Ode to Jesse

Jesse =^.^= the Wonder Kitty
Autumn, 1995-January 14, 2010

Jesse was born in 1995; my friend Darci and I got her from the Humane Society when she was 6 weeks old. She loves Yuki, nori, salmon, hunting lizards and birds, and napping. Jesse and Yuki were a pair.

In her 15 years, Jesse travelled a lot with Yuki and me and Darci. Jesse lived and/or travelled in/to Athens, Georgia; Tucson, Arizona; Monterey, California; Charlottesville, Virginia; Northern New Mexico; Ashland, Oregon; and to Ojai and Santa Paula, California. Jesse's formal name was Jesse Jane,

Jesse was a great camper and spent time camping with us in the mountains of Northern Arizona, at the Grand Canyon, through the South (Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Texas), on the Central Coast of California and in Mendocino County.

Jesse loved rolling in the dirt, napping in the sun, and roaming through the tall grasses like a petite panther or a silky jaguar. She enjoyed laying on my chest or sleeping curled up next to Yuki or me. Jesse loved her big dog brother, Yuki, and often kissed and licked his nose, face, and feet!

Before Jesse, I had never been so close to a cat or even another animal... Yuki and I are close, of course, but Jesse and I were different. When I painted or wrote, Jesse would lay on my shoulders and she'd helped me pick out colors.

I hand-fed Jesse for a few moments everyday. Some of her favorite foods were: broccoli, brown rice, kabocha squash, salmon, sardines, nori, kim, cauliflower, and tuna.

Jesse always waited outside for me to come home whenever I had been gone. Or if inside, she would stick her little head up into the window ~ she always knew when i was approaching, even if I was on foot or on bicycle and not in my car.

Our new kitty, Bodhi, loved his big sister, even though Jesse did not feel quite the same way... However, they were compatible travel cats as we travelled in our car through many states together.

Thank you, Jesse, for always and for everything. We Love you so much.


































Enjoy more Jesse photos at the Jesse Set

Enjoy more Jesse & Yuki together photos at the Yuki & Jesse Together Set

The power of feeling and pretending in the Practice of the Way

I'm thinking a lot these days about the link between my thinking and feeling of things and what I experience - my so-called 'reality'. In my own experience, I see that the power of feeling/thinking trumps reality. In other words, what I think and feel creates my experiences of reality. More and more, I am choosing to use my thoughts and feelings in the service of becoming, manifesting, and learning all that I want to become, manifest, and learn. I say, why wait for a certain event or condition to feel joyous, healthy, and abundant in all ways? With continual practice, I experience being joy-filled now. I feel the great, good health that I enjoy now, and I give thanks for all the wonderful abundance that is mine here and now, and so on.

I learned from Thich Nhat Hanh that "there is no way to peace, peace is the way." That is, we must feel, practice, and pretend that the peace is inside of us (because it is), even in those times when the 'reality' outside of us claims otherwise. There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way. If we want to change reality, we must become the change we want to see (to paraphrase M.K. Gandhi), and to live what we want to change even while living in and with what we are wanting to change, is none other than the Practice of the Way. In his teaching, Tibetan Buddhist master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche used the metaphor of the Great Eastern Sun: "hold the sadness and pain of samsara in your heart and at the same time the power and vision of the Great Eastern Sun. Then the warrior can make a proper cup of tea." And if you know me, that's the main thing, a proper cup of tea :)



About the image:
This is teapot no. 11 (311) in my 100 Teapots Series, Set 4,
"The Book of tea and light infusion: written by God" (though it looks like Goo)


Watercolor and red fountain pen ink on 180 lb. Arches cold pressed paper
© Nicole Raisin Stern

Tea on Dash

"Tea on Dash" is teapot painting no. 55 in Set 4 of my 100 Teapot series paintings. I like painting my tea as I drink it.

No Coming, No Going

I titled this watercolor I made of Jesse & Yuki, No Coming, No Going, after a song by Sister Annabel Laity:

♫♫♪♫♫♪♫♫

No coming, no going, no after, no before;
I hold you close to me, I release you to be so free.
Because I am in you, and you are in me,
Because I am in you, and you are in me.

Here's the French version by Lily Gozlan:

Sans venir, et sans partir, ni avant, ni après.
Je te tiens près de moi, et te laisse pour être libre
Parce que je suis en toi, et tu es en moi,
Parce que je suis en toi, et tu es en moi.

♫♫♪♫♫♪♫♫

AbunDance

Today was the last Saturday Farmer's Market here in Ashland, Oregon. For three months, I have been eating the most nutritious delicious fresh organic produce from the farmers of the Rogue Valley. I appreciate the willingness of the farmers to trade their beautiful fruits & vegetables for my paintings and drawings; such a luscious trade of energies for which I am grateful!

≈ Celebrating Bodhi ≈

Bodhi, little happiness bringer, thank you for your joyful, confident light!

Bodhi came into this world one year ago today (29th of October, 2008). We met the next day.

