(238) The abracadabrante story of Child Moon

  

“It is wasted effort to try to hold on to what is coming undone: everything conspires towards effacement. Not that one should resign oneself to it out of spite, but rather understand that this is a way of being in the world, perhaps the only one, that relieves us of the weight of attachments and allows us to glimpse, in withdrawal, a nameless clarity. What you give up trying to grasp immediately ceases to tighten around you. Thus, little by little, you learn that loss is the true form of salvation.”

Louis-René des Forêts, Ostinato

 

Where the arboreal donkey, silent, observes human beings imprisoned by their shadow, which they confuse with their identity. He sees in it rather an attachment to the known, from which one day they will have to free themselves. From his tree, he senses that by finally setting a hoof on the ground, everything for him might change.

 

The donkey, seemingly unconcerned, hears everything. He says nothing, but secretly thinks no less.

— These beings from elsewhere are strange... Such agitation for chattering two-legged animals incapable of flight... It is fascinating to see how deeply their conception of shadow is trapped within an archaic duality. For them, the shadow is merely the reflection of the subject. An extension of themselves. But the shadow... the true shadow... is neither trace nor absence. It might be a “memory made flesh.”

That strange gesticulating knight and his accomplice dimly sense what phenomenology might have taught them. Do they know that to be is also to carry one’s own negative? They remain prisoners of a drama. Their words are filled with terror at the prospect of loss. As though existence itself dissolved when a form was forgotten.

Mystification. Shadow is not identity. It is attachment. It is weight. A bond, yes, but a bond to the known. To what is visible, well defined. These human creatures chain themselves to their own reflection in the world. For them, to lose their shadow is to lose their name. As though existence necessarily had to leave a mark...

Poor humans. They have never learned the lesson of the Tao: what you lose sets you free. What you leave behind becomes what saves you.

But can an errant knight be expected to understand that? Human wandering is not a path towards effacement. It is a refusal to let go.

I chew and observe in silence. Are they aware of my presence? I contemplate their talkative tragedy with the patience of the ancient sages. Here, in my tree, far from the ground, I carry my shadow within myself. Will I one day have the courage that the elders fear? To set my hoof upon the earth and become... absence.

That is when, for the first time, I shall stop chewing.