A cat often behaves like a metamorphosis of a female. It is the image of a superhuman vitality, which has an extraordinary energy.
There is a saying, which states that a cat has seven lives (maybe seven is an image, a metaphor of cyclical completeness). In some traditions a cat, especially black, may seem to have negative characteristics and to act as the enemy of the gods of light. Among the Egyptians, a cat has sometimes been associated with the moon, it has also been dedicated to the goddess Isis and Bast (or Bastet, the keeper of the marital union), it has also been likened to night, fertility and joy. In Egyptian mythology, the goddess Bast (Bastet) is the goddess of joy and gladness, for which the cat was a sacred animal.
Bast was often depicted as a woman whose face had the characteristics of the head of a cat, or in the form of a real cat.
The Egyptians believed that the cat was the messenger of the gods on earth, sent to protect them from negative supernatural forces (a similar legend is also widespread in China). According to the Egyptian myth, the sun god Ra, under the guise of a red cat in the shade of the sycamore tree (the tree of the sacred world), killed the dragon Apophis. The images of cross between cats and lions meant that the cat, even in Egypt, was associated with the idea of belonging to the aristocratic class.
In Japan, the cat is considered a harmful animal. The Scandinavian myth tells that the god Thor could not lift the cat of the King from the ground. He could lift only one paw, because in reality, it was the serpent Ermungandom that had taken the form of a cat. The color of the cat was linked to symbols of the image. Thus, the black cat was associated with darkness and death.According to legend, in Buddhism, the red cat was worshiped because it had saved the precious manuscripts of the sacred canon. In the Middle Ages the black cat was a symbol of the devil.
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