For the first eight months of Bodhi's life, I posted photos often to flickr and created a Bodhi Set. Then...

On June 21st, 2009, in New Mexico, while Yuki, Jesse, Bodhi, and I were camping, Bodhi disappeared. He got spooked by the rumbling sound of a diesel engine in the campground. Although Bodhi was wearing a harness which was attached to a leash, tied with five knots to the picnic table, and in my arms at the time, he wriggled out -- to be free and safe from the scary sound. That was the last time we saw him. I had been feeding all of them a special treat of sardines at the time, hand-feeding little Bodhi, in my arms. I spent 2 weeks looking for Bodhi, staying at the campground and in the area, but he did not reappear.

I feel that Bodhi is still alive. I feel this everyday very strongly. We have talked. I also feel that Bodhi is happy and healthy, very playful and confident, just as he was when we were together physically.

At first, when he burst out of his harness like a bucking bronco, I was stunned. My arms were also scratched up and bleeding (but it didn't hurt). It all happened so quickly that I did not see which way he went or where he went. It's as if he exploded or burst into the sky and vanished.

When I did my daily searches for him -- walking and hiking in the area, talking to people, calling to him, registering at the local animal shelter, putting sardines into the have-a-heart-trap I borrowed, putting up posters, driving the nearby highway, etc. -- I sometimes thought I saw him. Is that Bodhi? A certain playful curl of a flattened rope or rag on the road made me stop to take a closer look; a black dumbbell on a bench seen from the window of a friend's camper looked like Bodhi in loaf position playfully waiting for me to see him.

~*~

I am not sad anymore. My heart expands with joy and gratitude whenever I imagine Bodhi. I feel Bodhi's utter confidence and lightness of being, and his playfulness and joy as my own joy... his best qualities seem to have strengthened those same attributes in my being and personality. Maybe I have become a great tree-climber, too! I have yet to test that one out... :)

Bodhi enjoyed a wonderful life with us, first in our home in Tucson, then across the country on our drive to Virginia and to Maggie's, and then again, across the country on our drive to New Mexico with Yuki and Jesse. During our 3-1/2 month stay in Virginia, Bodhi was best buds with Jasper, Maggie's 16-year old black cat. Jasper and Bodhi played together everyday. Bodhi enjoyed Maggie's kind care and loving attention, too. In particular, he liked that Maggie allowed him to curl up inside her large clay bowls (see below photo).

Bodhi nursed with Moxie, his tortoise shell mother, for a full 8 weeks, longer than any of his siblings. All the kittens lived, cuddled, and played together in Tucson at Moxie's house (just a hop and a skip from my house) with my neighbors Therese and José Luís.

Bodhi distinguished himself as an excellent climber early on, so much, that Therese and José Luís gave him the nickname of "Spider." I knew Bodhi was Bodhi from the first time I saw him, an awake one (from the Sanskrit root word, Bodh, meaning 'awake'). Bodhi's full name is Bodhi Seed "Spider" Stern.

I don't actually know if Bodhi is alive or dead. I feel he is alive and that he has good cat survival skills to enable him to live well in the mountains of Northern New Mexico. He was unusually smart and quick, a great climber, very curious and playful, and a happy, happy kitten with sharp claws with which to climb and hunt. Coyotes and foxes live in the area where we were camped. However, I believe that Bodhi's sharp claws and excellent tree-climbing ability have served him well. There are plenty of little animals (i.e., rodents) that Bodhi could hunt and also some houses in the area where he might have been taken in and/or where he could find food and shelter if he wants it. I see Bodhi enjoying his free life; I see him as happy.

The morning that Bodhi broke out of his harness, he was kissing and licking my face as we lay inside the tent, kissing me as he always did in the mornings. I kissed his soft furry chest and actually took some pictures of us and him, plus Yuki and Jesse. A little while later he was gone.

Maybe he missed us at first, like I missed him at first... But he is a cat and his survival skills are strong.

Maybe he will reappear. Maybe not. The shelter has a file on him and knows how to contact me if he is found. It could happen. And, when I talk to him, I tell him to let himself be found and brought to the shelter so we can come and bring him home.

Anyway, I am celebrating Bodhi today. I am so grateful we had 8 beautiful months together.

Happy Continuation Day, Happiness Bringer. Thank You

We love you, little Bodhi-chan.

A deciduous autumn

Drinking Ti Kuan Yin Oolong out of my everyday porcelain kyuusu with the sound of raindrops all around. Cool air, warm socks, hot tea, furry friends, colored pencils, watercolors, paper, and the swooping call of a bird. Wet, brown and yellow leaves are plastered to the green grass outside. A deciduous autumn.

eNvisioNing, N-less, eN-ee-way

The "N" key on my laptop is not working. In order to type an N, now, I have to copy and paste large and small "N"s or use the π sign for my πame, like so: ∏icole. Maybe if I turn the Z key around, I would get an N...

Missing the N shows me that "N"s appear often in words and it reminded me of a book I'd heard about, in which the author purposely wrote his story without using the letter E at all.