Fox, Wildness, Animism And Fleeting Beauty.
The Wild Wisdom of the Curious Incident of the Fox In The night. Life, Death and Fandom.
Dear Hearts
‘Owd Reynard’ is Old Cheshire dialect for Fox. This dialect is what my grandfather spoke. I previously mentioned him and his way with animals in my Wild Wisdom piece about Elder Tree. This is the sister to last weeks’ article about my chickens and their magic. This week it is the turn of Fox.
The Friday before last, that bleak first December day, I awoke to find my three beautiful chickens had been killed. Nothing left but a handful of feathers. For Fox had come to call with devastating consequences.
Animism believes that all things have life and consciousness. We also know that just because we cannot see something does not mean that it does not exist. Thus it is with Fox, who seems to be everywhere though I do not see him. Read on and I will explain…
Reynard as he is known by old Cheshire folk, is a name that derives from Old French ‘renart’ and Middle Dutch ‘reynaerd’ meaning fox originating from an earlier Germanic name. It comes from a cycle of medieval tales dating back at least as far as the eleven-hundreds, concerned with a red fox called Reynard. These stories came from all across Europe and celebrated his cleverness and cunning, and his name originally meant “strong in counsel”.
When I was young I remember seeing Fox from time to time at a distance running across the curve of a field before disappearing into the trees. It always felt like a deeply magical experience to me. I remember the local hunt in their red jackets and white jodhpurs sat on their towering horses gathering at the end of our lane just off the nearby road. Later, the baying hounds, the huntsman’s horn piping, thundering horses and there, a thin streak of Fox running and running and running.
Before the hunt all entrances to their dens are blocked, every escape route stopped, for the ‘sporting chance’ is not enacted without ensuring as far as possible Fox’s demise. This is not about pest control, nor hunting for food. It is not about the nobility of the chase, it is the death in which these hunters rejoice. Once caught and ripped apart by the hounds the tail is cut off and new hunt members are ‘bloodied’ by being daubed on the forehead with its’ blood. It is ritual perverted, for true ritual has life at its’ heart. My grandfather had no truck with “them buggers on their osses.” As a farmer, one would have thought that perhaps he more than most would have had a grudge to pay, but not so. He just wasn’t made that way. As I’ve said before, he was a friend to Fox, got to know them and fed them by hand. True responsible farmers well know it is their duty to protect their animals and birds. Fox just does what comes naturally as a matter for survival. Yes, some will kill every bird in a large flock, but give them enough time they will come to take away the rest to be stored somewhere. We cannot blame Fox for refusing to adhere to principles they know nothing about. It is only the arrogance of humans that attempts to impose their unbending will on others.
Fox … Oh wily Fox, he has learned that he is safer in the city than in the countryside these days. You see him running across genteel neighbourhoods, darting out from behind parked cars. He will rummage through your rubbish and take what he can. He is not fussy. He is wild and ungovernable and walks with absolute impunity where he chooses. He is at once both visible and invisible, staring down a human neighbour one minute and under radar the next. Given he is so well documented one would be forgiven for thinking we know all there is to know about him and we would, of course, be wrong.
It was a very curious thing, that literally just the day before the terrible slaughter of my lovely chickens, I had just written to my American pen friend friend in response to her email letter, where she had brought up the subject of folklore, ‘scary beings’ and mentioned Coyote the Trickster. Now here in England we have no Coyote, but of course we do have Fox.
Biologically Fox is a relative of Coyote. In folklore Fox too is known as a trickster. As a child I remember reading a story in which a Fox appeared called ‘Mr Cunningly Sly’. For foxes are clever, resourceful and adaptable creatures. Once a common sight in the UK countryside, as I say, now you are far more likely to see them in our towns and cities rummaging in bins and scooting across walls and sneaking through gardens.
The first coincidence: So, on the night of November 30th I wrote my response to my American pen friend about the recurring nightmare I had about Fox.
“Hmmm ..... ancient archetypes stalking our souls
When I was a child I used to have a recurring nightmare over and over about a giant fox dressed in a hunting outfit. If you look up fox hunting you will see what the outfit is. Even now this strikes me as an incredibly striking image. Anyway, this giant fox was stood upright on its hind legs inside the shippon in the yard next to our house (old Cheshire word for cow barn/milking shed, not that there were any cows in there by that point). A long thin rectangular building. It was night time and I was in the yard in the dark and with lights shining out of the shippon. I entered through a side door to see a crowd of people who all started shouting at me "Don't step over the line!". On the ground was a white line which I stepped over as I entered only to notice the giant fox towering above everyone with his head turning looking towards me .... at that point I always awoke, my heart pounding in the dark in my bedroom in the big old dark house.”
The next morning December 1st my chickens were all dead and gone.
