“My friend invited me to a workshop on animal communication. I was skeptical at first because, at the time, I held this limiting belief that, as a scientist, I wasn’t supposed to believe in that sort of thing. But, to my surprise, I discovered at the workshop that I was actually good at it.

I didn’t really pursue it afterward, but a couple of years later, I saw a post on Facebook about a shelter overwhelmed with kittens. When I clicked the link, I was immediately drawn to this thumbnail image of a cat in the top left corner of the page. I can’t explain it, but the image seemed to almost pulse at me, and I was immediately overcome with the sense that I needed to go and get this cat.

My housemate and I rented a car and drove the two hours it took to get to the shelter. They tried to convince me to consider the younger kittens, but I insisted on seeing Rocker. They led me to a room full of kittens and gave me a chair. As soon as I sat down, Rocker ran over to me from across the room, climbed onto my lap, and started making biscuits on my belly. In that moment, I thought, “Alright, let’s do this!”

As a funny little addendum, when I took him to the vet to register his chip in my name - a holistic vet- he asked if he could do an energy reading on my cat. After a moment he looked up and said “you and this cat chose each other.” I can sit here and say that I don’t believe in all that “woo-woo” stuff, but honestly, it’s just more fun to believe that my cat and I chose each other.”

Kiki, Kevin & Percy, 2024