The Trickster Part 1

I sometimes wonder if the logical side of me impedes my ability to see and accept the mystical side of life. So many things have happened to me that suggest a higher power, but I, an unbeliever, am constantly seeking more proof. Yet, I continue to seek, which may suggest some sort of unconscious belief in an existence beyond what I experience here on earth.

I have had numerous encounters with the unexplainable. So much so that I am reminded of a joke I once heard. There had been a huge flood in a town. A very God fearing, God loving man clambered onto his roof to avoid the floodwaters. People were drowning everywhere. He started to pray. "Please God save me from this flood. I will be eternally grateful." Soon a man with a boat came by. "Jump in", he exhorted. "I will save you." The man declined. "God will save me", he said. A few minutes later a helicopter hovered above him and sent down a ladder. "Climb up", the pilot shouted. "No, no thanks. God will save me." Within minutes a flash flood swepts through the valley and the man died. His soul floated towards the pearly gates and when he got there he was livid. "I spent my whole life praising and praying to God. I gave him my life. I can't believe he ignored my prayers when I needed him most. I can't believe he let me die like this." St. Peter looked at the man and said, "We sent you a boat, and then we sent a helicopter, what else would you have liked us to do?"

Recognizing the signs of an existence beyond our phenomenological experiences may be the most difficult task of all, especially these days where skepticism impedes our spiritual growth. The first time I recognized I may have a belief deficit was when my cat Sebastian died. I was sleeping and I had an extraordinarily vivid dream that he was drowning. The dream was so real that I woke with a start and at 5:00 in the morning I put on my raincoat and boots and went out into a torrent of rain looking for my cat. Not five minutes later I found him in a pool of water at the side of the road. I was heartbroken, but also very perplexed. Had I seen this happening in my dream? Had I had a permonition? I was very confused. Reason took over and I thought it had probably been just me worring about my cat being outside and subconsciously hearing the rain.

Two years later I had two cats, brothers named Bacchus and Phoenix. Phoenix was the closest to a person a cat could become. He was like a child and had taken to leaping into my arms. He would then hug me with his paws. He would talk to me all the time in his funny cat language and there were times when I am certain each of us understood the other. On August 26th, at 2:30 a.m. my first niece was born. I had let Phoenix outside late that evening. At 6:00 a.m that morning I found Phoenix had been hit by a car and killed. A phoenix is a mythical creature, that once every 500 years explodes in fire. Out of the ashes of the old bird a new phoenix is born. I find it difficult to believe the birth of my niece, and the death of my cat, were unconnected. The skeptic in me says, "pure chance". My increasing need to find meaning in life suggests my niece is the reincarnation of my much loved feline.

The skeptic may have won me back had it not been for yet another unexplainable incident, again involving a cat. A year after losing Phoenix, Bacchus disappeared. We searched everywhere for him and concluded that he must have been taken by a coyote. (We live on a farm and packs of coyotes sing in our backyard on a regular basis). Months went by with no sign of the cat. Then one night I had a dream. I had found Bacchus at the new mall being built on Steveston Highway. The dream had been so intense that when I woke I told my husband I had had a dream about Bacchus. I exhorted him to please go up to the mall and drive around the perimeter of the building site.

I was not one to believe in premonitions, and I had never asked anything like this before. Jim thought I was off my rocker. At 10:30 a.m. I received a message on my voicemail, "You are not going to believe this Honey, but I found Bacchus" was the message. My husband had found the cat, albeit not alive, under our shed. I could not help but ask myself what the chances were that we would find him the day I dreamt we would find him, the day I asked Jim to look for him. I was beginning to feel like the man in the joke, a person blind to reality when it did not jive with preconceived notions of how I felt the objective scientifically defined world was supposed to be. Was it possible a world, a spiritual, meaningful world, existed beyond the realm of my understanding. I was beginning to seriously consider the notion.

To be continued...