Living with a Mystic

"Would you please do me a favor?" I asked Tasha We were cleaning up after dinner before we took our evening walk.

"Of course," she smiled.

"Would you mind not using the dishes we eat from when you put leftovers out for the animals?"

"Why not? They're washed in the dishwasher afterwards."

"Yes, I know. And granted there's something paradoxical about this, but if you don't mind I'd rather not share my dinner plate with a neighboring cat. I'm sure you can understand that."

Tasha turned from putting a plate in the dishwasher and looked at me. "What's wrong with doing that?" She asked in surprise.

"Maybe I'm just too urban in my outlook but to "turn and live with animals because they are so placid and so self contained," as Whitman wrote just isn't me. Couldn't we put popcorn and potato chips out instead of you leaving them food on our dishes?"

"Snack food is not especially good for creatures." She said carefully. "Besides, I thought you liked seeing them playing in the yard."

"Actually I was thinking a nice white picket fence around the property would be a good idea."

"I don't want a fence around our house. I don't see the point." She said.

"Maybe I'm aging but there's something so serene about a picket fence."

"Why do you say that? You never wanted one before."

"Maybe subconsciously all this terrorist stuff makes me feel vulnerable and wanting to fence myself off from the rest of the world."

"Be careful that you don't get sucked into the prevailing energy of paranoia. There's a lot of it circulating around right now, especially with all the suicide bombings. I feel it too to a degree."

"Good. I'm glad you agree."

"But that still doesn't mean I want a fence. I want to include life not exclude it. Otherwise I become part of the problem, "

"You'd like me to just go along with you sharing food from our dishes with whatever comes out of the night?"

"I've always left food out and you've never complained before let alone suggested a fence."

"True. But I never thought about it being from the one's we eat off of. That's a little different."

"What am I supposed to do, use someone else's?"

"I appreciate your mystical qualities and certainly wouldn't want to gum things up for us by resisting eating from the same plate as some neighborhood cat. But…."

"It's all part of the way the wheel turns." She smiled.

"Got it! Another perfectly explainable mystical comment. Okay, I won't complain about the unthinkable. But do you have any idea how my mother would have reacted if she knew you did that. She'd have flipped out."

"She was from a different era."

"I suppose all modern women of high consciousness leave their table scraps out for whatever lurks in the dark."

"I'm sure some do," she smiled. "I think its wise to keep in touch with our roots in nature. It's part of being free to not care what people think."

"So if I want to be appreciated by your women friends I'd better just relax and not think about who ate off my plate before me."

"That might help."

"I have a suggestion."

"What's that?"

"PAPER PLATES." I tried.

"Never!" She insisted. "That creates unnecessary waste, plus it means more trees have to die just so you can have plates no animal ate from. Think about that." She reasoned. "Besides, in all the fairy tales it's the kind person who is good to the animals, that wins the gold or ends up with the kingdom, usually rescuing someone in the process. You never know when you're going to need some help."

"You mean I can call upon the neighborhood cat when I need help with something?"

"Maybe – if you wanted help catching a mouse. Or just think of it all as part of "what goes around comes around." Besides, if it makes you feel better, I use saucers to feed the animals, and you don't normally eat food from them, so you really don't need to be worried about this."

"Living with a mystic can be both interesting and challenging."

"Takes one to know one," she grinned.