The Cosmic Task of Cats

Little Beaumont, working very, very hard!
"Why do cats sleep so much?
Perhaps they've been trusted with some major cosmic task, an essential law of physics -- such as: if there are less than five million cats sleeping at any one time the world will stop spinning. So that when you look at them and think,
what a lazy, good - for - nothing animal,

they are, in fact, working very, very hard."
~ from the novel Human Croquet (135)
by Kate Atkinson, b. 1951
English novelist
I am also reminded of Eleanor Farjeon's clever little poem, which has been illustrated as a children's book many times:

Cats Sleep Anywhere
Cats sleep anywhere, any table, any chair.
Top of piano, window-ledge, in the middle, on the edge.
Open drawer, empty shoe, anybody's lap will do.
Fitted in a cardboard box, in the cupboard with your frocks.
Anywhere! They don't care! Cats sleep anywhere.

Eleanor Farjeon, 1881 - 1965
English children's author

Farjeon also wrote the lyrics to "Morning Has Broken," way back before Cat Stevens made them famous (click here to hear).

For my favorite Farjeon passage,
check out: "The Precious Firstlings"

Basket Cats

Beaumont

Fuqua

Pine

Full Wolf Moon

The New Basic Readers by Scott, Forseman and Company
Are you familiar with this reading series from grade school? I well remember Vistas in 5th grade and Cavalcades in 6th. I would occupy myself for long stretches of time by thumbing through the pages and copying out by hand all the poems that I liked best. I painstakingly entered into my scrapbook favorites by Elizabeth Coatsworth, Eleanor Farjeon, and Walt Whitman.

One of my top choices in Cavalcades was "Lone Dog," by Irene Rutherford McLeod:
Lone Dog
I'm a lean dog, a keen dog, a wild dog, and lone;
I'm a rough dog, a tough dog, hunting on my own;
I'm a bad dog, a mad dog, teasing silly sheep;
I love to sit and bay the moon, to keep fat souls from sleep.

I'll never be a lap dog, licking dirty feet,
A sleek dog, a meek dog, cringing for my meat,
Not for me the fireside, the well-filled plate,
But shut door, and sharp stone, and cuff and kick, and hate.

Not for me the other dogs, running by my side,
Some have run a short while, but none of them would bide.
O mine is still the lone trail, the hard trail, the best,
Wide wind, and wild stars, and hunger of the quest!

by Australian (?) poet, Irene Rutherford McLeod, 1891 - 1968
from her collection, Songs to Save a Soul, 1915


*************************************
Tonight, before you go to bed, be sure to take a look out the window at the snowy, icy Full Wolf Moon, the First Moon After Yule. Listen for a moment until you hear the ghostly howl of the lone dog and the long gone wolf packs for whom the January moon is named: "Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages."

Similarly, the month we call January was known to the the ancient Angles and Saxons as Wolf - Month: Wulfmonath, since it was the time of year when the wolves were unable to find food, and their hunger made them bold enough to come into the villages.

A couple of nights ago, I managed to capture this rather unique perspective of the Full Wolf Moon of January:

This photo was taken, at Gerry's suggestion, from inside the house, where we have two of these hexagonal windows -- perfect for looking out at the moon. Photographing from the inside looking out appears to have been successful, judging by all the fun comments I received on facebook:

1. Mia: I saw the moon tonight at 8pm -- huge above the horizon! I guess that awestruck feeling it gave me must have been an urge to howl!

2. Eileen: What is it about moons? SO compelling/ hinting of worlds beyond...

3. Paula: Eeeeeerie...It always is, to me!

4. Karen: That is beautiful! Add noticed it on his way out the door this morning. Even after the sun came up, it was HUGE in the west.

5. Cheryl: I woke up about 4 this morning and the full moon was shining across the new snowfall. It was breathtaking, but I couldn't get my camera to capture it very well.

[I was just like Cheryl, outside first thing in the morning trying to get more pictures; probably the same view Karen had]

The Precious Firstlings

"Christmas Cards from the Cremers" is a brief chapter from the book A Nursery in the Nineties, the autobiography of Eleanor Farjeon (1881 - 1965). You may already know that Farjeon wrote the lyrics to "Morning Has Broken," way back before Cat Stevens made them famous (click here to hear). Farjeon also wrote the clever little poem "Cats Sleep Anywhere," which has been illustrated as a children's book many times.

You may be wondering: Why a Christmas post so soon?

Read on, and you will see:

Recalling the Christmas presents that she and her brothers received as children, Eleanor Farjeon writes:

"Among our benefactors were . . . the Cremers. . . .

Mr. Cremer kept the best toy-shop in Regent Street. There had been a Mrs. Cremer; there were two Miss Cremers. As long as old Mr. Cremer continued in life, Christmas brought us cases full of the most fascinating toys. . . .

When Mr. Cremer died, the two Miss Cremers went to live in the Isle of Thanet [the name for the area just north of Dover, not really an island, and not very far at all from London]. At Christmas now "The Cremers" meant cards only. But they were always the first Christmas cards we received--dear little robins perched on babies' cradles, dear little girls in bonnets, with bunches of holly, "To dear little Harry, dear little Nellie [this was Eleanor], dear little Joe, dear little Bertie--with love from the Misses Cremer." They came like heralds, early in December, when Christmas was three endless weeks away. Mother's voice calling: "The Cremers' Cards have come!" brought us running. We looked, and knew that Christmas was coming too.

But posts are so uncertain, and Thanet and London not quite next door, you know, and it would be dreadful to a pair of fond, remembering spinsters should their cards ever arrive a trifle late. To make quite sure, they began to despatch their Christmas cards in November.

"Children! the Cremers' Christmas cards!"

"Already?"

Christmas is not yet due for a full month. We run to collect the precious firstlings (emphasis added).

And years pass, you grow older, the things to be done, the occasions to prepare for, press a little more irksomely each year on ladies who, if they cannot still send cases of toys to little Harry, Nellie, Joe, and Bertie, must never disappoint dear children of their Christmas Greetings.

"The Cremers' cards!" calls Mama, somewhere about Guy Fawkes' Day [November 5th].

We return, one September, from the summer holiday. The golden weeks beside the sea have waned, but London streets are sunny, it is weeks yet to the time of fog, and fires.

Laughing too much to speak, she appears waving the envelope. "No!" exclaims Harry. But there they are, the Cremers' cards have come. "To dear little Harry, dear little Nellie, dear little Joe and dear little Bertie." The robins, and the little girls in bonnets.

Two of us at least are over twenty, and tomorrow it will be October the First (emphasis added).

That was the last of the Cremers' Christmas cards. Then time went back on them" (313 - 17).


Time went back on them. Sigh. One day, it will happen. . . .