water

Cat dives into the deep end with Clarice Lispector's Água Viva.

Hello. This Cat.

Cat and water: strange friends. Maybe readers observe how cats and water dance together, how paws stay at water’s edge. Curious but careful. Cautious.

Maybe, readers believe Cat not make big friendlies with water.

Truth is, Cat is enchanted by waters. Waters that move. Cat has fascinations for running waters, for living waters.

Drip-drop of sink.
Glug-glug of tub.
Splish-splash of rain.
Hush-hush of sea.

The way light and shadow dance in running waters, the way movement warps and weaves…Cat loves it all. Sometimes, can even see image of self reflected in waters.

Water in motion is lot like Cat: reflective, mutable, mysterious.

Once upon a cat, there was wise old feline, name of Heracatus. Heracatus have long white whiskers, live like hermit, and speak in riddles. Heracatus say:

“A cat cannot step into the same river twice, because it is not the same river, and it is not the same cat.”

Cat lives this wisdom. Every step, every blink, every pounce: Cat changes. Like river water, Cat is always moving, always changing.

Cat understands that life is flux. Word flux has meaning like change, like flow—change that flow like water. This what Heracatus mean when make riddle about cat step into river: Heracatus saying that life flows like water in river. Always changing.

Always becoming.

Maybe Cat’s readers know the wisdoms of martial artist star, name of Bruce Lee:

“Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

Philosophical thinkings of Bruce Lee run deep like ocean waters. To be water is to be resilient, to be organic, to adapt, to transform. Be water not mean be passive. Be water is boundless, fluid way of relating to rigid forms and structures. Be water, my friend.

Bruce Lee make these words very many years ago. Still important today. In Bruce Lee’s home, name of Hong Kong, students choose to be water when protest for freedoms. Use metal box to organize. Use musics to unite hearts. Use umbrellas to protect bodies. Use flow to evade police. Use philosophy of Bruce Lee: Be water, my friend.

Cat read book about water that reminds Cat of this fluid, always becoming way of life. Book is about living waters, waters of life. Book is Água Viva, written by human, name of Clarice Lispector.

Book have only 88 pages. Easy, right? Cat think probables finish read book in one day, in between eating crunchies and napping. That what Cat think but Cat was wrong. Big wrong.

Água Viva not easy. Not easy because very much different from other books. Different because not tell story. Not have plot, characters, or setting. Not have form or structure.

So Cat approach Água Viva like Cat would approach a strange animal. Sense contours with whiskers. Pick up scent. Listen to rhythm of breath, listen to voice. Observe behaviors, look for patterns. Watch and listen.

First, Cat observe how água-viva is word that mean ‘living waters’ in language of author, Clarice. Have another meaning in author’s language. In Portugese, água-viva is also word for jellyfish.

Interesting. Água Viva is lot like jellyfish. It float. It sting. It glow. It inhabit deep sea waters. It mysterious and mesmerizing. Cannot hold in paw, can only experience with feeling senses.

When Cat read Água Viva, feel like diving into deep end of primordial waters, waters of consciousness.

Clarice write book like jellyfish moves—no straight line, no plan. Words in book flow here, flow there, like water running in stream. Words take reader deep into bloom of jelly womb-waters. Beyond time, beyond space, beyond thinkings.

“I am trying to seize the fourth dimension of this instant-now so fleeting that it’s already gone because it’s already become a new instant-now that’s also already gone.”

Cat understand that what narrator voice calls ‘this instant-now’, is time. Not time on clock, but time as lived experienced. As presence. Cat understands this because Cat, like most other animals, lives in dimensional shades of instant-now.

Many years ago, Cat learn how to time travel. How to exist in the instant-now.

See, Cat was arrange in perfect loaf position. Windows open. Light breezes and warm afternoon sun fill airs. Eyes closed, but Cat could hear yawning sky, hum of human voices, and twinkle of birdsong in the distance. Cat’s heart felt open, alive, immortal.

And then Cat was somewhere else. Cat was—hard to explain—Cat was everywhere and nowhere, all at once. Cat became yawning sky, Cat became twinkle of birdsong, Cat became light breezes and warm sun.

Sleeping is abstracting yourself and scattering into nothingness.

After much time pass, or maybe no time pass at all, Cat returned to Cat-self.

Where Cat go?? Narrator voice of Água Viva calls this place the instant-now. (Cat calls this place Crunchytown, and Cat visits often.)

