black cat day
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50 Shades of Blue On Black Cat Day

October 27, 2018 / 25 Comments
If you love cats, sharing makes us purrrr :-)

UPDATED Oct. 2020. Everything You Need To Know About Black Cat Day. And why we remain an AD-FREE oasis of calm. It’s October 27, Black Cat Day which began in the U.K. by Cat Protection in 2011 to promote black cat adoption. It’s always been a happy holiday which we’ve supported and blogged about since 2011. One day never felt like enough so we created Black Cat Awareness Month.

It’s especially meaningful this year. That’s not why we’re blue on Black Cat day. It’s been a great joy to see black cat love spread far and wide. Black cat adoptions are up and black cat accounts on Instagram have tripled since my book Black Cats Tell All was published.

via GIPHY


But October 27 will always have a double meaning for me. For that reason I’m feeling 50 shades of blue on Black Cat Day.

I could never predicted a happy holiday would turn into a sad one. My mom’s birthday is October 27 and every year I’d send her a birthday card with cats or photos of my cats. In 2017, I was crazy busy preparing to launch my book Black Cats Tell All: True Tales And Inspiring Images and forgot. I’d planned to send her flowers last minute but called her just after midnight to wish her a happy birthday, her 93rd. She’d been admitted to a hospital in Canada a few day before, floating in and out of consciousness. The last time we spoke, she told me she was ready to go. The nurse held the phone up to her ear and Mom’s eyes fluttered open a moment but she was unable to speak. I wished her a happy birthday and told her I loved her. It was impossible to know what she heard but I said it’s safe to let go. A few hours later she died, on her birthday, on Black Cat Day.

The two events will be forever entwined. Tribute to my cat lady mom.

Mom adored cats and is who I get my feline qualities from. My dad loved cats too but that’s another story. I’d like to think of mom swanning about heaven, drinking cocktails by the pool flanked by her favorites kitties. Losing a parent is never easy. I expected to grieve of course, but the last year took me to the deepest and darkest crevices of my soul. I grieved my father more deeply and longer, but my mother’s death awakened me in unexpected ways. A veil was ripped off and I saw her for who she really was.

It sparked a year-long deep self-inquiry using new and old tools from my therapist roots. I’ve dug bone deep into who I really am, and how can I of service. Only my laptop and a handful of people have any clue. A mourning and loss far beyond my mother’s death paved the way for a new path. It may not include cats or not in the ways I’ve devoted 24/7 of my life to.

My mother would have loved this graphic. She loved witchy woo woo being a red-loving Scorpio. I picked up the Cat Guru oracle cards from Chronicle Books at the Book Expo months ago and unboxed them recently. They cat gurus are a bizarre assortment from literary, mythic, historic and a few currently alive.

cat_guru_oracle_bast_black_day

Our all time favorite black cat graphic is a classic shareable. Purrfect for Pinterest.

9_reasons_adopt_black_cats_infographic

These are the October and November pet holidays from our calendar. They contain all my favorite ones of the year. November will be a slam dunk for Clyde since he’s senior, black, former shelter cat with diabetes.

2018_pet_holidays_october_november_calendar

I don’t mean to be cryptic. I plan to keep blogging but it’s a vulnerable, transitional time and there isn’t more I can share. The self-inquiry link explains the type of work I’m doing although not with them. The deep study and inner work is taking most of my time.

Since first writing this, I’m still on my inner journey, battling chronic illness and not blogging much. Our country is more divided than ever. We are a planet sorely in need of everything: healing, resources, love, understanding, creativity, peace, sanity and balance. It never ceases to amaze me how the kindest, most generous folks aren’t rich.

The funniest example came this week, when I on a lark, posted a “Buy Me A Coffee” on personal Facebook page from my blog. A friend who had no clue what it was, bought me three coffees. It amounted to a donation of $9.00. The amount didn’t matter. What matters is she took action. She pulled a NIKE. She just did it. Maybe not a huge amount but a big amount for her and I love her for it. I explained after the fact that running a blog is expensive. There are no sponsors I feel like working with lately. Giveaways take a huge about of energy. I haven’t wanted to place ads. Another friend said, fuck it, monetize, every site is covered in ads anyway. And that is the world we live in. That is more true than ever but it’s a choice.

Cat Wisdom 101 remains an ad-free oasis of calm. The cost to me in lost revenue is hundreds of dollars a month. Won’t you help the cause and Buy me a cup of coffee? Thank you!

