CarolynRelei, Author at Reflections

We Visited Playa del Carmen Several Times

We first visited Playa del Carmen in 1991 or 1992 on a stop toward the Tulum ruins and points south. Playa del Carmen at that time had sand streets, a few one story small hotels near the beach, and a sign advertising a not yet built development called Playacar. The ferry to Cozumel was the draw that brought most visitors, as Playa’s population was very small.

Map showing Playa del Carmen on the coast south of Cancun. — Playa del Carmen lies south of Cancun and north of Tulum on the Mayan Riviera of Quintana Roo, Mexico.

We were surprised by the well-developed city we found here when we returned in 2021. We stayed several weeks while we considered making our home here. But we wanted to see a little more of Mexico before deciding.

In January, 2022, we left Playa to travel more around Mexico. We stayed from days to several months in various Mexican cities.

When we returned this past spring, we leased a newer condo with a great pool and a view from the roof. After our lease expired we moved to a bigger and older condo two blocks from the beach and two blocks from 5th Avenue. I am really happy to be close to 5th Avenue, a walking street, where pedestrians rule!

5th Avenue

5th Avenue is a walking street in the tourist area of Playa del Carmen. It’s lined with restaurants, bars and shops selling clothing, handcrafts and more. I suspect that lots of the handcrafts are mass produced in China. In any case, the shops are eye catching. Live entertainment in many of the restaurants and bars as well as street performers in exotic looking costumes capture or assault the senses. I love walking streets and 5th Avenue doesn’t disappoint.

Running parallel to the beach, 5th Avenue extends for about five kilometers, with the action becoming quieter as the street extends further from the center of town. On the beach itself, there are often public events. Crystal bowl, copal, and meditation ceremonies at the new and full moon attract many visitors.

We swim when the water is calm and beautifully clear.

The Beaches

I often walk to the beach at dawn, which is a common activity for people who live here. At that hour, a quiet vibe prevails, unlike later on in the day when the beach is crowded with sunbathers, vendors, swimmers and music. Early in the morning, some take pictures as the golden orb crests above the clouded horizon, others sit to welcome the sun in meditation, while others begin their morning swim.

A Woman Sounds Her Gong at Dawn at Playa del Carmen — A Woman Sounds Her Gong at Dawn

Sandwiched between the mornings spent at the ocean and the evening visits to the beach or 5th Avenue, the rest of the day here is usually uneventful for us. We haven’t found a native market, but there are supermarkets, where we get just about everything we need, and smaller produce markets.

Getting Around

Our new neighborhood is in a pricey taxi district, so we usually walk to a different zone if we need to take a taxi to somewhere further away.

When we want to go outside of Playa, Robert rents a car. We’ve so far visited several of the archaeological sites on the Yucatan Peninsula. We have plans to visit more.

Archaeological sites are less than a day's drive from Playa del Carmen. — The Yucatan Peninsula is rich with Mayan sites. Playa del Carmen is within less than a day’s journey to most of them.

I Still Have Hobbies

Recently I decided that I wanted to sew or at least play around with sewing. I was able to find two used machines for sale that are identical to the ones that I left behind in California. I now lack nothing in the sewing department.

Cleaned up, tuned up and ready to use, the two in front are my purchases from Playa.

Buying the machines was interesting in itself, because both of the machines were located in the non-touristy area of Playa. It was kind of an adventure to go into the different neighborhoods. And it meant that I was finally learning enough Spanish that I could ask how the machine ran before I bought it.

Equanimity

Having it all, or not?
It’s never all there, is it? You have a love in your life, but your beloved mom is no longer around. You have great ideas, but not enough money to fund them. Or the big dream house, that you finally could afford, feels empty because your loved ones work and live elsewhere and they never come to visit you. Or, you finally figured out what a great partner you have, but he is now into someone else. You have lots of energy, but lack the wisdom to use it wisely. Conversely, you lack energy, yet have great ideas for what you would do if you had the energy to do it. You have what you want, but you don’t have everything you want all at the same time. You think about it, you deal with it with as much equanimity as you can muster, and go forward in life, with that piece missing. Should that piece come back into your life, another piece may leave.

