a gaian tale

I knew the land intimately, like my thighs and breasts and the nape of my neck. I had my favorite trail. I took it all the time. But that day as I was walking, the fork trail pulled me with an awesome magnetism--it spoke to me...Walk here.

And I did. I followed a new trail--to the dry creek bed where the big magic happened.

Siamese kittens. At first awareness, that's what I imagined. In seconds, I realized I was in the sacred presence of baby foxes. I knew their father. I had been visited by him the day before. His royal redness walked right past me on the green.

They were playing hard--tumbling and biting each other.

At the growl they disappeared so quickly into the decaying tree trunk at the creek bed's edge that my heart was aching. I felt deeply humbled before the growl. I saw her up on the hillside, the vixen, her orange fur flashing through the trees. I felt her concern for her babies and quietly retreated, profoundly changed forever.

I later took their name as a blessing.



=Claudia Fox=





artwork by Cynthia Nicole Cunningham Baxter