Burton Silver - Dancing with Cats

First published in the United States in 1999 by Chronicle Books, LLC.

Text, illustrations, and photographs 1999 by Origination Trust.

The moral right of Burton Silver and Heather Busch to be identified as author and photographer respectively of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress has catalogued the previous edition (ISBN: 08118-2415-2).

ISBN: 978-1-4521-2833-7 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-4521-4114-5 (epub, mobi)

Neither the publisher, author, nor photographer accept any responsibility for any adverse reactions which may result from the use of material in this book. No cats were harmed during the creation of this book.

Dancing with Cats is a registered international experiment in inter-species morphic resonance and is designed to test the hypothesis of formative causation. I.E.# 99-306810-7.

Layout design by Heather Busch

Chronicle Books LLC
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San Francisco, California 94107
www.chroniclebooks.com

HIS book almost didnt happen. Frustrated after months of attempting to photograph people dancing with their cats, we were ready to give up after yet another photo shoot was stymied by the refusal of the cat to perform in front of a camera. Although we had been treated to several tantalizing displays of interspecies dance, any attempts to capture them on film were met by feline disdain. We decided that cat dancing was a private affair which could not withstand the intrusion of spectators or cameras. Thankfully, just at that point, we met up with Arij Davies.

Just seventeen years old, Arij (pronounced aria) was already an accomplished cat dancer, not only with her cat but with others cats as well. She was happy to dance for us, and her lovely ginger tom, Nijinskat, was remarkably relaxed about our presence. Better still, Arij was one of a group of women who met at each others houses to dance with their cats and swap ideas. As a result, their cats were less sensitive to an audience. They not only continued their dancing, but also remained unperturbed as we moved into their homes with the backdrops and lighting required to capture the images that would do justice to this remarkable activity. Arij and her friends are part of a revival in cat dancing which seems to have spread from New Zealand and the US in the late eighties to Europe and other parts of the world in the early nineties. What actually stimulated this revival is not known, but it is clearly part of a general trend away from materialism toward a more spiritual appreciation of our hidden instincts and powers. We met some people who began cat dancing spontaneously and genuinely believed they had invented it. But dancing with cats is not a new phenomenon.

The earliest written record of a cat dancing with a person dates from 1692 and evidence of the practice is alluded to in the nursery rhyme Hey diddle diddle. The cat and the fiddle is clearly a reference to the cats supposed ability to somehow get us up and dancing, even causing the dish (the maid) to run away with the spoon (a crazy person). References like this from the Middle Ages are almost always derogatory, as the church encouraged the belief that those who durst jig by the cat do cavort with the devil hemself. Indeed, there is little doubt that it was women swishing their brooms in front of cats in order to excite them to dance, so they could join them and attain higher states and magic cures, that led to the absurd notion of witches riding aloft on broomsticks with their cats.

In this enlightened age, dancing with cats no longer attracts anti-pagan scrutiny, but there still remains a good deal of controversy surrounding the reasons why cats dance with us. Biologist Desmond Morris, in his book Catlore, explains the mad dashes that cats make as overflow or vacuum activities that enable the cat, especially if it is kept indoors, to release some of its hunting or fleeing energy and feel more relaxed again. But cat dancers say many dancing cats arent kept indoors and the explanation doesnt account for the fact that it is sometimes the cat, rather than its human partner, that actively initiates the dance. Indeed, Desmond Morris notes a cat may approach its human owner and purposely make a nuisance of itself in a way it has learned will cause anger. When the owner shouts at the cat, instead of simply stopping as it usually does, the cat will massively overreact with one of its mad-panic rushes. Whether this is an attempt by the cat to provoke us into dancing rather than, as biologists maintain, a simple release of energy is unclear. What is clear is that those who accept the invitation and become willing partners in the dance are profoundly affected, physically and emotionally.

It is our hope that this book will encourage others to experience that uplifting energy by dancing with their cats and, in so doing, help facilitate a greater understanding between us humans and our feline companions.

Burton Silver & Heather Busch, 1999

Cats perform integrated whiplash leaps during a pas de trois.

OR some years now, a new consciousness has been entering our world, a new understanding of the energy fields that tie us and all living things together. More particularly, there is a growing awareness that the animals we share our lives with are a dynamic part of these fields of energy and that they can influence how we humans feel and act.

Fresh insights into these transcendent fields have focused on the mysterious psychic abilities displayed by domestic cats. For centuries, these have been explained away as mere coincidences, and therefore of no significanceor have been put down as the work of evil forces. But when we consider how the psychic energy of the cat has been able to affect so many lives in positive ways, we begin to understand that cats possess special gifts, a spiritual dimension that cannot be lightly dismissed. Why, for example, do those who have a close relationship with their cats recover more quickly from serious illnesses? How is it that some cats know the precise moment their owner leaves to come home; and why does your cat sometimes come running to you just seconds after youve thought about him or her? We cannot examine these facts without beginning to see direct evidence of some kind of mysterious force at worka dynamic energy flowing between ourselves and our cats.

By tuning in to this feline power, more and more people are experiencing a kind of spiritual partnership with their cats, an interaction on a deeper, more vibrant plane. In my experience, one of the best methods of achieving this is by dancing with cats. Magnifying bio-energy vibrations through deep communication and synchronicity of movement, this most exciting of activities produces intense feelings of empowerment and validation.