didn’t know.

Our only girl kitty was another foundling adopted in Key West. She was a tame cat that had been caught and spayed then released. These cats in Key West all had a notch in their ears. She came to my back door at the cottage when rented on Catherine Street and demanded to be let into the house. She’d had quite enough of living by her wits in the jungle and told me in no uncertain terms that she wanted to be a house-kitty. My familiar never really liked her. They always had a somewhat tenuous relationship until they bonded when we moved to San Francisco. They spent time in a carrier together and then later were boarded in the same kennel while we waited for our movers to arrive. They didn’t end up friends but their tolerance was definitely raised.

She was an older cat and at the age of approximately 15 after many years with us she succumbed to thyroid cancer. We did not discover her life-threatening illness in time; had we known about the radiation therapy (which my familiar would have at the age of 14), we would have at least attempted to save her. Our vet had tried drug therapy and our only girl kitty went into renal failure.

My familiar who has been with me since he was rescued from the Humane Society in Akron, Ohio at the age of 4 months was the first kitty and now, my last.

He had indulged me by letting me give love to the strays we adopted but I knew he was happy for it to be back to just us again.These past five years have been tumultuous as he has aged. He had radiation therapy four years ago, which saved his life. He had a heart murmur even then but the vet did not seem too concerned about it. This year however he suffered a terrible ear infection which caused him to go deaf. While being treated for that the vet discovered that he had some kidney trouble and put him on a special diet. The diet seems to have worked and he is doing better now two months later.

Yet last night he was dehydrated and had to go the Animal ER in town. The vet mentioned his heart murmur and suggested that he may have heart disease. She said his kidneys were doing well considering his advanced age (18 in cat years, about 90 in human years). She suggested that after the holiday I take him to my regular vet to see about investigating the heart murmur and at least trying to get him on some kind of heart disease drug therapy. A cat as old as he is not one they would ever operate on or take pains to keep alive. Nor would I want any heroic measures taken. He came into my life with dignity and he will leave this life the same way.

I do not know how I will live without him, how I will even do something so simple as casting a spell. He has been in every circle I have ever cast. He has sat by me while I have written spells and crafted sigils and read magick theory, while I mixed potions and oils and made teas, categorized herbs, called down the moon, invoked the Goddess, the God, the Fae, the Elemental Guardians. He has been with me while I sat on my cushion and meditated, while I prayed and chanted and called to the Goddess Tara for her help. At my worst and loneliest moments he has been there and put his paw on my hand to tell me he understood, that I need not look any further for love and compassion for it was with me through him; always.  

A part of me will die with him when he goes. It is the best part of me, which is tied inexorably with him; one spirit between two entities; he my animal spirit, my original nature. I am his human counterpart but I am humbled by his enlightenment and his wisdom. He will continue to guide me toward all of the things I cannot remember about myself.

Yet that doesn’t offer enough consolation. Even that I will see him again in another form when he returns to me after  passing from this life. It is his face and big green eyes that have penetrated my soul at its deepest level and no matter how many times and lives we share it is those eyes that will haunt me all of my days.