I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul. - Jean Cocteau

Chiron entered my life in October 2006, approximately 6 weeks old and a hissing, spitting, feral bundle of fur. I was still involved in the sporting industry at that stage and was working at the 94.7 Cycling Expo; my sister and her Yorkshire Terrier had stumbled on a feral mother and her litter of kittens in a drain at their complex during one of their walks. After 2 hours of pleading, coaxing and waving Woolworths chicken fillets around, they managed to tempt only one of the kittens into the open.

The ensuing phone call went something like this:

“We just found a baby.”
“Oh, okay.”
“But we can’t keep him.”
“Oh, okay.”
“But we can’t take him to the SPCA.”
“I know.”
“Don’t you want another kitten?”
“Not really, I have 2 cats as it is.”
“But we can’t take him to the SPCA!”
“Oh, okay, take him to my home, make him comfortable in the bathroom so the other cats don’t get to him and I will sort it out when I get home tonight.”

And that night when I lifted the terrified, spitting bundle into my arms and kissed his soft white and grey head, the love affair began. I named him Chiron. I had already commenced studying traditional astrology over and above my modern astrology qualifications and knew that the celestial body called Chiron had no planetary signatures; but the kitten had such mournful, knowing eyes and the mythology of the centaur Chiron, the wounded healer, was fitting.

The mythology of Chiron

Chiron is posited in the constellation of Sagittarius; Chiron had always been in the cosmos and you cannot possibly name anything else after it, as has been done with the recently discovered ‘dwarf planet’. Chiron, an amiable centaur, is the father of all knowledge and is the one who teaches the heroes; Chiron shows how the desires which create ‘stuff’ can be put to good use as opposed to contributing to our downfall.

Chiron was accidentally wounded by the arrow of the hero Hercules which had been dipped in the blood of the Hydra (Medusa). This poison resulted in extreme agony and Chiron was immortal and unable to die from his excruciating wound. Why is this poison so painful? It comes from the Hydra which is the absolute symbol of the desire nature: you don’t desire what you have so by definition desires are painful.

Chiron’s personality

Chiron had a sanguine temperament: he was skittish, neurotic and anti-social, preferring to observe instead of participating and the only human interaction he craved was with me; I would lift him up, turn him upside down and shower kisses all over his head. He would get a pained look on his face as if he found this unbearable, yet I know he loved (and craved) it.

He had numerous idiosyncrasies such as spending hours praying to the sweets cupboard: he knew that when I said “no more Cat Greenies”, I meant you can have one more; he would lie curled in a basket in the sun waiting for me to approach, when he would turn on his back and extend his legs in the air so I could tickle his arm pits; he would bring me bats, Parktown Prawns and birds at 3am – after all his mother was a ‘witch’ - and when I ran shrieking from the bedroom, he would run after me with the pitiful creature flapping in his mouth.

He never had a ferocious appetite and to encourage him to eat I would stroke his back; this resulted in him trying to knead the carpet, purr and wolf his food down at the same time, with food splattering all over the place. He always showed me what he needed and I was able to respond intuitively.

Slowly he became accustomed to people and with time would allow (selected) significant others and even some of my students to give him ‘sweets’, but it was always on his terms. Chiron was a free spirit, yet I was able to connect with him on a level that was surreal. He would disappear for hours, sometimes days on end, and insticvely I knew if he was in danger or not; I would set numerous horary charts timing his return, often to the minute, when I would hear the thud of his body being launched through the kitchen window; I would scale walls, negotiate barbed wire fences, rip my clothes and crack gem stone rings clambering after him to save him from the great heights he scaled when accessing trees.

For the love of animals

And I simply loved him so much that it hurt. In hindsight I realise now it was largely due to the fact that he would not experience a long life; the vet recalls me telling him this 2 years ago. I am not psychic; I just knew that he was not the same as my cat Misu who is now 16 years old. Chiron was different, he heard the beat of a drum from a faraway land, and he was constantly in search of it; he was restless and desired something that was not ‘here’, seldom sitting still long enough to acclimatise to this earthly plane. Yet he allowed me to form a bond with him that will continue (into) forever.

What causes some people to be not only animal lovers, but wired in such a way that they have an extraordinary affinity with animals, as opposed to those who don’t? Yes, there are many who will read this article and declare “what is all this hype about an animal!” The answers are to be found in the birth chart.

When considering questions on vocation, it is limiting to address only the 10th house of ‘the job’; again, as with all assessments, the entire fabric of the chart must be considered. My chart is configured in such a way that I have been provided with an instinctive ability to understand and relate to animals, especially cats – it is not surprising that as a child first and foremost I wanted to be a vet. There is also strong astrological testimony that I will die ‘by the bite of a mad dog’, but that is for consideration in the future……if and when it happens.

I did not study to be a vet but I have, in my own way, been able to alleviate the pain and suffering of those animals that have crossed my path, and to provide them with as much love and understanding as I am able. It is a worthwhile investment of time and resources to have a proper natal vocational assessment compiled for children who are unsure which career path to choose; using our God-given talents early on in life makes the journey more fruitful.

Chiron’s illness

At the beginning of March 2011 Chiron fell ill after being involved in a cat fight. He never responded to treatment and his health deteriorated, resulting in his being hospitalised and force-fed via an intravenous pipe inserted in his neck; he was provided with the best care possible, including homeopathic medication. It transpires that he contracted a parasitic organism that attacked his red blood cells, resulting in acute anaemia; the condition is called Feline Infectious Anaemia or Feline Hemotropic Mycoplasmosis.

The pain that I endured watching his spirit being broken – he hated anything on or around his neck – is indescribable; the guilt I feel at subjecting him to this will never lessen, but I had to help him fight for his life, which is what he was doing (with the heart of a lion). I begged him to go if that is what he chose, not to fight for me, but only to fight if he wanted to stay, and on the morning of the 14th of March 2011, the day I would have needed to make the terrible decision as to whether or not he should die, his heart stopped.

Chiron showed me what unconditional love is – I am deeply familiar with God’s unconditional love for us – but to see it manifest in a creature so small, weighing less than 3 kg’s, is humbling. Chiron knew what it would have cost me to make that decision, to end the life of a creature I loved so deeply, and he saved me from that. Some might argue with me, saying that a cat is unable to process this range of emotion, but then I can guarantee their nativity is not configured like mine.

Conclusion

Did Chiron resonate with the mythology of his namesake, his desire nature propelling him speedily to the land where animals can roam freely without fear of human cruelty? Did he desire the tallest trees, the deepest, reddest sunsets and an abundance of flapping bats and twittering birds (without a hysterical human mother curtailing his nocturnal instincts) so badly, that he contracted the parasite to transport him there? There are no answers; all I know is that his remarkable spirit lives on in my heart and that he has taught me lessons no human being could.  Chiron is deeply, achingly missed by me and the rest of my family (and cats).

On 14 December 2010 I received a phone call from my sister: “there is a baby female feral at the vet that has been rescued from a shopping centre……” The rest of the conversation is pretty similar to the Chiron conversation. I now have Persephone in the bosom of my family and I look forward to seeing if she learned anything from her remarkable big brother Chiron as ‘the teacher’ in the short space of time they were together, and if she will resonate with the mythology of her namesake, the goddess of the underworld. God help us if she does, but I will only have myself to blame: a name is, after all, more than just a name!