ARTICLE: My Love Of Black Cats

(Originally published May 24, 2013 on the Yahoo.voices website which no longer exists and with some "updates" added)

Composite images of my black cats past and present, plus a photo of my own statue of Bastet that I have

I've had a love for black cats ever since I can remember, in fact, my very first cat, Babette, was a "tuxedo" cat that my mother adopted as a Christmas present for me when I was only five years old. Since then and throughout my life while I've had other types of cats, there have always, but always been black cats as part of my "family". There most certainly is an allure to the black cat. In my opinion they have a unique "catitude" all their own; perhaps they in a sense feel and recognize themselves to be "mini" panthers.

Growing up I obviously was never aware of the stigma or superstitions that have surrounded black cats for centuries. Maybe it was due to the fact that in my early childhood I've always had a great love for the Ancient Egyptian culture. Naturally I was aware of how cats in general were worshipped during that time; then of course there was the female cat goddess Bastet, often depicted as a woman with a cat's head, but also of course simply as a cat. During Ancient Egyptian times, cats were so highly regarded and held sacred, that to kill a cat was punishable by death. Since black cats were rather rare during that time period most often statues of Bastet were, yes, as you can guess, black cats. Unfortunately, with the passage of time, things went downhill for the feline species, and especially for black cats.

Erroneous beliefs began to crop up via early Christianity and during the Medieval period that black cats were evil and most often associated with "witches". Who can forget that part of history of how cats were rounded up and killed by the hundreds, if not the thousands. This of course, had a negative effect; without the cats to kill off the rodents, the spread of the virus occurred, known of course as the Black Plague.

As a bit of historical trivia, take the name "Pyewacket" for instance, most often associated with the name of the Siamese cat in the classic 1958 movie, Bell, Book and Candle; yet in reality, the name Pyewacket was first mentioned and known in England, and yes, as a black cat and a familiar to a witch back in 1644.

Black cats therefore, were forever considered evil, unlucky, especially if one crossed your path and as the devil's messengers. Ironically however, no such belief about black cats would exist in Celtic cultures, in fact, in those countries a black cat was considered the opposite, that is, "lucky". Yet all in all, black cats still have the stigma of being unlucky, even in our own USA, so much so, that black cats are the least unlikely to be adopted from shelters. Not only are black cats the least likely to be adopted, but even today are often targets of sick individuals who will torture or kill black cats and especially during the month of October.

Over at Facebook, I'm one of those animal activist/advocates; among other things, I regularly and daily crosspost the urgent cats needing to be rescued/saved/pulled/fostered from shelters, particularly from the high kill shelters. I became all too well aware of how black cats were the highest in number being listed on "death row", that is to be euthanized (a nice polite way of saying killed) since, as I've mentioned, black cats are the least likely to be adopted due to the old superstitions. One thing I did notice however, on a more positive note was that no doubt other people found a beauty in black cats also, and over at Facebook are scores of groups, pages and even "events" dedicated to the black cat to honor and glorify their unique beauty.

Some seven years ago I decided to start my own group at Facebook, of which I call Black Cats Are Beautiful and was officially created by me on August 11, 2011. Here people can join my group and share pictures of their own black cats both past and present, share stories about black cats, post cute Cheezeburger black cats photos, and in general, celebrate the beauty of the black cat. I also developed a Facebook page called Black Cats Urgent Rescue in which those black cats who need to be rescued from shelters can be posted and hopefully more people will step up to save these beautiful mini panthers.

Beginning in 2012 I had even gone even a step further, and have declared June 17th as Black Cats Are Beautiful Day and have created an "event" each year over at Facebook as well. Why June 17th? On June 17, 2001, a black cat came into my life, and yes, I named him Pyewacket. Pyewacket seemed to have come into my life when it was the most turbulent, it was as if he appeared to be my guardian throughout the years of turmoil and was in every sense of the word was my helper and companion. Sadly and most unexpectedly, he passed on April 19, 2010. To date though I'm not without a black cat since on December 1, 2012, I adopted a new black cat, formerly known as Dot from the Grayson County Humane Society shelter, but of whom I renamed Ouija. My newcomer of course will never replace Pyewacket, but how could I not have a black cat in my life? To me that would be "unlucky".

