Humans and beasts are different species, but foxes are between humans and beasts. The dead and the living walk different roads, but foxes are between the dead and the living. Transcendents and monsters travel different paths, but foxes are between transcendents and monsters. Therefore one could say to meet a fox is strange; one could also say it is ordinary.
Human beings and physical objects belong to two different categories; fox-spirits stand somewhere between the two. The paths of light and darkness never converge: fox-spirits stand somewhere between the two. Immortals and demons go different ways; fox-spirits stand somewhere between the two.
~ Ji Yun, 1789, in Notebook from the Thatched Cottage of Close Scrutiny
7 responses to “Foxes — a Ji Yun quote”
A new way of viewing foxes! Sadly we don’t get many around where we live. 🙂
While I’m very lucky to have about three that I know about in the neighborhood that come and visit on occasion 🙂
It’s too bad you aren’t able to enjoy a few of your own. 😢
We used to. About 20 years ago we were living with woodland behind us and could see the foxes coming out of the tree line regularly. One time a vixen sat really close on a bank and suckled her cubs, which then started rough and tumble play – enchanting to watch. Now we have farmland behind us, and apparently there are foxes around, but we never see them. Maybe one day, who knows? Instead we regularly hear owls, and one time a bird of prey bought its freshly-caught lunch into a tree which I can see from where I sit on the sofa. Interesting viewing as it ate! 🙂
We’ve got quite a bit of wildlife in our back yard: opossums, fox, deer, raccoons, and a pair of owls. We even get the occasional falcon and bald eagle that assume population control duties when it comes to rabbits and other small critters (the owls and foxes are no slackers either, in that regard).
While I often think of moving as the neighborhood is experiencing an increase in crime, I would miss all my critters.
That’s so difficult, you have my sympathy. I think we’re all trying to find a place where we feel safe, but when we think we’ve found it something changes. I hope you resolve matters. 😔
I always feel a bit of the otherworld when I glimpse what might be a fox disappearing into the undergrowth.
They have a way with that. 🦊