A while back, I was led by providence to discover the unmarred body of a dead black cat in special circumstances. This cat, which I call the Suttle Cat, was taken home and given a reverential burial as part of a larger ritual I had been led through by receipt of the Bone Mother.
The cat was lovingly interred in the earth, where I then exhumed its remains to discover what I was led to believe would be one particular bone that would stand out as special among the rest. I was unsure of what this meant, and frankly, I was worried that I simply wouldn't see anything that set one bone apart from the rest. However, while sorting the remains, I discovered one bone that had a sprouting bulb wedged within it, which to me seemed like a clear sign that I had found the bone I needed. The Suttle Cat was then reinterred for a final time—as the inaugural burial of a sanctified boneyard known as the Yarth in my tradition—and the chosen Bone was cleaned and incorporated into our Quietus Altar (wherein we worship chthonic spirirts, ancestral and paychopompic alike) to serve as a consecrated link to the boneyard in question.
I also took the bulb I found and planted it in a pot, purely out of instinct and curiosity. What I found, once the bulb had grown enough for me to identify it, was so fitting that it made me laugh out loud when I realized. The bulb I found in the bone of a dead black cat being used in a rite of chthonic magic turned out to be...a Calla Lily—one of the flowers most consistently associated with death and Funerary Customs in much of the west. It seems clear to me that this plant is one I am meant to share a lasting and meaningful spiritual relationship with.