All in all, to my mind, there can never be enough Groups, Pages or Events that celebrate the beauty of the black cat, and by doing so, will dispel the stigma and superstitions black cats have had throughout history.

I would like to further add that the very first "celebration" to dispel the stigma of black cats was first started in Italy on November 17, 2007, and a few years later the UK began a day to celebrate black cats as well, usually in the month of October.

Black Cats Are Beautiful Facebook Group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/175852975821168/?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/groups/175852975821168/?fref=ts

Black Cats Urgent Rescue Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/BlackCatsUrgentRescue

https://www.facebook.com/BlackCatsUrgentRescue

Name of Pyewacket

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyewacket_(familiar_spirit)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyewacket_(familiar_spirit)

Article: A Quick Cute Way To Make A Black Cat Halloween Decoration

Well this year has sure gone fast and Halloween is fast approaching, and I have to confess it's one of my favorite times of the year. Each and every year, I just love decorating for Halloween, not only in my home, but for my front door. Now of course I often buy Halloween decorations and have a fair sized collection of all kinds of decorations that I've bought over the years, but every once in awhile I decide to get a little "artistic" and create something on my own.

Being that I'm one of those environmentalist type of people and like to reuse something instead of merely trashing it out as garbage, I'm one of those people that tries to think up ways of recycling something for another purpose and use. I haven't a clue how I came up with this idea, but it's one way I discovered to recycle plastic shopping bags, especially those rather small sized bags.

How often have you done some kind of grocery shopping, especially for very small-sized items and you're given a very small sized black shopping bag? Normally, with regular sized plastic shopping bags one can in a sense reuse them say for throwing out garbage, but those really small-sized bags are kind of pesky and not really great for reusing again. So what happens? One usually just throws them out. Well guess what, I found a way to reuse them by coming up with and creating a quick, kind of cute Black Cat Halloween decoration.

In the included photo you see just one of my Black Cat Halloween decorations and here's how I made it.

What you will need:

One black plastic grocery shopping bag

One or two more plastic shopping bags

Orange yarn

Orange acrylic paint

Small artist paintbrush

Duct tape

1). For this particular decoration, the bag size itself was about 12 inches long. To create the head part of the Black Cat decoration, take more plastic grocery bags, perhaps one or two and form a ball out of them and stuff into the bottom of the bag.

2). With some orange-colored yarn, cut about 18-inches of the yarn, center the yarn and wrap it around a few times to form the "neck" and then tying it into a "bow". Smooth the front of the head to form a better "face" and form "ears" at each top end of the bag. Cut off the handles of the bag.

3). Now take the orange acrylic paint, and paint directly on the "face" the cats eyes, nose, whiskers, and mouth…get as fancy as you wish with these details, though not really necessary.

4). In order to hang up the Black Cat Halloween decoration, cut a bit more yarn, create a loop and tape it to the back of the cat's head with some duct tape.

Voilà ..that's all that's to it. Simple to make yet kind of cute and festive for Halloween and even kids can make these. Not only that, but stored away properly this decoration will last for years.

IMAGE SOURCE~©Melanie Neer~Personal Photo

ARTICLE: My Love of Black Cats: June 17~Black Cats Are Beautiful Day

(Originally published as a "Note" on Facebook~May 24, 2013 and on Yahoo.voices~May 27, 2013)

Image Source~©MELANIE NEER~Photo of my current black cat Ouija

ABSTRACT: This is an article to give readers a notion of the how and why of my love for black cats, and hopefully bring an awareness of their beauty, and to dispel the superstitions about black cats.

CONTENT:

I've had a love for black cats ever since I can remember, in fact, my very first cat, Babette, was a "tuxedo" cat that my mother adopted as a Christmas present for me when I was only five years old. Since then and throughout my life while I've had other types of cats, there have always, but always been black cats as part of my "family". There most certainly is an allure to the black cat. In my opinion they have a unique "catitude" all their own; perhaps they in a sense feel and recognize themselves to be "mini" panthers.