Yin and Yang, light and dark, in and out, the play of opposites.

Complementary Practices

The practice of yoga, with its postures, meditation, breath work and mantra, gives the opportunity to find equanimity amid changes, to be able to dive down, however temporarily, into that deep still part of oneself that knows not sadness, excitement, or fear.

The study of astrology gives the gift of using the mind. The mental questioning part of oneself, the part that thinks about problems and fears, will learn to identify the patterns which correlate with the changeable moods, feelings and thoughts. Astrology allows us to categorize and analyze patterns that correlate with our mental, emotional and physical states. The transitory part of ourselves, the thinking and feeling part that has opinions, takes on challenges, feels pain and expresses itself as separate and different from others becomes a field of self-observation.

The astrology chart is the visible representation of the energies that form our personalities at the moment of our birth. — The Birth Chart (Horoscope) in astrology is a representation of the entire sky, both above and below the horizon, at the moment of our birth.

Our idiosyncrasies, our uniqueness, strengths, talents, and challenges reveal themselves more clearly through the lens of this ancient complex and fascinating system.

Time to Learn

If you, dear reader, haven’t yet delved into the practice of yoga, this is an opportune time to start. There are teachers everywhere, in person, online, in apps on the computer and smart phones, on DVDs, and books.
For learning astrology, there are webinars, online classes, podcasts, books, YouTube teachers, and organizations like the NCGR, with meetings in the larger urban areas.

An Era of Opportunities

We live in a time of great unfoldment and learning possibilities. From history we learn that times of great awakening and knowledge can end, sometimes abruptly.

As the Roman Empire gradually crumbled, the infrastructure of roads, protected by loyal soldiers, also crumbled. Roving bands of thieves harassed travelers. The increase in danger prevented people from traveling, trading, and exchanging ideas. Safety was only found in sheltered fortress-like towns and in monasteries. Historians labeled that era the Dark Ages.

We don’t live in a Dark Age now, though in some urban areas, people are afraid to go out at night or to walk home from school in the afternoon. Life on this planet is changeable and unpredictable. Because opportunities right now are all around us, now, this present moment, is an excellent time to grasp them.

Travel Tips for the Absent-Minded or Newbie Flyers

Here are some travel tips based on my own experience.

Purse and Fanny Pack

1. A purse is my airline approved “personal item”. I also use a fanny pack that is big enough for tissue, passport, my phone and a few small items I want securely close to my body. The fanny pack doesn’t seem to count toward the carry-on allowance.

2. My purse is roomy enough for a change of clothes and a few personal items. I like that I don’t have to dig through it to use my phone or pull out my passport, as those are in my fanny pack. Most airlines consider a purse to be a “personal item”. It can be fairly big, but it has to fit under the seat in front of you. Check your airline’s website for a detailed description of what constitutes a personal item and its maximum size.

My favorite purse is a Baggallini shoulder bag. Inside my purse I stitched cords to which I secure my wallet and other small items. My wallet, key and passport holder have loops that I stitched on them, so I can snap them onto or off of the cords. The idea wasn’t mine originally. An old travel purse was made that way, but, since my Baggallini bag had none, I decided to add them myself. Though my effort has an amateurish look, the result works as desired. After accidentally leaving my wallet on a store counter one day and then walking out of the store, I realized that all my valuables should always be tethered to the inside of my purse.

I sewed a cord into the purse for clipping on my wallet or key. — The purse has a cord for securing my wallet.

Backpack or Carry-on Suitcase

3. The backpack or carry-on luggage has everything else for a short trip.

4. Since Robert and I actually have lived out of suitcases for a large part of two years of travel, we also have checked bags. But if we go simply on a short vacation trip, the fanny pack, purse and carry-on suitcase or backpack would serve me well.

