John Gray, 'Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life', 2020 :
"...Cats were many things in ancient Egypt: sometimes companions of human beings as they passed on to another life, at other times manifestations of gods, at still others protectors of the gods. That they could be all of these at once testifies to the subtlety of the archaic Egyptian mind. But it also speaks to the presence of cats themselves. Cats symbolized an affirmation of life in a world preoccupied with the dead. Egyptian religion responded to the prospect of death by preparing for life in another world, but it needed cats to preserve a sensation of being alive in the realm beyond the grave. Knowing only life until they are on the brink of dying, cats are not ruled by death. The Egyptians had good reason for wanting cats to join them in the journey through the underworld.
When it came to death, humans and cats were in the same boat. No one in ancient Egypt believed that humans have souls while cats do not. But if the soul is untouched by death, the feline soul is closer to immortality than the human soul can ever be."
<Knowing only life until they are on the brink of dying, cats are not ruled by death.>...how true...Cat on the deathbed is thinking only of napping...that is soul untouched by death!
Artist: Amy Hwang, The New Yorker, August 2023