A Passing Fox

Now that it is fall I have been opening a window in my meditation corner in the morning. With the blinds up and the window cracked, the dark seeps in with the cool air, along with the stirring sounds of the approaching dawn.

One morning, as I sat on my meditation bench, eyes closed, knees on the floor, I heard a smallish creature trot by just below the open window. In spring or summer I would likely not have heard anything, but with a blanket of brown leaves on the ground, the nimble feet made a light crunching sound on their way through the yard.

The animal's gait was too rhythmic for a squirrel's distinct intermittent patter, which is often followed by a sharp rattle as it scurries up the chain link fence or scratches its way around the grooved bark of an oak tree. Nor was the passing animal loud or loping enough to be a loose dog, common as those are in the neighborhood. Neither was it a bird, hopping about and kicking up leaves to get at the bugs and worms in the grass.

I seemed to know intuitively that the creature passing below the window on this chilly morning was a fox, one of the family that has built a den across the street in the narrow, wooded border between two properties. I was glad of its brief company, its stealth and cleverness a four-footed reminder of the ego I was trying to tame from my perch on the bench.