Maggie, the Yoga Cat

We have a cat named Maggie. We had three other cats through the years but they’ve crossed the rainbow bridge. But we also have three grand-cats. So I get that cats like to do their own thing and can’t be trained like dogs who will learn anything for a treat. Plus Maggie is aging so any possibility of training her to do anything is improbable.

Actually Maggie trained us. Every morning about 5:00 she comes into our bedroom to sing the song of her tribe. If one of us rises to shoo her out and close the door, she stands – er, sits – her ground right outside the door and continues her ode to her ancestors. She wants her morning canned food. It doesn’t matter that there’s dry food for her to eat in two separate locations. No, she vociferously demands to hear the opening of a can of delicacies.

Once she’s eaten, she sleeps most of the day on a blanket in the living room. Then round about 4:30 in the afternoon she begins loudly meowing for her evening ration of canned food. If I’m in the kitchen, she quietly walks over to the edge of the white carpet and begins her meowing. She won’t step one dainty paw onto the wooden kitchen floor. And if I am in the den, she goes to the other edge of the living room carpet and voices her need from there, not stepping one white paw onto the foyer tile, much less crossing it and entering the den. She is very particular about boundaries.

Even when I’m doing yoga in my upstairs woman’s cove and invite her in, she stays at the line where the hall carpet meets the cove carpet. Thankfully she doesn’t sing the song of her people while perched there.

My one-hour yoga routine ends with savasana, the resting pose (asana) of recovery. I lie on my back and close my eyes for 10 minutes. This is an especially quiet, peaceful time, but a few weeks ago I felt a thud and then heard purring. Boundaries be damned; Maggie had crossed the carpet line and was lying on the floor next to my head enjoying some savasana of her own.

Earlier this week she crossed over again. I was doing an asana which involved lying on my back and holding my right leg straight up in the air with the help of a strap around my foot the ends of which I was grasping firmly. She looked at me silently, then crossed the boundary back into the hallway. She sat down and began cleaning herself by raising her right leg straight up in the air, albeit sans strap.

Maybe cats are trainable after all, even in old age. Maybe she’ll join me when I am in a different asana. She does the cat asana very well. Even the puppy pose when she wakes up from her nap.

Maggie, the yoga cat.