Shoes

4. I wear shoes that are easy to slip on and off, as US flights require the removal of shoes when going through security.

Laptop

5. At security, if you have a laptop in your backpack, you must remove it and place it in the tray to go through the scanner. It can’t remain in the backpack, even though the whole backpack will go through the scanner too. I take the laptop out of it protective cover before getting into the security line. But I put the protective cover back onto it before walking toward the boarding gate.

Warm Clothes

6. I wear layers of clothes. Airports and airplanes can be quite chilly. Wearing the clothes will keep you warm. If you are too hot, you can take off a layer if you want to. Wearing the layers saves space in your luggage, too.

Drinks Avoidable and Necessary

7. The planes are packed full these days. Don’t expect a roomy flight. No one seems to get up to use the bathroom on these crowded flights. If you have any urinary weakness, do not drink coffee before you board the plane!

8. Part of the necessary expenses of flying is having to dump your water bottle at security, only to have to buy bottled water inside. And it’s pricey. But you really should not let yourself get dehydrated, be sure to buy water for yourself if you are going to be sitting around in the airport lounge for a while.

Water in some countries is not considered potable. I assume that includes tap water in airports.

Gum

9. One of the travel tips that I recently learned was to have chewing gum with me on flights. When my ears started hurting upon descent, a woman next to me gave me chewing gum, saying it would help. Chewing the gum really did clear the pain away as we landed. I will always fly with a pack of gum from now on.

More Travel Tips

You surely can easily find more travel tips by searching on the web. Here is a site I found that you may like: www.worldpackers.com/articles/first-time-travelers

A Short Visit to Izamal

We decided to make a short visit to Izamal, near Merida. Izamal was the first of Mexico’s Pueblo Mágicos. The magic of Izamal is not just the beautiful yellow color of its buildings and abundance of plants. Izamal also has Mayan pyramids, historic churches, and a huge public square, complete with horse-drawn cart rides.

Izamal's buildings are a bright golden shade of yellow.

The central area’s streets are cobblestone. The cobblestones seem to be set deeper than those in some other historical town I have walked in, so they didn’t poke into my shoes.

Our horse drawn carriage ride took us by each of the four large pyramid sites in Izamal. Later that day we walked to view them. They were not all open for exploration. We climbed the largest accessible structure, though, which seemed enormous. Climbing the side to what we thought was the top gave us access to a large grassy platform, itself the base of a smaller pyramid.

The grassy platform is the top of a very large pyramid supporting this smaller pyramid structure. — Izamal’s largest pyramid KINICH KAK MOO has a plateau that supports this smaller pyramid.

Though Izamal is as famous as other Pueblos Magicos, it is bound to become better known in a short time. Soon, it will be a stop for the new Mayan train that encircles the Yucatan. I’m glad that Robert and I got to visit it beforehand. We climbed the pyramids and enjoyed a horse drawn cart ride. In the evening, we watched and listened as hundreds of birds flitted about in the public square jockeying for roosting space in the trees. https://youtube.com/shorts/Mi46-s8TYeM?si=iQIafgwk61wVoWLI

Izamal shows off its status as a Pueblo Magico with festive decorations.

I would gladly visit this charming and ancient Pueblo Magico again. If you go to Izamal, you may enjoy learning more at this site A Day in Izamal: The Magic Town & Its Massive Pyramid – Sailingstone Travel.

Prince Harry in the News

Birth Chart and Delineation

When Prince Harry was in the news a while ago, I looked up his birth chart and share here my short delineation.

If I did a cold reading of his chart, without knowing his name, profession or anything about him, here are some things I would notice and remark upon. I would see the Mars in Sagittarius, indicating that he likes to move his body freely, sports would include running, climbing, and any competitive tournaments. Since Sagittarius is a crusader at times, I would advise that he has the capacity to be ruthless in promoting or coercing others to adopt or harbor his philosophy or world views. With this Mars in the eleventh house, he applies this approach to society as a whole or his friends.

