The Fable of…

The Fable of…

In a forest there lived a fox who roamed freely upon the earth, doing as it pleased.

In the sky above the forest was an eagle, which flew with freedom wherever it wanted to go.

On a particular day the fox said to the eagle it envied the freedom of the eagle to fly through the skies, and the eagle said to the fox that is envied the fox for roaming the ground so freely and with such speed.

And so they had something to offer each other. The eagle introduced the fox to a life in the sky, and the fox introduced the eagle to a life on the ground. The fox and eagle treasured there time together and began to think of a time when one of them would leave.

The fox and eagle decided that they would build a home together and thus always be able to have each other. They vowed to always return to their home and too each other. This was after all was their arrangement, their experience with one another that they had created.

They built a house in the forest together and lived there for a time. But soon they started to die. As they lay in their house, their energy drained from them, they wondered what had happened. This is what they had wanted, and now it was killing them.

Death soon came to visit them, and sat with them in their final moments. The fox asked “Death, why are we dying?”

Death responded “You do not need to die for it is before your time, you have simply lost your will.”

Death then proposed several questions and points to the fox: “Would it not have been better to have woken up each day and found the eagle there, not because eagle vowed to be there, but because he chose every single day to be there for you? Is a vow made in the past about future feelings more important than living love every day? The vow robs you – it takes something from you when instead life is about giving. To give is set the other free. Still having their freedom and appreciating it, the other will give fully to you. If you had allowed to each other to come and go, your admiration and love would have grown for each other. But instead you caged each other. Your fur and feathers have lost their shine. You are ugly to each other for your true beauty comes from your freedom. Thus what brought you together, when you try to contain it, you lose it. You cannot hold your breath without losing it. What was free and beautiful no longer is, for the beauty is gone because the freedom is gone. I, death, must soon come so you can regain your freedom and see the beauty of each other, freedom, and life.”

~Cory Mitchell