I’ve recently adopted an Abyssinian cat, whose name is Jade. She’s great – playful, inquisitive, cuddly, intelligent – and it feels excellent to have feline-energy in my space again.
One thing that’s kind of funny about her is that she has something of an obsession with faucets, and seems to prefer, strongly, to drink out of them - with the water running in a very thin stream - rather than out of her water bowl. I’ve learned that this behavior pattern is characteristic of Abyssinians – a faucet gene, perhaps?
It was fun watching her drink out of a sink faucet, in this way, a couple of times. What’s also true, however, is that because of the relatively low quality of the water coming directly out of the faucets, the recommendation (from cat-expert people) is to not allow this – to insist instead that your Abyssinian drink only filtered water, from a bowl. So that’s what I’ve been doing: putting Eldorado Springs sandstone-filtered water out for her, freely available at any time of the night or day.
Nevertheless, her obsession with faucets persists. Oftentimes I find her sitting next to a faucet (kitchen, bathroom, bathtub, the specific kind doesn’t seem to matter) just staring at it – as though by the strength of her intention (or whatever mantras she’s reciting internally) she might precipitate a flow, or even just a drop or two, of faucet-water. At other times she’s a bit more proactive – using her muzzle and/or paws in (what seems to be) an attempt to figure out the mechanics of physically (as opposed to psychically) turning on the faucet.
As far as I know, none of these efforts has yet been successful. And yet, she persists … all the while ignoring the very high-quality water easily available for her, in her very own cat-bowl. Strange.
Last weekend, my teacher Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche made the point that not even once has a human being found true happiness (what we all want, and are searching for, continuously) in the things of the perceived “external” world – yet we persist in chasing after these things, as though they have this power to fulfill our deepest longing. And all the while a true source of happiness is easily and readily available – if only we had the willingness and ability to look for it, where it actually is (which is closer than we think).
Not so different, I suppose, from Jade & her faucets. Meow! May we both – along with all other felines & humans - be liberated from this cute but ultimately-unsatisfying habit.