Layla Morgan Wilde Thank-you

Do post pics of your black beauties at our sorely neglected Facebook page If anyone wants to take over as admin at our BlackCatsTellAll Facebook page, message or email me info @catwisdom101.com Please tag us @blackcatsofig #blackcatstellall Yay, it’s grown to 88K and #blackcatawarenessmonth.

Much love,

Layla (no cats wrote, edited, shed or shat on any of these words but my black cat Clyde will take all the credit even from the grave!).

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25 Comments

  • ellen beck

    October 29, 2020 at 1:43 AM Reply

    Belated black cat day to you….. I saw you repost this and really of all the posts about this day yours has always been my favorite I guess because it comes from your heart. Yeah, that was a long sentence eh?
    Miss ya Layla, I hope your life has kept progressing and you are on the path that gives you the most joy. Happy anniversary also!

  • Meezer's Mews & Terrieristical Woofs

    November 21, 2018 at 2:49 AM Reply

    We have never had black kitties, though all the ones I have met were furbulous!

    ~~~
    I shared my mother’s birthday, (I came too early and spoiled her party!LOL!), and the birthdays of several aunts and my grandmother were all in the same 2 week time frame. One by one they went to their heavenly abode…and then my parents began to fail also…they knew the kitties I had before Pipo & Angel Minko, and they knew our MJF (Dog).
    Then I lost my Mom, and that was 6 weeks before we would have shared another special day together…and in three months my dad was also gone. Empty and devoid of all reasonable thoughts was how I felt, way back in late 2005/6. Then in early 2006, I got very ill with stage three cancer…it wasn’t till I was in the midst of treatment that I dared voice to my sister that I was glad I did not have to tell my parents what was going on with me…
    In 2011, I started working in a nursing home. I really know how some of those peeps are feeling, cause I have been there. And I can relate to their families too, for the fact that both my hubby & I are without our parents anymore.

    Its a long hard road, the pain never really goes away, but somehow you learn to cope. It was bad when MJF left us too, all the things slowly go out of our lives that we had somehow attached strings to others by.

    I feel like I want to hug you tightly, Layla…but a virtual one will have to suffice. And a purring kitty on our laps:)

  • L & Hannah Cat

    October 30, 2018 at 10:39 AM Reply

    I also lost my Mother, in 2010…and the rest of my tribe in the years since…all within 3 days of Halloween. It left me an “orphan” by the time I was 40. It has not been easy being a “solitaire”, but each day, week, month….I get stronger. I am often inspired by the independent nature of the cat. Hannah, my 10 year old lucky black cat lives as an individual feline and loves it! Halloween is still my favorite holiday, I use it as a time to celebrate and remember my family. I just want you to know that all of your fans appreciate what you do for our lives and the lives of the kitties with your heart, talent, skill and knowledge. You have created a unique community of animal lovers. What you do has enriched many lives, your Mom would be so proud of you. – Love & Prayers for Peace in your heart. – Bless you!

    • Layla Morgan Wilde

      October 30, 2018 at 8:07 PM Reply

      Lisa, thanks for your kind words and for sharing about being an orphan. I never understood fully what that meant until it happened to me. Purrs to Hannah xoxo Halloween and day of the dead is a great time to honor our ancestors. I place photos of relatives, otrb cats with candles on an altar in their memory.

  • Skeeter and Izzy

    October 29, 2018 at 12:13 PM Reply

    The journey takes up up mountains and into the deepest of crevices. We either stop it or we continue on. It is never easy even in the brightest and best of times, there is always some dark thing waiting to steal the light and joy from us. We have to find the very light in our soul to continue on and that usually requires tearing away all of the layers of our being and that just friggin hurts like hell! But if we are truly strong and willing to endure the agony we can emerge like the butterfly a new being………
    There is beauty even in death.
    Luvs to all the Kitties in the world no matter the day.
    Luvs
    Skeeter and Izzy and the Feral Gang + Twig & Peanut & Romeo & the angels >^..^> ~>^..^<~

  • ellen beck

    October 28, 2018 at 10:33 PM Reply

    Happy Black Cat Day. Apologies on being a tad late we have the flu – what joy. Been offline a bit and it was actually quite nice.
    Whatever road you end up on, I do hope you dont disappear completely. I guess that would be a Cheshire Cat rather than a black one, or perhaps it is the cold meds.

  • Kathryn

    October 27, 2018 at 2:09 PM Reply

    Black cats do rock, all of the time. Someday, I will get another black cat. My mom left this world on 9/20/01. It is always soooo sad when our mother goes.

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