I’ve been living in the jungle for years now, facilitating ceremonies with ayahuasca and other sacred medicines. But some of the most mysterious, uncanny things I’ve witnessed didn’t come from visions or guests. During the ceremonies, I started to observe that a different kind of healer moved silently among us: my cat.
At first, it seemed like a coincidence. One night, a participant shared that during the ceremony, he saw a cat in his vision. Moments later, my real cat, Paco, appeared next to his mattress, curling up peacefully at his side. Another time, a man broke down in tears, overwhelmed with guilt over how he had treated a cat from his past. As he cried, Paco jumped into his lap and stayed there until he calmed down. I’ve collected dozens of moments like this: quiet, precise, oddly timed.
What’s even more common is the cat’s role during emotionally intense or spiritually turbulent moments. When someone begins to panic, shake, or feel lost in the dark forest of the mind, the cat often shows up. It lies across the chest, presses its warmth to the feet, or simply sits nearby, present and grounding like a spiritual anchor. It never goes to just anyone. Somehow, it chooses the person who needs help most.
But one event left me truly speechless. A man had a vivid vision of a tiger. In the vision, the tiger approached him and offered him half a frog. He laughed the next morning, unsure what it meant. But as we were cleaning the maloka, he called me over. There, at the foot of his mattress, lay half of a real frog. Left there during the night by my cat.
I stopped calling it coincidence.
Cat Magic
From a scientific lens, there’s nothing mystical here. Cats have extraordinary sensory capabilities. They detect vibrations, hear ultrasonic frequencies, and pick up subtle changes in body heat, scent, and movement. Some might say my cat is simply responding to these signals in a highly attuned way. And they wouldn’t be wrong.
But for those of us who work with altered states, it feels like more.
Across cultures and traditions, cats have long held symbolic and mystical roles.
In ancient Egypt, cats were revered as sacred beings believed to guard the home and spirit from unseen forces; they were associated with the goddess Bastet, protector of fertility, women, and the mystical threshold between the material and spiritual worlds.
In European folklore, they were familiars, spirit allies of witches and shamans.
In Japan, the maneki-neko is a bringer of good fortune and spiritual protection.
In Taoist philosophy, the cat is often seen as a living embodiment of wu wei, the principle of effortless action or “doing without doing.”
A cat moves with perfect timing, never forcing, never hesitating, responding to life not with effort but with flow. This makes it a natural symbol of alignment with the Tao: it acts not through will, but through presence.
Moving Energy with Feline Grace
In energy healing circles, cats are said to absorb or transmute stagnant energy. Some healers report that cats instinctively sit on blocked chakras or areas of trauma. And in psychedelic and ceremonial spaces, people often report shared experiences involving cats: the same cat appearing in visions and in the room, or showing up just when a person is at their emotional edge.
This aligns with the ideas of Rupert Sheldrake, the biologist known for his controversial work on telepathy and morphic fields. According to Sheldrake, animals and humans who are emotionally bonded may be connected through non-local informational fields.
He has documented cases of cats knowing when their owners are coming home, or hiding before a trip to the vet, despite no visible cues. His theory is that animals tap into a shared field of memory and feeling. In ceremony, when those energetic walls fall, that field may become even more accessible.
Instinctual Intelligence
So what does all this mean?
To me, the cat is not healing through intention. It doesn’t try to help. It doesn’t plan. It simply acts from alignment. It feels what is true and responds. And that, to me, is what a real shaman does.
The most powerful shamans I’ve worked with don’t act from knowledge. They don’t intellectually decide what to do. They feel. They breathe. They sing when the icaro wants to come. They move when the spirit moves through them. Like the cat, their healing doesn’t come from the mind, but from something deeper, from nature itself.
Coming back to Taoist mindframe: for me what the cat does during a ceremony is the purest expression of wu wei, effortless action. It doesn’t analyze who needs help. It doesn’t “try” to heal. It moves when it feels the call, with absolute presence and without hesitation. One moment it’s asleep in a corner, the next it’s lying across someone’s chest just as they begin to cry. It chooses with precision but without calculation.
Like the Taoist sage, the cat acts without forcing, sensing the invisible patterns of the moment and slipping into them like water. In this way, it becomes a silent participant in the ceremony, guiding, holding, aligning, not through knowledge, but through being. And maybe that’s what makes it a kind of shaman: not a healer by training, but by nature.
Attune to the Calling
So here is my thought:
If the cat can be a shaman, everyone can be.
Not through study or technique. Not by memorizing icaros or perfecting postures. True healing doesn’t begin in the mind. It begins in the body, in the breath, in the quiet places beneath thought. It begins by remembering how to feel, really feel, not just emotions, but the subtle pull of life moving through you.
It begins by listening, not to words, but to the silence behind them. To the wind, to the body’s tremble, to the pulse of the earth beneath your feet.
It begins by being, deeply, unshakably present.
When you return to your real nature, which is simply Nature itself, something shifts. You stop trying to fix life and begin to move in rhythm with it. You stop forcing, and start flowing. You don’t act from effort, you respond from alignment. You become like the cat: still, alert, completely merged with the moment.
Healing doesn’t always come from what you know. In fact, it rarely does. Sometimes, healing arises from what you are, when all pretending, performing, and controlling fall away.
Sometimes, the deepest medicine isn’t an icaro or a plant.
It’s presence.
It’s the warmth of another heartbeat.
It’s the quiet company of a being who expects nothing and offers everything.
And sometimes, the wisest healer has whiskers…
and doesn’t speak a single word.
Maooooo