between time Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

Fox Kit – Photo: L. Weikel

Full Moon Fox

Oh! I am so excited to share with you the amazing gift I received today. Just take a look at this adorable full moon Fox kit that I encountered on our walk this evening.

Spartacus and I elected to do the longer walkabout today, while Karl agreed to meet us halfway. I can tell you, he was one bummed out guy when I showed him the photos I’m including in this post. This is the second time Spartacus and I have stumbled upon a baby fox on one of our walks – and Karl missed both times.

I also managed to video the kit, or pup, when it trotted out of the drainage ditch and looked directly at me without an ounce of fear. It even turned and faced me head on, with obvious curiosity, when I called to it in my ‘babies and small animals’ voice. Maybe I’ll try to recall how to post the clip to my YouTube account. (I hate how I post to YouTube so seldom that it’s like reinventing the wheel every time I want to do it.)

Photo: L. Weikel

Perfect Timing

As you can imagine, I was especially lucky to encounter the kit when and where I did. As Spart and I crested the biggest hill on our walkabout, a stone barn is situated close to the edge of the single lane road we’re on at that point. It just so happened that I could see the kit emerging from the grassy culvert – but Spartacus couldn’t! He was too close to the ground and a low stone wall shielded his view.

Spartacus is such a good boy (and admittedly a little slower on the uptake than he used to be) that I was able to put the leash on the ground and stand on it, freeing up my hands to take the photos and video. He was happily oblivious for the most part, although he did act slightly suspicious when I used my sing-song voice to call to the baby fox.

Handsome Profile – Photo: L. Weikel

Two In Two Days

Perhaps Fox is trying to get my attention. Just the night before, we were walking beside a field about two miles away from this sighting (as the crow flies), when I saw what appeared to be a deer laying down in the field. I commented to Karl how weird it was that we would see deer laying in the middle of a field two days in a row – when suddenly we saw the ‘deer’ start to lope across the field. Nope! It was a fox; a full grown one at that.

I was frustrated at that sighting because the fox was so far away, it was but an auburn smudge in the photo I took. And I would never have guessed I’d be so fortunate as to ‘run into’ this little one only a day later.

Perspective – Photo: L. Weikel

A Message?

Of course, I’m very familiar with the “camouflage” message of Fox described in Medicine Cards* by Jamie Sams and David Carson. But tonight I feel especially drawn to the words of Ted Andrews in his book Animal-Speak. He describes the “Keynote” of Fox as “Feminine magic of camouflage, shapeshifting and invisibility” and its “Cycle of Power” as “Nocturnal, Dawn, and Dusk.” And while he provides seven pages of information on the various attributes Fox has that might bear reflection and integration into a person’s life who has Fox medicine or to whom Fox appears, this seemed relevant just now:

“The fox has a long history of magic and cunning associated with it. Because it is a creature of the night, it is often imbued with supernatural power It is often most visible at the times of dawn and dusk the “Between Times” when the magical world and the world in which we live intersect. It lives at the edges of forests and open land – the border areas. Because it is an animal of the “Between Times and Places,” it can be a guide to enter the Faerie Realm. Its appearance at such times can often signal that the Faerie Realm is about to open for the individual.”

Hmmm. Cool message to receive on the night of this full moon. Thank you, Full Moon Fox!

Full “Super Moon” in Scorpio – Photo: L.Weikel

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(T-214)

Missing Our Girl

It’s funny how memory and emotions work. Sometimes it seems there’s no rhyme or reason why a loved one (human or otherwise) suddenly comes to mind and slices open our heart unbidden. When I opened my eyes this morning, lingering in that between space of neither awake nor asleep, I suddenly found myself overcome with missing our girl. Missing my Sheila.

Grief is like that. It’s sneaky and cruel, in a way.

If I scratch the surface, though, I probably only label it as cruel because the intensity of that missing, the sudden, excruciating awareness of that void, can knock the breath out of us – especially when we don’t see it coming. And that’s sort of how it is after they’ve been gone a while.

And so it was this morning as I lay in bed, swimming to the surface of consciousness, remembering who and where and when I am, that I yearned to hold my puppy Sheila again. I remembered with acute clarity laying in bed with her years ago, stroking the white streak that ran down her nose and always reminded me of a feather, telling her what a precious puppy she was.

The Fire Brigade (Tigger, Spartacus, Cletus) – Photo: L. Weikel

Something In the Air

About an hour or two later, I took a photo of Spartacus (her son), who was snoozing in front of the fireplace with two of his (feline) brothers, Cletus and Tigger.

I texted the photo to my youngest son without a word of context.

His response? “Wow, what babies. Miss that pup.”

Then a handful of seconds later: “Oh. Wow. I thought that was Sheila.”

Sheila was his pup. Or I should say, he was her boy.

For whatever reason, her memory, her essence, the loving energy that was our ‘Sheila Monster,’ was visiting both of us today. Pennsylvania, Massachusetts – it didn’t matter where we were. Her playful, protective, and utterly sweet-natured essence enveloped us both in the memory of her love.