Perhaps because I have slept through it for nearly a year I am suddenly in love again with early morning. This morning I was reading a bit from "Everyday Zen," a book by the contemporary zen master, Charlotte Joko Beck, and was contemplating this sentence: "No matter what your life is, I encourage you to make it your practice" when I glanced over my shoulder and saw the Show of Light was on again in the east. I went for my camera and over the next 30 minutes took the pictures you see above. However the one that would have been the best didn't get taken.
I was sitting in the padded lawn chair with my feet tucked into the hem of my robe, meditating, when who should come trotting around the front of the house but the fox. He or she skirted the stone wall that borders my downstairs neighbor's driveway, turned, and came trotting straight up the stairs. Not to startle him with my unexpected presence, I politely said "hello" as he started up my walk. He was not in the least deterred. In fact he came straight on up the sidewalk until he was standing at the foot of the porch stairs just a few feet from my knee.
The fox stopped and looked me in the eyes. Despite the fact that I didn't have my glasses on, I could see how pointed and sharp were his whiskers, jet black against the delicate golden red of his muzzle and the golden loveliness of his intelligent eyes. We must have looked eye-to-eye for a few moments and I felt that wondrous sense again that neither was he afraid, nor was I. Then he decided to go up over my porch rather than come any closer to me by going around. Up and over he went, as silent on his paws as a cat, and disappeared into the backyard.
I consider foxes to be a totem of mine. Perhaps it is coincidental and self-confirmatory on my part, but when a fox appears out-of-the-blue, unafraid, and comes so close to me (or even when I spot one of these allusive creatures trotting along in the distance) I consider myself blessed, my day blessed, my contemplations affirmed. THIS morning I was doing the child eyes meditation when he appeared. Glasses off, I was looking at the world as if for the first (or last) time. I had already been struck by the wonder of naked branches against lightening sky, noticing how each and every tree in my neighborhood has a unique way of putting its twigs and limbs out into the world - like fingerprints. I had stopped thinking, for a moment, as my gaze suddenly widened and I began taking in the world, just as it was. And then the fox appeared and came right up to my knee to look me in the face.
It was beautiful at dawn again this morning. Now, with the Light Show over for the day, the morning looks a little "plain" - but I have had a reminder that you only have to use your child eyes in any moment to find the wonder of life again. And certainly I feel my day has been blessed by the direct gaze of a fox.
I was sitting in the padded lawn chair with my feet tucked into the hem of my robe, meditating, when who should come trotting around the front of the house but the fox. He or she skirted the stone wall that borders my downstairs neighbor's driveway, turned, and came trotting straight up the stairs. Not to startle him with my unexpected presence, I politely said "hello" as he started up my walk. He was not in the least deterred. In fact he came straight on up the sidewalk until he was standing at the foot of the porch stairs just a few feet from my knee.
The fox stopped and looked me in the eyes. Despite the fact that I didn't have my glasses on, I could see how pointed and sharp were his whiskers, jet black against the delicate golden red of his muzzle and the golden loveliness of his intelligent eyes. We must have looked eye-to-eye for a few moments and I felt that wondrous sense again that neither was he afraid, nor was I. Then he decided to go up over my porch rather than come any closer to me by going around. Up and over he went, as silent on his paws as a cat, and disappeared into the backyard.
I consider foxes to be a totem of mine. Perhaps it is coincidental and self-confirmatory on my part, but when a fox appears out-of-the-blue, unafraid, and comes so close to me (or even when I spot one of these allusive creatures trotting along in the distance) I consider myself blessed, my day blessed, my contemplations affirmed. THIS morning I was doing the child eyes meditation when he appeared. Glasses off, I was looking at the world as if for the first (or last) time. I had already been struck by the wonder of naked branches against lightening sky, noticing how each and every tree in my neighborhood has a unique way of putting its twigs and limbs out into the world - like fingerprints. I had stopped thinking, for a moment, as my gaze suddenly widened and I began taking in the world, just as it was. And then the fox appeared and came right up to my knee to look me in the face.
It was beautiful at dawn again this morning. Now, with the Light Show over for the day, the morning looks a little "plain" - but I have had a reminder that you only have to use your child eyes in any moment to find the wonder of life again. And certainly I feel my day has been blessed by the direct gaze of a fox.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment