Kitten Ritual

Meet Cecil.  Cecil is about to be one year old, having been born in our carport last Memorial Day weekend.  He survives his mother and his siblings, Kittens A and B, and like most cats he has several names, Assistant Assistive Feline™ and The Pest being the most common. He is a fearless and problematic child, especially compared to his big sister Abigail (the Assistive Feline™), who has been calm and obedient her entire life.

He is pictured here demanding cuddle time, which he does by hopping up on my desk, approaching me, and launching his front paws out to my shoulder, followed by his stepping over and gluing himself to my torso. Nuzzles, chews, and rubs are all deployed to keep both of my hands scratching his chin and his rump, rather than on the keyboard.

Also like most cats he has his little rituals, one of which is the Singing of Breakfast. Because he's a kitten, he gets yummy wet food, which everyone else covets so he dines in his crate. Every morning, as I get his bowl ready, he meows and turns in circles; his cries are distinctive and specific: O MY GOD I'M STARVING I'M GOING TO DIE SOON. Then he hops in his crate and chows down. (Meanwhile Abbie has been quietly sitting at her own bowl waiting her turn.)

This morning, there was a disturbance in the force. Abigail's morning ritual is to be let out on the back porch where she can study the bird and squirrel population; then I let her in and we all go get breakfast. This morning, though, Cecil rushed out the door and into his cat tent — he has a cat tent — and wouldn't come out.  So I zipped him up in there and went to feed Abbie.

After I got his bowl filled and placed in the crate, I went back to the porch to see if he was ready to come in.  He was, and scampered down the hall to the kitchen.

When he got there, he saw his full bowl and stepped into the crate — and then stopped, backed out, and meowed and turned in circles briefly before heading in to eat.

This confirmed what I had suspected: in his mind, the Singing of Breakfast is what causes the food to happen. The fact that the food was there already this morning threw him for a loop; he couldn't eat until he performed his ritual.

This is like humans thinking it is their bonfires and their revelry that makes the sun reverse course somewhere around December 20 every year. They fall into the trap of thinking that it is the ritual that effects the change when in fact it's the opposite.

RITUAL, over-simplified

So, THE POINT IS, don't fall into that trap.  Don't start thinking that performing your rituals is what creates your work.  RITUAL is the tool where you get into the space where you do your work, but it doesn't make the work.

If that doesn't make sense, do not fear: you can read all about it in the book, or you can go read a series of posts here, starting with the The Purpose of RITUAL.