Sunday, December 31, 2017

happy new year blogpost

Maneki-neko: good luck cat (origin Japanese)



The new year is coming. For some of you, it may already be here (as I write this, it is 31 December 2017, 10:07 AM PST, so not yet in this part of the world), and I hope it is treating you well. I hope it will treat all of us well.

Today, I would like to share this photo I carry around with me inside my phone. We have a local store (local to this part of the world) called Uwajimaya, and it is wonderful place, full of color --makes me happy anyway. I regularly take out my phone to take photos when I am there because it is so colorful and so happy. I also pick up groceries, but that's a bit of a tangent ...

This is/was a display they have there: maneki-neko. These cats are seen to be good luck for the owners. The raised left paw is meant to bring good fortune. The lovely thing about technology (such as phones and digital photos and blogs) is that I don't have to keep these cats all to myself --I can share them with you. You may be anywhere in the world, but through the magic that still exists, I can share them with you. There are more than enough to share.

The origin of the symbol is interesting and timely. In the original story, a shopkeeper with nothing used what little he had to feed a cat that came by looking for food one day. The cat --being clever as all cats are --came back, and continued coming back, and the shopkeeper did his best to keep the cat fed, sometimes going without food himself; this was the nature of his hospitality and generosity of spirit. Then a funny thing happened: the cat stayed, and customers followed. The customers enjoyed seeing the cat and they sensed that this was a kind and thoughtful man, and the shop began flourish.

That is the way the world should work. If you see kindness in the world, encourage it; if you have a chance to be kind, do it. I'm not going to spend too much time on bad things going on in the world because that's what the news is for. I'm not going to spend too much time on other people's choices, good or bad. Make your own choices in the new year. Make choices that leave the world in better shape than it was in yesterday when and where you can.

And may 2018 be a year that is kind to us all. Happy New Year.




1 comment:

  1. This is lovely. :-)

    Clever cat and clever human, working together. :-)

    ReplyDelete