Prince Harry Birth Chart — Prince Harry Capricorn Rising, Moon in Taurus, Sun in Virgo

Smarter than He Seems

The next planet that I notice is his Mercury in Virgo. He isn’t stupid. Mercury in Virgo is an analyst and sometimes sharp with words. Combined with his Sun in the same sign, he is smarter than he seems, but too focused on details to see the big picture, often getting lost in minutiae, and he may alienate others with his sharp words. The mind here is analytical without vision. However, the position of these planets in the eighth house indicates that he has the capacity to go within, to drop out, to be alone and ponder. Jupiter and Neptune in the 12th house additionally indicate capacity, indeed need, to hide away and be alone. Here they also give capacity for secret philanthropy. Neptune and Jupiter here also expand psychic and emotional energies coming from deep within, can create self-imposed or community imposed isolation and seeking altered states of consciousness.

North and South Nodes

In this short analysis of his chart, I would note that the north and south node positions show a familiarity, though discomfort, with status and career with eventual comfort in home and later in ancestry. The moon in the fourth is a strong indicator of the importance of his mother (and father) in his life and his family in general.

Secret Philanthropy

Because the houses show where we “do” our lives and the planets and signs show what we do, here are my further thoughts:

He would benefit from doing actual secret philanthropy, charity behind the scenes, in institutions like hospitals or prisons. Family life suits him well. When I see several planets in the 8th house in someone’s chart, I often find out that death has made itself known to them in a tragic way. Facing endings, death, is a very hard lesson and the eighth house also asks us to embrace the “what’s next” and to recognize the cycle of life in all its aspects. That is why we associate the eighth house not only with death, but with sex, and recycling, and the renewal of anything by transformation into a new form. This could be a life work for the material, practical Virgo, who isn’t always able to envision the ineffable realities very well.

Seems that Prince Harry is voicing his desire to live his own chart, his written and spoken reality is congruent with this chart I see before me, right, wrong or indifferent, and his Virgo Mercury is doing the speaking.

I’ve written a short blog post about his royal relative Edward VIII at https://blog.carolynrelei.com/edward-viiis-impressions-of-ms-simpson/

Wallace Simpson and Edward VIII

The quote below is from an unearthed memoir of Edward VIII that intrigued me enough to look up both of their natal charts. Looking at their charts, I easily saw that Edward VIII’s impressions of Ms. Simpson accurately describe a Gemini stellium which is prominent in Wallace Simpson’s chart. (A stellium is a grouping of several planets all in the same sign).

The screenshot below captures the intriguing point. View the article which contains the quote at https://mol.im/a/12673407

Edward VIII spoke of how he admired Wallace Simpson for her wit and vivaciousness. — The essence of a Gemini stellium personality

Now, let’s look at the chart itself!

Wallace Simpson natal chart — Planets are grouped in Gemini in Ms. Simpson’s chart

Edward VIII natal astrology chart — Edward VIII also has a grouping in Gemini

Fascinated by the talkative, mercurial Wallace Simpson, Edward VIII’s impressions of Ms. Simpson read like a classic textbook of astrological keywords for Gemini. The interrelatedness of both of their Gemini planets fostered communication, travel, and connections. Of course, some of the travel is because of their position of near or actual exile. History hasn’t been very kind to this couple. Edward VIII’s moon in the first house in Pisces is a position of a psychic sponge and sometimes indicates a quitter or an individual who doesn’t have enough fight in him to see things through to a desired outcome. Though some call the quitting cowardice, I feel that the moon in Pisces often sees the world as an illusion. It wouldn’t be hard to quit something that interiorly seems at times to have so little substance.

If you are interested in the chart of a more modern royal, you will find my post by clicking blog.carolynrelei.com/prince-harry-in-the-news

Major and Minor Influencers, San Francisco 1966

There were major and minor influencers in San Francisco whose legacy continues today. I was fortunate to encounter many of them there.

