Moon Eclipse

In the woods again. This time it was high noon although the moon eclipse on October 18 seemed to have my reference points confused. For the past few days the moon has been in the sky till the late hours of the morning. Sun and moon over the same forest made me somewhat disoriented.

It was under the moon, this morning, when I found a dead red fox. Was it the same fox my dog chased a few nights ago? Or just a fox who had lived his time without being chased? Yet something was different in the posture of this fox- his back was to a tree as if leaning against it. This fox had died in an almost standing posture on his hind legs.

My initial reaction was that it was pushed as such by another inhabitant of the woods, but there were no apparent injuries. Could it be that the fox, at the moment of death, stood on its hind legs like a dog begging for a bone, leaned against the tree and tried to reach for the moon?

I sat down on a rock near that tree and looked at the fox. Soon, I could not see that unusually postured secretive troubadour of the woods anymore, as my mind dissociated my self from the moment. I listened to the monotonous whisper of the fall leaves and recalled a Zen Japanese dictum Zadatsu Ryõbõ which I had interpreted as “Die sitting. Die standing.”

… I have seen people at the last moments of life, and I have seen others just after death. I had never thought about their posture. My father-in-law died sitting in his favorite chair, but I have never seen anyone or any mammal die standing. Was this fox chasing the moon for enlightment?

Or was the dictum about living each day to appreciate the here and now? Could it be that the posture in death is the final attitude impersonating how we lived? If we had the choice, would we sit under a tree, reach for the eclipsed moon, and let it go? Or would we struggle to stay alive even if we cannot see the moon anymore?

Resisting further philosophical vagabondage, I got off the rock, went to the pine tree facing north, and sat down leaning against it. I could not see the moon but it was there, I knew. So I shut my eyes to find it in the sky above me.

… In a strange way, and for a short moment, it was pure experience.

October 23, 2013

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013