The global pandemic, Covid-19, with its depressing statistics, anti-social distancing requirements, interminable face masks, countless extra handwashing, working from home, working on the Internet, zoom teaching, blended learning, endless inconvenience, and almost threatening uncertainty, will be defined in the future as a remarkable opportunity for scientific and sociological study and debate.
However, for most of us just now, it is a dark depressing cloud, an exercise in frustration. But… If you are a pet owner, and more particularly a cat owner, you are probably happier than most people, because if there is a pussycat in the house, life always seems to be just a wee bit better!
I’m not thinking about your street variety alley cats, no. Though the people who care for the hordes of unwanted street cats will tell stories of cat context street cats, each with a sad story of their own. No, I must put that emotive issue to one side for now and focus on cattus domesticii. And I’m just playing with you there as it’s actually known by the Latin Felis Catus, which identifies it as a member of the cat family, who were first domesticated in the Middle East 5,300 years ago, when they were accorded significant religious and social standing.
Cats were worshipped in the Ancient Egypt of the earliest Nile civilisations as the Goddess Bastat was usually portrayed in the form of a cat in a warlike, or warrior-like pose. The household cats of the time were so revered that killing cats was forbidden, and when a family cat died a period of mourning was observed, and their owners would shave their eyebrows as a mark of respect. Terry Pratchett observed that, “In ancient times, cats were worshipped as Gods, and they have never forgotten it,” and he may very well not be wrong.
environments
Today though, lets mull over the impact, in these anti-socially adjusted environments, of a house cat, of the common Garfield variety, that demands its food twice or three times a day, and then sleeps when it wants to, stops you from sleeping when you want to, is always under your feet at the wrong time, yet has an amazing capacity for philosophical fortitude, simply by being a listener. In fact, Hippolyte wrote, “The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior to that of philosophers.”
I don’t know why we share with our cats, why we confide in them? It’s almost as if we expect that one day, they will answer us with the solution to all our woes. Yet, when we have finished, they simply keep looking at us, as if to say “Is that it? Is there no more of this depressing litany of complaints that I must listen to? Thank God!” Then, stretching, yawning, and with that almost contemptuous look that well-fed cats have perfected, walk away as if to find somewhere quiet to recover.
They also know how to relax, how to find comfort in the most spartan of environments, to find the softest chair, the coolest corner, but they don’t like computers, being too often distracted by the mouse! Just now, we have Persy, no, it’s not spelt wrong, he is completely white, so he was named after Persil washing powder. He is a 6-month-old, cute little Turkish Angora we have fostered, with the wisdom of ages about him. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, he will wake us up when he is awake, he sleeps when he wants to, and God forbid if his food is not ready when he’s hungry.
Yet, his influence is pleasant and calming, proof of the adage that “roses have thorns, and cats’ claws, yet both are greater renowned for affection, than blood or pain.” Lord Byron wrote in praise, something he rarely did of anything! “A cat has beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, all the virtues of man without his vices.”
Ray Petersen
petersen_ray@hotmail.com
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