This July I listened to a Zen teacher give a dharma talk on the topic of Baizhang's Fox. It's potential meanings and interpretations are infinite and multi-dimensional in the way that Zen Buddhist teachings tend to be. For me the story summoned a long forgotten memory, a visceral recollection of a moment of my childhood. About the time I buried foxes and mourned them as I would my closest human friends or family.
I was 7 or 8 and my family had recently bought a rustic off-grid cabin in northern Ontario (see "Home Places") for our family of 5. It was nestled in a pristine 200 acres of hardwood forests, creeks and wetlands, surrounded by more unclaimed and sparsely populated acres. The long unpaved driveway forked off of an even longer gravel road. That spring and summer we visited the place frequently, going up for a few days or a week at a time, my mum and dad busying themselves with finishing the half-done chinking of the log walls, or building the ice-box that would serve as a refrigerator. I was allowed to roam freely and spent my days exploring the new territory. It was not long before I found a den, a few hundred meters down from the cabin, dug into a sandy slope by the paws of an unknown wildling. I had been taught the art of noticing by my dad, but also had an inherent attentiveness to the details of the natural world. I could tell that the den was freshly made, maybe I could smell the earthy dampness of a fresh dig.
I reported the find to my father who identified it as a fox den. From then on I spent my days watching for a sign of the creature from what I hoped was a respectful distance. I understood not to get too close - my dad had told me that foxes in particular were sensitive to human presence. We went back to the city - perhaps there was still a school year to finish, or jobs to return to, but it was not long before we returned again. Over the course of that next visit I did not see the fox, but I heard her yips on nighttime hunts and felt her wild presence around our cabin. I would anticipate the reflected green of her eyes under the glare of my flashlight on every one of my nighttime missions to the outhouse behind the cottage.
Over the coming weeks and months we returned to our family retreat many times, each time getting more clues of what we now knew was a small family of foxes. A vixen and three kits, living so close to us. We heard them mostly at night, calling to one another in the old farmers' field that surrounded the cabin. Over a hundred years since it had seen a harrow or spade ground cedar, thick swathes of bracken ferns and small clumps of saplings had grown into the field, the encroaching forest providing plenty of cover for wildlife. I found fox tracks in the sandy soil of the driveway, and made regular visits to peek carefully over the hill in the hopes of spotting one of the young. It felt to me like an intense privilege to be in contact with and surrounded by these shy creatures. I made a study of them, drawing pictures, telling stories, and staying alert for any possibility of a sighting. Then sometime early in the summer, I had a very close encounter. I was sitting on our deck and looked up to find myself under the steady and curious gaze of the three young foxes. I was beyond thrilled. It was daylight and they were only a few feet away, calling out to me with their sharp yips and barks. Unafraid.
At this age I was in the thrall of the animal world (and I still am). There was something magical about that encounter, but I was also aware that it was unusual. The mother fox was nowhere in sight, it was the middle of the day and the kits' boldness had been strange. For the few days we were there the scene repeated itself a few times, the little foxes appearing or calling to one another very close to the cabin. I remember my 7-year old self - how I had the strong sense that they wanted something from me. Their fearlessness, curiosity and the steady way they would look at me suggested a request. Sometimes they came almost close enough to touch - they were no doubt communicating with me. It wasn't until afterwards that I understood what they may have wanted, or the conditions of their lives at the time.
We went home to the city soon after that, and did not come back for several weeks.
When we returned again there was no sign of them. Their now familiar night time calls were obtrusive in their absence. On the second day back I decided to check the den. I found the three of them just inside, curled together, their little red-furred bodies now lifeless and emaciated.
Devastated, I ran to find my parents, knowing my naturalist father would probably know what had happened. I imagine I knew he would also be upset, as one thing we shared was a love of the wild creatures of the world.
It was in that moment of discovery that I understood something about what it meant to be a human visitor in the home of wild animals. I knew then that in some way we, I, had been responsible for these deaths. That simply by being there, arriving and departing at intervals in a noisy vehicle, making human noises and smells and going for wanders around the property we believed to be ours, we were causing harm. In fact, we had been so disruptive that the vixen had abandoned her family.
I don't remember the conversations, or the exact order of the events that followed, but I do know I returned to the den with a shovel in my hand. I sealed the entrance with the dry reddish soil of the hillside, and moved some stones into position over that to keep other animals from disturbing the grave. Every time we returned to the cottage I would check up on it.
I shed rivers of tears over those young creatures - and I wonder now whether these young foxes pre-dated any of the pets I cared for and lost in my childhood. They were probably the first companions I had loved and buried.
This summer during my retreat in July this memory came flooding back in, like a messenger, a strange and long forgotten missive from my former self. It helped me remember something of my essential nature that I greatly value - a care for and awareness the fragility and sensitivity of the wild places and creatures of the world. It also served as a reminder that simply by existing I do harm, but that for what it's worth, acts of repair and honouring are important. I believe this is true in both the human and non-human world.
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| Photo from Jared Lloyd Photography - https://jaredlloydphoto.com/2018/08/31/coastal-wolves/ |
I started writing this post in July, wanting to get the bones of it down while it was still fresh. This past month I spent some time paddling with a group in an area of Vancouver Island that is home to coastal wolves. At our launch there was a welcoming ceremony held by a young Tla-o-qui-aht woman - she drummed and sang us into our brief time in this coastal landscape. I was reminded that we are visitors in these places. Other humans have lived here for thousands of years, alongside these creatures in a way that is more constant and less erratic than ours. But that the natural world is so much more sensitive than we know. On the second last day we landed our kayaks on a beach - our home for one night only. As we started to unload, popping open the hatches and pulling out our blue Ikea bags and tents, we turned to see some movement on the edge of the forest. A wolf and her three pups, a few months old, trotted out across the sand fifty meters away from us before disappearing back into the trees at the point.
Early the next morning I awoke to the sound of wolf howls, their voices calling back and forth to one another across the forest and low tide beach. Just before we paddled away from the beach, the three pups emerged from the forest once more, curious and seemingly unafraid.