Feeling overwhelmed and without words I went for a walk among the hoar frost crystals. In the face of such destruction and overcome by emotion I went out and my world became small. For I just concentrated on the beauty of the moment gazing at the frost. As I walked an image of an Oak leaf caught my eye, but the leaf was no longer there. Perfectly written in frost was the shape of the leaf, a ghost of what once was. It pointed the way across the little bridge.
It was ice crystal healing of the magical medicinal kind. Photos of frosted grass, Corncockles, ghosts of Summers’ past. I saw the beauty in its passing.
The truth is that we want everything to be predictable, safe and ordered. We humans farm every plot, we want agricultural order and domesticity. We want to own everything. The world untamed is dangerous and uncertain. However the more we try to control it the more out of control everything becomes. You have only to turn on the news or, in a lot of places now, take a walk outside and see how little of nature we have left. A lot of land has been so over used that is has less than 60 crops left in its capacity to grow. Our notions of safety are challenged. We want chickens but are not prepared to welcome the Foxes and instead we hunt and destroy that which we think upends our world.
Before chickens were introduced and revered as sacred by our forebears, Lapwings and other ground nesting birds provided eggs. (The Lapwings, oh how I loved the Lapwings who came to visit. I know them as Peewits after the sound they make. I will tell you of them one day.) What has happened to Lapwings in the UK? Why they are on the red endangered list. Somehow we do not equate their demise with a threat to our fertile living lives. But, this is not a sermon on the mount. We all know what we know.
Summer has gone and it is now the cold hard winters’ afternoon after the morning my birds died. Having crossed the little wooden bridge I carried on walking.
The second coincidence: It was as I strode on up the hill and stopped to pet a greyhound that something told me to look up, and there I saw Fox Spirit up on the ridge and here is the photo to prove it.
The third coincidence: The next day and another ‘curious coincidence’ as my kiddo sent me video footage of a gig they went to that weekend, and there again was Fox! When I commented upon this, according to my kiddo about thirty percent of the people there that night were ‘furries’. These are people who love to celebrate anthropomorphised and cartoon animals, they love to dress up as them too. Some from top to toe, and others just with ears and/or a tail and celebrate their animals. These people are known as being part of the ‘Furry Fandom Culture’. It is, I think perhaps, a yearning to connect with the More-Than-Human World. Anyway, there in that club among the dancers I saw Fox.
Fourth coincidence: Suddenly Fox seemed to be everywhere at once, everywhere I looked. I couldn’t go on social media without Fox images suddenly popping up here there and all over the place. The wild calls to us everywhere. Those of you that saw my series of articles about Thors’ Cave and the way the land communicates with us will already know of my interest in different media and how the wild will call to us however it can, be it in dreams, TV, books, out on a walk or even from a nightclub. The wild spills in through every nook, cranny and crevice whether we like it or not. The more we try to control, tame or destroy the wild world around us, the more unpredictable and precarious our living becomes.
My beloved chickens are dead. Do I blame Fox? No. The chickens, as my kiddo said, were meant to die that way. It was better, they said, than dying terrified in a factory abattoir having lived miserable lives in cages. They reminded me how loved my birds were and how well cared for and what good lives they had with all sorts of toys, food, endless treats and roaming about in the garden. They are absolutely right, of course. It is easy to forget these things in grief.
Ultimately Fox is only a trickster I feel when we are not honest with ourselves, or when we refuse to do what is right or when we need pushing to move on and develop more. Fox really is a very wise teacher who tells us (or reminds us) that where there is life there is also death. It is inevitable, and only in that way can the cycle of birth, death and rebirth continue with each death bringing new life. As we in the north sit with the lengthening nights of the dying light we await solstice and the rebirth of the sun at Christmas. Down south the light is almost at its peak before the days begin to contract. This is what we learn in the animist tradition, although I would suggest regardless of faith all this is really a deep understanding of ecology that need not clash with other belief systems. It is a deep understanding of just how inextricably entwined we are with everything and everyone else, our sacred connection.
There can be another layer here, depending upon the message, to do with an invitation by spirit to work with them directly. Some might call this a shamanic message. In true shamanic terms there would not be a choice to be made as it would have been decided already by the spirits. In animist and shamanic terms there is more beyond death as energy is not destroyed when a physical body dies, but is transmuted into something else. Animists acknowledge spirits and indeed communicate with them, perhaps to ask for a blessing or leaving offerings for them for example. In places where indigenous peoples are still living close to their roots, communicating with the spirit of the animals they hunt is part of the process of obtaining food, such as among the Yukaghirs in Siberia.
