The overriding theme of October is “have the courage to go for what you want.” In spiritual circles, this can appear a bit too ambitious or too selfish. I suffer from “being too nice” syndrome, as it seems unspiritual to push for what I want.

Sometimes we need a helping hand from nature to show us the way, and it was my recent good fortune to have a feral pregnant cat appear in our world. We fed her and encouraged her to keep visiting, knowing that soon she would have kittens to care for and she was obviously surviving on whatever scraps she could find. A few weeks after having her kittens, she moved them into our shed — much to our delight. All was lovely until the mother cat caught a squirrel. She would doubtless have killed it, but we intervened and tried to nurse the poor creature back to health. We failed and buried the squirrel in the garden. Next I found myself sweeping up the remnants of a dead bird, and then a vole, and then another bird.

At first I was upset, but then I realized that she was actually showing me an important lesson: that it’s okay to be nice (for she was normally a sweet and gentle cat), but there are times when you have to go out into the world and get what you need in order to survive and thrive. If you are too nice and sit waiting passively for life to look after you, you’re likely to find yourself struggling to survive. She was only doing what she needed to do to be a good mother to her kittens. Now I sweep up the animal remnants with a resigned understanding and acceptance. And I now understand that in order to be a good mother to my own family, I have to be more proactive.