Nationwide Cat Day | Naming the Days

We right here at Spirituality & Observe are nice cat lovers! Frederic and Mary Ann have fostered numerous cats via the years, discovering loving and nurturing properties for them. Others turned everlasting residents and members of the Brussat household. At the moment they stay with Rumi, a brown tabby Maine Coon, and Shams, a pink and white tabby Maine Coon.

Cats are our academics, companions, playmates, and a lot extra. What higher method to have a good time them and all their feline family members than with their very own special occasion (although they most certainly assume daily is their day!), Nationwide Cat Day.

Based in 2005 by Colleen Paige, a pet and household way of life professional and animal behaviorist, Nationwide Cat Day helps to impress the general public “to acknowledge the variety of cats that have to be rescued every year and likewise to encourage cat lovers to have a good time the cat(s) of their life for the unconditional love and companionship they bestow upon us.”

As Charles Dickens as soon as mused, “What better reward than the love of a cat?” At this time cats will be present in 34% of American households, making them the most well-liked home pet in the US. However there are some startling statistics concerning the destiny of cats within the U.S.: “Estimates reveal that there are roughly 4 million cats getting into shelters yearly with 1 – 2 million being euthanized.” What a horrible waste of alternatives for the sharing of affection. Even if you cannot undertake a cat, you may make a donation to a neighborhood rescue. Or you may volunteer to scrub a cage or sit and play with a cat for some time. Who is aware of? You could simply fall in love!

Cats are masters of consideration and being current, however that is simply the tip of the tail of what they’ve to show us. In honor of those treasured companions, we’ve got gathered a few of our favourite sources that will help you see all of the myriad items cats carry to our lives.

To Title This Day:

Quotes

• “Having 5 cats round the home helps me don’t have any expectations. They aren’t goal-fulfilling creatures in any human sense. There’s baby can anticipate of a cat.”
  — Clarice Bryan in Count on Nothing

• “The identical perspective of relaxed gentleness is most fantastically seen whenever you watch cats climbing bushes. When a cat falls out of a tree, it lets go of itself. The cat turns into utterly relaxed, and lands calmly on the bottom. But when a cat have been about to fall out of a tree and all of a sudden made up its thoughts that it did not wish to fall, it could grow to be tense and inflexible, and can be only a bag of damaged bones upon touchdown. In the identical manner, it’s the philosophy of the Tao that we’re all falling off a tree, at each second of our lives. As a matter of truth, the second we have been born we have been kicked off a precipice and we’re falling, and there’s nothing that may cease it. So as a substitute of residing in a state of persistent pressure, and clinging to all kinds of issues which are really falling with us as a result of the entire world is impermanent, be like a cat. Do not resist it.”
  — Alan Watts in What’s Tao?

• “The love we give to a pet, and obtain from a pet, can draw us extra deeply into the bigger circle of life, into the marvel of our frequent relationship to our Creator.”
  — Kevin E. Mackin in Blessing the Animals by Lynn L. Caruso

• “With my cats, I’m studying the lesson of the sufficiency of the second. No yesterday, no tomorrow, solely the magic of at the moment, of this single immediate. No regret, no remorse, no craving, simply the play of now.”
  — Jeffrey Masson in The Spirit of Silence by John Lane

• “Cats, specifically, train us to be ourselves, regardless of the odds. A cat, besides via drive, won’t ever do something that goes towards its nature. Nothing seduces it away from itself. Ponder methods we are able to strengthen our resolve to stay our lives as who we actually are. See the wonder, as an example, in foregoing an ‘essential’ assembly or gala occasions in favor of a heat hearth at residence and a restorative nap. What makes us purr with contentment? Discover it and let it, simply, discover you.”
  — Alice Walker in We Are The Ones We Have Been Ready For

• “Brother David Steindl-Rast says that something we do with an entire coronary heart is prayer. By means of instance, he recommends that should you come residence from an extended day too drained to say an Workplace, to hope a bathe. Additionally to be prayed are gardens, walks, thunderstorms, conversations with cats and different creatures — any consciousness or motion that engages the core of stillness wherein our hearts discover wholeness.”
  — Maggie Ross in The Fireplace of Your Life

Books

• Cat Sense by John Bradshaw gives a mixture of fascinating historical past about cats and useful options for caring for these impartial animal companions.
• Guardians of Being by Eckhart Tolle and Patrick McDonnell is a celebration in phrases and illustrations of canine and cats as religious academics of stillness, pleasure, and being current.
• The Karma of Cats edited by Diana Ventimiglia is an excellent assortment of tales by religious academics illustrating their appreciation of their cats’ roles of their lives. See the excerpt for Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat’s essay on what they realized about respect and authenticity from residing in a family of ten rescue cats.
• The Soul of All Residing Creatures by Vint Virga is an intriguing guide concerning the connections between animals and people.
• Zen Cat by Judith Alder and Paul Coughlin comprises quotations matched with footage of cats and kittens.

Kids’s Books

• Captain Cat by Inga Moore is a rousing story of journey, cats, and greed primarily based on an outdated Italian story.
• The Cat with Seven Names by Tony Johnston is a couple of gregarious and wandering cat who visits six lonely folks in his neighborhood and turns into their dependable companion.
• The Coconut Monk by Thich Nhat Hanh is ready in Vietnam and fashions the trail of peace and nonviolence via the instance of his two animal companions, a cat and a mouse.
• Homer, the Library Cat by Reeve Lindbergh recounts the search of a cat who lives in a quiet home with a quiet lady to search out one other place in his city the place silence is appreciated.
• I Am Tama, Fortunate Cat by Wendy Henrichs is about an lovable cat who in return for a monk’s kindness brings success to the temple.
• Moo Kitty Finds a House by Valerie Lee Veltre is a heart-touching story about an deserted cat and his quest to discover a new residence.
• When Cats Dream by Dav Pilkey takes a visit with cats into their dream world.

E-book Excerpts

• In Getting Older Higher Pamela Blair gives new vistas for ladies over fifty. Right here is an excerpt on love and the way she turns to her cats for bodily consolation when her husband travels.
• Kim Rosen’s Saved by a Poem is an astonishing presentation of the transformational energy of poetry. Here’s a poem by Jane Hirshfield wherein a cat is saluted for having the ability to stay “amid the nice vanishing.”
• Caryll Houselander (1901-1954), a Catholic author, artist and visionary, gives what she learns about religion and prayer from her cat on this assortment of her Important Writings.

Movies

• Puss in Boots is a razzle-dazzle animated function about an outlaw cat who dances flamenco; he is a survivor capable of deal with all challenges earlier than him.
• The Rabbi’s Cat is a French animated movie concerning the uncommon quest of a rabbi, a skeikh, and a speaking cat to find the important unity of life.
• When the Cat’s Away is an irresistibly charming movie concerning the magical and stunning methods wherein neighborhood is created in giant cities.