A long long time ago, in the highlands of the Andes, in those huge mountains,
there was a fox who was so in love with the moon.
He used to look at her in awe.
He was hypnotized looking at the moon so beautiful and shining.
But he felt very sad because he didn’t know how to reach her, how to be with her.
One day while he was walking in a canyon, he met an old man who was sitting under the shade of a tree.
The fox approached the man and very respectfully asked:
Old man, maybe you could tell me what is the path to get to the moon.
She is so beautiful, the fox sighed.
The old man replied: Look for the highest mountain, go to the top of it,
make sure that there are no other higher mountains around it,
when you cannot see another higher mountain,
you will know that you have arrived at the roof top of the world.
Then, wait there until the full moon appear, then just jump to her and you will reach her.
Without even saying thank you, the fox left very fast
and began running up in the slopes of a huge mountain
but when he arrived at the top, he saw there were other higher mountains around.
He decided which one was the tallest among all of them and went there running.
After arriving at the top of this one, he felt very angry when he realized that there were other higher mountains. So he went down again and climbed another one,
once again, over and over, day after day, again and again…
He was exhausted now, walking slowly up and down,
with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, panting heavily.
One day, after climbing painfully a very difficult slope,
he got to the top of a snowy mountain.
He looked around carefully and he was very surprised to find
that there were no more mountains around,
he had arrived at the roof top of the world.
Feeling so happy and with his heart beating fast,
he sat down to wait for the moon to appear.
The sun, like a ball of fire, had sunk on the horizon
and slowly the night was arriving surrounded by a profound silence.
And then, there, in that silence, the moon appeared,
it was a red moon, huge and so near that one could reach it just by stretching the arm.
The fox immediately jumped to the moon.
She embraced him and caught him and until now you can see the fox in the face of the full moon.
We don’t know if the fox didn’t want or couldn’t come back to the earth any more.
Many many years have passed and this story found me some time ago, and last night thinking about it I had a dream where the fox was in front of me, staring at my eyes and I asked him: Dear fox, what is my moon?, what is that beloved, beautiful and shining something in my life? And, if I discover it, will I be able to jump to it?
The fox inclining his head to one side and looking at me with tender eyes replied to me:
Keep walking, keep walking Gloria, you will find your moon,
and then you will see if you want to jump to it and embrace it,
meanwhile, if you need some encouragement, remember,
I will be here, on the face of the moon, looking at you, looking at you all the time.
~ This is a folk tale from the Andes of Peru shared by Gloria from Peru at our June 2021 online meeting ‘Full Moon Reflections’.