Riding Cats
In Process Work, one of the things we do is practice using second attention. Second attention is something I first heard about as a youngster reading Carlos Castenada’s amazing adventures in the world of shamanism. Second attention is the level of perception floating just below the level of ordinary consciousness. Using second attention means putting a bit of extra effort into noticing all the things that you notice anyway but don’t pay attention too. It means noticing the little things that happen all the time on the threshold of awareness- in your body, or vision, or day dreams, or stuff you hear. Some of these little micro-events carry a little zing with them, a little charge of juiciness in your semi-conscious reaction.
The day I left Portland this week there was a ‘flirt’ like this that was trying to get my attention. I was walking along the street and a young couple came past me the other way. One of them (I’ve got to admit I didn’t have to try too hard to notice this) had a black cat riding on his shoulders. I only heard one word of their conversation, something about a ‘bug.’ Something about the whole thing made me smile a little.
As a good Process Worker, my job, once I’ve noticed a ‘flirt’ like this, is to unfold the signal. This is the part where I get a bit lazy and often skip out. In this case though, the flirt is happening in the world channel, which is compositional, or made of other channels. The cat and the guy are both occupying the relationship and movement channels. The body of the cat is relatively still, as her legs and feet are absorbing the up and down movement of her friend’s walking.
When I worked on it later, it reminded me straight away of snow-boarding a few days earlier. Body relaxed, my focus on my centre, my hara, and not on the board or my feet or the details of the snow. How could I be like this, more catlike and centred, in life?
Part of my smile (which we call a type of positive feedback) comes from the fact that I think of the cat as quite an antisocial creature, and yet this one hangs around. She’s obviously up for an adventure together with her human buddy. What is hanging around me, whispering in my ear, and what am I ‘hanging around’ in my life at the moment? My ‘conscious problem’, the big fish-on-my-dish this last week has been the problem of how I can write, and fit writing into my life. Got it!
The message of the cat-signal is that I have an unusual relationship with writing. I’ve got the ‘bug.’ It’s a permanent condition. She is a cat whispering in my ear, riding with me whatever I do. She’s not going to run away. I just need to focus on my center, on the writing flow, not on the outer details of who’s going to pay or publish or where I’ll find the time. If I throw her a fish (put some words on the page most days), stay my friend. Making words purr makes me purr, and helps me keep my feline zen- calm for rainy days….
One of the things I love about Process Work happens later. I’m on the train to the airport going through downtown and another couple are crossing the tracks. This time there is another beautiful cat, a snow-white one, cruising on the shoulders of a big lady. How cool! As if I might need more assistance to get the message, the loud American in the seat behind me intones into his cellphone ‘Hey, you wouldn’t believe it! For the second time today, I’ve just seen a goddamn cat riding on someone’s shoulders!’