Acid Rock Music and Peace Marches

Returning from Europe in July 1966, after almost a year of travel, I was immersed in the San Francisco vibe. This was the period of acid rock, Be-ins, the Oracle, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Jefferson Airplane. The venue was the Avalon Ballroom. Our friend, Woody, had a gig as the Master of Ceremonies at the Avalon. Mentioning his name at the box office gave us free entry. During the fall of 1966 through the spring of 1967, we went to the rock concerts weekly, seeing the above mentioned groups and many more.

Peace marches attracted attention with signs and rock groups accompanied the marchers

Besides the rock concerts at the Avalon, there were anti-war demonstrations, marches and celebrations. We attended many of them, mostly by chance, simply by walking into Golden Gate Park or taking the bus to the Panhandle.

I wasn’t in the best of health then, having contracted amoebic dysentery in Egypt. The antibiotics had stopped the virulence of it, but my body wasn’t dealing with food very well yet.

I Made Healing My Focus

My greatest desire was to have good health. So on my “trips” I focused on my body, looking inward, asking what it needed to be well.

My internal and external exploration for healing my body bore fruit. By the the summer of 1967, we were completely living a new lifestyle. Early morning and late evening yoga practice, eating vegetarian food, mantra meditation, and walks to the ocean became a daily routine. The beach below Lincoln Park was relatively deserted in those days. On the beach we often sat patiently to watch barnacles catch their prey in the tide pools.

Time at the beach below Lincoln Park was meditative and healing.

Our path was brightened by the luminaries who lived in San Francisco during that seminal period. Influencers and teachers included A.C.Bhativadanta Swami, Richard Hittleman, Suzuki Roshi, Eknath Easwaran and Sivaram. Many swamis from India taught classes or gave lectures. Timothy Leary was there from time to time. Standing next to him in line one day, I sensed his energy to be nervous and scattered, quite unlike the disciplined energy of the teachers of yogic meditation that were sharing their wisdom with us.

Master Subramuniya’s Influence

There, too, was the relatively unknown yogi, Master Subramuniya, whose ashram was a few blocks from our apartment. While we experienced many in-person classes with several of the important spiritual influencers, we never met Master Subramuniya, though we attempted to attend events at his ashram on more than one occasion.

His influence, though, was through his guest appearances on a nighttime talk show. People called in to ask him questions about their experiences opening the doorways of perception with LSD or mescaline. I remember one of Subramuniya Swami’s calm responses. He explained to the caller, based on the caller’s description of his experience, which chakra was being activated. He explained the psychedelic experience through the lens of yogic states of consciousness.

Explorers in a Strange Land

It’s probably hard to fathom that, in the 1960s, the effects of psychedelic drugs were little known to most people. Like travelers in a land that hasn’t been mapped yet, we were all explorers.

And, while Timothy Leary made the news, others were quietly planting seeds of world views that would bear various kinds of fruit.

Though Subramuniya Swami did not introduce me to yoga, nor was he my guru, I want to acknowledge him in this blog as someone who made reasonable sense out of the chaos of experiences during that tumultuous time. You can learn more about him at the link below.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sivaya_Subramuniyaswami

Xel-Ha Archaeological Site

Xel-Ha archaeological site is easy to visit on the way to Tulum from Playa del Carmen. We had a lovely visit to view the ruins and the cenote. I forgot to use mosquito repellent, so I brought home some itchy souvenirs all over my body. Apart from the mosquitoes, the site is peaceful and parklike.

beautiful cenote at Xel-Ha — The view of this beautiful cenote was the reward at the end of our walk along the *sacbe*

We walked along the ancient sacbe, which is a causeway or raised road, which took us to a structure and to a beautiful cenote. I haven’t done the research, but the structure’s proximity to the sacbe caused me to guess that perhaps it served as a kind of “guard house” to screen people or goods coming toward the city on that ancient road.

