Kristen J. Sollee - Cat Call: Reclaiming the Feral Feminine (An Untamed History of the Cat Archetype in Myth and Magic)

As I sit here swooning over the wise and witty tome you have in your paws, one of my own two feline familiars is lying on top of the couch next to me, left arm a furred Fibonacci curl under her chin, the other extended before her in some sort of horizontal salute of solidarity. Though to the best of my knowledge she cannot read, I think she would very much appreciate Cat Calls message: namely, that cats are not only worthy of our care and consideration but that they are slinky keys that can unlock our understanding about the ways in which society has tried to blame, tame, and reclaim so-called feminine forces of nature for centuries.

This fluffy companion of mine happens to be named after the surrealist painter Remedios Varo. A famous kitty aficionado herself, Varo infused her work with images of witches, women alchemists, lady explorers, and many, many cats, fascinated as she was by ideas of female magic and personal transformation. So, too, is this author. In the words that Kristen J. Solle has writtenher books, essays, and articles (as well as the tremendous class she teaches at The New School)she continues to show us how sexuality and symbolism are the ingredients of a spell that can shift our notions of selfhood and enable us to fill a lifetime with many lives (nine, perhaps.)

Kristen and I first bonded over our mutual infatuation with witches and feminism in all of their complexity. Since our first fateful discussion about sex and sorcery in a SoHo teahouse circa 2014, Ive watched in awe as she has ceaselessly displayed an irresistible blend of rigorous scholarship and ribald humor in the expression of her ideasnot to mention countless acts of generosity toward myself and other writers, makers, and proud oddballs who are lucky enough to be included in her creative coven.

Mostly, Ive been impressed by her unstoppable devotion to shamelessness. No one writes about the subjects of sexuality, desire, shadow, and diabolism with such relish, and when I read her words I feel both smarter and less afraid of my own taboo feelings and thoughts. Like a cat, Kristen sees in the dark, and she guides us gracefully forward with her vision of unapologetic feminine power.

Its only fitting then that Kristens fascinations have gone feline, for these creatures represent so many of the notions shes been batting around over the course of her career. Throughout history, cats have been worshiped and trivialized, adored and abhorred, sexualized and neutered. As Cat Call illustrates, these animals are both terrestrial and spiritual, and our treatment of them directly relates to our often conflicting ideas about women and femmesand the places and spaces they ought to occupy.

I was reminded again of Remedios Varo as I read this bookboth the artist and my magical housemate. In a letter to Father of Wicca Gerald Gardner, Varo (the human, that is) wrote of her own witchcraft experiments, wherein she combined seemingly disparate elements such as an armchair, a crocodile skull, and a diamond-encrusted pipe into an organized domestic cosmos:

I have a solar system... which I can move at will, knowing beforehand the effects I can generate, though at times the unpredictable is generated, provoked by the rapid trajectory of an unexpected meteor across my established order. The meteor is none other than my cat, but little by little I have been able to master this haphazard factor...

So too has Kristen, with Cat Call, constructed her own solar system of eclectic marvels, and so has she somehow managed to master this feral meteor of a muse. These pages of hers will take you on a curious, deliciously circuitous trail filled with all sorts of intriguing spots to stop and curl up in contemplation. You will scamper from Catwomans lair to Leonor Finis studio. You will pause for a bit at the temple of Bastet and then rub up against the cult of Hello Kitty. You will strut around your home in leopard print and then prowl through the streets in a pink pussy hat.

This book is intrepid, graceful, and claw-sharp. Let its insights zigzag between your mind and your soul, your loins and your lap, and you will assuredly be left pondering and purring.