With hindsight I can appreciate that my love for Geology was spiritual, linked with a sense of wonder at creation and the mystery of the Universe. It was a ‘heart-connection’ not an intellectual scientific interest. Increasingly I felt as if I would come from University with a degree in something I no longer enjoyed. I felt that there was no point in getting a degree. My future was in supporting my husband and bringing up our family. This is also quite an ‘Asian’ mind-set. Later I came to appreciate that studying for a degree in any subject is a discipline which trains us to concentrate and gives us the power not only to earn more but also to be taken more seriously and given more respect. Education is empowering and it opens doors.
As our end of year exams approached I was working up in the library, under one of the domes. Outside the sun set lighting up the sky with a wonderful symphony of colour. I gazed at it, enraptured. All around me students had their heads down working on revision. I joked with my friend that if I failed I would blame God. How could I be expected to study when the whole sky was on fire with such beauty? It grieved me that my friends were unable to share in feasting their eyes and their spirits on such beauty. I did pass the end of year exams but I did not go back to University. I didn’t inform anyone, I just found a job in the town. My health and happiness increased and I never looked back. My parents would not agree to our getting married unless we informed my husbands family – but he said his father was quite traditional and would not agree to it – so we had a quiet ceremony on our own and moved to our first flat, which was in Handsworth.
A year or so later my husband and I were offered the position of Warden and Youth-Worker at the local Quaker church which I was attending regularly. This was Friends Hall, in neighbouring Newtown. Now we were settled, I wanted a cat, but my husband wasn’t keen on animals. He bought me a canary. I called him ‘fluffy’ because I really wanted a cat!
Bright-Eyes and Beauty-Cat
At Friends Hall, the Quaker Community Centre where we were Wardens, I was engaging with about twenty children. I had my ‘Big Family.’ I explained that you can think of a Church as ‘God’s house’ and we all belong there. We are all members of ‘God’s family.’ Because I was working there in an official way, they could think of me as their ‘Big Sister.’ Whenever there was a knock on the door I took it as ‘God’s Call’ so my house was often full of children. I had my ‘House full of love and laughter.’ One of the young people who I was in this ‘community’ was John. He was about 16 and worked at weekend in a wood-yard. He knocked on my door one evening with two kittens. He had found them behind some timber they were moving, and the owner was going to drown them, so he brought them to me. Of course I took them in. My husband said I couldn’t have the cat and the canary and John was delighted to accept the canary in return. I named the pure black one Bright-Eyes (after the song by Art Garfunkel, in the film Watership Down (1978), which was showing at that time. I named the strikingly marked black and white cat Beauty.
I called both kittens for food with a tune that my mother used when feeding stock in our farm. The words I used were ‘Keety-Pooz’ but my husband altered that to Kunitoos and over the years that became the Unofficial Name of Beauty-Cat. (Sadly, some months later, I had an argument with John and he took it hard. Bright-Eyes disappeared. I searched and searched but I guess that John had taken him back and found another home for him.)
Silver
We also added a dog to the family at that time, again a gift, this time from Tony, another of the children in my Youth Group. ‘You need a dog’ he said, ‘to keep guard.’ There had been some thefts – most connected to John, but I said, I’m not keen on dogs. Anything smaller than a sheep dog would be no good as a guard dog – and anything bigger than a sheep dog I would view as potentially dangerous. ‘What about a sheep-dog?’ I had a soft spot for sheep-dogs. They are very much part of farm life.
Cindy was his girlfriend’s grandmother’s dog, a bearded collie, and the grandmother was getting too frail to care for her. Cindy would be ‘put down’ if they couldn’t find a home for her. I didn’t think it would work but I dreaded the thought of a healthy dog being put down. I said I would try for a week. We fell in love within the first hour together. I changed her name from Cindy to Silver and we became inseparable. Our son was born a few years later to a home with a dog and a cat.
Lowestoft and Sammy
In 1982 we moved to Lowestoft, with our son who was two years old. We thought it would be a great place to bring up a family, but at that time it was quite a racist town. My husband wanted to fit in and be accepted by his colleagues. He wanted to be ‘more British than the British’ and started to go to the pub with them after work, which had never been a part of our lives. Neither his family nor mine drank alcohol. He would come home not drunk, but in an unpredictable mood, which was often critical and unfriendly.