A shaman however, is very specifically a healer chosen by the spirits and acknowledged by their local community as such. Traditionally no one gets to call themselves a shaman, as this is a title bestowed upon a person by their community who have received the benefit of their healing, or who have witnessed their work first hand. The name originates from a Russian term for healers in Siberia who are governed by spirits. In this case the shaman goes into a trance and is taken over. Hence why in many societies the face is covered so the shamans’ eyes and thus the spirit inhabiting them cannot be seen. The same was also true, for example, in the ancient bear cult and the bear hunts that took place. Those who remained in the village were not allowed to look directly at the hunters when they returned or Bear because it was believed they could be drawn into the otherworld and could be injured or die by doing so. One had to be properly prepared for these things. In the case of the villagers welcoming home the hunters who had been in that liminal space a gold or brass ring was provided for them to look through. Thus a clear boundary is marked out and held. Therefore energetically, psychically or psychologically, however you want to perceive this, it is important to understand the difference between shamanism and animism.
A preoccupation with death can be very compelling and, I would argue, we are seeing the negative result of this ‘cult of amnesia about life’ around the world. Given how beguiling it can be, it therefore takes a mentally strong person to be a true shaman and it comes with years of training. Once they have been chosen by the spirits there is no leaving the ‘profession’. The spirits test their chosen ones thoroughly, often through illness and near death experiences. Usually the shaman comes from a family of shamans and often they can be a reincarnated family member. It takes years of being spiritually and culturally immersed in their traditions, mentored by an elder and being trained by the spirits to become adept. Not for nothing are there folktales of people being taken by fairies only to return hundreds of years later for example, or of getting lost in the otherworld never to return or being ‘elf shot’. For those of you ‘in the know forgive me’, as this is simplistically put but, as I am sure you will understand, not everyone knows about these things.
I’m talking about this as I know from messages you have sent me that some of you want to know more about animism and shamanism and what the difference is between them. There is a lot of misinformation online that sells people ‘shamanic this, that and the other’, when really what they are talking about is animism. So again, Fox the Trickster comes into play, just to what is our attention being directed towards? What shall we choose? While we are here, we are Here. We are here to witness the beauty of the world and to help take care of it. Grief is love and a necessary part of our lives. To love is to commit fully to being alive in the world, it is part of our purpose for being here.
Fox, mostly invisible yet never far away, reminds us not to get complacent and to pay attention. My beautiful birds are gone, never to return, but I have many memories of them and they added much to my life while they were here, and for that I am truly grateful. Meanwhile in the cold dark winter at least one unknown, unnamed, fox lives to see another day having feasted upon Beanie, Cocoa and Teacup. From death comes new life. In order for us to live, another being, plant or animal, must die in order to feed us. Let me just repeat that …
In order for us to live, other beings, plant or animal, must die in order to feed us.
Sit with that …
It is a deeply profound thing.
Everything wants to live and to serve its purpose and everything must die. Fox stealing into our hen house at night brings these truths right to our door whether we like it not. We can become death bringers and don our red coats and mindlessly destroy, or we can become the guardians we are meant to be.
From night clubs, to chicken coops and your back yards, magic is everywhere, we just have to be open to seeing it.
(As a side note it is something we will celebrate in the Forest Heart Fellowship.)
For those who listened to last months’ god and goddess reading Pele and Hades brought love of the earthly kind, of being present and aware of the earth, but they also intimated what was to come. These oracle readings via podcast are a new venture for me here on Substack and something I’m working on and refining. On the last day of Yew last month we crossed the threshold via Fox. Now, as we traverse the dark towards solstice we are in the guiding light of Pine who we will meet later. So it is, that we will have come full circle through our simple modern Celtic Calendar and the teachings of the trees.
This is the time of year when it is getting very hectic and stressful for many of you. Hang on in there. We have Wild Wisdom every Sunday and also our Forest Heart community newsletters about twice a month. Although in December I’m putting together a few more uplifting newsletters to help carry you through the dark and into the New Year. Please know that you are not alone and we are all right here. You can find me on Substack Notes too.
I don’t normally do this here on Sundays’ Wild Wisdom, but since it is nearly Christmas I thought that you would like to know that you can plant and protect trees through our volunteer run Ancient and Sacred Trees not for profit community in the UK and the Tropics. You could get a lovely personalised printable certificate or even a tee shirt, both designed by me.
Or, if you would like to, you can plant a tree a month (as well as support me) by taking up a paid subscription.
We will be celebrating Ancient and Sacred Trees community TEN YEAR anniversary next year! Ten years of celebrating trees, positive action, good mental health, community, and our sacred connection with Mother Earth. Planting and protecting trees has been a fairly new venture, now it’s time to see what we can do to step it up. There will be more to come about about this and the Forest Heart Fellowship. www.ancientandsacredtrees.org
I’m sitting with my lessons from Fox. Thank you for reading and for helping me celebrate and honour the lives of Teacup. Beanie and Cocoa over these two letters. Thank you so much for your lovely messages and emails you have taken the time to send to me. Each one is a little sparkle of light, a star on the velvet of the night sky. Below is one of Cocoas’ feathers. Isn’t it beautiful?
How did you honour your pets’ passing? What did you learn from it? I’d love to read your comments and emails. Feel free to share any other thoughts with me too.
Blessings and Wilding Wishes
Amanda Claire.