Powobawareness

It first came to me in the form of a cricket. Bright yellow green and moving with deliberation towards me. I was standing in the kitchen. Inside, facing the curtain, about to check the weather in mid-winter, it flew from my pant leg onto the sheer white drape, and I extended a finger. It returned to me and played its cello melody across the room. The sound, like itself, appearing from nowhere.

Fancying it was hungry, I urged it to the drapery momentarily as I hurried to the counter to scrape a shred of carrot; and uncertain of tastes, I layered it over an equally thin slicing of celery. He seemed to inhale them both, through the mandibles, and thanks to the coloring I could see the food travel through the three-inch body. I stared in fascination for ten minutes. I was astonished, I cannot say why, that on conclusion, he promptly shat. Feeling I had imposed beyond politeness, I turned back to the counter to clean up the vegetables. On turning around, my unexpected friend was nowhere to be found. A week later, I can't say I heard it; I remembered the tune.

Brown crickets sing by the chimney, but there was no one there.

The next time it came to me as a black cat on the front doorstep. It was persistent. Green eyes the color of fresh young cricket. Friendly aggressive, it pushed its way inside the house and made residence. I had put a box, as compromise, on the front stoop thinking it belonged to someone and was just passing through. No sooner had I given in and brought the box into the front hall, then she climbed in and began a heavy panting. I though, lord it will die! I gave water, and on drinking she began to bleed from the backside, subsequently as I witnessed, giving birth to three kittens. All of them found eager home among distant neighbors. And then she left. I thought I saw her on the large rock by the main road, but there are many black cats aren't there?

Then it came to me as a rabbit. The shrieking was otherworldly. That is the cry of endangered bunnies. I parted the brown leaves with the tip of the sickle. Four of them. Three died, of hunger or fright I cannot say. The Fourth I nursed with eyedropper and baby doll bottle. It grew strong, quickly, and larger, though I cannot say if full grown. I only know it was ready. It gave me a long look, a parting blink and bounded lively out the door. I thought it peaked over the grasses, reddish fur glowing radiant in the summer sun and eyes black as a sleek panther.

It came to me, once again as unexpected blessing soon after in the grass, as a white infant mouse, red eyes shining...

I now believe, thanks to my Tasmanian online friend, that it was always my own Powobawa, shift shaping and checking in.

12.18.2023

The Uncommon Occults challenge @AJAY9979