Before, when we lived in Birmingham, we had both been working and both shared the bills and housework, but now I was at home with our son, there was less income and more bills. There was also more housework and I was warn out by the time my husband came home, hoping for some practical and emotional support, but he felt that he was doing his part by earning the money. Why would I expect him to help with housework when I was at home all day with (as he saw it) nothing else to do? Arguments about money and my inability to run the house smoothly added to the tensions which were developing in our marriage.
I came to feel that if I didn’t take action our marriage would not survive. There were things I wanted to do which I would not expect my husband to pay for, such as going to my spiritual Teacher’s Birthday Pilgrimage Festival each year. The only work I could get was poorly paid, mostly cleaning in hotels. I couldn’t take my son with me, and child-care cost nearly as much as my earnings. Also one child-minder was quite racist while I found another sitting with friends and watching a film on television which was quite inappropriate for a child. Another child-minder simply forgot to pick up my son from Primary School. That was the last straw. I gave my notice at work the next day.
As problems grew, I needed to meditate more seriously. Increasingly I realised needed to get my own career. As my spiritual life deepened, I felt a calling to teach Religious Education so when my husband secured a new job in a different town, I stayed in Lowestoft with our son and went back to College. We were in a Hostel for Homeless for two years, but eventually secured a home in a council house.
Around this time, as a single mum, I really did feel the need for a canine companion who, if not actually big and fierce as a guard-dog would at least alert me to danger. Silver had ‘moved on’ by now. I wanted a sheep-dog puppy and the pet-shop said someone had recently come in to say they had Labrador-cross sheep-dog puppies which were nearly ready to be re-homed. I came home with a fluffy black puppy, just five weeks old. She had very big feet. I called her Sally. Months later it transpired that ‘she’ was a ‘he’ and the father was not the neighbour’s collie but a wolf-hound from streets away. So Sally became Sammy and grew into a dog so big that my son could crawl between his legs. They became inseparable. He called Sammy his ‘hairy dog-friend-brother. Kunitoos accepted Sammy, but always remained the boss. He only had to ‘give Sammy a look’ and Sammy would back off even though he was so much bigger.
My A’levels were in sciences and I now wanted to study Theology. But I had always loved art and had taken Art A’level independently and gained an A. This qualified me for a Foundation Art course at the local College – which would qualify me to go to University. In 1989 my son and I moved to London, by a three-way council-house exchange, where I had been accepted to study for a two-subject degree in Theology and Religious Studies twinned with Mural Art. I followed this with a PGCE and became a teacher specialising in both Religious Education and Art.
London and Roehampton University
It was quite intense becoming a student at the same time as being a single mum but I enjoyed studying at Roehampton University. As an artist I love colour and light and was able to specialise in Stained Glass. Our income was precarious so I supplemented it by singing in the Underground and taking cleaning and child-minding roles. My son and I joined the London Centre for meditation and our spiritual life gave us a strength and focus which was important for us both.
We had only been living in London for a few years when Kunitoos simply disappeared. We searched, we made enquiries, but never found him. I used to go running along the tow-path by the river with Sammy each day. Sometimes Kunitoos would follow us. He was quite elderly by that time and I guess he just fell asleep in a secluded corner, perhaps in the woodland near the river, and didn’t wake up. We were so fond of him that neither my son nor I were in a hurry to get another cat.
When it comes to our marriage I used to joke that my husband and I have the perfect solution to a long and happy marriage – we live miles apart. He had work in Shropshire, in the Lake District and in Wales. This was too far away for us to visit on my student budget, but our son always spent half his holidays with his father and my husband visited us in London from time to time. I was not keen on London. Birmingham was the city we both loved, where we both had many friends and many happy memories. It was also an exciting place from the perspective of Education. The great Tim Brighouse was making waves there, transforming the standards of schools with many creative innovations. So for ten years I lived in London and worked in Birmingham, travelling down each week, working in short term or Supply positions and staying from Monday to Friday with friends. In the holidays I worked with Tim Brighouse’s flagship ‘University of the First Age’ and trained in Accelerated Learning. I was hoping to get a permanent job in a school in Birmingham, so my son and I could move back to the city of his birth, where our family could eventually be reunited, but that never happened. Impatient to find a permanent job anywhere – as Head of Religious Education – I moved to a school in East Anglia, staying with my mother at times, but still living in London.’
