Writing-Fox

I have never looked at my vixfey Gmail address at this hour in the morning. Apparently, what happens in my fox-themed tea house background is that three ghost foxes get together the garden to play Go. I find this amusing.

What I did not find amusing was last night. I must have leeched the insomnia from my brother, or perhaps from Sparrow, allowing him to sleep (that at least sounds philanthropic). I could not get comfortable. All of the little lights, so small in the bright sunlight of day, got to me. Even when I blocked them with artful stackings of the comforter, my mind raced. I worry, because it always seems to happen when I have things to write. So here I am, trying to write enough to confound my inner writing-fox, as it were.

I call it my writing-fox, not because everything is fox to me, or because my fox-associated best friend always nudges me to write, or even that the muse of our Unseelie Court is Fox, but because of something earlier, read in a fit of poetry. The Thought-Fox, by Ted Hughes. The poem takes place at night, and concerns writing more than anything else. A blank page becomes printed, and it is an effort, but an animal one, as all nighttime efforts are, in part.

I would like to fall prey to a sleep animal, myself, but my writing-fox is quite the insistent one. It isn't passive, as Hughes's fox. And foxes smell, did you know that? As strongly as a ferret or skunk. So while most folk may maintain the mental image of a fox as a sly creature easily eluding hounds, mine is of a skulking Presence who lurks with intentions known, demanding to be found, hard to see, but obviously there. In more than one tradition, foxes went between the spirit world and this one, so why not make a writing-fox usher of inspirative words? Especially at night. At night, when I would rather sleep and let the feathery martlets guide me to dreams with no grounding. But foxes invade the dreams, give me ideas, make me wake up and write them down lest they, with much gleeful yipping, retreat to torment me at a later time. Not all writing-foxes retreat, however. This one planted himself squarely on my chest and stared. I will need a new animal to push them away and guard my sleep, methinks. A ferocious dachshund...?