I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure

The words of Jules Verne, “I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through,” shimmer with both reverence and wonder. In them, the great dreamer of journeys and voyages beyond the seas and skies reveals his awe before a creature both ordinary and mystical. He speaks not as one who merely observes, but as one who senses the unseen. For to Verne, the cat was not just an animal of fur and paw, but a spirit wrapped in mortal form, an echo of something greater than flesh, and a whisper of other worlds.

The cat, with its silent tread and unblinking gaze, has long stirred the imaginations of humankind. In ancient Egypt, it was revered as divine, a living emblem of Bastet, goddess of protection and grace. To kill a cat, even by accident, was to invite wrath upon oneself, for the ancients saw in its eyes the fire of eternity. Verne’s words are born from this lineage of wonder. He saw what generations before him had seen: that the cat moves as though it remembers skies beyond our skies, that it leaps as though gravity bends out of respect, that it walks as though the earth itself is honored by its step.

And what does it mean that a cat could walk on a cloud without coming through? It is the vision of lightness, of delicacy, of mastery over the weight of existence. Where man stumbles heavy-footed and chained to the dust, the cat embodies the spirit unburdened. It is as if they carry no weight of sorrow, no heaviness of sin, but glide across the fabric of the world as travelers who never truly belong to it. Verne, who imagined men soaring to the moon and diving beneath the seas, looked upon the cat and saw a living symbol of the impossible already made flesh.

History gives us glimpses of such wonder. In the days of the Japanese Edo period, there was a temple that enshrined a cat believed to have saved a lord’s life by beckoning him with its paw. As the man approached, lightning struck the very spot he had stood. In gratitude, the temple raised the image of the maneki-neko, the beckoning cat, which remains to this day a symbol of fortune and protection. Here, too, the cat was more than flesh—it was spirit, guardian, a creature walking between worlds. Verne’s words find their reflection in such tales, where the cat reveals itself as both companion and mystery.

But beyond reverence, there lies in this quote a call to us as humans: to recognize the spiritual woven into the ordinary. Too often we tread upon the earth as if it is mere stone, as if the creatures beside us are mere bodies. Verne reminds us that the world is more alive than we admit, that in the eyes of a cat—or perhaps in the silence of the night—we may glimpse a fragment of eternity. If a cat can walk upon a cloud, then perhaps we, too, are called to walk more lightly upon this earth, with reverence, with grace, with awareness that every step touches something sacred.

The lesson is this: cherish mystery, honor beauty, and walk gently. See in the creatures around you not merely flesh, but spirit. Let the silent presence of the cat remind you that not everything is to be explained; some things are to be marveled at. Do not allow the weight of your days to make you forget the wonder woven into the fabric of life.

Therefore, let practical action follow. Watch the world with new eyes—whether it is the step of a cat, the flight of a bird, or the sway of a tree in the wind. Let these things speak to you, as they spoke to Verne, of worlds beyond this one. Practice gentleness in your own steps, so that when you walk, you too leave no harm, no heaviness, but only quiet grace. In this way, you may not walk upon clouds as cats do, but you may walk upon the earth as though it were sacred ground.

Thus, the ancient voice declares: The cat is a spirit come to earth, a mirror of what we might yet become—creatures of grace, of silence, of mystery. Let us learn from them, and may we too walk as lightly as those who seem born of clouds.