This is Omiti, your cat reporter, with a big MEOW to my faithful feline readers! Today, our topic concerns one of the pivotal experiences of being feline, the Nap. All our activities culminate in this, and it forms the very nexus of our day.
Now a lot of my readers cohabit with different species, who fail to grasp the importance of a nap, and are likely to treat it with unforgivable nonchalance. This post goes out to you, to ensure that you do not forget: there is nothing nonchalant about the nap. The nap must be treated with utmost solemnity. But there are several factors to be addressed before you settle down and engage in it.
Have you felt unexpected somnolence creep up on your eyelids? Say, you are directing a silent monologue at your human, and mid-monologue, have you been horrified, surprised by a sudden yawn? The nap, if ignored or unaddressed, can jump on you and defeat you, in just such a manner. It must be tamed so it does your bidding, very much like the tamed opposable thumbs of your human pet. It is most, most undignified to nod off without meaning to; after all, you have a world to manage! Preparation for this most holy of activities can be split up into three parts, the purification, the warming, and the blinking.
The first thing to do is to include a deliberation in the nap: if you invite the nap, give it its due, then I assure you, it will not interrupt your monologues, stalking, any of your other duties. After all, this is not the only dimension you inhabit and rule, and the nap, as you very well know, is the only safe portal to other dimensions, which also need your presence to be managed.
Now, let us get started. First, let us check ourselves: is there any hollowness anywhere in our being? An able governor tolerates no hollowness. To be on the safe side, I suggest you visit your nibbling space, in case the nap takes longer. Now that you have filled your being with good warmth, you will need to destroy circumstantial evidence that may have attached itself to your noble being: begin a careful wiping down, starting from the top tip of your left ear, ending with your right fore paw. This process is holy to our species (this for those precocious kittens perusing this for their betterment); this is our purification ritual that also has the additional benefit of increasing concentration, especially during the nap.
Now that the purification is achieved, search out a space where some golden warmth has spilled, preferably on a soft, pliable, yet firm perch. Your human pet might call this "sunning," but actually, this is the second step of the ritual that leads to the nap. We felines call it warming; you might have noticed a few human pets who sometimes light little fire for a variety of pointless reasons. We felines do not need to light little fires, since we have knowledge of the large fire in the sky that pays homage to us in form of spilling much golden warmth which we may avail ourselves of, anywhere we notice it. Now, you restless kittens, this is not to say that any time you notice a patch of sunlight, you must plop yourself down for some shuteye. Not at all! You must first test this warmth. You want to sketch the outlines of the warm space by circumbulating it, sketching increasingly smaller circles until you end up in the exact mid point. Test this mid point from all cardinal directions, and as you do, test the level of warmth on your head, back, and down the tail.
The third part of this important ritual culminates in long blinks. First, you must arrange yourself on the warm space to maximize the warmth on top of your head and down your back. If you move your head a little south, and just a little east, this will ensure the sunlight settling on your head spread it perfectly down the back, ensuring comfort of the body while the spirit is out. Once the perfect arrangement is achieved, you must squint to look within. Check all systems. Now set the automatons: the flick of the tail every 3 minutes, the alternate ear twitch every 87 seconds, and a millimeter of claw extension every 7 seconds. Do not forget to switch on the shiver that runs down your back every 3 & 1/2 minutes.
Now, cloak your eyes with a film that fools all who look at you into believing that they are being watched, but that protect you from actual sight. Now help the outside world get acclimatized to your absence with incremental blinks, blinks that have increasingly longer intervals in between. Soon, the body will be held in suspended stasis, but the beings around you will be kept at bay with the automatons you will have in progress.
Begin using your blinks well; don't waste this delicate time, the threshold of the actual nap. Establish your visage with increasingly more substance in the alternate dimension, which has beckoned your presence through the nap. You will know that you have achieved full nap status when your ear tops droop in one world as they straighten tall and proud in the other world.
If your human pet were to see you during the nap, you should retain your regal bearing and look like a being not to be taken lightly, whose responsibilities do not end even as you sleep. You will look as though you are concentrating (which you are), and that napping is serious, hard work (which it is).
After all, we felines know that there is no real rest for superior beings on whom the very balance of the cosmos rests. We have many worlds to manage and I urge you to take as many naps as you can to ensure perfect balance of all worlds.
Now a lot of my readers cohabit with different species, who fail to grasp the importance of a nap, and are likely to treat it with unforgivable nonchalance. This post goes out to you, to ensure that you do not forget: there is nothing nonchalant about the nap. The nap must be treated with utmost solemnity. But there are several factors to be addressed before you settle down and engage in it.
Have you felt unexpected somnolence creep up on your eyelids? Say, you are directing a silent monologue at your human, and mid-monologue, have you been horrified, surprised by a sudden yawn? The nap, if ignored or unaddressed, can jump on you and defeat you, in just such a manner. It must be tamed so it does your bidding, very much like the tamed opposable thumbs of your human pet. It is most, most undignified to nod off without meaning to; after all, you have a world to manage! Preparation for this most holy of activities can be split up into three parts, the purification, the warming, and the blinking.
The first thing to do is to include a deliberation in the nap: if you invite the nap, give it its due, then I assure you, it will not interrupt your monologues, stalking, any of your other duties. After all, this is not the only dimension you inhabit and rule, and the nap, as you very well know, is the only safe portal to other dimensions, which also need your presence to be managed.
Now, let us get started. First, let us check ourselves: is there any hollowness anywhere in our being? An able governor tolerates no hollowness. To be on the safe side, I suggest you visit your nibbling space, in case the nap takes longer. Now that you have filled your being with good warmth, you will need to destroy circumstantial evidence that may have attached itself to your noble being: begin a careful wiping down, starting from the top tip of your left ear, ending with your right fore paw. This process is holy to our species (this for those precocious kittens perusing this for their betterment); this is our purification ritual that also has the additional benefit of increasing concentration, especially during the nap.
Now that the purification is achieved, search out a space where some golden warmth has spilled, preferably on a soft, pliable, yet firm perch. Your human pet might call this "sunning," but actually, this is the second step of the ritual that leads to the nap. We felines call it warming; you might have noticed a few human pets who sometimes light little fire for a variety of pointless reasons. We felines do not need to light little fires, since we have knowledge of the large fire in the sky that pays homage to us in form of spilling much golden warmth which we may avail ourselves of, anywhere we notice it. Now, you restless kittens, this is not to say that any time you notice a patch of sunlight, you must plop yourself down for some shuteye. Not at all! You must first test this warmth. You want to sketch the outlines of the warm space by circumbulating it, sketching increasingly smaller circles until you end up in the exact mid point. Test this mid point from all cardinal directions, and as you do, test the level of warmth on your head, back, and down the tail.
The third part of this important ritual culminates in long blinks. First, you must arrange yourself on the warm space to maximize the warmth on top of your head and down your back. If you move your head a little south, and just a little east, this will ensure the sunlight settling on your head spread it perfectly down the back, ensuring comfort of the body while the spirit is out. Once the perfect arrangement is achieved, you must squint to look within. Check all systems. Now set the automatons: the flick of the tail every 3 minutes, the alternate ear twitch every 87 seconds, and a millimeter of claw extension every 7 seconds. Do not forget to switch on the shiver that runs down your back every 3 & 1/2 minutes.
Now, cloak your eyes with a film that fools all who look at you into believing that they are being watched, but that protect you from actual sight. Now help the outside world get acclimatized to your absence with incremental blinks, blinks that have increasingly longer intervals in between. Soon, the body will be held in suspended stasis, but the beings around you will be kept at bay with the automatons you will have in progress.
Begin using your blinks well; don't waste this delicate time, the threshold of the actual nap. Establish your visage with increasingly more substance in the alternate dimension, which has beckoned your presence through the nap. You will know that you have achieved full nap status when your ear tops droop in one world as they straighten tall and proud in the other world.
If your human pet were to see you during the nap, you should retain your regal bearing and look like a being not to be taken lightly, whose responsibilities do not end even as you sleep. You will look as though you are concentrating (which you are), and that napping is serious, hard work (which it is).
After all, we felines know that there is no real rest for superior beings on whom the very balance of the cosmos rests. We have many worlds to manage and I urge you to take as many naps as you can to ensure perfect balance of all worlds.
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