I climbed into the ash tree, glad that my eyes were so good at night. Up there everything was crystal sharp, the leaves black, the stubble fields a shimmering silver; the distant rim of the sky glowed orange, and lights twinkled from the town I had left. I turned my face to the south, and on that horizon loomed the forest, my next destination. A beam of excitement cut through the heavy mist of homesickness. The forest was one part of my journey which appealed to the wild cat still curled up in my soul.
The Spirit Lion turned up at dawn. In my nest of dry grass, I was listening to the chatter of gathering swallows, flocks of them swooping and diving over the fields, moving south without appearing to do so.
The Lion came slinking across the networks of gossamer that bedecked the stubble and festooned the brambles around the ash tree. He came from the east, silent, almost invisible, but real. He took a long time to arrive, as if demonstrating his manifestation skills.
I waited, feeling better just knowing he was there for me: he was choosing to find me. Was he going to send me back home to Angie? Would he tell me what was wrong with Vati?
Slow and thoughtful, he enfolded me in those giant paws, the mane tumbling like a waterfall, the eyes guarding a secret more global than the concerns of a fluffy black cat.
He began with wordless communication, loving me, encouraging me to relax and purr. The purring reassured me, and for once I was purring for ME. Purring was not only for humans: it was for me to calm myself, to heal my hurts. To send a message across the Earth.
The Spirit Lion looked satisfied when I understood this startling truth. It came close to what Vati had tried to teach me about the energy lines.
‘Planet Earth is full of messages,’ the Spirit Lion said. ‘You must learn a different way of listening, Timba, a listening that is more like touching. Stretch out on the earth and listen with the whole of your being. Do this often on your journey, for if you don’t you will become lost.’
‘Vati needs me urgently,’ I said. ‘I can’t go fast enough to reach him. It’s a long way.’
The Spirit Lion was silent, his eyes absorbing my words. Then he said,‘Winter is coming, Timba. You must go quickly. Don’t run with your feet, think with them, and be smart. Your times of stillness must be used for attunement and meditation.’
‘Meditation?’ I asked, curious. Angie had used that word passionately and often, but it had drifted over me in my preoccupation with food and play.
‘Meditation,’ the Lion repeated, ‘is like daydreaming, Timba. When the body is still, the mind can travel through space and time. Gaze back across the centuries and reclaim the wisdom and intelligence of the cat. Much of it has been used to heal and support humans, but you can use it on your journey to manipulate humans into giving you the right kind of help.’
‘Vati can do that kind of stuff,’ I said.
‘Vati is a highly evolved, supersensitive being,’ said the Spirit Lion. ‘That’s why you are perfect together … twin souls. Between you, you have all the gifts.’
‘We’re brothers,’ I said proudly. ‘The sons of Solomon.’
‘Yes … but for now, Timba, you must do the work of two cats. Vati cannot work right now. Your strength and pragmatism, and Vati’s sensitivity. You are right, he needs you urgently … urgently.’ The Spirit Lion became ominously quiet. His presence turned misty, and the light around him flickered alarmingly.
‘Don’t go,’ I said. Our conversation wasn’t finished, and he was drifting precariously. ‘You haven’t told me what’s wrong with Vati.’
The Spirit Lion darkened. The colours of night filtered down through his curly mane. A frown gathered like a thunderstorm on his brow.
‘Don’t go,’ I repeated, suddenly gripped by a fear beyond anything I had ever experienced. This wasn’t fear of getting hurt or lost. This was cosmic. Cosmic fear of some undiscovered mistake that was building into a global catastrophe.
The Spirit Lion’s last words were a hollow whisper echoing in my soul. ‘I can’t say it,’ he breathed, and the hush of cosmic sadness descended from the morning sky. The birds fell silent. The air was becalmed, and the beads of dew on the gossamer lost their sparkle. Leaves fell like tears from the ash tree.
The Spirit Lion breathed in deeply.‘I can’t say it,’ he said again. ‘It is universal. A happening, a terrible happening that is seeding fear in cats … all over the Earth … all … over …’ he whispered, and the sadness eclipsed his shining light. In seconds he was gone.
I sat there, numb and shocked, watching a bank of white mist stealing in from the valley, as if the energy of the Spirit Lion had been dissolved and was floating away, shape-shifting, becoming a cloud billowing over the bright sun.
My Spirit Lion had gone … not joyfully … but immersed in sadness. There was something out there he couldn’t bear to talk about. He’d given me his love, and his wisdom. Now he’d left me. Once again, at my time of greatest need, I was alone.