“What must I do, to tame you?” asked the little prince.
“You must be very patient,” replied the fox. “First you will sit down at a little distance from me–like that–in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day . . .” [i]
I saw a fox this morning while on my run around the LSU lakes. She was walking along the top of the brick back wall of a side-parking space in front of a house in a turn in the lake. She saw me and stopped. Of course, I attempted to snap a photo with my I-phone. She looked at me with what I considered to be curiosity. I stopped and watched her cross the yard in front of the house and it seemed as if she wanted to draw near, but she hesitated and then slowly turned and made her way between two houses and out of my view.
I couldn’t help but think of the fox in Antoine de Saint Exupery’s literary masterpiece, The Little Prince. The beautiful description of ‘taming’ as it related to the little prince and the fox and their relationship has stayed in my heart since I first read it. So, I return to it often.
The connotation that we many times associate with ‘taming’ has to do with an exertion of some type of force, which so to speak breaks the ‘wildness’ of something (or someone) so that the brokenness results in a type of acquiescence and obedience. This is a far cry from the sense of ‘taming’ that the fox has taught the Little Prince. This ‘taming’ is that which involves humble and persistent willingness to BE with someone long enough to “sit a little closer…every day.”
Taming here has to do with a belonging but not of ownership. When we truly belong to one another, it is not about possession but about availability. Trusting that being near crosses space and time because we have tamed one another by being with each other in space and time. We intuit the primordial connection and assent and even strengthen the connection by presence.
So where does one go when they depart? I would say both nowhere and everywhere.
The connections that we receive and create in this life are ties that cannot be broken, which is why taming is not about the brokenness of wildness leading to obedience tempered by dominance, but precisely about the brokenness in vulnerability that paradoxically heals the woundedness of aloneness by sharing the space. My aloneness is your aloneness. My nowhere does not exist without yours, and thus, we are everywhere together.
“You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.” [ii]
This is the secret that the fox imparts to the little prince just before their parting. I would humbly offer perhaps that this goes equally for what (or WHO) has tamed you. The responsibility is multi-directional. And it is indeed a task of eternal joy.
For those of you who have read The Little Prince, you will recall that he (the little prince) is very concerned for his rose, which he realizes has tamed him, which is so beautifully highlighted in the fox’s instruction on taming. It seems that indeed we become unique only in the process of ‘taming’ or BEING – JUST Being – with one another.
Today is the birthday of my mother, who died in 2016. She is now everywhere and showing me this in all things of my life, and I actually can see it when I pay attention.
I can truthfully say that she tamed me…
“because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.” [iii]
I like to also believe, in some way, I did the same for her.
[i] THE LITTLE PRINCE by Antoine de Saint Exupery, http://verse.aasemoon.com/images/f/f5/The_Little_Prince.pdf
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Ibid.