black cats: known, unknown

11 Dec, 2025

To start with the latter category, I just read the most charming — and, in a couple of places hilarious — characterization of a cat, ever.

I'd been following the Buddhist nun Samaneri Jayasāra, thanks to her luminous YouTube channel, Wisdom of the Masters. Linking from there to her website the Viveka Hermitage in southern Australia, is where I found the page on the hermitage felid, Sumudu. This is how it begins:

Sumudu Mahatheri – aka ‘Cat’ (or ‘Catty’) is/was a 22-year-old black feline, who passed away on 18th Jan 2024. She was a loving and loved member of our little community at Viveka Hermitage.

It's not a long obit as these things go, but two portions of it had me in stitches:

She was adopted by the nuns’ community and proceeded to live a life devoted to deep samadhi and relaxation.

and

After moving to Viveka Hermitage she was given the name ‘Cat’ by Jayasāra and Jitindriyā as it became clear that her identification with labels and names was lessening…

Had I the means and space to have a feline companion in this life, it would definitely be of the black cat variety; for they speak to me in ways both mysterious and canny.

Of the former, this specimen is a formidable exemplar:

This is Ari of Sunnyvale, CA, a totem animal of my friends Richard and Charleen, canid brother to the recently departed and benthically beloved Reba Marie White, RIP.

And these 2 here are sisters Penelope (on the right) and Persephone (left), who I got to know back in the day as 'church cats' on Maui. Penelope was the 'underhouse' cat of a neighbor friend, and Persephone (who I named) was a feral blackie who decided to bond with the former, for the benefits of food, partial shelter, and companionship:

There's something about the posture of a panther-like creature — it's deceptively languid; you know that at any moment it can spring up, or even vanish into the negative space it occupies. ::chuckle::