Rafayel came to me in a dream. Three nights in a row, I saw a drawing of this grey cat. My friend Jane was convinced it meant I needed to get one. Even though I had always loved cats, I couldn't agree less. I just traveled too much to have a feline companion.

The initial meeting

My friend  went to a shelter to adopt a kitten for her little daughter. While there, a cat suddenly tapped her on the shoulder through the door of his cage: "Hey? it's me! Recognize me? I'm the one in her dreams!" Intrigued, she took him out to pet him. He was happily purring until she put him back into the cage. He started crying. Real tears.

Before leaving, she got more information on him. A 2 yr old male, found in the streets of Chastworth, CA. He had been in the shelter for 3 weeks, was about to be put down, but everybody was hoping he'd get adopted. He was their favorite. This was more information than I could bear. I became haunted by that cat, unable to put him out of my mind. Next thing I knew, I was driving to that shelter located an hour away from my home in L.A. I rescued him just in time. He looked at me with his wise green eyes, his nose dripping from having fallen in his water bowl while  attempting to protect himself from the big dogs around him: "What the hell took you so long!"

The Strangeness Amplifies

Knowing my love of cats, Jane, had offered me a picture of the Egyptian Cat Goddess, Bastet. Shortly after arriving at my home which he considered with contentment, Rafayel, sat in front of her portrait for a few minutes before unceremoniously knocking her down to explore the rest of my apartment. A little shocked, I put her back up. Three times in a row, he did the same thing: "I'm with you now. What do you need her for?"

A few nights later, I awoke to see him perched up high just a few inched from the ceiling, intently looking at something over one my lamps. I gasped in horror wondering how on earth he had gotten up there. Afraid he would fall and break the lamp, I didn't even dare breathe until I looked next to me. There he was, peacefully sleeping on my bed. The following night, I awoke to see him walking around my bed. I had my mouth open, ready to say something when his moving shape was absorbed back into his physical body lying next to me. All these nights, I had been watching his astral body!

Birth Date

About a year after my father's crossing over, I was having a conversation with him with the help of my friend Jane and her husband, using a Ouija board of which they are masters. I was asking for various birth times when it occurred to me to ask for Rafayel's birth data. To my surprise, my father gave it to me in great detail. I was excited to discover what kind of astrological chart he had. Much to my amazement I found him to be Leo with Cancer rising and a Pisces Moon. All his transpersonal planets were connected to his personal planets revealing a Master Cat, one of very high evolution.

My friend Jashar, a very great channel of Archangel Makael, told me that Rafayel had been with me in every single incarnation. He had always been the closest t0 me, life-time after life-time. As it was my work to travel and meet people, so was it his. She further talked of an incarnation where I would have been our Lady of Norwich, the first British woman mystic. When I researched her work, I gasped upon realizing that her cat was the exact same cat.

Traveling

Figuring out how traveling together would even be possible, was quite an adventure. Today, Rafayel is officially an international cat with a European passport and his own suitcase. He has already been to over 13 countries on 3 continents and ridden more than 50,000 miles in planes, cars, trains and  buses! He hardly ever complains. The most impressive are our transatlantic trips. He meditates the whole 17 hours, refusing to drink or eat. A true Zen master!

In every airport, we are always a hit. The children are delighted and want to pet him. Security is intrigued. Adults ask me questions on how this is even possible. Being a Leo, all the admiration and flattery he gets are well worth his discomfort.

Home is being together. As soon as we arrive in any hotel room, we have a set routine. I organize his litter box, food and water, then unpack the rest of my suitcase while he carefully checks for demons lurking under the bed and paces the room to create the grid that will support our stay.

Healing

Rafayel is the name that came to me when I wondered what I should call him. "Only God heals" is his name, befitting for the healer he has proven to be.

We were once in Mt. Shasta where I was giving a seminar. A friend of mine agreed to meet him. What I didn't know was that she was allergic to cats. Terribly allergic. She could not come anywhere close to one without sneezing for three days. Not only did she have no negative reaction when nearing Rafayel, but he completely healed her. He moreover reminded her of a time when she was 12 and had had her pet taken away by her mother. In that painful moment she had made herself the promise never again, to allow herself to love another animal, it just hurt too much. To this day, she has had no other allergies and is getting ready to adopt her own cat.

Readings

Rafayel knew exactly what my work was all about. During appointments, He would jump on the table and facing my "client," stare him/her in the eye or drift into a meditative state and knowingly paw the person on the arm when something important was being said.

Once, during one of my seminars in Germany, I was taking about the mastery of animals. At that very moment, unable  to contain himself any longer and rightfully believing he was better suited to discuss the topic, he jumped on the desk, and facing the audience took over with his own speech in very audible meows, startling everyone present in the room whose jaws had dropped. I asked him if he wanted a microphone, he turned around, looked at me and said "NON!", swiftly turned back, facing the room to continue sharing his pearls of wisdom.

Writing

Rafayel always writes with me. Most often, he meditates on my desk and sometimes adds a few words by walking across my keyboard or laying between the base of my spine and the back of the chair, like a tube, as a way of giving me energy. When I break away from my writing to drink a glass of water, he'll stare at me disapprovingly: "What, are WE done already?!!"

The first meeting with my publisher at Simon and Schuster was very epic. He was unusually restless until we sat down to do her reading. He kept pawing her at the important sections and meowing emphatically during the parts he felt she needed to pay particular attention to.

"Oh, that cat is going to be famous!" she said.

"He's already famous," I sighed. "Everybody knows Rafayel".

"No, he's going to be world-famous," she insisted.

"Yes, we're about to go to Europe for the nth time," I responded.

"No, he's got a book-deal with us."

That stopped me dead in my tracks, at which point, Rafayel finally calmed down and stretched out like the king he is, as if to say, "At long last! They got it!". When my animal communicator friend walked into my place she asked me:

"What the hell is he so excited about? He keeps talking about a book. Your book?"

I hadn't told her the story yet.

"No. His."

Music

My friend Isabelle in Germany was preparing for a piano concert she was about to give. A little nervous, she entered the greenroom to find herself face to face with Rafayel, who came up to greet her. In shock, because she didn't know there would be a cat there, she looked at his collar. She immediately got concerned because of the threat of scratches to her hands. But when she read his name, she sighed in relief, knowing it was the sign that all would be good and that the Angels were protecting her. Her piano concert in front of 300 people, who gathered in great silence, was punctuated with Rafayel's singing in tenor voice and ecstatic joy. They became fast friends, so much so that for his following birthday, he received from her the complete works of Liszt which he still listens to religiously in the sphinx position.

Friends

Rafayel has made more friends in his short life than anyone I know. I used to live in an apartment building. Being a Leo, he thought this was one big house and that he was his royal duty to visit his subjects every day. So each morning off he went, meowing in front of every door in order to be let in, spending one-on-one time with his people before moving on to the next apartment. He knew neighbors I wasn't even aware I had. Everybody loved him and had funny stories about his antics. Wherever he was on these missions, all I had to do was call his name, for him to come running to me with cries of joy.

One day, my downstairs neighbor came out in tears. She explained that she hadn't meant to keep him, but he had helped her enormously after the disappearance of her own little cat killed on a street. Rafayel had come everyday to comfort her and placed himself on her bed deep under the blankets, in exactly the same position her own beloved cat always adopted at night. This was surprising to me because with me, Rafayel never goes under the bed sheets, but stays atop the comforter, and only after I have gone to bed and am about to fall asleep.

Pets are more than just friends. They are guardians, protectors, angels with fur, in this case, a true Master who every day continues to teach me the importance of unconditional love, patience, sleep, play and remaining present to the present.