Nice seasonal/holiday experience I had early this morning (feel free to assign significance, or not)

Anyone who has seen any of my relatively few posts on ATS will know that I try my best to be an open-minded skeptic, but a skeptic nevertheless. I hope I also successfully express my goal of being open, courteous, and kind to those less skeptical than I am too, in those posts. So with that said, while I assign the same level of skepticism to this experience as I would anyone else's (it could have just been a coincidence, it could have been a combination of peripheral suggestion and awareness with my own thoughts at the moment in question, etc. etc.) I feel like it's worth sharing this for those who may derive some personal meaning or comfort from it, whether I do or not. (I'm undecided, personally.)

While mostly non-religious, secular, and agnostic, my family nonetheless celebrates the holidays as a sort of combination of Christmas and Solstice and/or Yule. We love the idea of a winter feast day celebrated for thousands of years, throughout the ages, in times both harsh and abundant. We do it today, because it's the solstice, and because everyone works on the actual days of the other holidays. (Most of those of us who work are off Tuesdays and Wednesdays.)

Anyhow, everyone else was asleep, and I was sitting in my room, in the dark, by an open window, with everything but the comforting glow of the Christmas tree lights turned off. I could see billowing clouds silhouetted by the (post-eclipse) full moon, as it gradually set. Like many, I tend to become somewhat depressed this time of year. Not because of seasonal affective disorder (I actually have it in reverse; the sunnier it is, and the longer the days, the worse I feel lol,) but because - again, like many, I imagine - I tend to look back to days gone by when I was younger, and my outlook was simpler, and less ruled by doubt and uncertainty.

In particular, as I age, I experience more and more curiosity and anxiety about my mortality, and my existential future. There are myriad beliefs, but while many claim to, no one (to my satisfaction at least) knows what lies beyond the threshold of death in my opinion (I respect the views of those who disagree; I just lack the peace of mind you have found. I wish I didn’t.) That doesn’t mean I don’t allow for the possibility that there are things we don’t know, and can’t understand. On the contrary, I believe there must be. The idea that we know all there is to know is laughable to me at best. So, rest assured, I am open to the possibilities presented by those aforementioned myriad beliefs about death and what (if anything) happens to our consciousness after it takes us.

So, as I found myself sitting there, just in the event that there might be something - anything - unbeknownst to me, aware of my existence, thoughts, and feelings, I thought to myself, “If anyone can hear me, please, give me some sign that we are not alone, and that this isn’t it; that there is something, anything, beyond this life.” For some reason (and this is where the peripheral suggestion idea enters into my thinking, but I don’t know of course,) I thought to myself, “It would be wonderful if a cat came strolling up right now, so I wouldn’t feel quite so alone at least.”

Right at that moment, a large, orange cat emerged from the bush outside my window, walked up to said window, sat down, and held my gaze directly for many long moments. Now, I should explain that I LOVE cats. They are my favorite animal. I have always felt a strange kinship with them. I just “get” them. I had cats all my life from an early age, and only much later learned that I was allergic to them, and had to give them up for the sake of my health (I was pretty ill and sickly most of the time back then, and I needed all the help I could get.) I hated giving them up. I felt that I was abandoning them, and that they would feel that way too on some rudimentary level, at least to the extent that a cat can comprehend such a feeling. To this day, whenever I see cats, I long to scoop them up and pet them, but I just can’t. Anyway...

So this cat sits there staring at me, under the full moon. I went and got some chicken and fed it to him. He reluctantly (I say reluctantly because he kept staring from it back to me, and back again,) ate it, slowly, and then sat down outside my window and just rested there. He looked like he might sleep, actually. I just stared at him, and he stared at me, serenely. Then he got up, used the bathroom in the bush outside my window, and was gone.

As I said, I’m an agnostic skeptic. I can no more assign this definitive meaning than I can assign definitive meaning to the rising of the sun. But I can at least find it beautiful and moving. And I can still share it with those of you who might find more meaning in it than I can. And for those of you who can, I hope it brings you some peace and comfort for the holidays. If it does, it was worth sharing just for that reason alone.

Peace.

Beautiful experience! I had a similar experience once with a cat that sit on my front porch for 2 days and I took him in, he was the most wonderful little fellow in the world, his name was Cog. I had a cat santurary at the time with 16 cats. I couldn't adopt any of them out, one or two kittens but that was difficult as I loved them so much. Can you tell I love cats. I have a 5 month old kitty now - his name is DJ and he and Moses our Basset Hound (who stood 5 feet from a rabbit and didn't see him, lol) are the best of buddies. They play, sleep together and of course DJ shares our bed at night. Thank you so much for the uplifting story! S @ F

reply to post by AceWombat04

I had a similar experience years ago (not with a cat but asking for something, anything to make me go on another day).

Anyway when you said it was an orange cat I immediately thought of our cat who died last month over the Thanksgiving weekend. She was an odd little beast who often "saw things". And while I don't get sick often the few times I was pretty ill she'd always come and lay on me or near me as if trying to make it better. And sometimes it did.

If you'll indulge a worn out old lady I'll just imagine she was the one who came to you.