Growing up I obviously was never aware of the stigma or superstitions that have surrounded black cats for centuries. Maybe it was due to the fact that in my early childhood I've always had a great love for the Ancient Egyptian culture. Naturally I was aware of how cats in general were worshipped during that time; then of course there was the female cat goddess Bast, often depicted as a woman with a cat's head, but also of course simply as a cat. During Ancient Egyptian times, cats were so highly regarded and held sacred, that to kill a cat was punishable by death. Since black cats were rather rare during that time period most often statues of Bast were, yes, as you can guess, black cats. Unfortunately, with the passage of time, things went downhill for the feline species, and especially for black cats.

Erroneous beliefs began to crop up via early Christianity and during the Medieval period that black cats were evil and most often associated with "witches". Who can forget that part of history of how cats were rounded up and killed by the hundreds, if not the thousands. This of course, had a negative effect; without the cats to kill off the rodents, the spread of the virus occurred, known of course as the Black Plague.

As a bit of historical trivia, take the name "Pyewacket" for instance, most often associated with the name of the Siamese cat in the classic 1958 movie, Bell, Book and Candle; yet in reality, the name Pyewacket was first mentioned and known in England, and yes, as a black cat and a familiar to a witch back in 1644.

Black cats therefore, were forever considered evil, unlucky, especially if one crossed your path and as the devil's messengers. Ironically however, no such belief about black cats would exist in Celtic cultures, in fact, in those countries a black cat was considered the opposite, that is, "lucky". Yet all in all, black cats still have the stigma of being unlucky, even in our own USA, so much so, that black cats are the least unlikely to be adopted from shelters. Not only are black cats the least likely to be adopted, but even today are often targets of sick individuals who will torture or kill black cats and especially during the month of October.

Over at Facebook, I'm one of those animal activist/advocates; among other things, I regularly and daily crosspost the urgent cats needing to be rescued/saved/pulled/fostered from shelters, particularly high kill shelters. I became all too well aware of how black cats were the highest in number being listed on "death row", that is to be euthanized (a nice polite way of saying killed) since, as I've mentioned, black cats are the least likely to be adopted due to the old superstitions. One thing I did notice however, on a more positive note was that no doubt other people found a beauty in black cats also, and over at Facebook are scores of groups, pages and even "events" dedicated to the black cat to honor and glorify their unique beauty.

Some two years ago I decided to start my own group at Facebook, of which I call Black Cats Are Beautiful. Here people can join my group and share pictures of their own black cats both past and present, share stories about black cats, post cute Cheezeburger black cats photos, and in general, celebrate the beauty of the black cat. I also developed a Facebook page called Black Cats Urgent Rescue in which those black cats who need to be rescued from shelters can be posted and hopefully more people will step up to save these beautiful mini panthers.

This year I've gone even a step further, and have declared June 17th as Black Cats Are Beautiful Day and created an "event" over at Facebook as well. Why June 17th? On June 17, 2001, a black cat came into my life, and yes, I named him Pyewacket. Pyewacket seemed to have come into my life when it was the most turbulent, it was as if he appeared to be my guardian throughout the years of turmoil and was in every sense of the word was my helper and companion. Sadly and most unexpectedly, he passed on April 19, 2010. To date though I'm not without a black cat since on December 1, 2012, I adopted a new black cat, formerly known as Dot from the shelter, but of whom I renamed Ouija. My newcomer of course will never replace Pyewacket, but how could I not have a black cat in my life? To me that would be "unlucky".

All in all, to my mind, there can never be enough Groups, Pages or Events that celebrate the beauty of the black cat, and by doing so, will dispel the stigma and superstitions black cats have had throughout history.

Black Cats Are Beautiful Facebook Group:
Black Cats Are Beautiful Facebook Page

Black Cats Urgent Rescue Facebook Page:
Black Cats Urgent Rescue Page

Black Cats Are Beautiful Day June 17 Event

Black Cats Are Beautiful Event

Name of Pyewacket
Pyewacket Name

My cat Pyewacket who was in every sense of the word my "guardian"~~June 17, 2001~April 19, 2010

My statue of Bast, which I got over 35 years ago. It's a replica of a statue in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

Me and Babette, my first black "tuxedo" cat, photo taken when about eight years old

Images Sources~©MELANIE NEER~All personal photos