Kali and Durga
A few years after Kunitoos disappeared, my son and I were visiting a village fete. There was a stall selling rugs and ornamental carpets and playing on the carpets were two beautiful pure black kittens. We both went on our knees on the carpets and started to play. The stall-holder said they were hoping to find homes for the kittens. We asked if it would be possible to take them both. My son’s kitten was feisty and fierce, he called her Kali. My kitten was gentle and affectionate. I called her Durga.
In Hindu mythology Kali and Durga are both aspects of God as Mother. Kali is the kind of mother who is very strict. She says, ‘Do it Now and Do it Right – or else!’ The sages say she is the most compassionate deity because she will not allow her devotees to do the wrong thing. If you want the fastest progress in life, pray to Ma Kali. In contrast to this, Durga has infinite patience. When we make mistakes, Ma Durga says, ‘Give them more time. What do you expect? They’re only children. They’ll learn in time.’ When I was given my spiritual name – DurgaMata, it made me smile. As a teacher I could develop a great rapport with students and our classroom was usually a very happy place, but I did not have that magic capacity that some teachers have, to just ‘give a look’ which would instantly make a student stop misbehaving and get back ‘on task.’ That is ‘The Kali-Power.’ My energy is Durga-Power which is gentle so my pupils could never take my ‘strictness’ seriously. We got great results but rarely pin-drop silence.
The first time I encountered the deity Durga was in the early days of my marriage. My husband is Bengali and we had a neighbour who was Gujarati. She invited me to the festival for Durga where they celebrate with Garba dancing. I was feeling quite shy because I didn’t know anyone else in that community. It was held in a small local hall. There was a shrine to Durga in the middle. We stood at the side with a gathering crowd, while musicians gathered in the centre of the room, sitting on the floor by Durga’s shrine. The music began with the chime of a small bell. Slowly other instruments joined in. The atmosphere was prayerful, the music was pure meditation, but slowly the tempo increased until the room was full of dynamic sound.
We all gathered around in two concentric circles. My friend had given me two decorated sticks which we use in the dancing and as everyone began to dance in a line around the musicians and Durga’s shrine, she taught me the steps which were quite simple. I am not great when it comes to dancing but I soon picked up the pattern and began to enjoy myself. It was mesmerising – and the first time I had ever ‘worshipped’ in a physical way like that (at least the first time in this incarnation.) I loved it. The following photo is from a celebration in London in 2010
That evening, as I walked home down quiet streets in the misty lamplight, I felt the atmosphere of the hall and the meditation still. I felt a strong sense of ‘Durga’s Presence’ as if the goddess was walking beside me, enfolding me in love. So many new and powerful emotions and experiences that evening – it was about 45 years ago, but when my mind takes me back to that night the emotions are still strong in my memory. I have felt a special closeness with the deity Ma Durga ever since then.
Durga-the-cat was extremely affectionate. She could ‘read my mood’ and if ever I was feeling sad or low, she would climb on my lap, snuggle up and even lick my face. She was the only cat I had known since Scamper who loved to come in bed, under the quilt with me. Like Scamper she would often sleep in bed with me, curling up behind my bent knees.
When my spiritual Teacher gave me my name DurgaMata I joked that I had been named after my cat – but in reality I have felt an inner connection with the Indian goddess Durga since I first encountered Indian culture, at that Garba Dance Worship evening, more than 40 years ago.
Durga-the-cat died about fifteen years ago, while I was at a spiritual pilgrimage at my Teacher’s birthday festival in New York. Neighbours found her ill and took her to the RSPCA hospital. They think she had eaten something poisonous. She was having convulsions so the RSPCA ‘put her down.’
I missed Durga deeply and didn’t think to have another cat for a while. But then a few years later, I had a dream in which I found a kitten and took it home. It was an unusual brown colour. I wondered if my soul was telling me that it was time to welcome another cat into the family. Not long after that a friend took in a tortoiseshell kitten which was quite brown in colour. One of her friends had bought the kitten to be a playmate for her children, but they picked her up roughly and squeezed her. She responded by scratching them. It was just not the right cat for her family, so my friend adopted it. As soon as I met this half-grown kitten I fell in love with it. I had to force myself to remember, ‘this is not my cat’ to leave it with her.
