When A Fox Sniffs Your Feet
A stumbling start into January
***I didn’t write and publish anything over here since October. I thought I was back, but the holiday season was different than expected and so I took a full substack break since December, deleted the app and ignored all subscriptions, until I started to sort it out again last week - unsubscribing mainly and making a few changes. Here I am again and I hope you still want to read what I’m writing.***
January has been a wild ride already. I made a wish to ease into this new year, but somehow found myself stumbling along, after a few first days of riding the waves. Now I just ended up with a broken car that needs expensive fixing, a big to-do list and a craving for art-making and seed-starting, and lying in fresh green grass, watching clouds passing by. However, a bit of magic trickled down into my days anyway. I met wilderness and heard a whisper, rooted with nature and faced change.
One Sunday, the weather app said it’s time to read a book inside, as the forecasts were telling anything between snow, rain, frost, freezing cold and mild air with wind. Upon waking up in the morning though, I was finding a world covered in light snow and I suddenly felt an urge to go outside into the forest to take a walk. So, after breakfast, instead of doing the obvious and cuddling up with a book, we went out and about hiking way up the hill, knowing that by lunchtime the weather was supposed to change from heavily snowing to ice followed by rain.
I haven’t been up the hill in a long time – against my last year’s new-year’s goal of hiking up there every month at least once – following the familiar path while seeing the world covered in snow was so grounding and relaxing. The sound of shoes walking through snow and the icy feeling of wet snow swirling around, cooling down your skin and making it glow, accompanied us throughout the walk. The world was wild and yet covered and hidden under a shield. So close and yet far away. Can you be further away from earth, from the ground and soil, as in winter? When snow covers everything, and you’re all packed up in several layers as well? Still, the snow on your skin, the cold, wet air you breathe in, it all reminds you that this is it. Weather. Nature making it. Being all there, because you can’t be more consciously *h e r e* as when snow makes your face glow, don’t you think? Snow uncovers a rough wilderness and covers what is there, saving it from itself in a way.
When I had last been there, up the hill and walking along, they had just cut down several batches of trees in a few areas, leaving the forest bare and wounded. I was shocked, feeling endlessly sorry, mourning views, corners, trees and undergrowth that had been familiar for so long. On that Sunday, I found that with snow, I could barely tell where it had happened, which trees might have gone, leaving blank spots. The forest had shaped its face, and snow had done it’s best to turn it into a whole different world, which I was grateful for.
I wanted to see snow as the main act, on stage in the middle of things, with winds blowing and deep clouds. So that you couldn’t see what’s behind the edge on top of the hill. I didn’t want to see the edge and admire the view. I didn’t want to be reminded of us humans, but of nature’s power. Of snow, because we seldom have any, anymore. To witness wilderness. And snow delivered: no top of the mountain view, no humans, just a whisper saying freedom.
Later on, after warming up with a hot cappuccino, while the world was changing from snowy to rainy, when white wonder slowly got washed away and replaced with mud, I went outdoors yet again to just head over to my horses’ barn and feed them. That was, when I met a fox, who sniffed my feet just minutes later.
I went out the door to walk through the village to my horses’ barn, when a fox trotted by, just down the stairs, following the road around our house. But the road ends just a few meters further, in front of a little river, and as our neighbours have two rabbits living outdoors, I was wondering where the fox might go, while I was a bit afraid for the rabbits. So, I followed the fox, slowly and cautious, through the wet and cold weather. And yes, it made its way to the rabbit’s home, but didn’t seem interested and so kept trotting along.
When it disappeared behind a stack of wood, I was standing at the exact opposite side of it, taking a silent peek around the stack’s corner. Then, the fox suddenly walked straight towards me, halting in front of my feet. It looked up, into my eyes – there was some wisdom in its face, telling of age and winters hardness. Then it sniffed my feet and calmly trotted away. I was baffled – and realised quickly that all the time I had my phone’s camera on, but forgotten to start taking a video.
But anyway, it was such a strange meeting, having a fox sniff your feet without any sign of fear. Like I was just another object to be sniffed, noticed and marked as unspectacular. I felt so close to wilderness and yet as I couldn’t be any further away from it.
It’s been over three weeks now and I keep thinking about this fox. Is it still alive? Where does it live? Will we meet again? Why was it walking around in the middle of our village? Was it searching for food? Likely, I’ll never know. But it’s been the most magical moment of the year so far. Strange, wild and still magical.
Now, it’s – almost – the last day of January. My car is broken and expensive, politics is wild and chaotic, I long to see spring, I have ideas for new paintings, but there are so many other things to do that I keep telling myself “later”, not knowing when later is. And yet there is magic out there, somewhere, sometimes showing up very unexpectedly, which might be the bit of hope we all need these days.
About me: Hello, I’m Mareike, the writer of this newsletter hills to heart. Besides being a writer I’m also a painter, creating landscape and floral works with (mainly) oil paints. I share about my paintings on my website and also have a dedicated blog, which you are welcome to explore. Feel free to leave a heart, comment or share my writings.
Absolutely loved it! Thanks for embracing the joys of winter, I will go outside in a few with a fresh perspective. Regarding the fox, have you checked out the meaning as a spirit animal? Encounters like these often come with a message...