Author Nancy Crowe

Lost and found

Nancy Crowe

15257501445_6feef35fb6_b

Photo credit: ~db~ via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

The tiger cat stood on the sidewalk on a sunny Sunday morning, looking around and meowing. When I petted him, he felt very thin. How long had he been out on his own?

I looked up to see a gentleman cutting across the manicured lawns, looking for a cat … but not that one. His was a blue-point ragdoll. I jotted down his number and where he lived, and promised to keep an eye out.

I have two cats, and the older one is barely beginning to tolerate the younger one’s presence. Bringing home a third was not likely to go over well, and yet I felt terrible about just leaving him there. Rock, meet hard place.

Then a woman came by with her dog. She hadn’t seen the ragdoll and didn’t know where the tiger cat belonged. After seeing how friendly he was, she decided she’d take him home and try contacting the shelters in the morning … or maybe keep him. I picked up the cat and helped her get him home. Only then did I realize he’d had a messy accident on me, and I wondered if he was sick.

I went home, cleaned up, and posted the photo I’d taken of the cat on Facebook — my page, our neighborhood association page, and a couple of local lost pet pages. I saw photos of the missing ragdoll cat posted on one of the lost pet pages, so I shared those on my page and the neighborhood page as well.

Over the next couple of days, I sent distant Reiki energy to both cats, those caring for them, those searching for them, and for overall help and healing in each situation. I took my daily walks in the area where the ragdoll cat lived, sending out more energy and hoping to catch a glimpse of the wayfarer. Some animal communicators and other intuitives specialize in locating lost pets. I am not one of them — but I wanted to do what I could.

On Wednesday, I saw a woman outside in that area and asked if she’d seen a ragdoll cat. Her face brightened. That was her cat, and he was home safe and sound. I don’t recall the exact sequence of events she relayed, but a Facebook share someone else saw may have helped bring him home. Score one for social media.

I touched base with the lady who’d taken the tiger cat in. She’d had to take him to the city shelter since the SPCA shelter was full and her dog had gone after him a few times. He was not microchipped.

My heart sank. If no one claimed him, and especially if he was sick, chances were good he’d be euthanized. The lady had done her best, and so had I, but it still felt so overwhelmingly insufficient and sad.

So one happy outcome, one at best unknown. This is one of the hardest aspects of both working with animals and doing energy work. We are forced to come smack up against what we can and cannot control, and we are called upon to keep going and bringing forth the best in ourselves regardless. We get so mired in what we can’t do that we lose sight of what we can do — being vigilant about keeping our cats indoors, watching out for lost pets, contributing to animal welfare efforts, praying for all God’s creatures, being present for them, and more.

Let’s do that.

Sometimes, all you need to be effective is what you already have

Nancy Crowe
Midnight the black cat

On the first day of Animal Reiki III, I wasn’t sure I’d get it right.

Sure, I’d been practicing for 10 years, mostly with animals I knew. I’d taken all three levels of “people Reiki.” But I wondered if I really had my “stuff” together enough to be of any use to the animals at the sanctuary where our training was underway.

There’s nothing like starting something new to bring old “who the hell am I to think I can do this?” chickens home to roost. I’d just left my corporate job to devote more time to my independent writing and editing projects, and to expand my animal Reiki practice as well. Even though I knew it was the right move, change is fertile ground for doubt.

That first day, a cold rain on the roof drowned out the voice of the tour guide sharing snippets of each animal’s story. Perhaps it was just as well. Our teacher, Kathleen Prasad, had emphasized earlier in the day that the animals are not the circumstances that brought them here. They are not the rage, the cruelty, the indifference. To see them as victims diminishes them (and us) and gets in the way of healing. Learning to create a healing space for the animals — not fixing them — was why we were there.

We dispersed for our first treatment session, and I looked for Midnight, the black cat I’d seen strutting along the back wall of the stables. I found him — or he found me — near the front of the barn. He stretched, looked at me, and meowed pointedly.  Accustomed to obeying cats, I sat on a picnic table, and he settled immediately into my lap.

