Good Evening,
This is a picture of Baby Boy Shadow, one of the kittens of Enchantments. He was born along with two brothers and a sister on December 8th, 2008. I wanted to share his story with you because today he went for his tri-annual wellness visit to the vet and I started to think back to the evening they were born.
For those who are not aware of the kittens of Enchantments, on October 22nd, 2008 their mother, a small black cat with a white tip on the very end of her tail walked into Enchantments and came right up the stairs, along with a few students who were coming to class, and walked into my office. She proceeded to curl around my ankles, I had been standing in my office talking to a student, and started to purr. I looked down and said "Well, hello!" What a brave little cat to come into a strange building with people she didn't know. It was still warm out, that October and I put her back outside in case she had just wandered away from home. But I decided, if she was still around in the morning, considering she was a black cat and Halloween was just around the corner, that I would take her in, just for her safety.
Well, the next morning she was still there, hiding in one of our outdoor cauldrons! I brought her in, fixed her up with food, water and litter box and welcomed her to Enchantments. A few days later it became apparent she was pregnant. I took her to the vet and made sure she had medical care and then on December 8th, she started to give birth. Myself, along with Ms. Laurel who also works at Enchantments, acted as midwives as Calli (the name I gave the small black mama to be) gave birth to four perfect, beautiful kittens. Baby Boy Shadow, pictured above and again further down, was the last to be born. He came out completely black, like a little shadow, and was by far the smallest of the bunch.
I remember he was slow to strengthen in the beginning. He was slower than the others and ofttimes just laid back and looked weak and sickly. I brought him to the vet and they said he was generally healthy, just small and a typical runt of the litter. Later that day he was just laying on his side and he looked very listless and weak. I went home and couldn't help thinking about him. Later that night, it was quite late, I decided to go back to Enchantments to check on him. The mother cat had moved all her babies into the warm closet in my office, where she felt safer, and I saw the little one looked even more listless. He just laid still in my hand when I picked him up.
I thought about what I could do magickally and decided to take down from a hook one of my cloaks, an emerald green cloak, that I had worn in ritual. I knew green was the color for physical healing and I thought the energy from the cloak might be just what the poor little one needed. I put the cloak on the floor of the closet and placed mama and babies on it. I held the littlest one and felt healing energy flowing from my hands into his tiny little body, then asked the Goddess to bless him and to make him stronger. I laid him down and went home that night. When I got home I lit a candle and again asked the Goddess for her help in making Baby Boy Shadow stronger and healthier.
The next morning I went to work and had a happy surprise! Baby Boy Shadow was tumbling around with his bigger brothers and sister and nursing with much more vigor than he had before. In a few weeks he was as big as his siblings and he had a voracious appetite. As a matter of fact, Shadow was the first kitten to climb up a large bag of dry cat food (generously donated by a fan of the kittens) chew a hole in the corner of the bag and start to chow on the dry kibble! We had to take the dry food away from him as the vet said it was too early for him to chew dry food and he could choke! But it certainly didn't stop him from trying.
I thought of Baby Boy's earliest days today when he was at the vets and he weighed in at a respectable and healthy, for him, 16 lbs! The vet said he was larger boned and had a larger frame than his siblings, so 16lbs was a perfect weight for him. He outweighs his siblings and this is from the 'runt' of the litter who got a magickal start in life. Not to be outdone Raffie weighs in at 14.5 lbs, Mickey at 15 lbs and Gabbie (the girl) a not too shabby 10 lbs!
This is Baby Boy Shadow today
Peace and Happiness
© 2010-2013 Faith M. McCann. Portions of this blog posting may include materials from my book “Enchantments School for the Magickal Arts First Year Magickal Studies.” For more information, see www.enchantmentsschool.com or go to the title of tonight's discussion and click, it will link you to my school's website. Please note that the copying and/or further distribution of this work without express written permission is prohibited.
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