Most humans not live in instant-now. Instead live in before, or after. Narrator voice want live in the instant-now, in the breath of life.

I want to grab hold of the is of the thing. These instants passing through the air I breathe: in fireworks they explode silently in space. I want to possess the atoms of time.

Narrator voice want “grab hold of the is of the thing.” Cat understand this struggle. Cat understand feeling of wanting to grab and hold.

Cat enjoys sit by big bowl, waiting for human to make waters appear. Water pour into bowl, swirling, spinning. Cat is mesmerized and dips paws in water. But water not stay same. Water run from paws, escape between toes. Cat try grab and hold, but water always one step ahead.

Once, Cat leap into bowl—more water in bowl—easy for grab. This what Cat thinking. Instead, splash-splash. Cat lose balance. Cat fall. Wet fur. Wet paws.

Cat not enjoy wetness, but Cat learn something important. Cat learn that water cannot be held, cannot be controlled. It flows, it moves, it changes—like life. Like Cat. And so, Cat sit by big bowl often now. Watch water. Respect water.

Animals fantasticate me. They are time that does not measure itself.

Narrator voice of Água Viva not speak as human simply observing animal. Speak as human who is animal. Cat think narrator voice wants see self in same way as animal sees self—without explanations, without messy thinkings.

Narrator voice want live beyond thinkings, to perceive reality by embody instant-now. To perceive reality like animals, who “are time that does not measure itself.”

Interesting. Many see book author as cat-person. One human tell Clarice: “People must think you’re a bit feline because of your eyes, but that’s not it. It’s because you have an inner behavior and a way of being constantly observant that’s feline.”

Seeing oneself is extraordinary. Like a cat whose fur bristles, I bristle when faced with myself.

Seeing with eyes is only small part of how Cat sees the world and how Cat sees self. Cat thinks these sense-impressions which are natural to animals, are the deep ocean currents of Água Viva.

When Cat look at world, look at life, Cat sees with eyes, yes. Cat is also sensing with self—with whole self.

Use whiskers to sense dimension and space.
Use nose to pick up scent.
Use ears to listen to sound of dustbunnies whispering late at night.
Use impressions to sense energies.

Humans can make sensings and seeing with whole self too. First must make stillness in busy thinkings, must dive underwater and learn to swim.

Sometimes I get electrified when I see animals. I’m now hearing the ancestral cry within me: I no longer seem to know who is the creature, the animal or me.

Cat think about electric stinger of jellyfish. Maybe Clarice name book Água Viva because narrator voice use words to pour self into living waters, into jellyfish thinkings.

Jellyfish no have brains. No blood, no bones, no hearts. Still, Jellyfish live. How??

Live by existing beyond thought. Jellyfish have nerves like nets. Sense touch. Sense light. Sense world.

In deep, dark waters, Jellyfish drift. Waters carry them. No pushing. No pulling. No fightings. Just flow with tides and currents. Just moving with what is.

Cat wonders: is this not wisdoms? To swim in senses beyond thinkings, beyond time? No grabbing. No holding. No forcing. Just flowing, just letting go.

Água Viva move between ideas like Cat move between sleep, nap, wake. Book not give story, book give impressions. Of sense-feelings-instant-now. Of writing oneself in and out of being, of becoming.

Maybe Cat and water not so strange friendlies after all. Water is everywhere—in airs, in clouds, in humans. Even inside Cat. Cat made of water. Just like human. Just like jellyfish. Be water, my friend.

January has been big long month with very many happenings. What will happen next? Over past several month, Cat’s readers have sent messages asking how to deal with anxieties and sadnesses, how to deal with changes, how to live with uncertainties.

Cat sends readers slow blinks.

Drinking water helps. Eating food helps. (Cat prefers meats, and Cat’s human enjoys ice creamies.) Getting rest helps. Big sleep or quick naps, not matter. Only thing matter is get plenty of it.

✔️Water, ✔️Food, ✔️Sleep. These are the basics.

Once have basics down, can play. Can start planning, organizing, making, doing.
Be water, friends. 🌊

While Cat is on subject of water, Cat would like to share This Is Water. If Cat has any readers who are young and starting out in world, Cat shares this especially for you.

Have readers ever read book that no was easy? That challenge idea of what book is? Or make reader think differently about life? Please share in comments. (Crunchies also acceptables. Thank you, The Management.)

Cat loves you!
Thank you for playing, Cat 🐾

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