Earth Day Birth Day 2025
Photo: Ondre J. Prosickly © Genesis+Art
Apostle Islands National Lakeshore
Bayfield, Wisconsin
Chuck and I are staying at a retreat center in Northern Wisconsin by Lake Superior. I am hiding here in a cabin and turning 70. The very first thing I did after getting up on this, my birthday morning, is open the covering on the bedroom window. As the shade rolled up, a bright russet colored fox with that fluffy white tuft of fur on the end of her tail, bounded in from the left, passed close to the window and out into the woods a little way. I ran to get my glasses and once I was back she turned and ran right by the window again! Her fur was April wild as she was shedding her winter coat. Those black legs did not carry her like foxes I’ve seen crossing an urban lawn. This is the woodlands of Northern Wisconsin. She was romping. The leaves here are not out yet and the skeleton of these gray winter woods let me see her as she bounced and sprang over downed trees and rocks along the forest floor. She finally vaulted up the hill into the pines and firs, and with a final look over her shoulder, dashed away from the cabin. It was just breathtaking.
My sweet six year old granddaughter Wesley had just asked the evening before my birthday what my favorite animal was, for what I imagine was a birthday card she was making for me. The fox! I replied. So when I saw that fox first thing the next day, I considered it the luckiest birthday morning ever, and a good omen. After the fox disappeared into the woods, I hurried online to learn what the fox symbolizes and its meanings. Fox sightings, one site said, often carry powerful symbolic messages from nature, guiding you towards intuition, adaptability, and keen awareness. In Celtic mythology and folklore, another site professed, foxes are mystical guides, representing cleverness and transformation, urging you to trust your instincts in uncertain times.
Over coffee I thought about these various insights, particularly noting the description “uncertain times.” It unquestionably fit the bill as of late. Besides cleverness, creativity and resilience, there were many other “fox interpretations” I thought I might lean into during our current political climate and my coming new decade. I also came across this, by self taught Naturalist Claire Perry. Seeing a fox near your home symbolizes that our wildlife is being stressed for adequate habitat and is trying to coexist as best they can. It also symbolizes that you probably have mice and other species of the rodent family around. I laughed and admitted that although I preferred those spiritual and mystical fox interpretations, perhaps the pragmatic Claire had a point.
I will count myself privileged to have seen that beautiful wild birthday fox for which I have so much affection. But more importantly, the fox sighting was about the fox, not me or this birthday. As we clear more habitat to make way for ourselves, our needs, and our wants, we might remember that we humans have had a long terrible history of taking land others have lived and depended on before. We have lost (if we ever had it) sensitivity for those that inhabit the places where we buy and build and clear. It is important to watch and listen to others and our more than human world. Who in our fragile ecosystem is already living there? What is the true cost?
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