We raise many things in our garden.
Roses, flowers wild and cultivated, sacred tobacco and sage, and the three sisters; corn, squash and beans. Sunflowers and goldfinches, mullein and honey bees. Zinnias and cosmos and watermelons. Worms and grubs, butterflies and bottle flies, and the Garden Spider. Raccoons and opossums, chipmunks, moles and mice visit regularly. Bears and deer come into the fields, as do woodchucks and the rare moose. Whole families of crows, doves and turkeys join the chickens in the courtyard.
And the Fox.
. . . . .
A Fox is many things. They are demure, yet powerful, sweet and cunning, innocent and beguiling. Although they are wise, they may appear to act foolishly as a ploy. And yet across the years we have never lost anything to a predator. Everyone is content and satisfied. We welcome all hearts and they come freely. And they bring their babies.
This is our Secret Garden.
. . . . .
Last summer we had a vixen with an injured leg who came every night and ate the seeds we put out for her. She brought her only kit with her, and he romped and frolicked around her in the moonlight as she ate. Later in the fall, he returned and brought his mate. She too danced in the moonlight, coy and cunning, crazy like a fox.
Fox is one of our totems, bringing insight and wisdom, protecting what is hidden and mysterious.
. . . . .
On New Year’s Day I place one of my ceramic bowls in the corn garden with an offering of gratitude, a prayer for peace on earth. Among the stalks and dried corn silks rises the smoke of the four sacred herbs, Tobacco, Sage, Cedar and Sweetgrass, as well as Palo Santo, Osha root, Frankincense and Myrrh, Foxglove, Bear Berry and Honey.
In the photo below, just beyond the fence, are the footprints of the Fox––
Watching, guarding, tending secrets.
Images and text copyright 2016 Harry Duane Hudson