A few weeks later this friend phoned. ‘You know my cat,’ she said. ‘Well I will have to re-home her. She’s just not happy. She’s gone into decline. She’s refusing food, hardly moving all day. The vet thinks she may be depressed due to loneliness because I am out at work such long hours. I remember that you really liked it, so before I start looking for another home for it I thought I would ask you.’ I set out from London at 4am next morning and reached her house before she went out to work. ‘I’ve come for my cat’ I laughed when she answered the door.
Moiza was about three months old, a tortoiseshell kitten. She had never been outside. I took her first to my mother’s house where the first thing she did was to catch a rat! At first, faced by the garden, she was cautious, just looking out from the doorway. Then she began to walk outside, staying close to the wall, but after a day or two she began to explore. This is a video of one of those early adventures. January 8th, 2012. It’s one of my very earliest videos. When we were farming, Mum’s house was a barn. My father converted it into a bungalow and sold the farm-house with most of the land, when we left farming. My parents planted all the trees in the field between house and ‘barn’ and made a swimming pool which gave us a lot of fun as children. It is derelict now.
At this time I was teaching part time in a local College and spending the rest of the week with my mother, who was now in her 90’s and losing her eyesight. She could no longer drive, so I took her to doctors appointments, to Quaker Church on Sunday and to visit some of her friends. The recession had messed up my career and Mr Gove’s introduction of ‘The English Baccalaureate’ made it impossible to get another job teaching my beloved subject, but part time in Learning Support at least enabled me to spend four days a week with my mother. Moiza liked to travel on my shoulder, looking out of the window. But in the early days I made her travel in a cat-basket.
Moiza was about six or seven months old. When we came to London, after a weekend at Mum’s house, as I opened the door she escaped from the basket and dived under the gate into the back garden. I went through the house and out to find her. It was dark. There was a dark cat-shaped patch on the path and I bent down to pick her up – but the dark patch disappeared under the bushes. It was a large black cat. I found Moiza further up the path, crouching down and (with hindsight) looking a bit shocked. In time it transpired that she was pregnant. That ‘black-patch’ I saw on the path, was the father.
Bella
The kittens were born in April. At that time my son was living in the town close to my mother’s house, so he could give her some support as she was in her 90’s. He and I were staying at my mothers house at that time. I had a Silk-Painting Workshop and set out early morning so it was my son who supported Moiza as the kittens were born. Two tortoiseshell and two black kittens. He named one of the black ones Bella.
When the time came to find homes for these kittens, Bella would not leave. When I drove she refused to stay in the basket. She liked to sit on my lap and curl up close to me. When we visited potential rehoming families, she hid under the skirts of my sari. As time passed she showed all the habits that my beloved Durga had displayed. She read my moods and would jump on my lap if I was unhappy and lick my face. She liked to sleep not just on my bed but under the blankets and especially behind my bent knees. So I decided not to try to re-home her but to keep both her and Moiza her mother.
It was the summer of 2012. We were staying with my mother and I was saving up to get Moiza and Bella spayed. I had never realised how distressed they can be when they come ‘on heat’ and it was difficult to keep them in at that time.
The London Olympics – Alexander, Ashoka and Little Flower
We were in my mother’s sitting room, watching the wonderful London Olympics and became absorbed in an event when the smoke alarm sounded. I had forgotten the cooking I was doing. I ran into the kitchen, turned off the cooker and moved the pan that was smoking. I opened the window to let out the smoke, and Moiza was up on the draining board and out of the window in a flash. There was no sign of her in the garden and she didn’t return for more than 24 hours. Needless to say, she was pregnant again.
The kittens were all different colours. The cheekiest one I named Alexander the Great. He was a ginger tabby. There was an exquisitely marked tabby with a very dignified and aloof nature. I called him Ashoka – the name of an Indian king. He turned out to be a She, so she became Princess Ashoka. Then there were two black kittens which were adopted by a neighbour of my mother. Ashoka was the next to be re-homed, but a few weeks later the new owner phoned to say she wasn’t settling. It wasn’t working out. Could I take her back? I did and she was a very different character. She was afraid of everything.
In this video you see three of the kittens. Alexander is the main one playing with the wool. Princess Ashoka is the tabby one while Little Flower is tortoiseshell, like Moiza, her mother – this was before Ashoka was re-homed.
