I am no stranger to the Goddess Bast, but I am no expert in her mysteries. I leave that up to Linda Iles, who wrote a wonderful book on the subject called Bast, Cat Goddess of Ancient Egypt. I recommend it to anyone seeking knowledge in that area. I have three cats at present: one 16 year old cream and white Tabby with ice blue eyes and no teeth named Lestat, one four year old silky black Bombay named Houdini, and one even younger white and black Tuxedo with a black smudge on his nose, named Zardoz. Yes. After the bad Sean Connery loin cloth movie. I thought it clever to name him that at the time.
Last Friday, Zardoz declined to eat his dinner. On Saturday, he declined to eat both breakfast and dinner, yet meowed as if he were hungry. He would approach the dish, but could not and would not eat. Sunday was the same. I worried over what could possibly be wrong. I asked him, even, but he only speaks cat.
A female voice came into my head then, which said, "Ask Duncan." Duncan is Linda's much beloved and missed, recently deceased Temple Cat and (inducted while living) Hierophant in the Fellowship of Isis. While I thought this odd, I figured since she was a High Priestess of Bast, it would do no harm to email Linda for Duncan's oracular advice. I deal with spirit all the time as a medium. It was logical to me that this could be spirit trying to help.
Duncan said it was pancreatitis, and Linda felt strongly that this could be so, or some other intestinal inflammation, but that he would be given medicine and be fine. There had been no vomiting or runny stool, and he seemed interested in playing, though I didn't want to tap his reserves. A weekend is a long time for a cat not to eat, and they can go downhill so very fast.
Monday morning, we took him straight to the vet, after he could only stomach two bites of food. They did a full battery ($534 worth) of ex-rays, tests and blood work, with little success in finding what was making him have such distress. I had felt little knots from just under his ribs down two inches towards his belly, and they had changed a little overnight.
The vet said all he could find in the ex-ray was that his small intestine was swollen and bulbous, not smooth as it should be, and there was fluid buildup around it, which concerned him with infection and inflammation. He gave Z a shot of antibiotics and something that would help him move whatever was stuck in there, down and out. We pondered if he had maybe eaten something plastic, as he has taken up Houdini's habit of chewing on the ends of plastic bags, not knowing why he does it (Houdini does it to tell me he is hungry, and does not bite off or swallow the plastic), but doing it because that’s what Houdini does. He takes on many of Houdini’s habits, and learns how to be a cat from him. The plastic was our best guess, since no foreign body was coming up on the pictures, but he did not pass anything, either.
We took him home that night, and coaxed him to eat a few bites of his food, but he could stomach no more than 1/4 of a small can, and turned it away. He tucked his little paws up under himself and squinted off in to space for a bit. The vet said to watch him and see what happened in the next 24 hours...and so we did.
I began asking friends to pray for him. Serena gathered her Temple Cat, Selkhet, and they prayed for him in her Temple of Bast. Linda lit a candle for him, and also prayed.
Tuesday morning, Zardoz did try to eat again, but only that 1/4 of a small can. When I arrived home from work, I fed him his dinner, and he went straight to the dish, ate 1/4 of the food, then lay uncomfortably on his side for a while, two feet from the bowl, staring wistfully at it. He then hopped up on the bed to doze. 20 minutes went by, and he jumped down again to try and eat, this time bringing the total eaten to about 1/3 of the can. He stopped again, laid down on his side near the dish, and again went back up on the bed where he dozed for much longer. It took so much effort for him to do something so simple. He didn’t want to give up, but was clearly having trouble.
I decided it was time I prayed to Bast. I curled up next to him and did some Reiki. Bast appeared in my mind’s eye. She took the form of the tall Bastet statue that sits on my dresser and I heard her say, "I want him for my Temple," and she did not mean figuratively. She meant Bubastis. She laid hands on him and licked his head and told him he would be her temple cat. I begged her not to take him, and it was clear she was waiting for more from me. Bast wanted me to give him up. I could and would not do it.
I asked Zardoz if we should make an offering to Bast of his fur, after I groomed him with a comb, which he was agreeable and fine with. I kissed his little head, told him not to worry, and went to her statue on the dresser, which I had recently used in ritual at Isis Oasis honoring her (on borrow from Loreon's shoppe at the time). After the ritual, I had felt strongly I should take it home with me...So I had bought her from Loreon with no regrets. She is standing upright as a woman with a cat's head, painted black, with gold detail in her jewelry and gown. Her eyes are golden cat eyes, and she holds her sistrum in one hand, and a basket in the other.
I placed his tuft of fur behind her basket-hand, and began to beseech her. I told her that indeed, I understand why she chooses him--his disposition is all kindness and love, and he is a very polite and wonderful spirit, does not bite, scratch or have a harmful bone in his body. I reminded her that he is also a very young spirit and has not had his time on earth.
I looked back at him on the bed, and he seemed listless. When the tears came, knowing we were walking that fine line between worlds with Bast, I offered my tears to her mouth. I told her how much I loved him, and that she could have him as her Temple Cat, if only she would let him do his work here on earth for his cat-body lifetime, so that we could continue to love and protect him, and enjoy his spirit with us. I asked her to please not take him yet, and told her that he could do her work through me, or I through him--whatever she wished—while simultaneously being her Temple Cat, and living cat on Earth. He could be both human companion and honored Goddess companion.