This structure sits near the path of the *sacbe*

When we visited Coba archaeological site, we learned that a sacbe connected Coba to Xel-Ha in pre-Colombian times. The sacbe facilitated trade between Xel-Ha and Coba. Xel-Ha provided goods from the sea and shore such as fish and shellfish.

The number of structures that we saw indicated that this was no small village, but a place of substantial population and importance. There are also archaeological remains across the modern highway 307 at the Xel-Ha park. We didn’t see those on this visit, as it is not connected to the Xel-Ha archaeological site.

Altogether the visit to the site took an hour or two.

Arne Trettevik: The Star Shaman of South Palm Canyon – California Desert Art by Ann Japenga

https://www.californiadesertart.com/arne-trettevik-the-star-shaman-of-south-palm-canyon/

Arne Trettevik: The star Shaman of South Palm Canyon and his art is the subject of the article linked above.

Several years ago Ann Japenga interviewed me. Ann is a writer based in Palm Springs. She wanted to know about the artist who painted the paintings that I was selling. My response piqued her interest enough that she wrote the above article.

Arne, the subject of Ann Japenga’s article, introduced me to the wonders of Mayan archaeological ruins. Until I saw his slides (photos), I didn’t know much about what Mexico and Central America offered. His seven month journey in Mexico, Belize and Guatemala inspired me.

The gallery below has a small sample of his photos. Unfortunately, my scans of the original beautiful Ektachrome slides are somewhat drab.

Photos taken in 1962: Isla Mujeres, Campeche, cenote at Chichen Itza, unknown volcano, Villahermosa and the PanAmerican Highway,

This is Star Shaman Arne in 1962 — Photos taken in 1962: Isla Mujeres, Campeche, cenote at Chichen Itza, unknown volcano, Villahermosa and the PanAmerican Highway,

Shortly after I viewed Arne’s beautiful slides of his unusual (for the times) journey, he invited me to come down to Mexico to see for myself. Without hesitation, I did, and we spent several years together studying and traveling. In those days we climbed the pyramids and often we were the only visitors around.

Ultimately, there is something about being alone in these ruins that expanded our awareness of different cultures and ways of being. Travel, in general, changes the traveler. Here, in the ruins, my sense of connection to nature and spirit was enhanced.

It’s some sixty years later and I am still fascinated by this region. Most recently, I visited Xel-Ha archaeological site with Robert. I wrote a blog post about Coba with photos here. I plan to visit more of the sites. Although I earned my master of arts degree in Cultural Ecology by doing scholarly research on the region, my visits now are strictly for my own enjoyment.

Kitty Boot Camp

Kitty Boot Camp: a true cat story

This photo of of a black cat who looks very similar to our original feral cat momma.

Kitty Boot Camp: a true cat story tells about some of the behaviors that we observed when we built a house near a colony of feral cats and their offspring. I’ll explain the behavior “kitty boot camp” later.

During the 1990s, we built a home on acreage in a rural subdivision in the California foothills. While working on the initial construction, our builder encountered an apparently vicious cat. She was hiding in the air conditioner ductwork. She bit and scratched the contractor when he tried to pull her out.

Busy as we were, working and commuting to our home and the construction site daily, we forgot our contractor’s cat story. But one day my son heard kittens mewing. A somewhat flattened large box, discarded and not yet hauled to the dumps, lay on the ground . It was in this box that my son found the kittens.

Since it was the rainy time of year, we wanted to rescue the kittens from the storms. Robert suggested the perfect place to shelter them. He lined a small cardboard box, placed the kittens in it and put it under the wraparound porch. The momma cat immediately joined her kittens there. We brought milk and tidbits for momma cat and peeked under the porch sometimes to view them. Momma cat kept her distance from us, at first. Eventually, though, she warmed up to following us around the property when we went on walks.

