A Word on Roses & Fox Cubs-
& the recording of Mother Animal Chapter Five (part two)
First of all — I’ve just added a recorded reading to the latest Mother Animal edition— “The Sow, the Maenad & the Seer,” Chapter 5 (part two). You can now go over to the post & scroll down to the bottom to listen along!
Meanwhile, it seems that the season of rose bloom is also the season of baby foxes. The other night, driving home late from the moor through the hedgerows, a little cub was caught in the headlights, darting along for an opening in the green. Thankfully, he found one. I’ve never seen a fox cub so little in all my life - and certainly not a red fox, which isn’t our native fox species where I’m from in California. It felt like getting to glimpse the tenderest animal heart of Devon. All creamy paws and bumbling gait and a little amber snout. My whole body wanted to scoop that baby fox up and carry him down through every bramble hollow to his mother. Obviously I would have caused more harm than good if I had, and I trust (and pray) they found each other again.
Overhead, when the baby fox was out of sight, I saw the big bright dipper, the red stars of Scorpio, the horned curve of the Northern Crown. Summer sky dancers. I saw a comet fall when I was nearing home.
Now, by daylight, the roses are suddenly open in their profusion. I’ve been in Somerset today in an apothecary garden full of damask roses, learning ancient alchemical medicine-making and plant-communication practices with the herbalist Charlotte Pulver. From the top of the garden, Glastonbury Tor looks like a pregnant woman reclining. I never tire of the view of that tor - from a distance especially. It astonishes my whole body every time I see it. But as a friend of mine said to me earlier today, Glastonbury has the feeling of a perpetual full moon. Both of us have trouble sleeping anywhere near it. Even five miles away tonight, I’ve had a few unexpected surges of tears, and dreamed intensely and restlessly of dolphins.
To be in the moon’s orbit like one is near Glastonbury, and to be waist deep in damask roses, and to have beheld a fox cub in the dark lanes of summer so recently— all of these are things to pull back the heart’s veils. That crack you right open. Someone in the workshop today said in passing that rose seems like the medicine we all need on this earth right now more than anything— the medicine that gently and compassionately but with powerful strength pushes us straight, free falling into love.
We aren’t going to make it as a species, I don’t think, without falling back in to the heart with all that we are. But falling back into the heart, though terrifying — trust me, I get that— can happen in the smallest, subtlest motions. We can sit perfectly still, but descend a thousand miles into the heart’s country, bravely looking at and loving everything in us we have blamed on other people. We can sit perfectly still in our humble gardens but for the first time in five years actually really see the robin who has come to watch us while we weed. Actually feel our mutual life-essence as the same essence. I believe that each time this happens, ripples move out into unseen places.
Somewhere, grandmothers and grandfathers in the stars and in the soul hold a web that is strengthened by these ripples. One day, that web will be so strong, so mended along its ancient lines, that the healing of what has been broken will be inevitable.
So the roses said to me today, and so says that ancient moon-wayed mound.
Go listen to the latest Mother Animal chapter, here.
I was lucky enough to move into a home with a well established rose garden. Unfortunately, a few gardeners over the years felt that there were too many roses and tore some bushes out without permission. I still grieve those bushes, but they are currently growing back thanks to their strong-willed nature, and I have a deep appreciation for the bushes that are 20+ years old and thriving. These beautiful flowers absolutely feel like the needed medicine right now. Spending time with them every day has been healing for me and my daughters on every level. I make sure to gift them to everyone who comes over to visit, and I make sure they are placed throughout my home continuously in various vases located on various altars. You've inspired me to write about them more in depth, and I've been praying for that sort of inspiration this week. Thank you for your beautiful share 🌹.