Lessons from a Fox

Every morning I draw a word to meditate on all day.  Yesterday it was “fearlessness,” a prescient commentary on the morning to come.  Brian had tethered Harry, our 16 year old Westie, outside and left him to do his business.  Ten minutes later I sat drinking tea at the counter and for no apparent reason went to look out the window.  I saw Harry and seven feet away crouched a fox, one we’d seen trotting around the neighborhood earlier in the week.

Immediately I ran out the door towards the two creatures, screaming to Brian “the fox, the fox.” The fox moved off and Harry waddled toward me, oblivious to his near demise.  When my heart rate slowed, I realized that while I was scared about Harry, I was fearless for myself. Did my love for this dog eclipse fear? Perhaps, but I think there’s more to it than a simple love/fear matrix of emotion.

Though bold, the fox is wild, and therefore more predictable than a domesticated animal accustomed to people.  I would have been afraid had it been the neighbor’s Boxer in our yard, for that dog regularly charges me, stirring up my old fear of dogs.

But wild creatures seem to have a set of rules for violence. Even though this might be a mother fox needing food for her young, she ran rather than attacked me. This has been my, albeit limited, experience with wild creatures. For example, I left work one day this winter through a back door and found a half dozen deer within a few feet.  When one turned to approach me, I got scared and fumbled for my key before remembering these are wild and gentle creatures. I clapped my hands and they dispersed.

There’s a prayer in the Big Book for Step 4, where we list resentments for those who have harmed us throughout our lives. That prayer rests on the assumption that anyone who has hurt us is “spiritually sick,” and says God, please help me show x “the same tolerance, pity and patience I would cheerfully grant a sick friend.” In order to move on, we need a new perspective, and this prayer enlarges our view so that the old story loosens just enough to be healed.  I can't change the past, I can't change another, but I can grow more loving, open, and awake, which changes everything.

The only route to fearlessness I know is to trust a larger goodness in people and the world. Any malevolence stems from spiritual sickness or imbalance, which only love, tolerance, kindness and pity can restore.  That fox was doing what it does.  We’re the ones who will no longer leave our old dog unattended and tethered as if it were bait. With a shout, a clap, or a new perspective, the balance of life can be restored.