The wraparound porch sheltered the kittens. It was under the wraparound porch that the feral momma cat revealed the food part of cat culture to us.

A Balance of Nature

At that time, where we lived, there was not an overabundance of cats. Coyotes, mountain lions and other predators roamed there. There were foxes. And there were mice and rodents. The subdivision wasn’t completely built out yet, many lots were empty. The lots themselves were large, up to 5 acres, and some had springs of fresh water. There was a kind of balance of nature. We hadn’t gotten acquainted with the cat as an individual pet, as we later would with her descendants. She was a part of the wild ecosystem that established itself before we moved there.

But I couldn’t resist playing with the kittens and feeding them. The kittens were so friendly and adorable. After a while, I was the “cat lady” of the area. Nearby neighbors often asked for a cat for their own place. Everyone needed a good mouser around their property. Some of our porch kittens, though, stayed, grew up near our house, and had kittens of their own.

This kitten became a valued part of our home.

Although it is hard for an urban dweller to imagine a place where there are not enough cats, cats were in demand in this area at that time. With so many predators thinning out their numbers and many rodents roaming around, cats were valued and useful.

Male Cat Bonding

Two of the cats stayed for years on our property. One cat was the daughter of the original black feral female and the other was a male black cat who apparently was the progenitor of many of the cats in the colony. The old male had a peaceful personality. We would encounter him sitting on a log, just so calmly. We never fed him, he was completely independent and lived off the land. In later years, his grown-up son, who had become somewhat of a pet for us, could be seen sometimes calmly sitting at the old male’s side. For us, this non-confrontational behavior between the elder and younger cat was unbelievable. We didn’t know about what we now call “cat culture”, because we had only ever known city cats, who are often stressed about territory.

Boot Camp for Kittens

A survival aspect of the cat behavior of our “tribe” of cats was what Robert referred to as “kitty boot camp”. The mother cat and her kittens lived in a cloth lined cardboard box on the porch. She nursed them, cleaned them and then went off into the brush for a while to hunt and bring back tidbits for them. When the kittens were about 6 weeks old or so, mother and kittens all disappeared. In about a week they came back.

A vivid memory from those years is of a day when the cat we named Rascal came up out of the brush followed by her nine proud kittens, single file, all with their short fat tails pointing straight up to the sky. The tiniest of them was the last in line. They marched up to the porch and climbed into their “nursery” box. They had successfully returned from a week of “boot camp”, where, we surmised, mother cat taught them to hunt and survive in nature.
The “boot camp” with the kittens was repeated with each litter and was common for all the mother cats and kittens that grew up on the porch.

Arranging the Catch to Entice the Kittens to Eat Solid Food

The first cat we became acquainted with, the feral female, revealed how displaying the catch was part of a cat culture ritual as well. As this was the group of kittens we rescued from the big refrigerator box who sheltered under the porch, we easily observed them. One day Robert went down to peek at the feral cat’s kittens and came rushing up to tell me “you have got to come down right now and see this, she has a kitten cafeteria there!”

I went to see and what I saw was three mice, a couple of lizards and a few large grasshoppers laid carefully in a row from largest to smallest as if an imaginary line marked the bottom of the display. The mother cat had so neatly arranged the catch to display to her kittens, that it looked like a human cafeteria display. The cat’s remarkable natural talents included food arrangement and we were very impressed!

They Moved with Us

When we sold our property we took the cats with us. By then, the tribe had become domestic, tame kitties, ready for city life, vaccinated and “fixed”. There were six of them who moved with us to the city and stayed with us for years. The last to leave us, at the age of 19, was the beautiful Siamese pictured here. She, also, was a descendant of the old, friendly feral black male.

This Siamese cat is actually one of the descendants of the original feral male. — We named this cat Dali. She came with us when we moved from our rural property to the city. At our property, she displayed the same traits as the rest of her relatives described in Kitty Boot Camp. As a city pet she was an honored member of our household.