I told her I would light the largest white candle I had for her, and I would place it in my most grand crystal lotus holder, there at her feet. Both candle and holder were relatively new, and had never been used. When I lit the flame, it settled a bit, and I beseeched her again. I offered her honoring in whatever way she saw fit; that I would do anything she asked. That I would include her in my poem-ritual, writing one to honor her at Convocation (I had originally placed her and Anubis in the dry-run, but took them out since the Convocation theme is Isis and Osiris, replacing them with Horus and Wadjet).
At that precise moment, the candle flame flared. Zardoz got up, hopped down, and ate some more...almost 2/3 of the food. Bast had answered. He would be well, and she would not take him. He would be her Temple Cat, and I would care for him on Earth for his lifetime here. I thanked her profusely, and told her I would honor her well.
When Zardoz got back up to doze on the bed again, I decided to open up The Book of Doors Divination Deck by Anthon Veggi and Alison Davidson I had gotten in the mail that day. He became interested in this; I was careful not to let him have any of the plastic coverings, and tucked them inside the box. He got up and sniffed the book, nosed it, and sniffed again, sitting upright.
I opened the cards and he was ever-so interested in those. Having not had time to read or use the materials, all I could do was shuffle the deck for him as I often did my tarot, and spread them out for him on the bed. He sniffed them and I told him to choose a card. It would be his first act as a Temple Cat. He sniffed again, then went around to the opposite side, the place where someone would be when getting a reading. He found the card he wanted, and tried to nose one up and over, to no success. I turned the card over for him.
It was Pet - 7 - Sesheta, which literally means "to write" in the deck's hand book. Satisfied and finished with his divination, he hopped down and ate the rest of his food. I was overjoyed. Bast's friendly nudge to honor her was not left to misinterpretation--I got the message loud and clear. So I am writing this story for her today, and will write a poem-ritual for her later.
All in all, it took Zardoz a full two hours to eat that entire small can that night, stopping and going, but he did not quit. When I went to blow the candle out that I had lit for Bast before bed, her eyes were wholly dark, and it was as if the statue had come alive. When I blew the flame out, her eyes snapped back to the golden ones of the statue, and the link between worlds was gone.
I woke at 3am worrying about him. I picked him up and laid him on the bed, to which he purred and rolled over so I could rub his belly. I tried to do more Reiki, but as I pictured the spirals of clean white healing energy encompassing him and his organs, I was met by Bastet's smooth black statue-skin, which covered him like a cocoon. I could only penetrate and do so much. She wanted me to let her do her work, and so I did. I was still fearful that he may not get better, but kept telling myself to trust in the magic I had experienced.
When I woke again at 5:30am, I went to feed the cats. Zardoz went immediately to his dish, and ate the full can within 20 minutes. He then purred and did his "Mom, I'm done...can I go now?" meows to be let out of the room. Before I left for work, I played with him using his favorite toy.
I looked back on recent events; The Bast and Sekhmet ritual I did at Isis Oasis, at the request of Serena—a Priestess of Bast. The distinct feeling that I should take that statue used in ritual of Bastet home, though I did not know why at the time. Linda's heart-wrenching tale of Duncan's passing, and seeing his photos and learning more about him. Hearing the ominous feminine voice that I took for spirit, to ask Duncan what might be wrong with Zardoz when he fell ill, which I did not know then was Bast. The serendipity of Linda being a High Priestess of Bast, and Duncan being a Temple Cat through many lifetimes, and his consultation being correct. Even the baffled vet, who did everything he could do, but still could not find a reason for the sudden sickness. The overwhelming knowledge when her presence was in the room, and those dreaded words, "I want him for my temple," knowing she would take him. Bargaining with Bast, not knowing if it worked...until the candle flared, and he got up and ate, followed by the Sesheta card.
As Linda said, when I wrote her of this progress, we have been touched by Bast. I am now a guardian of a Temple Cat for her, as her guardians have done for me in my lifetimes. I am both proud and fearful of her choice in him. What will that mean for him? I know he is blessed, and for that I am grateful, and respectful. He now has a burden to bear in his service, but I hope it will be a happy burden, and a magical one. I have never felt Bast’s presence in that way. It was always playful and curious before, with some mystery thrown in, whenever I felt her energy. This time it was ancient, spicy, omnipotent and benevolent--very powerful, and full up in the room. It was heavy with intention. It conjured in me a healthy respect of her, and a little bit of fear. But it was also very caring and smart. It was as if she needed me to agree that she should have him, and offer him up to her in a particular way that pleased her. The bargain to let him live his full life on Earth was not hard; she acquiesced as if it were meant to be, but made me ever-mindful that she could have taken his life at any moment, to serve her on the other side.
He was chosen, I think, for his pure spirit. I love him even more, every day, and am thoroughly blessed to have him in my life.
Bast walks with Wadjet. Wadjet protects pharaoh, and paves the way for the coming of Isis and Osiris. These will be the invocations, I think, for Convocation.
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