As I found homes for the other kittens, I decided that Princess Ashoka should stay with me. I didn’t take her immediately to be spayed, as she was so traumatised, but a few weeks later I took her to the vet to make arrangements. The vet said she was already pregnant! One option was to go ahead with the spaying – and effectively abort the kittens, but I decided to let her continue with the pregnancy. Perhaps becoming a mother would help her recover from whatever had happened when she was re-homed.
Moiza’s Five Grandchildren
I was with Ashoka when she gave birth, on 4th July. I waited until two days later, when Mum was eating, to take some photos.
Ashoka was not happy that I had handled them, and she took them to a secret location in the house. I did not pry. They reappeared three weeks later.
At this time I had Moiza, Bella, Ashoka and these five rascally kittens. I was working part time and when not at work spending time organising a Concert of my spiritual Teacher’s music in Birmingham. A neighbour would come and feed the cats when I was away.
As the kittens grew and I began to look for homes for them, this neighbour said that it was cruel to separate them. They were such a tribe, such a close family. I argued that this might be so, but nobody would want to take on a family of five. He bought the whole litter from me. Of course, being neighbours, they continued to spend a lot of time in my house.
I named the grey tabby Misti – which means sweet in Bengali. One of them was always climbing. She was rarely on the ground and liked to find somewhere to sit as high as possible – so I named her Sherpa. One had a ribbon of tabby round his neck so I called him Reuben. And one had a loop of tabby around her tummy, so she was Lupin. The fifth one was very pretty. He had white feet and I called him Twinkle – (twinkle-toes.) Sadly he was killed on the road between our estate and the river. I think he liked to hunt in the woodland by the tow-path.
From Three Cats (Moiza, Bella and Ashoka) to Four (Bella, Misti, Lupin and Sherpa_
Last year, the gentleman who had adopted the kitten-family moved to live in another part of London and his landlady would only permit him to have one cat. He took Reuben and the three girls – Misti, Lupin and Sherpa returned to me. Meanwhile, Moiza disappeared.
My sisters and I were taking turns to be ‘on duty’ with our mother who was now in her late 90’s and registered blind. She still lived at home and was fiercely independent, but it was good to have someone staying with her in case she needed help with anything. Moiza and I were quite close although she was not affectionate in the way that Bella was. I think she may just have missed my company while I was away, and found another family to live with.
Next Ashoka moved out. She would still occasionally come for food, but she was clearly in good shape and even had a collar at one time, so she too must have found another home. I think she resented the attention that the neighbour and I gave to her kittens and wanted to have her own space. I have learned that cats are quite territorial and many mum cats don’t like to share their space with their offspring. They vote with their feet.
Four Cats – and a Mouse
This brings us up to date. My cats now are Bella, Misti, Sherpa and Lupin – although technically the three tabby sisters are only staying here until their owner is able to take them back. The arrangement has one benefit in that whenever I go away, he comes to feed them all. It works for us but it is very hard on the wild-life in the garden, to have four able hunters in residence – which brings me to the ‘Mouse’ corner of this story.
This photo is Bella, sitting on the stairs.
A few weeks ago, Bella brought me a present. It was a young bird. She called me with the particular proud ‘yowl’ that the cats use when they are calling me to show me what they have caught. With a sad heart I went into the hall to see what it was this time. It’s usually a dead mouse but on this occasion, Bella placed the bird at my feet and it immediately scuttled into a safe space behind the shoe-cupboard I made a fuss of Bella and then put her out. I closed the doors so no cats could come in and moved the shoe cupboard. The bird was tiny. It flew a few feet but I captured it gently. It was barely out of the nest. It still had yellow at the corners of its beak. I wrapped it in a tea-towel and placed it in a secure box.
I’d just had a delivery of ribbons for my business. I use them for tying the silk scarves that participants make in my workshop and it is helpful if they are already cut to the right length. As I was preparing them I was reflecting on the situation. The cats were scratching at the door. Bella wanted her bird back and the others were excited. Was I right to deny them their prey?
Cats are hunters. It is natural that they will catch little birds and mice. Should I not just leave them to it and let ‘nature take its course.’ It reminded me of the story of the Buddha when he was a prince named Siddhartha Gautama. His brother shot a bird. Some accounts say it was a swan. It fell to the ground near where Siddhartha was walking. He rescued it and removed the arrow. His brother demanded the bird back but Siddhartha refused. He said that if he had not removed the arrow and cared for it, the bird would have died. His brother took him to court and the judge ruled that the life-saver is more important than the life-taker.
