Yet Another Maneki Neko Tale

Maneki nekos, the legendary good fortune cats, are thought to bring good luck in many forms.  A maneki neko with the right paw raised is said to bring wealth;



one with the left paw raised brings business.



White nekos protect good luck...






and black nekos protect against evil.



In earlier posts, I have told the tale of how the Maneki Nekos saved Santa's elves,



how a maneki neko named Tama saved an Edo monastery,



and how a maneki neko saved a Lady of the Night.



So today's maneki neko tale tells an earlier story ~ that of Jisho-in, a Tokyo area temple



which was founded by Kukai (Kobo-Daishi, 774-835), the priest who created the hirigana script.



According to documents that are still preserved at the temple, long ago, during the mid-16th century there was an  fight between two individuals: Toshima, who belonged to the ruling family of the area, and Ōta Dōkan (太田 道灌).  Ōta was a Japanese samurai warrior-poet, a military tactician and Buddhist monk.



Ōta and Toshima fought with all their strength and cunning, until both were close to collapse from exhaustion.  Finally, Ōta could handle no more.  The world started to spin and he could not focus his eyes.  He knew that his minutes were numbered, and he was about to go down in defeat.

He stumbled backward, tripping over a black cat ...



...who had been watching the fight unobserved.  Toshima, thinking he had triumphed, staggered off, barely coherent enough to savor his victory.

But Ōta was not dead.  The black cat led him back to the temple, and there nursed him back to health.  Each day Ota regained more and more of his strength until he was once again strong and fit.

When he knew he was once again a worthy opponent, Ōta took on Toshima once again.  This time he defeated Toshima.

Out of gratitude for the black cat which saved his life, Ōta ordered that a jizo (A Buddhist saint) be fashioned in the shape of a cat.



The statue is known as neko-men jizo or jizo with a cat face ~ the maneki neko ~



~and has been a symbol for many good things ever since.

Maneki nekos here.

Seeing Red... and White on a Wordless Wednesday

Red and white here.

What Black Cats Would Say If They Cared to Speak

"A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere." -- Groucho Marx



"Black cat or white cat: If it can catch mice, it's a good cat." -- Chinese Proverb




"Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything." -- Robert A. Heinlein



"Sometimes it happens that a black cat lets you pass in front of it." -- Author Unknown



"When the tea is brought at five o'clock
And all the neat curtains are drawn with care,
The little black cat with bright green eyes
Is suddenly purring there" -- Harold Monro



"Forecasting future events is often like searching for a black cat in an unlit room, that may not even be there." -- Steve Davidson



"Whenever the cat of the house is black, the lasses of lovers will have no lack" - Folk Saying



"A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it." -- H. L. Mencken



"Black cats can be found here."  -- Cornerstoregoddess

Musings from Land of the Lost

I lost a lot of stuff last week.  I lost my gold Swarovski crystals.  I lost my bag of things I was going to ship.  I lost the bag of pieces I was going to blog about.  It all got lost in a great big Christmahannukwanzadan chaos.

Finally I found the gold Swarovski crystals.  They were in my box of angel parts.  (Bet you didn't know angels had parts.)  And then I found the BLOG bag, which was tucked in with the various earrings bags, right behind the CHRISTMAS bag, and in front of the WINTER BAG.  And finally I found the SOLD bag.  I had tucked it into the box of bracelets.  But when I started going through the bracelets, I realized that a lot of their listings were gone.

Vanished!  POOF!  Gone!  Not on ebay.  Not on etsy.  Not anywhere.  So I went through my box of bracelets (which, I guess, is my inventory of bracelets, but I'm trying not to get too technical here).  And I made a BIG pile of bracelets that were no longer listed and were, therefore, lost.

Happily I could find photos of most of them.  So I relisted all of them (except the ones I need to re-photograph) and here they are, so you can see how lost I really was.  All of them are now in my eBay store.  At least, they'd better be, or I'll know that even more mysterious forces are at work.



A Springlike Bracelet...





A Hanukkah bracelet done in blue gemstones and sterling charms:





A fertility bracelet.  (Alas, it didn't breed in the box and make new fertility bracelets.)





TWO bracelets of Buddha' Blessings.  Does that mean two people went un-blessed?









A bracelet about the Ghosts of the California Gold Rush, in pyrite and hematite.





A St. Patrick's Day bracelet:





And the snowman bracelet that was in last week's blog post.  It was lost, I found it and re-photographed and re-listed it, did the post, and promply lost it again. 





My mother used to tell me I'd lose my head if it weren't attached to my body.

Turns out she was right.

Headlessly yours,

Cornerstoregoddess

The Dark of December

I Heard a Bird Sing

by

Oliver Herford

I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December

A magical thing
And sweet to remember:

"We are nearer to Spring
Than we were in September,"

 

I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.

Something to remind you the days are growing longer again.