I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.

– Rumi

Recently I read the book Urban Animals: Crowding in Zoocities by Tora Holmberg about the close coexistence of humans and animals in urban communities. She selects a set of research studies about free roaming cats, crazy cat ladies and animal hoarders among other studies and offers her findings. What I loved is that in the early introduction of the book she confirms that she offers questions rather than answers which indeed can help us question our position in relation to nonhuman animals we share our cities and our homes with.

How do we perceive free roaming cats and what rights do they have? Who is allowed to walk their dog in this park but not in the beach? And so on…and how come we know that Earth is not in the centre of solar system but we still act as if we were at the centre of importance for the earth?

I would love to give answers though they might sound cruel and unlovable. Rather, I will offer my feelings to surround the professional official look that seems to populate our media or rather fun and ignoring to anything but itself. I offer my daily tools for living better life with tools I collected through my art studies, tacit knowledge, books and more-than-human beings’ coexistence.

          Photo: Still from my upcoming documentary film Freeroaming, 2021

I feel worried about the world today. I also sometimes feel hopeless. It seems values as compassion and altruism are just part of some deep far away Utopia by Thomas More. The problem is that More thought that utopia is non reachable where I prefer to believe that each day is a new utopia, a version toward better narrative, and each one is a step to a new one, as Jacques Rancière writes.

One of the tools for everyday life that I find in my toolbox that lifts my creativity and aligns me with my intentions is an exercise called SINGING TO MY CATS. When I get into the questions that overwhelm – animals help. What do my cat think about utopia or about justice in the world?

I pose the question and let my automatic body-mind-soul lead me.

I sing it to my cats and I dance it because singing and dancing boosts the full body and lifts the spirit.

Dance it off, sing it off, give it a try and ask your nonhumans friend, whether a dog or a cat, a tree or a plant, to communicate with you. Imagine, just as if you were there in your perfect knowing, trust that it will come and whatever comes that is what needs to come, and relax into the act. Dance as if you were dancing to quantum leap but worrying not about answers or possibilities, worry not!

Dance and sing and let me know what happened! Stay open to life!

Love and thanks,

Ivana