In a similar way, ‘fate’ had placed this little bird in my care. I had a responsibility to look after it. I should not just release it again where the cats would find it. I took it to the local vet who said they would examine it. If its wing was broken, if it was badly injured, then they would ‘put it down’ but if it seemed in good shape they would arrange for the London Naturalist Trust to collect it and ensure it was released in a safe place.
The lady returned to say that the vet thought it was a young thrush and it seemed in good health. So it was collected next day and hopefully will go on to live a full and happy life in the wild.
This brings me to the Blog for Week Ending 6th August 2023
On Sunday 6th August I was preparing to go to Birmingham (to celebrate my husband’s birthday on 8th) when I heard the famous ‘Yowl.’ This time it was Sherpa.
Here is a video of Sherpa in my garden, last summer.
Sherpa came and placed a mouse at my feet. It lay motionless on its back with its little feet raised and its eyes closed. I picked Sherpa up and told her what a clever cat she was. I made a fuss of her and put her outside. Then I gently picked up the mouse and cradled it in my hands, holding it close to my heart. As I picked it up, I noticed the ‘fingers’ on its right ‘hand’ move slightly. So it wasn’t quite dead. I looked at my spiritual Teacher’s photo and sang one of his soulful songs, to create a peaceful atmosphere for the departing soul of the mouse, so it could transition to the other world without distress. As I was nearing the end of the song, the mouse wriggled slightly. So it was still not yet dead. I placed it on a cloth in a big clear-plastic bowl with some tissues on top for privacy and a newspaper covered by a large plate over the bowl so that no cats could get in. It was the only ‘suitable receptacle’ that I could find close by. Then I left the mouse-bowl on top of the shoe-cupboard so it could die in peace.
Some time later I was passing through the hall and looked into the side of the clear-plastic bowl. I noticed that the tissue papers were moving quite strongly. So perhaps the mouse was recovering rather than dying. I carefully put a little jar of water into the bowl, without investigating further, and took it to the vet – as I had taken the bird just a few weeks earlier.
The vet said it was a Long Tailed Field Mouse, which is a protected species. And it seemed to be very chirpy, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (as they say.) From what they could see it had no injuries and was very much alive, but they didn’t think the Naturalist Trust people would come out to collect a mouse. I said I would release it somewhere suitable.
I was heading for Twickenham and from there to Richmond, so I stopped at Marble Hill Park and released it into a pile of fencing where I am sure it will be safe for now. Here’s a little video which I recorded as I let it go.
I’m creating a video about this story, but for now that is ‘A Wrap.’
This week’s blog is less about mindfulness and more about our relationship with animals. They really can be our best friends and they can cause us to reflect deeply on some of the most important philosophical questions. They also allow us to strengthen our empathy-compassion-oneness-love muscles. And when it comes to reducing stress, many studies have shown that the time we spend with our pets is a powerful antidote to stress. Taking a dog for a walk not only gives us exercise but it also encourages positive social contact, as many people will stop to chat and dog-owners often spark up friendships as a result. To sit with a cat on your lap, stroking it and giving it the ‘quality time’ it needs, helps us to slow down. It is a profoundly ‘mindful’ time. The very sound of a cat purring vibrates in our own heart and all the stresses tend to melt away as we get the things in our life into a better perspective.
So this blog is relevant to stress-reduction and mindfulness, after all.
Now all I need is a closing poem. I’ve not read this one before. I am so grateful to the mouse I released into the park for giving me this reminder of the ‘divine aspect’ of cats and mice.
Cat: Affection
Cat, my cat,
You cry for constant affection.
I have affection plus compassion.
Therefore
Stop crying,
Start smiling.
I tell you a supreme secret:
“I treasure your dependence.”
Sri Chinmoy
Animal Kingdom 1973
Mouse: Bearer
Mouse, my mouse,
You are the bearer of Ganapati,
The giver of realisation-plenitude.
Earth-consciousness knows
This truth sublime.
Therefore
To you, to you alone,
Earth-life is all gratitude.
Sri Chinmoy
Animal Kingdom, 1973