No. 58 Relating to Pets

Facilitator______________
Date___________________

Group Session Plan from FUSN (developed by Roger Luckman)

Chalice/Candle Lighting

Opening Words:

Some tame gazelle
or some gentle dove
Something to love,
oh, something to love!
Thomas Haynes Bayly. (Quoted by Barbara Pym)

I’ve lived with cats throughout my life, and I have more cats as time diminishes. My cats are among my friends, different in kind but not in importance from my human friends. Your relationship with a kitten has a maternal component, but once the cat has reached what she considers maturity, long before you think she is an adult, she begins to contest your will with her own considerable intent. The bond becomes more nearly a relationship in which each makes accommodations to the other, attempts to learn and to teach, strives to understand and be understood, and also to dominate, to rule. The love of a cat is unconditional but always subject to negotiation. You are never entirely in charge.
Marge Piercy

Check-in/Sharing

Topic/Activity:
If you have or have had pets in your life, try to describe the relationship you have/had with one of them - the interactions, the rituals, the emotions, What place does this relationship have in your life? What needs does it fill for you? How do you know about your pet’s needs? Does this relationship have a spiritual quality? If so, how would you describe it? How does it differ from your relationships with people?

Select the topic and location for the next meeting

Check-out

Closing Words:

I’ve been many people in my life. We all change as we take new lovers and partners, as we take on new tasks, new jobs, new interests. Yet there have been constants; my need to write, my drive to write what was meaningful to me and I hope to other people, my desire to love and be loved, my valuing of freedom as close to an absolute, and of course, my companions, the cats whose love was there when others failed me or I them.”
Marge Piercy