I remembered to ask Midnight’s permission and to tell him to take only the energy he wanted or needed, that it was really up to him. I remembered the Reiki Precepts — for today only: do not anger, do not worry, be humble, be honest, and have compassion for all living things — and to ask him to help teach them to me. I remembered the breathing techniques we’d practiced that morning in the hotel conference room. What was I missing?

Midnight just kneaded and purred, and as the minutes went by I began to shift out of “doing” Reiki and into “being” Reiki, and being present for my new feline friend and teacher. I filled up my heart and being with the energy I have known since before my birth — that unconditional, unwavering love of Source — and let it flow through me for whatever Midnight needed in that moment. That’s it, I remembered as the rain, the cold, the mud, and the “should” storm receded.

The next time I looked up, my fellow students were gathering in the middle of the barn for instructions on the next treatment session. Then I looked at Midnight, and he calmly met my gaze with a “You’re not going anywhere for a while” look. He stayed in my lap through another treatment session. After listening to Kathleen’s instructions, I tried some quiet chanting … but he was just as happy without it. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a horse watching with interest. You’re next, I told him silently.

When the time was up, I thanked Midnight, stood up, gave him one more chin scratch, and gently set him on the table. I hadn’t missed a thing.

Salem: Which was witch

Nancy Crowe

TheWitches

See stacyschiff.com

As we have seen, especially in recent days, fear makes people do crazy, horrific things.

It’s the same old crap we dealt with three centuries ago. The people of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 were nothing if not scared. They lived in a new, untamed land under constant threat of Native American attack and abduction. Their Puritan beliefs had them either righteously lording it over others or falling miserably short despite their best efforts and greatest sacrifices.

The notion that there were witches among them — women (mostly) who had signed a pact with the devil and were torturing people like 12-year-old Ann Putnam — gave all that free-floating fear a place to land.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stacy Schiff helps us see and feel this brief but devastating chapter of American history in The Witches: Salem, 1692 (Little, Brown and Company, 2015). In particular, she helps us see the day-to-day realities that allowed it to unfold.

My interest in the Salem Witch Trials increased a few years ago when I discovered a genealogical connection to some key players. Deacon Edward Putnam is my seventh great-grandfather, and he was among the accusers whose testimonies sent several innocent people to their deaths. His older brother, Thomas Putnam, appears to have been a ringleader, and Thomas’s daughter Ann was one of the young girls whose bizarre behavior set the whole mess in motion.

This was a rare moment in history in that females, and young ones at that, were calling the shots. Betty Parris, daughter of the Reverend Parris, and her cousin Abigail Williams began to have convulsive, screaming fits. Soon Ann Putnam and other girls showed similar symptoms. A doctor said the girls were bewitched, and the girls began to name a series of local women as their tormentors, also claiming to see ghosts, spectral versions of the living, and the devil.

It was a reality show-worthy spectacle, by all accounts. Then, as now, nobody does drama like a girl on the threshold of womanhood. Then, as now, people at the bottom of the heap are apt to misuse power when they suddenly find it in their hands. If one of these young ladies accused you of witchcraft, you were as good as convicted. The only defense against an accusation of witchcraft was a good offense — shifting the accusation onto someone else.

Schiff notes that young Ann Putnam predicted future events and recalled others that predated her birth. And without question, Thomas Putnam had suffered many losses at that point in his life — inheritance, land, and children. It’s not hard to believe he was motivated to use the force of the law to settle some scores. However, as Schiff says, “Putnam had a much-loved, perceptive, desperately convulsing twelve-year-old at home. He was soon to have a deranged wife as well. It is difficult to believe he had a long-range strategy at the start.”

Thomas and his wife both died in 1699, leaving Ann to raise her younger siblings. At age 27, Ann, seeking full church membership, apologized to the Salem village congregation for her significant role in the events of 1692. Out of the 19 who had been put to death, she had testified against all but two. It was a “devil made me do it” apology, but it was more than any of the other accusers offered. She died a decade later.

If you’re looking for the Cliff’s Notes version of the Salem witch trials, or easy answers, you won’t find them in this dense, detailed work. You will, however, find the humanity behind this surreal chapter of America’s story.