LA012 The Cinnamon Tree

(Mixed media on handmade paper)

Incorporated into the image are Chinese symbols for “Moon Rabbit”. In Chinese/Buddhist mythology, there once was a rabbit who, because it could only gather grass and didn’t want to cheat/steal to collect food for a hungry old man, threw itself into the fire so the man could feed on its flesh. The old man turned out to be a god, who spared the rabbit and sent it to live on the moon, in the shade of a cinnamon tree that could never be felled. Coincidentally, there’s a similar Aztec legend about a self-sacrificing moon rabbit.